@Ohiodad51 For Fordham University, you should visit both the Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses. While students can take classes at either campus, certain majors are offered in only one campus. I believe that theatre is located in Lincoln Center. Students attend classes there and dorm in an adjacent building. I would not find the commute between the two campuses easy, and I would imagine that most students chose one or the other.
I suspect that Fordham has a shuttle bus between the two campuses. Otherwise, it would be quite a shlep. I thought that most undergrads were on the Rose Hill campus (which is right across the street from the New York Botanical Garden and short drive from the Bronx Zoo and the famous Arthur Avenue food shops/restaurants). The Lincoln Center campus is right across the street from Lincoln Center and I know the Law School and graduate programs are there but not sure how many undergrad programs.
Theater is at Lincoln Center only, and there is a bus although I would assume the commute would rough.
Even if there is a shuttle, depending on the time of day, traffic can be brutal. There a quite a few undergraduate programs in NYC.
A question I liked to ask tour guides was if they could change one thing about the school what would it be.
We just visited Wesleyan today without reserving in advance. I called ahead this morning to confirm that was ok. We had no problem joining a well-attended info session and tour. We were favorably impressed – it definitely exceeded our expectations. You may want to add that to your itinerary. They have morning and afternoon sessions, so you could easily add it after a morning visit to Yale.
Another good and related question to ask on tours or at interviews is what is the one thing about their college they would fight tooth and nail to keep unchanged? My kids found that @mathmom 's question and this one could be very insightful and telling, especially if asked separately to multiple contacts at a given school.
We, too, will be heading to the east coast for a whirlwind tour at the end of July. I took DD, who is a rising senior, on a tour last fall break while she was still a junior. We covered seven LACs in three days, doing tours only. I just wanted her to get a feel for the schools and figured we could do further research on their websites if she really liked them. My daughter is big on vibes and usually knew within a few minutes if she could see herself spending four years on a campus or not. A dear friend in NYC chauffeured us. What a treat to not have to drive! We left NYC early enough to take in a 9am tour at Wesleyan. She liked the campus and the tour guide and said she could imagine herself there. We then headed up to Mount Holyoke for a 1pm tour at the suggestion of her literature tutor who is an alumni of MH. DD did not see herself at an all girls college, but was open to checking it out. Beautiful campus, nice tour guide, but not for her. On to 3pm tour at Smith, less than half an hour away. We were impressed by the student welcoming committee. Four students sat in the admission house living room with us and answered all of DD’s questions and spoke about their experience at Smith. She ended up on a one on one tour with a young woman who was pursuing a degree in International Relations, the same major that DD would like to pursue. She loved the campus and the town of Northampton where we had dinner and spent the night. The next morning we were up early for our one hour drive to Williams. She fell in love with everything about it! I had to remind her that we were seeing it on a glorious day at the peak of autumn foliage. Happy, smart, friendly young people amidst a gorgeous, albeit remote, campus surrounded by the Berkshires. On to Skidmore for a luncheon date with a current student, to be followed by a 2pm tour. A beautiful approach through an upscale neighborhood of stately old homes in Saratoga Springs, only to immediately decide that she couldn’t see herself living in the dorms we drove by as we headed to a parking lot. We had lunch, but she would not stay for the tour, certain there was no way it would be on her list. We spent the night in Saratoga Springs at a great B and B as we had already booked it. I thought Saratoga Springs was a great town. Up early the next morning to make it to 9:30 am tour at Bard, heading 1.5 hours south back towards NYC. We stayed for over half of the tour and then DD pulled me away to say she didn’t like the vibe at all. Unwelcoming students sulking around, smoking cigarettes with the “we’re so cool” vibe. Total turn off to DD. Back in the car and on to Vassar for a 1pm tour. DD really liked it. Friendly kids, beautiful library and no core curriculum (as was Wesleyan). Two hours later we were back in NYC. Quite a whirlwind, but very productive and manageable. True, I wasn’t driving, so I may have been frazzled had I not been driven by our dear friend.
