<p>S is looking for a smallish u (less than 4k or so), offering a business major and excellent pre-med advising / record of med school admissions. He is an IB diploma guy with an uw3.9 (maybe 3.8 by graduation), and predicted SAT score of between 2100- 2200. He will qualify for a bit of need-based aid, but merit scholarships or a full-need met environment is important as our annual budget needs to be approx. 20K.</p>
<p>Our trip choices for spring break (all the dates work) are:</p>
<p>Door #1 - Driving trip down California to see Santa Clara U, Claremonts, Chapman, Univ of San Diego, Occidental, and maybe U of the Pacific. We would drive our own car, but this would be LOTS of driving!! I haven't added it up, but more than 1100 miles.</p>
<p>Door #2 - Flight trip to Texas to see Southwestern U, Trinity U, and Rice U. Would need to fly in and rent a car to see the three.</p>
<p>Questions are - can ya'll help point out plus or minus of each scenario? Never done this before, so not sure of all we should be thinking of.
Is the CA trip too many to fit in within a 6 day window? We would have two solid nothing-but-driving days.
Are there other schools we haven't thought of within these travel parameters?
Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>I don’t know specifics about the areas you’ll be looking, but I can tell you that last February vacation, DS and I drove well over 1500 miles in 5 days, from Maine through New York and Pennsylvania and back. It was tiring but fun. For US, we found that more than one school in a day was hard, but that doesn’t seem to bother other folks.</p>
<p>Rice is a wonderful school - I would recommend visiting it!</p>
<p>W/ his stats your S should look at Saint Mary’s College of California as well as Santa Clara. D received merit and needs based aid @ SMC which has made it so that the only thing less expensive for her education would have bee to stay home and go to the local CC. SMC boasts an 80%+ med school acceptance rate, has its own cadavers (I don’t think SCU does) and fits your S’s size requirement.</p>
<p>I would also look at Southwest flights and car rental rather than driving the whole way. But definitely take a look at SMC. My D is attending and is a science major with her eye on vet school acceptance. She is challenged but supported and is doing well academically and socially</p>
<p>The only FA package that rivaled SMC’s was Trinity U’s so I do think you should check that out as well. She decided on SMC before she actually went down to TX to check it out but they made attendance VERY attractive for a lot of reasons.</p>
<p>I suggest checking if the schools you have in mind will let your child complete all of the requirements for a business degree, pre-med classes, and core requirements in 4 years. It sounds too much. I also think your child can do a lot of searching with virtual tours on the internet and narrow down choices to the top 3 schools and visit those schools. After acceptances come in, you can always plan another trip to see other schools. Thinking back, I think we wasted a lot of money visiting schools that were not the right fit. Many of these colleges will send a representative to your high school and/or city to find out more info. without having to make so many expensive visits. Also, if you plan to do so much driving, I suggest renting a nice car.</p>
<p>Just checked and my hubby says the California trip would cover more like 2500+ miles, so am still wondering if anyone has experience with this kind of route…</p>
<p>The Texas visits aren’t possible during the college session in the fall as our school schedules conflict - but S could apply and visit if accepted with a feasible package. I worry that not visiting will be a negative for admissions.</p>
<p>We were in LA during winter break. The traffic in LA is terrible and takes a longer time to get from point A to point B. If you are truly worried about college visits increasing the chance of admissions, I suggest you start another post and ask parents how important are visits to college acceptances. For example, my son was accepted to a college and offered good merit aid without ever visiting the school. It is important to visit top choice schools, particularly if the schools offer sleeping bag week-ends or similar in depth tours. Ask your child about his top choices and try your best to visit those schools, and visit at least two good safety schools.</p>
<p>Back about 4 years ago, we flew from DC to LAX, drove up (6 hours) to see Santa Clara, flew from San Jose airport (literally across the street from the university) to LAX, saw U of Redlands, Pitzer, Pepperdine, U of San Diego then drove back to LAX to fly to DC, all in 6 days.</p>
<p>puma I live in Northern California, about 2.5 hours N of SF and have driven the length of the state many times. I will PM you later and explain how I would do your CA trip but it involves airplanes or overnights along the way. </p>
<p>The drive is doable but when DDs and I did the Oxy, Claremonts, LMU trip we flew and rented a car and came out with less stress, more time and an all around better trip. However we have also done multiple home to LA trips where we spent the night on the way down and drove the whole way back anyway. I have to get ready to leave but I will for sure get back with you via PM</p>
<p>Another mom and I did a very similar trip a few years ago and it was quite doable in a week with even a stop at Magic Mountain (our bribe for getting the boys to go at all). It is a lot of driving, but we got the boys to do a lot of it, with the added benefit that it made them better drivers.</p>
<p>We did a week long trip…flew to San Diego from the east coast…saw USD, then drove to the L.A. area the following day…visited Chapman and Claremont McKenna on the same day. Spent the night…drove to Pepperdine, then drove back to San Diego. Took the first in the morning shuttle to San Jose to see Santa Clara (and visited Stanford just to see the place). Flew back the same evening.</p>
