Is this college visit itinerary too packed?

Parents Forum
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<p>Hi everyone - I have been a dedicated lurker but I could really use some help right now. Everyone on these boards is so knowledgeable and helpful, it's really unbelievable! I am planning a spring break college visit trip for my S'13. We are fortunate to live in the northeast and so we have been able to visit several schools already that are within driving distance. I am hoping to use spring break to do our one "airplane" visit. We are planning to fly into one city, rent a car, and fly home out of another city. Here is the proposed itinerary:</p>

<p>Sunday April 1 - Fly from Philly to Atlanta in the afternoon, stay that night in Atlanta. My sister went to Emory so I am hoping she will have some suggestions on places to eat or see that day, but I'm not too concerned about it. </p>

<p>Monday April 2 - Visit GA Tech - info session, tour, college of computing specialty visit. This should end around 5 pm, so we would get some dinner and then drive to Tuscaloosa, which should take about 2.5 hrs., and stay there that night.</p>

<p>Tuesday April 3 - Visit Bama - not sure of schedule yet, I have been in touch with the college of engineering and also the honors college and they are putting something together. I assume it will be pretty much all day. Once we are done, again grab some dinner, and then drive to Nashville, which should take about 3 hrs. </p>

<p>Wednesday April 4 - Visit Vanderbilt - info session and tour should be from about 10-12:30. I can't find any specialty visits on their site so I don't know if there is anything else we should look at. This is the day with our longest drive though, so it might not be so bad to be done by early afternoon. We are planning to drive from there to St. Louis, which will take about 5 hrs (we might go via Sikeston and go to Lamberts Cafe, in which case it would be 4 hrs and then another 2.5, but it might be worth it to let the kids experience Lamberts!).</p>

<p>Thursday April 5 - Visit Wash U - spend however long and then take flight home that night from St. Louis at 6:45 pm.</p>

<p>I tried to follow the advice on these boards to only do one school a day, and also to arrive the night before where you will be visiting the next day. It just seems like it might be a lot to cram in to one trip! But if we are spending the money to fly, I want to make sure we see more than a couple of schools. We have been very leisurely up till now, just seeing a school here and there when we had a day off or something, so this is our first actual college visit trip.</p>

<p>I really appreciate any feedback or suggestions!</p>

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<p>I think its completely doable. With my eldest we did Duke UNC Davidson Wake and something else a few years back in a long weekend. And then followed up by UVA WL Richmond Georgetown and PA colleges. It sounds a bit like “if its Tuesday it must be Belgium” but in reality the back to back nature of visits allows you to crystallize what you like in one and whether the others have it or not. An advice that I received from a more experienced parent regarding college visits had been not to voice your opinion before you heard your kid’s. Very wise.</p>

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<p>I think you are fine with one college per day, arriving the day before – as long as you know exactly how you and your family are with distance driving, and as long as you don’t need to spend time getting to know the cities in which the schools are located. Also, you need to know your student’s (and other family members’) stamina levels. My student #2 simply could not do more than 2-3 schools on a trip, but his older brother could have done this schedule.</p>

<p>For us, many of our schools were in small towns or cities and driving in the night before, seeing the school and driving out was sufficient. But if we had never seen Atlanta, that would not do. S2 and H had never been to Chicago, so we scheduled a mini vacation there before we did the one night in each town for the schools in the Chicago area. For the schools in the Cleveland area, we did the night before we left on the big driving circle, and the last night and full day before we drove out, so he had an idea of the metro area.</p>

<p>On the other hand, I think the schools are more important, and you can get to know the cities after acceptances if you have to juggle the time that way!</p>

<p>Best of luck!</p>

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<p>It will be hectic but certainly doable … with two kids I’ve done days with 2 schools a day which both my kids and I thought were still very helpful … given limited time squeezing in lots of schools is often the best option.</p>

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<p>I think you’ve got a great plan. We did multi-school road trips in '09 and '11 that were much worse. You’ve got a nice balance.</p>

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<p>Sounds well thought out to me. Five schools doesn’t sound like too many for this trip and the drives are not all day affairs. You also seem to have some noncollege events in mind and enough time for flexibility so it will be a vacation as well as work seeing schools. He will have plenty of time to absorb things while sitting in the car and for a few months before applying. You also are being coherent in hitting southern schools then Wash U, he should get a sense of any common threads in the region. He also has had college campus visits so he’ll know more aboout the whole concept. Brilliant!</p>

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<p>Make sure you bring a GPS or rent one!</p>

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<p>It sounds like a reasonable trip, unless you are the kind of who get burned out of looking at colleges. </p>

<p>In our experience a lot of these info sessions all starte sounding the same. The woman at Lafayette was so boring, and took so long we ended up walking out. However, the woman at Lehigh gave great tips on essays and interviewing.</p>

<p>We did pittsburgh, rochester, and 2 nights in bethlehem. I was sure to check trip advisor to find out neat places to eat on the road. </p>

<p>Also, depending on budget we tried to get suites where ds had his own bedroom, he did not at all enjoy our snoring and going to sleep earlier than him. In Bethlehem he got his own connecting room and he was in a far better mood on the tours.</p>

