<p>Hi-
My daughter has just given me a list of a dozen schools she'd like to visit. They spread from Ohio to Maine:) Does one of the mapping programs allow you to put in a bunch of addresses and then create a route? Or is the best thing just to dig out my old Rand-McNally and figure it out myself?</p>
<p>TIA, Alison</p>
<p>I hope you are not going to try to visit a dozen schools on one trip. You will probably have to create your itinerary first and then use mapping software. You also need to take into account that some schools may have visitation programs/schedules that may not accommodate your desired schedule.</p>
<p>If you’re a member of AAA, their on-line TripTik allows you to do exactly what you’re suggesting. If you’ve got a vague idea of what order would make sense, you can input the addresses in that order; if not, just input and move them around.</p>
<p>You should divide the schools by geographic location (Rand McNally would help here) and set up separate trips. There is no way you can visit 12 schools in one trip! I would recommend no more than three to four in one trip. Unless the schools are very close to each other - within an hours drive - it would be hard to visit two schools in the same day. We started visiting schools in November of Junior year, even though everybody told us we were crazy to start so early. These same people were frantically making college visits in the fall of senior year! Also, keep in mind that you don’t have to visit every school ahead of time. You can wait until your daughter has been accepted and then visit. Good luck!</p>
<p>Hi,
My daughter wants a small, LAC, in a rural or suburban area with at least 2 months of winter. She has visited Carleton and loved it and she’s thinking she may apply ED, but wants to see more before making that commitment. Her list of places to look is:
Amherst
Williams
Bowdoin
Dartmouth
Hamilton
Swarthmore
Middlebury
Wesleyan
Oberlin</p>
<p>If we do Ohio, I figure that’ll be a separate long weekend and hit Kenyon and Denison, too. We’re from CA, so this won’t be a few weekends from home, I’m figuring 7-10 days in the northeast. Any advice on which of these would give her a good base to either decide that Carleton is her top choice, or not? Or some advice on how to prune the list? A big appeal of Carleton is that the students didn’t seem to take themselves too seriously. My sense is that that is not true at many of the ones on her list.</p>
<p>Her PSAT is 229 and her 10th grade GPA is 4.33. She’s currently maintaining straight A’s in 11th with 2 AP and 3 honors, so I think her chances at any of these are as good as can be expected. We realize that noone’s a shoo-in at competitive schools like these.</p>
<p>TIA, Alison</p>
<p>oops, this was supposed to be a different thread. Sorry, new to the game. Thanks for the advice on the road trip</p>
<p>Amherst, Williams, Dartmouth & Middlebury would be do-able in one trip over several days. Amherst & Williams are within 2 or so hours of each other, but I wouldn’t give them too short shrift - I would not do both in one day. You could also hit Wesleyan on your way from Dartmouth to Swarthmore, but again we’re talking about extending the trip by several days.</p>
<p>Just my anecdotal experience: We took a 10 day road trip. Except for really neighboring schools (like Hampshire/Bryn Mawr), we saw one school a day. Did 2 schools, and a day with something fun, another two schools, another day with something fun. That made it more do-able. But even then, by the last school, my d was burnt out. She didn’t even want to take the tour - “Yes, Mom, they have classrooms, dorms and a cafeteria.” - although she did stay for the info sessions. I still wonder if she would have applied to that school if she had seen it earlier in the trip.</p>
<p>Day One – Fly into Philadelphia and pick up the rental car
Day Two – Swat in the morning and then drive to Utica
Day Three – Hamilton in the morning and then drive to the Berkshires
Day Four – Williams and Amherst
Day Five – Drive up to Burlington and enjoy the sights
Day Six – Middlebury, then drive to Hanover
Day Seven – Dartmouth, then drive to Brunswick
Day Eight – Bowdoin, then drive to Hartford
Day Nine – Wesleyan, then drive to Philly
Day Ten – Relax in Philadelphia before getting on the plane and collapsing</p>
<p>Glad you are doing it and not me.</p>
<p>I’m with Michone. 3-4 schools at a time is all anyone can absorb. Otherwise they all blur togethers. Also, if your D plans to interview while she is there, she runs the risk of sounding as bored and sensory-overloaded as she’ll probably be feeling. And it’s hard to answer the ‘what do you like about our school’ question if you can’t remember who has what.</p>
<p>We saw a lot of schools on this list in one trip and it was a bit ambitious - a race against time many times trying to get to take in info sessions at two schools miles apart on the same day, with weather and traffic sometimes causing issues. Still, it was possible. One school pretty much ended up a drive-through. But that was ok because the list needed to get pared. At least take pictures and make notes after the visits so that you can recall things when you get back home more accurately.</p>
<p>My D who is a first year student at Wesleyan joins me in advising not to do more than one school per day. We did an info session and tour at each school. We had lunch in the school’s main dining venue. We stopped and talked to students and at a few schools made prior arrangements to visit a class or meet a professor. My D made a number of friendly CC contacts from most of the lacs we visited before we visited. At all of the seven campuses we visited except Williams a CC friend met our family and took us on a special insider’s view tour and we could spend more time seeing things like dorm rooms and the libraries. We also had lunch with some of the CC contacts. I stongly suggest your child reaching out at the CC site for the colleges or universities they are interested in to make CC friends on campus.</p>
