My daughter is a senior who has applied to several California schools, most of which she hasn’t visited. I’m trying to wrap my head around how to accomplish the visits this spring. She’s been accepted to Santa Clara, so definitely need to go there. In the metro LA area she’s applied to USC, Pepperdine, Claremont McKenna and Scripps. She’s also applied to USD but we’ve been there so don’t need to go back. We are traveling from NC. Flights are actually quite reasonably priced to make multiple stops (NC to LA for a few days, then fly LAX to SF and then SF to NC). The issue is that we won’t have acceptances until late March/early April but we have another commitment the last week of April so would have to go early/mid April if we wait. Easter is also in there, which will be the most expensive week to travel. SO… I either squeeze it all in that second week of April OR we go late February. March is mostly out because all of all of the different Spring Breaks. If we go in Feb we just visit them all. If we wait until April we go to the ones she’s been accepted to, but probably can’t cancel or change our arrangements too much so we will probably have extra downtime. And then, of course, is the Covid part of the equation. Who knows what will be happening in February or April. I’m probably massively overthinking this. Any thoughts/opinions?
“Santa Clara, so definitely need to go there. In the metro LA area she’s applied to USC, Pepperdine, Claremont McKenna and Scripps. “
Here is what I would do…does it seem likely that she will get accepted to the colleges in the greater LA area?
If so, fly to one of the easier LA area airports. Visit whichever college(s) she gets accepted to. Then shuttle to San Jose and go to SCU. Fly home from there.
Check to see if SCU and USD or any of the others…are doing accepted student days. With Covid, not sure what they are doing. But my kid visited in April because she went to the accepted student days.
I suggest you start with this thread, as many of these colleges are mentioned.
I think USC and CMC are unlikely just as they are reaches for anyone. CMC is easy to do if we are there for Scripps anyway. SCU is doing Accepted Students days sometime in April but haven’t announced dates yet. My guess is the first week (4th-8th) just because Palm Sunday is the 10th and Easter is the 17th, and I don’t think they’ll push back to the final weekends of April.
There is an accepted student’s day on the East coast that we may need to attend on April 2.
By “shuttle” do you mean to just take a small regional carrier? The flights including all of the stops are only $500 each on American Airlines.
I live in SoCal (funny, my daughter attends college in NC) and I have been to all of those campuses. That’s really not a hard trip to do all in one. Scripps and Claremont are adjacent campuses. Everything depends on traffic here, of course, but those campuses are only 50 miles from LAX (an hour typically if you avoid peak travel times)…you could really do both in a day and also check out Claremont (the town). USC and Pepperdine are <30 miles apart, generally less than hour apart driving depending on time of day. If you wanted to get more familiarity with each campus and the general LA area, you could do USC one day and then Pepperdine the next, but Pepperdine is pretty small and I bet you’d spend as much time in Malibu as you did on the campus itself. From LAX you might want to fly into San Jose instead of San Francisco, unless you plan on heading into San Francisco for sightseeing/fun (San Francisco airport is 33 miles N of santa clara, but 15 mi or 1/2 hour of DT San Francisco; San Jose airport is just a few miles from Santa Clara). Heck if you have an extra day, drive from Pepperdine to Santa clara…leave Pepperdine and head up the 101 (you could stay in SLO) and then the next day, up the coast (Route 1) through Big Sur. I have been to many places and I still think it’s one of the most beautiful drives, anywhere. As far as timing of your visit…I think it’s personal preference, some people really like admitted student day and some don’t in terms of doing a ‘first visit’ (many friends advised my kids that advised going to visit for the first time when the schools weren’t pulling out all the stops to suck them in:) was not the same as a regular visit). Good luck!
Yes…just a short flight from the LA are to San Jose. It sounds like your total costs are fine!
You should fly into Ontario for the Claremont Colleges. Very close and much more convenient.
Yes, I’ve been looking at that. I think we will end up waiting until April just because by then we will know where we NEED to go and will give us a little more wiggle room to spend time at those places rather than just running from one to the next. I just really worry about another variant coming along and California or the schools shutting down to visits.
February is likely a higher risk for covid related issues. And, you do run the risk of seeing ones she doesn’t get into. But, I agree you could hit all of them in your time frame. I don’t know how many are, but our most frequently used airline is giving us unlimited changes. (It always states we get one change, but I’ve tested it – it’s unlimited). ; ) Will they in April? Not sure. And when booking hotels or rentals, you can look for reservations that allow you to cancel closer to the date.
Congrats on getting admitted to Santa Clara. I’m an alum - go Broncos! The only thing I wanted to mention regarding visits around Easter is that with SCU being Catholic they will be closed on Good Friday (4/15) and maybe even the day before. Students may clear out for the Easter weekend. So if that’s the week you’re going I would suggest hitting there first and then ending in LA. Either way the campus will be open to walk around but less going on as you get closer to the Easter holiday.