<p>We had relatives to stay with the entire trip. It was SO MUCH FUN.</p>
<p>I’d drive the California section rather than fly but I don’t mind driving. I’ve driven San Diego to San Jose many times - it’s only around 8 hours. I don’t know where you’re starting from but you could do - </p>
<ul>
<li>Decide whether you’ll go to UofP or not and then decide whether that’s the first stop or not. It depends on where you’re coming from and whether this’ll be a round trip or back-tracked trip as to which location to start with.</li>
<li>SCU (right by San Jose airport). If you decide to fly, this would be a good starting point.</li>
<li>Drive to LA to see Occidental and the Claremonts. This is about 6 hour or so hour drive from SCU. If you left SCU by 2pm you’d be in LA by around 8pm and avoid most of the peak traffic periods in San Jose and LA.</li>
<li>When done with the above head south and visit Chapman. </li>
<li>When done with Chapman keep heading south to San Diego to see USD. </li>
<li>When done with USD, relax in San Diego for a day or so and see some sights and do something fun other than just seeing colleges. You’ll likely be ready for a break. Make sure you check out the nearby Mission Bay, Mission Beach, La Jolla, etc.</li>
</ul>
<p>How long all this will take will be driven not as much by their distance from each other as the amount of time you’ll spend on the campuses. If you’re planning to do the tours, check each college’s websites to see when they hold them to see if it’s practical to fit in more than one in a day. You might visit one of the campuses and make a quick negative decision right away and others you might spend half a day at. Make sure you allocate a little extra time to look around the areas near the campus as well since your S would be living in the area for 4 or so years. He might end up living off-campus (find out where most students live when off-campus), going to restaurants, maybe biking/hiking/surfing/etc. so try to imagine what that facet of the life at that particular college might be like.</p>
<p>Depending on where you’re starting from, you could fairly easily do it in 6 days of driving within California.</p>
<p>Re: California. We’re flying to the LA area and renting a car to visit Chapman, Occidental, Pomona and USC next month. It gives us a full day at each school plus some extra time for Disneyland/California Adventure. </p>
<p>I think driving 2500 miles plus all of the schools you listed is probably too much for 6 days. Can you fly instead?</p>
<p>Southwest flies from Ontario Ariport (about ten miles from Claremont) to San Jose Airport, which, as has been pointed out, is right next door to SCU. I would recommend using that route in one direction or the other. Saves a lot of driving time and can be fairly inexpensive.</p>
<p>I wish I could go on this/these trip/s with you!</p>
<p>I don’t know enough about all of the schools. Most schools will be able to give a student the pre-med reqs., but how many will also be able to allow a business major?</p>
<p>Trinity has very highly thought of programs in most areas. The campus is very pretty, and it’s full steam ahead with the new science building. There were many things about it that my D chose it over schools on your Cali list (CMC, Oxy, Scripps). They offer lots of research and internships. OK, I have bias.</p>
<p>If you do go to TX, I don’t think you could visit more than one of those schools per day, but I would start either with Rice or Southwestern, and do TU in the middle. Houston-SA is about 3.5 hours driving, and from SA to Georgetown about 2. I can’t speak to Cali, as my D visited those schools on her own, but do not speed in TX!</p>
<p>I think all of the TX schools are less expensive, in many cases by a lot, than the Cali schools, and you seem to have financial limits.</p>
<p>The Texas trip is definitely doable, and would probably involve a total of 4 travel days since it seems you will be flying from the West coast. I think it would be very difficult to visit any two of those schools on the same day. There is a recent post on this forum regarding planning a visit to Rice which had helpful information on lodging, etc. </p>
<p>Tulane is another school in the same region that may be an option, although it may be larger than you prefer. New Orleans is an easy 1 hour flight from Houston or about a 6 hour drive.</p>
<p>We did a similar CA trip a couple years ago in 5 days with about the same number of schools. Yes, very busy but my D has that mentality anyway and was on the “hunt” for colleges. It is doable but you will be tired. We actually did a driving round trip too from San Jose to San Diego and back again (brother in summer music program in north CA). Overall we had a great time and really bonded.</p>
<p>Just an FYI…the transportation center is across the street from the Santa Clara University campus. There is a free shuttle bus from the San Jose airport (and back ) that runs to that transportation center. The airport is about a 10 minute ride away. Buses run VERY frequently all day long.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the tips! We are now checking out some flying options to CA, but I think the cost factor will keep us driving our own car. Cal Lutheran, someone mentioned, is a good addition if we can fit it in - we may have to leave out something - we are taking your advice and planning a fun day,too! And thanks to all the folks who mentioned SMC - S dug out the brochures,etc he has received from them and thinks that would be a good stop…</p>
<p>Question for those who know about Texas - is there any public transportation between Southwestern, Rice, and Trinity (Austin, Houston, San Antonio) that if S went alone next fall, he could take a bus or something and get to the two he didn’t fly into?</p>
or overnights along the way. </p>