My daughter will compete in a National Champiionships in Providence, RI in early-mid June. She/we are wanting to tour all the Ivy League schools except Cornell. We will already be in Providence so Brown will be easy. But then we have the North and South trails to decide on. Does anyone know how the train systems work up there? I have never taken a train except the Surfliner along the Pacific coast. The Northeast has so many more options. Is there a web-site or something that discusses Ivy League tours by train somewhere? We are flying into Providence so I was thinking Providence to Boston and NH and then back south to CT, Penn, NY and NJ. Does anyone know the train routes for these schools or give me your best effort.
Please no questions about why we want to visit all of these schools since they are all different. Well there is the answer. I see these conversations get off topic so easily, please stay on topic, that is your idea about getting from point A to point B and C and D etc
I will get it out the way before someone else says it – visiting all reach schools (which the Ivies are) is not a well thought out approach to identifying colleges to apply to. Start with matches and safeties – reaches should be the last/lowest priority on your visit list. Carry on.
Last summer I took a trip and visited: Georgetown, Northeastern, Providence, Harvard, and Columbia - in that order.
Here’s how we took the trip:
Friday: Flew from home --> DC for a school competition (so free one-way trip, which was nice)
Monday: Visited Georgetown, flew Dulles (DC) --> Logan (Boston)
Tuesday: Visited Northeastern
Wednesday: took the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority train to Providence in the morning (please do not take Amtrak, so much more expensive and they go to the exact same stations), visited Brown, took MBTA train back to Boston
Thursday: Visited Harvard, flew Logan --> JFK (NYC) at night
Friday: Visited Columbia
Saturday: LaGuardia --> home
Luckily, the northeast is very compact.
So - I highly recommend the MBTA buses and trains. Cheapest option that we could find.
We also stayed Airbnb everywhere except DC (school paid for hotel) and NYC. I’d highly recommend it.
Please PM me if you need any more specifics! I planned the trip out and it went very well.
There is one main Amtrack line that runs from Boston down the coast to Washington. Boston is easy to get to by train. New Haven, New York and Philadelphia are also easy but going in the opposite direction. There is no train to Dartmouth. I think you have to drive for that one.
Edited to add: I wasn’t sure if the commuter rail went down to Providence but from whitespace’s post I guess it does. That would definitely be cheaper and easier than Amtrack for Boston.
ITA with @inparent regarding only visiting schools that are a reach for everyone. If there are any financial constraints, run the net price calculators now and have the financial talk with your school. It will make no sense to have her visit and fall in love with a school that you cannot afford or are unwilling to pay for her to attend.
Amtrak’s northeast regional route goes from Boston to Washington, stopping in places close to Ivies: Boston, Providence, New Haven, New York, Princeton Junction ( I think you need to take a commuter train to Princeton), Philadelphia. As already mentioned, there are commuter options between some cities.
I also agree with @intparent. You may be better served by making a list of a range of schools by acceptance rates in the northeast, researching and then deciding how to structure your tour rather than focusing on six schools (assuming Cornell and Dartmouth are out). There are tons of other schools just in the Boston area, and Philadelphia also has several noteworthy universities and colleges.
It seems a shame to go to Boston and just see Harvard. There are so many wonderful colleges in that area. Just to name a few: Tufts, NE, BC, Brandeis, Lesley, Simmons, Emerson, and the specialty schools like Berklee, MIT. There are a dozen more schools if you travel outside the area.
Amtrak and MBTA trains, as others have said. There is a very affordable Bolt bus from Boston to Washington via NYC and Philadelphia. Megabus is another one.
Use MBTA between Providence and Boston. Rent a car to Dartmouth and back to Boston. Bolt to New Haven then NYC then Philadelphia. You can get to Princeton via commuter rail.
You might want to include Tufts in Boston, yes.
You might want to look at the common data sets for those Ivy schools before your daughter gets her hopes up about attending them. Then you might want to show her the acceptance rate for the Ivy schools. You might want to talk to her about the need to visit non-Ivy schools, because the odds are not good for ANYONE getting into an Ivy school. Every year the Ivies reject thousands of perfect GPA, perfect test score students. Is your daughter only interested in Ivy schools, or the Northeast in general? I strongly urge your D to find some realistic schools to visit while you are in the Northeast, because it will be time consuming and expensive to come back and visit again. You are setting her up for potential huge disappointment if you only take her to visit Ivy schools. And you asked for best alternative, so my suggestion is to visit some safety and match schools too.
It would be far easier and probably cheaper to just rent a car when you get to Providence. Go to Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale, Columbia, Princeton and Penn in that order and fly out of Philadelphia Airport home. Good luck!
I visited most of the Ivies (not Dartmouth) with my daughter by bus and train. Megabus is an inexpensive option between a lot of the cities.Providence to New York via Megabus was cheaper and faster than the train. As others have said, commuter trains are much cheaper than Amtrak if you prefer trains to buses.
