<p>Taking D1 to see these three schools at the very end of August. We'll be flying into Logan from the west coast around 7 PM on a Sunday. We have some flexibility on when we leave the area, but I'm planning on a flight out of Logan or Providence on Tuesday in the late afternoon. Clark and Brandeis will be in session, Tufts won't have started yet. I'm trying to decide what's the best itinerary. Which of these two possibilities would be better? Or, something else entirely?</p>
<p>1) Sunday evening, drive from Logan to Worcester hotel. Tour Clark Monday morning. In the afternoon, tour Tufts. Spend Monday night in Waltham, tour Brandeis Tuesday AM.</p>
<p>2) Sunday evening, drive from Logan to Waltham hotel. Monday morning, drive out to Worcester, tour Clark. Tour Tufts in the afternoon, return to Waltham. Tour Brandeis on Tuesday AM.</p>
<p>I would stay closer to Boston the first night. You may have travel delays, and even if everything works out as scheduled, you may still be tired from traveling. The drive from Waltham to Worcester shouldn’t take you more than an hour the following day, so you would have plenty of time to tour Clark and drive back east to see Tufts. I think if you wanted to add Providence to your tour, you might want an extra day, unless you leave later on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Tufts & Brandeis are closer to each other geographically, so you might want to do those 2 on the same day. We did that a few years ago & had the time for lunch in between.</p>
<p>Too bad Tufts won’t be open - they have great food. I’d try to plan it so you can have a meal at Brandeis to see how their cafeteria works if you can. They explained how they can offer Kosher food without banishing Kosher kids to Hillel. I’d like to see it in action. My inclination would also be to stay in Waltham the first night. It’s a very easy drive to Worcester on the Pike.</p>
<p>Finally a question I can answer with some authority! My D is a first-year at Brandeis as of 2 days ago, and last fall we visited Clark and Brandeis in one trip. We flew in and out of Providence since we didn’t need to actually be IN Boston. We arrived on a Thursday night and toured, interviewed, and had lunch at Clark on Friday. (We thought the Clark food was among the best of all the campuses we visited.) We headed down the Mass Pike from Worcester to Waltham mid-afternoon on Friday. It took MUCH longer than I’d planned, and she was actually late for her interview. The traffic on the Mass Pike was VERY heavy and even with a GPS, getting off I-95 in Waltham was a little confusing. </p>
<p>That’s my long way of recommending doing Tufts and Brandeis in the same day, and Clark on another day. Feel free to PM me with any other questions.</p>
<p>i think trying to do clark and tufts in one day is a little ambitious. and you are virtually driving right past brandeis going from one to the other. i think you are likely to feel rushed – you may not have time to do more than the official tour and info - ie no browsing the bookstore, sitting in the cafeteria - which i at least considered very important to college visits.</p>
<p>we did brandeis and tufts in the same day – which are much closer together than clark and tufts (saw several other students on both tours who did the same) and we felt quite rushed getting from one to the other. that with just doing the tour and info session at both – came back another time for brandeis interview and to meet with someone from department my student was interested in.</p>
<p>Friday afternoon traffic can be daunting anywhere around Boston but you will not be driving the pike on Friday afternoon. Tufts and Brandeis are closer to each other. Coming from Boston is Tufts, Brandeis then Clark. You could stay in Waltham and easily get to Braindeis or Tufts (off rte 2).</p>
<p>If you were hoping to do the full-bore admissions visit with info session and guided tour, you might want to call these admissions offices before you book your flights, because unless the info on their websites is quite misleading, neither Tufts nor Brandeis is offering any undergrad tours or info sessions on Monday August 31. That doesn’t mean you couldn’t visit the campuses and walk around, I assume.</p>
<p>Lots of unanimous answers, which is very reassuring. nightchef, thanks for the reality check, and, well, bugger all about the scheduling! I’d been checking tour/info session times earlier during the summer and hadn’t seen that Brandeis and Tufts went dark for tours on Aug 31. That kind of sets things for us, since it’ll have to be Clark on Monday and Brandeis on Tuesday. Tufts will just be a casual walk around on Monday. The advantage of having only Brandeis on Tuesday is that we’ll be nearer Boston to fly on to our next stop. This trip is being planned around a quickly-upcoming family commitment on the west coast, and for which we’ll have 8 days notice, so I booked Southwest flights at either end and am hoping for the best. </p>
<p>D1 is a rising hs junior, so no interviews anywhere at this time. We were up in Santa Barbara today, and she was commenting on how it’s a relatively short drive from home, so she may come out of this planned trip convinced that she doesn’t want to stray far from home. </p>
<p>And thanks for the food comments. We’re definitely interested in checking out the kosher dining at Brandeis, and hearing that Clark has good food is encouraging.</p>
<p>I agree about staying close to Boston. It is nice and easier to have one hotel room, too, don’t you think?</p>
<p>I wonder if you might want to rethink the whole trip, though, now that you know that Tufts admissions tours and info sessions are not running. Especially since your child is only a rising junior, so there is plenty of time.</p>
<p>These are all great schools. You will have a great chance to see Clark, and Brandeis. But coming all the way across the country and not only missing Tufts tours and info sessions, but also not seeing the campus while students are there, seems like a waste.</p>
<p>Is your daughter more interested in the other two, and less interested in Tufts?</p>
<p>We were at Tufts yesterday. (Our daughter is at Harvard, but still studies music with a professor at Tufts.) Things were pretty quiet and empty there. Tufts is a great school. Our son wanted to go there too, but we needed more financial aid than they were giving then: things have improved some in that area, though they had to retrench this past year.</p>
<p>We did our share of drive-throughs, but only at colleges that we were eliminating from the list, so to speak.</p>
<p>p.s. I also think it is a waste to come East and stay in Waltham or Worcester! Staying in Cambridge or Boston would be central and very near the Pike. That way, Clark and Brandeis are very accessible and you are even closer to Tufts. If going to school in this area is a real possiblity, it would be nice for your daughter to see the Boston/Cambridge area. Staying in town, you could walk around and soak up vibes in the evening. Sorry to go beyond the scope of your question! I am an enthusiastic native…</p>
<p>You may be interested in using the commuter train (the Purple Line) to get to Brandeis.<br>
Tufts is on the Red Line (subway, or “T”), stopping at Davis Square. It is a bit of a hike going up the hill to Tufts, however, though there is a bus from Davis Square to the campus.