DH will accompany us on the upcoming five (possibly six) college tour. We’ll fly into Newark and meet our DD at the airport as she will already be on the east coast. We’ll rent a car and drive that late afternoon to Easton, PA and spend the night. The next morning we will walk over to Lafayette College where she has already registered for an interview, info session and tour. We’ll have lunch and then drive half an hour to Lehigh University for a 2:15 info session and tour. She has already interviewed with an admissions director who visited her school this spring. Then we drive north to Binghamton, NY to spend the night before waking early the next morning for a 1.5 hour drive to Colgate University where she has already scheduled an interview, info session and tour. We’ll then head a half hour north to Hamilton for another scheduled interview, info session and tour. We plan to spend the night in the area before heading to Boston, a four hour drive away and dropping the rental car off at Logan. It will be Saturday afternoon and we’ll enjoy the city for the weekend. Monday morning, we’ll head to Tufts by taxi for an scheduled info session and interview. They do not offer on campus interviews. We may finish that tour at 11am and decide to taxi over the Boston College for an 11:45am tour. If it seems like too much, we’ll skip it. DD doesn’t really see herself at a Catholic college. We have already arranged for a late 2pm check out at the hotel we are staying in. I have purchased AMTRAK tickets for a late afternoon ride down to NYC where we will spend a few more days before heading home to Hawaii. DD is certain that she does not want to go to school in NYC, so there is no use dragging her to Columbia for a tour.
She is certain she wants to go to school on the east coast. Because she will be applying to small LACs, we know that there really are no safety schools in the bunch. With the exception of Williams, which is a definite reach school, the rest of the schools fall into the match to low reach category. I’m excited DH will be with us. He has not spent much time on the east coast, other than NYC, and it will be nice for DD to share her enthusiasm with him.
@ohiodad51 - sounds like a great summer tour! Here are my tips from experience & from the advice of a friend’s sister who works in admissions at a top northeast school (yes, it’s on your list!) My D just graduated and is headed west to her dream school in the fall.
Try to find a student newspaper on every campus. It may be tough to do in the summer, though there may be old editions in the student union or library. It’s a fast way to learn about important campus issues, proposed budget cuts and school culture (not to mention student writing skills).
Highly recommend scheduling tours and information sessions ahead of time. If you have to cancel or reschedule it’s usually no big deal. Some schools like to know who is touring and where you are from. Plus the info sessions can get really crowded. You can self-tour the campus, but getting into the info session is pretty important. Plus, why risk irritating the admissions department by showing up without an appointment?
Check the online schedules for specialty/department tours, but even if there aren’t any on the day you’ll be there, don’t be shy about making arrangements or stopping in at a department. Ask admissions for a departmental contact or call the department directly a week or two ahead of time to see if someone can meet with you. They were all willing to set something up, even if it was just to meet with a student with similar interests. At various schools D met with students or professors in both dance and chem and it was incredibly helpful. At Vassar & Ohio State we stopped by the dance dept’s - got impromptu tours of the amazing facilities at both schools and met really nice people.
If the school requires an interview (e.g. URochester, Skidmore), just get it done while you’re there. Sometimes you can interview with an alum close to home but that’s not always reliable. Bring a resume to the interview, it makes the admission rep’s life easier and your D gets a gold star.
Jot down the emails for the admission rep who does the info session and the tour guide (or anyone who helped in a significant way) and send a quick thank you afterward. If you have an extended discussion with a rep, D can reference how much she appreciated their time. Some schools track this as “interest” (e.g., even if you email your Skidmore tour guide it goes into your admissions file). Other schools say they don’t care (Vassar, UVa), but you never know.
Fordham has a shuttle that runs all day between Rose Hill and Lincoln Center, but I don’t think there is much mixing between the campuses. D was interested in combining Dance (Lincoln Center) and Chemistry (Rose Hill) and was told she would not be able to.
Here’s an odd thing I learned - some schools have unofficial co-ed bathrooms and some schools have strict policies about keeping them single sex. If the potential for co-ed is a deal breaker issue for your D, then she should quietly ask the tour guides at each school (away from parents).
Some people who tour the highly selective schools can be intense. They are easy to spot. Avoid their crazy and have fun with this stage of the process 
Meta-comment: Just wanted to say thanks for all the suggestions on this thread. We’re doing our own intense tour series in the lower 48 (the midwest and northeast, mainly) next month, and I’m totally stealing some of y’all’s ideas.
(Maybe I’ll see some of you there without realizing it, even.) :)>-
About @ohiodad51’s post #104 on how many schools to visit and ultimately to apply to:
The how many to visit depends on how much pre-selecting you can do before you set out. I think the most significant filters here are geographic area and size. If you can narrow in on both of those then you can narrow in on the number of visits accordingly. Once you have a favorite or a couple of favorites, you can expand into others that are “like” the favorites in culture and personality and eliminate those that are “unlike” using whatever criteria are most important to you.
My personal opinion is that you should visit as many safeties as you can handle. Safeties are not as easy to fall in love with as reaches and matches, but they’re a lot easier to like – even like a a lot – in person than from afar. Something about seeing the campuses, talking to the students, hearing the usual tour-info session spin can really help develop a positive attitude toward the school.
For super reaches I feel just the opposite – don’t overdo the visits. Overdo the applications if you’re so inclined, but don’t take visit time away from safeties and matches just to have your socks knocked off by an insanely selective school. The exception to this are very selective LACs. Those I would try to visit, as I believe that demonstrated interest is a factor, as is being able to write a credible “Why X?” essay.
