Going to Boston to look at schools....

College Search & Selection
1

We are a family of 5 from the bay area (a senior, a junior and a freshman in high school).

After focusing on the senior for the past year I realized I need to start focusing on my junior! He doesn’t really know where he wants to go but he wants to get out of California and be in a new and exciting environment with lots to do. He doesn’t really know anything about the east coast and Midwest…but we met with his college counselor and put together a preliminary list of schools for him.

I thought going to Boston for spring break might be a good start for him to get the ‘feel’ for the area. I’m thinking we would visit:
BU
UConn
UMass Amherst
UVM

In addition to school visits we would explore Boston obviously and maybe do a day trip to Maine or Rhode Island.

Any advice on where to stay? Right now I am looking at VRBOs in Boston, which there don’t actually seem to be very many good ones…

Any input or advice in general regarding our trip would be appreciated!

2

Look at cities just outside of Boston, easy train ride in (very walkable city). Somerville, Everett, Chelsea, Medford, Cambridge… some are more expensive than others but more reasonable than in Boston proper, all a quick Uber ride to a T station.

AirBNB tend to be more available.

Any ideas on the type of activities you are interested in?

3

Thank you. In general we are a very active family – lots of hiking and walking and we love good food. My youngest in particular loves clam chowder :slight_smile: We also want to get lobster some place.

Really we just want to see the area. For the most part none of them have been on the east coast ever (the junior did a week in Cooperstown for baseball but that’s it). We are all life long Californians…I lived in Boston for a year when I was a kid and went to school in upstate NY so am more familiar with it though…

4

@TheFrenchChef Copley place is a good place to stay but hotel car parking is expensive 75 bucks overnight… if this is a Boston trip than I don’t think you’ll have time for the schools listed… that’s a lot of traveling! We went to checkout BostonU they had a nice hotel on Kenmore Commonwealth hotel… than we drove by Northeastern, WIT, MIT, and Harvard…

5

You will have such a great time! We stayed at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge http://cambridge.hyatt.com/en/hotel/home.html and really liked it! its not so much that it’s a great hotel but that the location is the best. Right on the charles river with running trails all around…and they offer free shuttles to Harvard, MIT, NE, and BU…and it also made it easier to visit Tufts.

We paid about $140 a night…i think i went through Priceline.

6

I would add more schools in Boston, such as Boston College, Northeastern U.

U of Vermont is 220 miles to the north so you may want to spend a night in Burlington Vermont which is
very nice too.
U Of Conn is 83 miles to the south.

Consider schools in Worcester MA, as thats sort of on the way to U Conn. Holy Cross ?
https://www.holycross.edu

I think some Jesuit schools are not very conservative, Boston College has a lot of spirit, and might
be nice to compare to BU.

7

As Tufts, Brandise, Babson, and that community college in Chestnut Hell (others call Boston College) … at BU take a walk in the bay state road (townhouses dorms), nice to check out GSU and the sports center (west campus)…

Just a note as a joke we Terriers call BC Chestnut Hill Community college but they do have a beautiful campus

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@GrayStrong thanks for the Airbnb tip – there does seem to be a lot more on there. I found a great 3 bedroom house in Somerville.

@SouthernHope that Hyatt does sound great (I’m a runner) - but I think with 5 of us we can’t do a hotel, we just don’t fit!

@Coloradomama Thanks for the school suggestions. I’m not sure what to do about UVM, I realize it is so far away…but I wanted to visit it. It just will complicate the trip a lot. I like the idea of just staying one place the entire time as packing up all 5 of us, moving etc is kind of a pain. But maybe I have the wrong attitude.

I thought maybe we would do UConn and UMass Amherst on the same day in one trip but maybe that is too much too…

9

Also check out Tufts… I really liked it, a beautiful bucolic campus in a classic New England town, with all the pleasures of Boston just a “trolley” ride away.

My daughter, a life-long Westerner, went to Northeastern. Living in Boston opened her eyes; it was a great experience. And with public transportation developed to a much greater extent than in the West, she really got to know New York City, Washington DC, etc. Mom, Dad and younger brother sure enjoyed visiting her!

