<p>My son is a junior and we live in NJ. He is planning on going to school for computer science or electrical engineering. We were thinking of visiting colleges over spring break. We wanted to see university of Maryland college park, JMU, Virginia Tech. Any suggestions how to do this in 2 days? Any hotel suggestions? Thanks...this is our first college visits.</p>
<p>Hi,Jerseymomz, Those are all nice, pretty campuses to visit over spring break. Have fun!
For Virginia Tech hotel suggestions:
More expensive-Inn at Virginia Tech,Main Street Inn.
Cheap, bare bones but clean with free breakfast-Microtel in Christiansburg(next to Blacksburg).</p>
<p>For the life of me, I can’t see how it’s possible to visit those 3 schools in 2 days. With JMU as the midpoint, Tech is 140 miles in one direction. And, UMCP is 140 miles in the other. Not to mention how far you’ll be from NJ.</p>
<p>My suggestion would be to make it longer trip. Like this:
Day 1 - Drive to Blacksburg, check into hotel
Day 2 - Tour Va Tech, drive to Harrisonburg
Day 3 - Tour JMU, drive to College Park
Day 4 - Tour UMCP, drive home</p>
<p>Since your son is still a Junior, do you mind if I suggest not to visit during Spring Break?
You have a very distort view of a school when no one is there and no one is there to talk to you.</p>
<p>For my case, I visited U Mich on a weekend and we had 2 disctinct views of its Main campus vs the North Campus. The Main campus was warm, bustled with energy while the North Campus was deserted.</p>
<p>If we only saw the North Campus, we would have dropped Mich off the list completely.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info so far. Maybe I should do college park on another trip. Our spring break is the week of march 25 th so when I went on the schools website I could sign up for a tour and information session. How do I know if they are in session? I assumed they were because they were offering tours.</p>
<p>Virginia Tech is definitely in session during your son’s spring break in late March. Their spring break is earlier in March, the 9th to 16th . JMU’s is usually earlier in March too but you can check their website’s academic calendar to be sure.</p>
<p>Jerseymom - you need to check the schools academic calendar not visitor’s page. Most schools offer tours and info sessions even when kids aren’t in class during spring break.</p>
<p>Thanks sevmom and scmom12. I will check the academic calendar to make sure they are not on break. Any other suggestions are appreciated. This is our first tours for our oldest son so I’m trying to read as much as I can on here and on the college websites. I’m hoping he can visit at least a couple of schools this year and some more next year. It’s hard to figure out what schools and how many to go see.</p>
<p>I took my daughter to see several colleges in New England in one week - we went to one college a day. It was lots of fun. But she didn’t get accepted to any of them. </p>
<p>After acceptances we had to go back and visit the two she was choosing between as she hadn’t seen them at all. That was even more fun becuase at that point both schools were courting her. In hindsight I could have skipped the first college tour. Just something to consider - especially if they are reaches.</p>
<p>Especially for the first few visits I think one college per day makes sense. After you been to 8 info sessions you become a more efficient learner about colleges.</p>
<p>We found our high school student’s spring break in their junior year to be a great time to visit colleges. I don’t think any of the colleges we visited were on break at that time. Agree that it makes sense to compare the colleges’ academic calendars with your planned trip.</p>
<p>Spring break:
Virginia Tech March 9-16
JMU March 4-8
University of Maryland March 17-24</p>
<p>Since your son has a potential interest in engineering, it would be a good idea to attend an engineering Information session in addition to the general info session. Virginia Tech 's engineering school has hour long info sessions M-F at 11:15am. You register in advance online.</p>
<p>We always went on the tour and did the general info session, but in reality those are basically the same at all schools. </p>
<p>I’d do whatever you can to setup a meeting with someone in the departments he’s interested in. The engineering info session might give you a taste. Talking to someone one-on-one is always nice if you can work it.</p>
<p>If there’s an extracurricular he’s interested in, then try to talk to someone from that, too.</p>
<p>If possible, eat on campus for lunch.</p>
<p>Check the schools to see if there are separate dorm tours. If so, you’ll probably want to go on one.</p>
<p>PhotoOp- thanks for the insight. I know it may turn out to not be schools he gets into or that he wants to go to…some we are planning are reach schools, but he hasn’t seen any colleges so I at least want him to get a feel for what he likes/dislikes about a school. I think I may wait to do more after he is accepted because I’m sure you can waste a lot of time which is hard to come by.
Sevmom- thanks for the dates and the suggestion for engineering session.<br>
All these tips are so helpful.</p>
<p>UMD has special engineering sessions given by engineering students. I can’t remember what day of the week, but it was a great way to see the campus. The student took us to cool places we would not have seen on the regular tour, just because we were interested. Ne talked about where he was accepted and what his final choice came down to, etc. I suggest you look not attending one of this sessions. You should also do the regular tour if you haven’t been there before. It’s quite a nice campus. I would have been ecstatic if my son picked there, as it’s a great school and we are in state.</p>
<p>I would second the idea of not doing 2 college tours in one day with an hour and 15 minute drive in between. It was a bad idea.</p>
<p>I definitely encourage a junior year tour, even if “the list” for college apps is not finalized. It’s a bit like going to real estate open houses when you don’t need to immediately find a house. It can be low key / fun. It will help you prioritize fit factors for that particular student. </p>
<p>Yes, it is better to tour when school is in session. But we learned a lot on summer tours, when it dovetailed nicely with our annual trip back east to visit family.</p>
<p>If you have other kids I would recommend they go too. This worked really well with us and they are 6 years apart. It gives the younger one ideas.</p>
<p>Mathinokc-thanks for all that info…I was wondering if I should do the general info sessions or if that is information you can just get on the Internet and do tours and maybe specific information sessions. I like the idea of eating in the cafeteria, I guess you really get an idea of the students. I will make sure we talk to students and ask them about the school and their experience.<br>
Rockymtnhigh-I do have 2 other boys, one of them only two years behind so I hope he can
come. The only problem is high school sports and will they let him not practice for a couple of days!</p>
<p>We tried to do one full day at each school which did lengthen the trips. We did the standard tour, eating in a dining hall, tried to get a residential tour (although I am of the opinion that they don’t add much), meetings with someone from the intended major, followed by a walk about the college town and dinner. That has given D a lot of data points to make her decision (not that it is made just yet). </p>
<p>I did not bring younger siblings even though they are 18 months apart. This was a special time for the two of us (or D with Dad). I didn’t want any distractions from what was important to D. S will have his own time.</p>
<p>My only suggestion aligns with some others above…get where you plan to do your tours the night before. It is deadly to drive a long way, and then do an info session and tour.</p>
<p>We did two colleges in one day a couple of times BUT the two schools were less than 30 miles apart. We went to one school in the morning, then went to the second in the afternoon.</p>