<p>The interesting thing is when they absolutely hate the school and don’t want to tour after travelling so far.</p>

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<p>Sounds like a good plan to me. We had several multi-day trips that included 2 schools in a day, so your plan seems almost leisurely to me.</p>

<p>One other peice of advice would be to write down each day what everyone liked or disliked about each school (we called it pros and cons and I consolidated the list later)- S goes first as suggested. Otherwise by the end of the week they all roll together. We also took a picture and noted the name of each tour guide just as a future memory jogger of each college.</p>

<p>And try to have fun!!</p>

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<p>If you can drive the 200 or so miles between Atlanta and Tuscaloosa in 2 1/2 hours, you must drive a lot faster than I do!</p>

<p>Seriously, I would allow 3 1/2 hours between those two cities, and 4 hours between Tuscaloosa and Nashville.</p>

<p>I would be exhausted after such a trip, but I know there are those who have more stamina (and a more leaden foot) than I do.</p>

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<p>Very leisurely since we sometimes did two schools in one day (but they were in the same city)! And if you can spare the time, definitely do the throwed rolls at Lambert’s.</p>

<p>Have fun!</p>

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<p>kttmom has offered good advice re tracking the pros and cons at each school - they do all run together. And when S needs to write that ‘why I want to go to x’ essay, he’ll be grateful for that list to job his memory.</p>

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<p>Agree that your driving times are not realistic from Atlanta and to Nashville. Otherwise, sounds doable. I, too, would want to see something of the cities, though, especially Atlanta and Nashville. To me, part of the draw of Vanderbilt is that Nashville is an amazing place to be, and the city is very accessible to the students.</p>

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<p>Definitely agree with the one-school-a-day and arrive-the-night-before approach, since many of our tours were early morning. It also depends on the child…my D gets burnt out fairly easily. What we also did to help crystalize her choice was to arrange an interview at each school with someone (usually department head) of the major she was interested in pursuing. This was very helpful and she received great feedback from these people.</p>

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<p>We used to live in Georgia, and would drive to an outlet across the Alabama border. Because we crossed a time zone, we would arrive in Alabama before we left Georgia! Of course driving home took MUCH longer.</p>

<p>That said, perhaps the time change is a factor in the length of the Atlanta to Tuscaloosa trip.</p>

<p>My H took S and 2 friends on a 9 day, 17 school tour in August - thankfully I wasn’t along, but they had a ball and all three boys have applied ED or EA to schools they visited on the trip as a result. Your itinerary sounds more my pace!</p>

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<p>Thanks so much for the feedback! I was using the estimated times on Google Maps directions for my times - I have no idea how long those trips will take. Oh, I just checked - meant to write 3.5 hours not 2.5 hours from Atlanta to Tuscaloosa. :slight_smile: And it does appear that AL - Nashville will be 4 hours. We are not huge fans of driving but at least it is in reasonable chunks. I am also considering renting a minivan so we have room to spread out.</p>

<p>Re: Nashville - We used to live in northwest Tennessee (which is why I know about Lambert’s!) and I am pretty familiar with Nashville, and I know my S would like it there. Of course it would be nicer to spend more time there but we will have plenty of time to do that if he decides on Vanderbilt.</p>

<p>I do think this will be a bit exhausting, but I don’t really see any other way to do a Southern swing, and since he prefers warm weather I think there is a reasonable possibility he will end up at one of these schools. So we will suck it up and go for it!</p>

<p>Thanks again and any other suggestions are most welcome!</p>

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<p>I think it is a good plan. I did similar trips in 2006, 2007 and earlier this year. One school a day plus driving works out well. I tend to not say much. The drive after the visit was always good. My kids would mull over what they had seen and the comments would roll out as the miles went by.</p>

<p>I enjoyed this time with my kids. Hope you have a great trip.</p>

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<p>I applaud your plan to arrive in the city the evening before your tour. This helped us immensely in our ability to really appreciate each school and area. One thing we did that was really helpful was keep a journal for each school. I was a voracious note taker- love the stats and black and white info, my child wrote more on the professors, students, special programs, and her general “vibe”. My husband was the photographer and well documented each school. This all came in handy once digesting each school and putting together the whole picture. I hope you all have a great time! :)</p>

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<p>eyemamom - where did you look on trip advisor for places to eat along the way? That’s a great idea!</p>

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<p>I agree with one school per day and getting there the night before.
I can share what we did last year with S. He narrowed his schools out of region to 3. We took 5 days to cover the 3 schools. If your S has narrowed it to 5 schools, then go with your plan. Our schools were Hopkins, Emory and Wash U. We did fly.</p>

<p>By having 4 schools we were able to spend 1 1/2 days at each. We stayed overnight at Wash U (hotel on campus). We were able to spend a night in each city.</p>

<p>We also put together a list of criteria for S to evaluate each school He weighted the criteria by importance to him (3 most important to 1 least). He rated each criteria for each school 1-10 right when the visit was complete (and his thoughts were fresh). A week after the visit we looked at the weighted rating for each school.</p>

<p>GL.</p>