<p>My daughter and I will be doing a mid-west college tour at the end of March. It's a lot of driving in unknown territory and my husband would like to come with us. Unfortunately, that means our 14 year old son would have to tear himself away from spending his spring break sleeping until noon and playing computer games. </p>
<p>Any thoughts/ideas on how to make college visit trips more appealing for a younger sibling? We will be on a fairly tight schedule so won't have lots of time for much sightseeing (but would welcome any ideas for sights near or between Earlham, Knox, and Beloit!) and most of the towns we'll be visiting are...small. Bribing him with donuts and ice cream will only work for so long. :)</p>
<p>the best suggestion I can offer is for him to take a friend/or have him stay at a friends while you are gone.
I am all for electronic bribes- books on tape? Ipod?
Can't help you with tourist attractions but my 14 yr old is much easier to live with , if she has a friend along. So much so that she seems like a different person!</p>
<p>Why wouldn't he want to look at colleges? He'll probably be applying to colleges some day and the head start will help him out with figuring out his own likes and dislikes.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, are you serious, or was that tongue in cheek?</p>
<p>I could barely get my of-age kids to visit the first college and I can't imagine having a child along that was not halfway enthusiastic. We did two college drive-by's on the way back from vacation in Maryland last summer and my younger son complained pretty much the whole time. Carolyn, I would strongly recommend that you have your younger son stay with someone at home or go to camp. Maybe your son is different then mine but the stress of keeping him happy would be an every day challenge.</p>
<p>I'm with Northstarmom. Unless you're made of money, tell him this is an opportunity to look at schoolss he's only a few years away from considering. If that doesn't work, tell him that you expect a good attitude because this is a family priority right now and he will be afforded the same high priority in the life of the family when his time comes.</p>
<p>Last summer when I got back from a college visit with my 16-year-old daughter, my 14-year-old son sounded like he wished he could have come along, even though when asked before the trip, he said he wasn't interested. If bringing a friend along is feasible, that might be a good idea. I don't think we'll do that when we make some more visits this year, but I will bring my son along, as I think he really wants to see these schools. Part of my approach to make it less of an older sister focused event will be to ask and let him ask about programs that interest him. He has somewhat different academic and extracurricular interests than his sister has, and if we take the time to check out the particular athletic facilities that interest him and maybe even meet a coach and ask about academic departments that he is curious about, I think he'd like that. I also think that more generally, even though the information sessions get somewhat tedious and repetitive and all start to sound the same, there is a benefit to a younger sibling hearing from the colleges what they'll need to do to get in there. It's almost too late to hear at the end of high school what he should have been doing as far as course selection and maintaining strong grades. My kids get along really well together, so they may be more inclined to wander off sans parent if they're both there. And I'm not going to show my son this thread so that he doesn't get any expectations about getting an Ipod out of the trip.</p>
<p>Been there, done that, did not get the T-shirt! Son was almost 13 when we went college tripping last summer. After about the second college he was more than done, of course after the third, husband was done, too. We broke it up with a day at an amusement park, a couple of T-shirts, and a Dave Barry book. Still, he was not interested in colleges, particularly so far away from home. How far is it to Cedar Point?</p>
<p>I took my 12 year old D on a local college visit when her sister was looking at colleges. She (the 12 y/o) fell in love with Pomona! Her sister didn't.</p>
<p>We're faced with a similar situation and there was no question for us: our 13 year-old daughter is spending spring break with a friend's family. This a much better situation for all concerned. She just finished looking at high schools and has NO desire to even consider colleges yet. Going with us would be torture for her. She'll have plenty of opportunities in the four years ahead, including visiting her big sis.</p>
<p>But if you must bring your son, then I think one of the parents should break away from the tour/admissions lecture and do something with him. You could alternate. Many student unions have some sort of gaming area, check out the athletic facilities for something you can do (golf, tennis, physical fitness course, etc), bring a frisbee, go see a movie, get tickets to a sporting event or show, bring a good book, or let him sleep in.</p>
<p>My younger S was 15 during our last spring and summer "Grand Tours". I let him pick all the hotels, fancy restaurants and evening activities along the way. He had carte blanche (well, almost <g>) in the college bookstores. I had very few complaints and it was a small price to pay for peace and quiet. In fact, he proved to be an asset on tours by providing a second opinion. I figured if both he and his brother didn't like a particular school, there must be something to it.</g></p>
<p>hey the shuffle ipods are pretty cheap compared to the 60gb ones!