10

My D goes to Northeastern now. She loves the vibe out there. There’s a ton of alumni and current students in and from the Bay Area. UMass is where my oldest went, that’s more of a regional school, though because of its reputation as an outstanding CS school, it does attract a lot of nationwide people for that major. It’s a rural school, away from the big city life, a totally different vibe from say Northeastern or BC.

11

If you have a day with no school visits planned, I recommend a day trip to the Cape, though you can definitely get good Chowdah in Boston.

The Harbor Walk is a nice excursion, too. We love the various Harbor Cruises, though it’s still pretty cold on the water in April/May. We do an annual family whale watch and it never gets old.

Providence is a quick ride and we love visiting, definitely a lot of character and cool places to check out.

I still don’t get why my D19 wants to leave, I love Boston ?

12

Cape Cod-- Try to visit Sandwich , the very first town on the Cape, which has a glass museum thats wonderful. Its south, across a bridge, nice drive but there can be traffic. There Sandy Neck Beach is up by Sandwich, very rocky but still nice to walk with sneakers. Its hard on the feet!

Instead could stop at Plymouth Rock on the way to Cape Cod for a nice harbor, fish restaurants etc. Plymouth is closer to Boston compared to Sandwich on Cape Cod.

However, I would try to get up to Vermont, the opposite direction, as its a fun drive and Burlington VT is just really nice to see, and that university will give you a balance in some ways with the MA choices.

Northeastern U is now a really highly ranked school, near the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Fenway Park etc.
It was started as the night school for the Boston YMCA years ago. Now its the premier co op program in Boston surpassing mIT for number of co op assignments in many fields of business, science, engineering, marketing, journalism, health sciences etc.

13

In Plymouth, there is a nice living history museum, Plimoth Plantation, sort of like Williamsburg VA.

https://www.plimoth.org

Thats closer than traveling all the way across the bridge to Cape Cod.

14

If you want to look at UVM, then you will want to stay one night either in Burlington Vermont, or at least most of the way there. It is around about a 3 1/2 hour drive from Boston. UVM is however a good school in a very attractive location so it may very well be worth the trip.

There are of course a huge number of universities in and around Boston.

If you want to get out to UMass Amherst, and then up to UVM, you would be best off to rent a car. The drive from UMass to UVM is about 3 hours, although fortunately this is almost all on major highways.

There is a lot that you could see in this area. Thus how long you want to stay and how far you want to drive will be have a big impact on where you want to go. You could easily spend at least a day, and probably more, just wandering around Boston (and this would not need a car).

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@airway1 Them’s fighting words.

Btw, how did the consolation game go against Harvard in the Beanpot last week? I didn’t follow it.

And everyone knows tbr Chestnut Hill CC response… “it “s#*ks to BU””.

Just kidding.

And OP agree with the above posters. If you are looking for an apartment rental for five look to Airbnb. If you’d like two reasonably priced rooms look outside the city or in one of the hotel sites.

nottheastern and bu are in the city. You can find parking with a rental but pricey. BC isn’t that far from BU either and you can easily find parking there.

Tufts and Harvard are on the other side of the river and are a good one/two punch if you want to see them to see them. .

Potential itinerary for a max capacity tour.

My trip would be to Boston first.

Day one. See BU and NU take a tour if you can. Check out the city, go to the north end for dinner (limoncellos is my family spot and visit order any pasta dish as all is made that day) and go to the MFA. If it’s april and the Sox are playing go to game. But bring sweaters.

Day two. Visit BC and take a tour in the AM. Then drive to see Brandeis in Waltham and Babson in Wellesley. They are easily driveable and close. If you have any daughters take a drive by Wellesley college near Babson too. Go back to Boston for another night out and visit Fanuel Hall and Old North Church etc.

Day three get in your rental car and drive to towards Amhesrt . On your way there driving on the Mass Pike, get off in Worcester. See Holy Cross and Clark University. Easily doable. Then get back on the Mass Pike and drive the rest of way to Amherst. 90 minutes at most from Worcester. They actually have one on the university campus run by the students in their heralded HRTA program. That would be a fun night if school is in session. Visit the University the next day and visit Amherst too. It’s a mile away. And Amherst College is nestled in right next to the small downtown.

That night head to a hotel around Storrs Ct site of UConn.