<p>Then drive to the town the next school is in and stay at a nice Inn or hotel, have a nice dinner,check out the town. Next morning repeat process.</p>
<p>We took two trips to visit the seven schools. Good luck!</p>
<p>Dana’s Dad</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Could also fly to Portland/ME - up the road to Bowdoin - then across to Dartmouth/NH - then across/up to Middlebury/VT - down to Amherst/MA and Williams/MA - then to Wesleyan/CT - then to Hamilton/NY and last but not least to Swat/PA - then fly out of Philly (less miles to drive by not doing round trip from Philly to Maine)</p>
<p>“Any advice on which of these would give her a good base to either decide that Carleton is her top choice, or not? Or some advice on how to prune the list? A big appeal of Carleton is that the students didn’t seem to take themselves too seriously. My sense is that that is not true at many of the ones on her list.”</p>
<p>Bingle,</p>
<p>Of all the schools you listed, Hamilton seems like the closest one to Carleton in offering students who “don’t take themselves too seriously.” Hamilton is pretty far off the beaten track, however, and probably a bit of a challenge to get to from California, especially in mid-winter. </p>
<p>I hope she has a few likable safeties on her list – all the colleges on her current list are difficult to get into. At the same time, she seems to know what she wants – they are all of a piece in being beautifully located and academically well-respected LACs. </p>
<p>I’ve visited most of these colleges. I would strongly recommend doing only one a day, with breaks for R&R in between. If you could take as long as two weeks in the summer, the trip would be much more pleasant. But of course you can’t get any sense of what the student culture is like if you visit in the summer (except possibly at Dartmouth, which has a summer session). Bowdoin, Dartmouth, Middlebury, Hamilton, Amherst, Williams might be doable in 7-10 days.</p>
<p>Google Maps was the main ingredient in my mom-daughter road trip this summer. If you play around with it the My Maps feature is pretty awesome. Because roads on the East Coast vary very, very dramatically in speed, size, and efficiency, you might want also to cross-check the various routes in a Rand McNally/AAA/whatever printed map.</p>
<p>are you driving or flying? </p>
<p>mapquest has a new feature that lets you add up to 10 additional stops. I used it this summer to plan the drive to med school and it was pretty good.</p>
<p>To get a good idea of colleges on the way, I suggest Professor Pathfinder’s US map of colleges and universities (available at Amazon, among others). It really helped when I’ve planned college road trips.</p>
<p>Bingle, The distances between these schools are not great so don’t worry about doing some backtracking. </p>
<p>In my opinion Swarthmore is the odd man out, both geographically and culturally. I’d give it a miss and concentrate on New England. </p>
<p>I’m also strongly of the one college a day school. Attend the info session, take the tour, interview if offered, walk around campus, see the areas of interest that aren’t on the tour, go shopping, eat at the cafeteria – just try to absorb the ambience. </p>
<p>Then late afternoon drive to the next place, spend the night on or near campus and repeat the process. If your tour extends over a Sunday plan to spend it in your daughter’s top choice. </p>
<p>We used the Princeton Review’s “Visiting College Campuses” to orient ourselves to the area though I would be sure to double check the accuracy of all the information.</p>
<p>It’s a profoundly beautiful part of the country so try to slow down and enjoy the experience.</p>
<p>JeepMom, that trip you outlined in post #12 sounds so delightful, I want to do it although I’m out of kids to send to college!</p>
<p>Can the OP fly to Cleveland, rent a car for that area, then fly on to Boston or Philly and rent a second car? Actually, if Oberlin is the only Ohio stop (pros and cons to it being the “only ohio” obviously..) you could land in Cleveland, use a cab to Oberlin, stay at the Obelrin Inn and do that whole piece on foot.
It’s a walking campus. There might even been an airport shuttle to the Oberlin Inn, which sits right on the campus green.</p>
<p>P3T LOL - sounds similar to our college trip that originated in Boston and terminated in Tampa FL - only 8 or so schools in 6 or so days ROFL - ours included 3 flights and a car tour of about 1500 miles - whew!!! 
- just call me the whirling durbish 
- but sure makes more sense going east to west than making a big circle - with lots of extra driving in between - especially in New England. But I have to agree - it would be a beautiful one at least.</p>
<p>Disagree with the only one-school-a-day fans, if only for cost reasons. Schools like Williams and Amherst can be done in one day, IMO. They are so similar and disimilar…</p>
<p>Coming from the westcoast, travel is a major consideration. Tours, definitely; but after one or two group meetings the info sessions start to all sound alike, particularly with the audience questions (most of which can be answered by perusing the website). Of course, colleges with special focuses or programs should be sat through, but a research Uni is research Uni… Finally, there are gonna be a campus or two where the kid just won’t get out of the car, i.e., for whatever reason, this college is off the LIST. If so, the day is essentially wasted.</p>