I am getting my younger daughter one for bd, you can use them to transfer big files too- :)</p>
<p>We never really did a big college tour.While we did visit 3 schools together, two more than once, we didn't do it as a family or visit more than one school at a time. Not enough time, not enough money. My younger daughter did come with visiting two of the schools, at Evergreen she was BORED even though we brought a laptop for her to play games on. I had to pay more attention to her and less to the visit. ( of course she was barely 11, a 14 yr old will be more autonomous) Husband didn't visit until moving in day at Reed.( sister was at camp)</p>
<p>If my husband had been able to come it would have been much easier, because they could split up, but as it was I had to drag sis around to every thing and in the Northwest that meant in the rain</p>
<p>I had to drag two siblings, one age 14, with us when my oldest did her big college-hunting trip.</p>
<p>They behaved reasonably ok for about the first two colleges. After that they became increasingly impatient/ bored, and eventually became actually disruptive. My daughter cut short her visit to one school largely because of their behavior.</p>
<p>I tried to break up the trip by spending a day/ night at Sturbridge Village, I think was the place. They liked that well enough, but then were back to their prior behavior when we needed to look at schools again.</p>
<p>The 14-year old was the worst. I gave her the whole spiel about how she should be looking too, as long as we're there, and who knows if we'll be able to go back to all these schools for her, etc. She didn't care. She decided she was not prepared to be interested in colleges at that particular time, and nothing else mattered. (Brat).</p>
<p>If I had it to do over again, I would try harder to find a way to leave the other kids home.</p>
<p>Have you asked your son if he wants to go? If he answers with a resounding No, try to find someone he can stay with. We started visiting colleges that we happened to be near when my son was about that age. We only checked out colleges we thought he might eventually be interested in (we had a pretty good idea of the kinds of schools he was headed towards by the time he was 14). My husband and I got something out of it on his behalf, but he got nothing out of it, and practically had to be dragged out of the car at times. At Stanford (where he later applied) he waited with a book while the parents did the tour. He wasn't very interested in MIT at that age either, but he's now planning to go there in the fall. If anything, the urban atmosphere of Boston was an impression from that family trip that had to be overcome when he was actually ready to look at colleges with the eye of someone actually applying. What you are proposing dragging your son along on is much more than what we did - we would spend maybe 3 hours of a one week touristy vacation looking at some campus. You're talking about a whole trip centered around looking at colleges. I vote for leaving him at home unless he has an active desire to go. Alternately, the parents should split up and one parent go off and do things with him that he would be at least somewhat interested in.</p>
<p>kathiep, I'm with you! S is barely interested himself now that HE is the one needing to do the visits. We didn't take him on any visits when we were looking with D. The very thought of it makes me shudder. The IPOD Shuffle idea is a good one, though.</p>
<p>I also like having the one-on-one time with my college shopping child. Instead of trying to keep #2 happy you can focus on #1. (actually, isn't this #2 and #3?) With my daughter, she was so darn busy all the time that our college visits were pretty special to me because I wasn't sharing her with her brothers or father. Now that I'm visiting with my son, I'm getting to know my quiet guy a lot better too.</p>
<p>I'd try to leave him with a relative if possible so that you can really focus on the task at hand. </p>
<p>This reminds me of our summer baseball trips. My husband, son, oldest daughter and myself could spend every day going to baseball games. My two younger daughters would rather be at a forced labor camp. We always include other activities to keep everyone happy. There's a certain amount of having to do what you have to do in life though.</p>
<p>I think the younger siblings should go. Our youngest went on the last college trip and I think it was a great experience. The sibling got a t-shirt from two or three colleges. We had fun enjoying a meal at each campus union. They got a kick out of the presentations and tours. After about the fifth session they joked that they could give the talk and the tour if they could learn to walk backward. We compared student to squirrel ratios rather than student to faculty.</p>
<p>On the serious side, after the sibling heard how important class selection, grades, test scores and activities were in college admisssion, I think they had a greater respect for what would be required in the high school years.</p>
<p>All families are different, despite Tolstoy. ;-) We have always emphasized family outings, and this was one more of those. We brought younger sib along and she knew her comments re campus, classes, etc. would all be welcomed by her older sib. </p>
<p>However, be careful. Younger sib fell in love with one school on that big college trip! At the age of 15, she had made up her mind that that school was the one she would be going to, period. When it was time to really apply, she had been dreaming about it for years and it took some hard thinking for her to recognize that it did not offer the programs she wanted and that it was time to let go.</p>
<p>I love you guys! Thanks! Kathie, son's initial reaction was "yuck" but last night he (grudgingly) said he'd go if we got him drum lessons. We don't really have any friends he can stay with for a week and staying at grandma and grandpa's house isn't an option (they're in the tax business and that's peak time for them). Unfortunately, if I am honest with myself, he is not going to be a happy camper. And, when son is not happy, no one in his immediate area is happy. I suspect that driving all over the midwest by myself will be a lot less painful than dragging him along. Sigh.</p>