Day Four. Visit and tour in the AM, there’s not much else to do in that area, so pack up when you’re done and in the afternoon drive to Ri. Head to URI in Kingston Ri. Think 90 minutes from Storrs. This is doable and visit the school that afternoon and look around.
URI is down a bit and a bit of a hidden gem. Excellent school. Nice location and campus. Very affordable and relatively admissions friendly. If any interest in oceanography or marine science it’s one of the best in the country. Also a stand alone school of pharmacy and nursing. CEO of CVS went to URI and built the new Ryan arena. But it doesn’t have the academics chops of the university of Massachusetts at Amherst.

When you’re done, then drive to providence for the night. It’s a 50 minute drive. Stay at the Hampton inn right downtown. It’s the epicenter for student visits.

Day five. You can walk to brown and risd from there. Then drive over to PC which is two miles away. Have dinner on federal hill or walk Thayer street near brown on college hill and find a restaurant. It’s a great city to walk and for restaurants. If you have time visit the risd museum which is small but spectacular. The Warhol exhibit is extraordinary and they have a design museum of famous clothes. It’s a short tour but great. Risd and brown are nearly intertwined so it’s close.

Late day five or Day six You can drive back to Boston or fly home from green airport. Providence is so much cheaper than Boston I would stay there. If you have time before your flights on day six. Drive 25 minutes to visit roger Williams university in Bristol ri. It’s right in the water and a school growing really fast. Nicest dorm views in New England of the bay.

Good luck.

16

Lol. A word of warning. Threads about college visits do tend to start suggesting places you really can’t get to, reasonably, during a short trip. (It’s a tripadvisor effect. You want this to accomplish your own primary goals.) And I wonder, for the colleges you’ve listed, I wouldn’t add some of the more competitive in the area, if kiddo doesn’t have the stats and the rest of it. You may not have time to m ake this an idle wandering, especially if colleges are not on his radar.

Flying into Providence is sometimes less expensive than Logan. Depends. And it’s a smaller airport, easy. But I;d turn PB’s advice around. If you fly to RI, you can make UConn a day trip. Providence hotels, downtown, are not necessarily inexpensive, if you want multiple rooms. You could head half way or further toward Storrs after arriving.

Then, it’s 4 hours up the back route to Burlington, but you’re done with those two outliers, can come back via UMass, and after that, concentrate on Boston. Btw, traffic in Boston itself is a bear. Parking is bad.

If you fly home from RI, I do agree about Roger WIlliams. The campus is nice and the surrounding areas include interesting drives past clapboard homes and you’ see lots of water. Great places to eat seafood.

17

Thank you everyone for your input, this is completely overwhelming! I don’t know how I am going to plan this.

I can’t decide if we should rent one house in/near Boston for the entire time and get to know Boston more/see fewer schools perhaps and do 1-2 day trips…

OR

If we should do as suggested and fly into RI (by the way, I think RI is a GREAT suggestion) and do more of a road trip spending about half the time in Boston. It’s just b/c it is all five of us (three teen boys) that it seems easier to stay in one place. I did lots of college visits with my senior, but it was just the two of us and we moved around a lot (drove from Illinois to Wisconsin to Minnesota etc)

I don’t think we will go to the more competitive schools (Tufts, Amherst etc) because they won’t be on our radar. My Junior has like a 3.5 gpa and a 1450 SAT. He wants to study biology and he has lots of interests (3 year varsity football and captain next year, four years soccer, four years track, loves to hike and fish and explore new places, hoping to hike the JMT soon etc)

18

@lookingforward

Lol. That’s True.

I was only going off the OPs stated goals and objectives. And school and state list.

If they are devoting a week a lot can be done. But it would be grueling.

I would personally visit RI schools and Boston schools. But if UMass and UConn are really on radar I would start in Boston. That where they said they would like to go, in any event.

And prov has so many new hotels going up and Hampton inn are much more reasonable the. Boston. But not super cheap as you stated.

19

I would only visit some small schools to see the difference for him.

If you think of URI PC and Roger Williams in Ri. BU and NU and UMass you will get a good feel. You can plan this and start in Ri. Drive by Amherst and brown if you like. Drop bc and the Harvard tufts excursion. Maybe take a look at Brandeis too. Great school but not a lot to look at imho.

20

Not sure when your spring break is - just a heads up April 15th is Boston Marathon - we were told to keep away from the city that day. We are also touring Boston April 16th to 18th and pretty much doing what @privatebanker said.