Davis Square is only one stop away from Porter Square (also on the Red Line) where you can pick up the commuter train. It does not run that often (the schedule is available online by googling MBTA–Massachusetts Bay Transport Authority). It’s 17 minutes by train to Roberts station which is at the foot of Brandeis, and a 3-5 minutes walk to the center of the campus. There is also a commuter train that goes to Worcester, but I don’t know where the station is in relation to Clark. If it is of interest, Holy Cross and WPI are also located in Worcester.</p>
<p>compmom, where to stay is certainly not outside the scope of the question! I’m only hesitant to stay in Boston because I’m dreading driving in the city. Both times that I’ve been in the area have been very public-transportation dependent. If it wasn’t for the Clark visit, I’d not bother with a car at all. But Cambridge sounds like a good compromise, and Hotwire has some nice deals. </p>
<p>The timing of the trip is of the making hay while the sun shines variety. Our school system starts after Labor Day and runs into late June. With a very heavy junior year schedule, the only opportunities to go visit while schools are in session would be winter break and spring vacation. The latter overlaps Passover, and the former is going to overlap a planned non-college-visiting trip to Chicago where I’m hoping we can tack on some time to visit some schools in the midwest. Which means anything during the school year is out of the question, and takes us to next summer, when no students will be around. At least next week some schools will be in session, and D1 will get the little tick mark in the “demonstrated interest” box for Clark and Brandeis. Tufts doesn’t care about demonstrated interest, so this is only local flavor for D1. The school popped up on her radar because she had the totally mistaken impression that it was an easy fallback for people who couldn’t get in to Harvard. Yes, I laughed too, showed her the GPA and SAT numbers, and brought her back down to earth. She now says that she likes their mascot. I figured that we were going to be in the area, so we might as well walk through the campus. If, come next year, D1 is still interested in Tufts for reasons more than their cool giant elephant mascot AND has the grades and test scores to make it at all something vaguely possible AND hasn’t been frightened off cold weather schools, we could possibly do another trip.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone, this is all very, very useful! I really do appreciate all of the advice, and am happy to read anything you throw my way. There’ll be an upcoming burst of Philly-based questions on another thread.</p>
<p>My S is at Tufts and having spent a good part of the last 2 summers negotiating the streets I would highly recommend either renting a GPS with your rent a car or bringing your own if you have one. The traffic didnt bother me half as much as the apparent lack of any type of organization in the streets.</p>
<p>Also, be sure to check the weather for your visit, it can be brutally hot and humid, so you may want to carry water…</p>
<p>expatme-- i am SO glad to hear you say that about the streets around tufts!! i have 2 children, tufts was on the list of visits for both, and we got lost each time – the second time with a gps!!! glad to hear it’s not me!!</p>
<p>OP –
from what my student reports, the kosher dining works well – its a separate line in the sherman dining hall – the pay one price to enter, all you can eat dining hall (cash price for kosher meal is higher than for non-kosher) – people eating on the kosher line use trays to keep their utensils off the tables and return their utensil to a separate kosher return, but can eat anywhere in the seating area. i believe there is some kosher food available in the pay as you go dining hall also (usdan). fyi – the cash price for a kosher meal is higher than a non-kosher meal at sherman, BUT for kids on the meal plan (which ususally combine “meals” and “points”) you use one “meal” regardless of which line you are eating on.</p>
<p>We did a Boston trip with BU in the am and Clark in the pm. It was rushed getting to Clark on time for their tour, we only caught up with them on their first stop.</p>
<p>Worcester is a pretty depressed city, it seems it would be cheaper to stay there than Boston. But it was an easy drive. </p>
<p>I wanted to visit Clark since it was on the list of colleges that change lives, but my son hated it because it was so small. And perhaps he had a bit of snobbery because it is not very selective. They actually make a point of being not selective, that they can motivate the students they get to achieve more.</p>
<p>THey do have a 5th year free, with a certain GPA you get a 5th year free to get an advanced degree.</p>
<p>Their campus includes many renovated industrial buildings that are pretty cool. I liked the campus, my son didn’t.</p>
Yes, I laughed too, showed her the GPA and SAT numbers, and brought her back down to earth. She now says that she likes their mascot. I figured that we were going to be in the area, so we might as well walk through the campus. If, come next year, D1 is still interested in Tufts for reasons more than their cool giant elephant mascot AND has the grades and test scores to make it at all something vaguely possible AND hasn’t been frightened off cold weather schools, we could possibly do another trip.</p>