I really enjoyed visiting colleges and would have continued ad infinitum. For my son, the 14 that we visited were just enough. He had done a good deal of pre-editing from home, but our visits still included some different personality types and sizes. He got a good overview and walked away (far, far away in our case) believing that he could be over the moon happy at at least 6.
His high school limited the number of applications to 8, which I thought was way, way too few for those “imperfect” students looking at selective schools and ridiculously few for those families that significant financial aid. For my son, 10-12 would have been about right. As it turned out my son was accepted ED so I never had to push the issue with the counselor, but for the record, I feel that (within reason) schools should not be setting application limits.
I was truly blessed during visits to 15 schools and then 7 overnight visits. My son was objective and open-minded, never tried or wanted to cut a visit short and in many cases came away with a very different opinion of schools than the student-generated stereotypes.
What he came away with was that large schools didn’t have the benefits he heard about and that small schools didn’t really seem that small. Stereotypes like “artsy”, " preppy", “jockey” and “alternative” were components of all schools and really didn’t apply to anyone in particular.
I do think in talking to friends that boys are easier in this process than girls, on average of course.
Re: Theater at Fordham - The auditioned “Theater Performance” major is based at the Lincoln Center campus. I presumed that the OP and family were visiting the Rose Hill (Bronx) main campus. They have Theater, but it’s not as intensive as the LC campus. There is no Musical Theater at Lincoln Center, though, and students there have to commute to the Bronx if they want to perform in a musical. . . or that was the case when I visited with elder son in 2011.
Re: #119 - I don’t think that the OP’s child is interested in a BFA. Students in the Tisch conservatory program at NYU spend three days a week in their assigned studio, and only two attending general classes. Students at the Arts & Sciences colleges can be involved in Theater to a lesser extent, but the legendary training is only through the studios affiliated with Tisch. From all I’ve inferred, this would not be a suitable route for the OP’s daughter.
@woogzmama, you are correct our daughter ideally would like a strong BA theater program. While she enjoys theater, and wants to continue with it, she has wide academic interests and is not certain she wants the theater as a profession. Her 16 year old plan at the moment is to find a school with a strong BA program, and a strong social work/public policy/sociology program. She wants to graduate undergrad as debt free as possible, and then perhaps try to make a living in theater for a few years. If it does not work out for her, her plan is to move on to grad school or a “regular” job. We will see what the march of time brings.
As far as Fordham goes, you are right, she is visiting the Rose Hill campus, not Lincoln Center. Thanks for the info on theater being available at Rose Hill. The website says that the theater major is only available at Lincoln Center, so we have just assumed that if she was going to take classes/do a show at Fordham she would have to schlep back and forth. That is good info!
@jmek15 Thanks for the advice about picking up a paper. Good idea!
@Ohiodad51 Is Muhlenberg on the schedule?
Not to be cynical, I am a native NYer and Fordham is in the Bronx. People always call it Rose Hill, but its the Bronx.
@BatesParents2019, nope haven’t thought about Muhlenberg at all actually. I will take a look. And I always thought that Rose Hill was the neighborhood, and the Bronx was the burough? Is Rose Hill a neighborhood in Manhattan?
Rose Hill is the name of Fordham’s Bronx campus but I’ve never really heard anyone refer to the surrounding neighborhood as Rose Hill.
If she is interested in Theater and you don’t visit Muhlenberg you will be making a huge mistake. I have seen shows there and the production quality is unreal. The school has a nationwide reputation in Theater and its one of the biggest majors. It is only a few minutes from Lafayette. Muhlenberg is a strong school in all areas of study and the campus is wonderful.
Fordham is in the Bronx. Rose Hill is the neighborhood in the east 20s, its not the same thing. Fordham is located at 189th street between Webster and Bronx River Parkway. For us, the neighborhood is just ok, could be a lot worse. For people from outside NY the opinion is much different.
@ohiodad51 - NYU Tisch is a BFA (what my kid is doing) an intensely focused program for people who are making a hard run at the life of a professional performer. It is not for people who “enjoy theater and want to continue with it”. (Which btw- is a PERFECTLY VALID viewpoint- just not the deal with Tisch or any other BFA) There are lots of student performance groups at NYU outside Tisch, and you will see people from other majors participate, but most of the people are theater majors. Fordham’s theater BA is still audition, and I have been told is pretty intense. You will have to look more closely to be sure.
If your D is interested being a theater major, or I double majoring in theater/social work etc, I strongly recommend that you head over to the drama/MT forums under majors. There is a WEALTH of information about schools, programs, audition process etc.