@intparent OP’s daughter might be a recruitable athlete or a potential national or even Olympic champion in which case visiting all the Ivies and top schools they want would make sense assuming she is also academically qualified.
Sheesh! OP specifically limited conversation to routes and travel. D is probably/potentially a recruited athlete (hint: competing at National Championships), so maybe the lectures about Ivy selectivity aren’t necessary.
OP, I would personally do this trip in a rented car ala Falcon1. Trains are a close second. Maybe things have changed, but my oldest used Megabus for a while, and I thought they were unreliable and usually well behind schedule. They’ve also been involved in some nasty accidents. Just my 2 cents.
If your heart is set on Dartmouth, okay, but I think the route would be much simpler if it included only 6 Ivies.
ETA: typing on an iPad makes me cross-post!
I wanted to add that as others have said bolt bus, mega bus, Amtrak or the Regional trains are best to get to the cities/towns where the schools are located but once in the towns you may need to take the T (in Boston) or a cab to get from the train station to campus. Provided you aren’t renting a car.
I know Penn is within walking distance of Philly Penn Station and Columbia is a subway ride away from New York Penn station. But I don’t think Princeton is within walking distance from the commuter rail.
Also you will need a car to get to Dartmouth. It might be worth pricing out a rental car in providence once your daughter is done in providence. Might be the best use of your time
I did a similar trip with kid #1 two years ago over spring break (visiting five of the seven schools). As others have said, you aren’t getting to Dartmouth by train, although if I recollect correctly there is a bus from Boston to Hanover. Trains are really only going to be convenient for the city schools, Penn, Columbia and Harvard. I am not sure how convenient the train is for Yale/New Haven and Brown/Providence. I believe you would need a taxi from both campuses to the train station, especially with luggage for an extended trip. Certainly you are going to need a taxi to a hotel in New Haven (not sure about Brown). In addition, while Princeton has a train station right at campus, you are probably going to need a taxi to get from campus to a hotel.
When you add in the problems of carrying what I assume will be a lot of luggage, I would really consider renting a car for the whole trip if I was in your position. If you really want to use trains as much as possible, maybe fly in to Logan before the championships, tour Harvard, bus to Dartmouth and back, then train down to Providence. Then pickup a car, drive to New Haven and then down to Princeton. Turn in the car and you can train from Princeton to Penn and Columbia fairly easily. ButI am really not sure that train travel is ideal for the trip you are contemplating.
I think that this sounds like a complicated trip. Although the six schools you are most likely to visit are close geographically, you’re talking major cities. My hint would be to visit the schools in the same way that you would drive your daughter there in August (or more importantly, the way you would pick her up in December)…which would probably be to fly in to Providence, Boston, New York, or Philly and rent a car. Driving will give you options and a better feel for the cities. As for only visiting ivy league schools, if this is the conference she will compete in that makes sense. Also, there is a lot of interesting history, even for non college applicants…Harvard the first college in the country, Princeton where Einstein worked, Penn a school founded by Ben Franklin, Columbia where Lou Gehrig attended, etc…they really can be tourist destinations even without a college hopeful in the car.
Again, I would strongly recommend having a car so you are not beholden to train schedules and lugging bags on and off of trains, subways, shuttles and taxis. However, if this is not an option for some reason, I would take the train from Providence to New Haven and visit Yale from there take the train to Boston and the T to Harvard.
You can take a bus from Boston’s South Station to Dartmouth’s campus. You can then take a taxi to White River Jct in Vermont and take the Vermonter to NYC but it’s a long ride to Penn St. You then take the subway uptown to Columbia.
From Penn St. you can to Princeton Junction and switch to the Dinky to get to Princeton St. and visit Princeton.
From Princeton you would need to take a train to Trenton, NJ and switch to a train to Philadelphia. The station is not far from UPenn.
After all this, it’s hard to imagine your daughter liking any Ivy League school 
My daughter and I took Metro-North from New York to New Haven and Amtrak from New Haven to Providence. It’s a short taxi ride from both train stations to Yale and Brown. There’s also a free shuttle bus between the train station and the New Haven Green, right next to the Yale campus. I think it only runs on weekdays.
I’m sure others have a point that the trip would be easier by rental car but I can tell you from personal experience that all the non-Dartmouth schools on the list are perfectly manageable without one. Dartmouth might be too but I haven’t been there.
Princeton has a private rail service, the “Dinky,” that runs from the commuter/Amtrak station to the campus. (Note that you can get an Amtrak train that stops at Princeton Junction, but not all of them do.) So it is as accessible by rail as any of the urban Ivies.
That said, it’s hard to believe that if “she/we” includes at least three people it wouldn’t be cheaper (or at least not a lot more expensive) and easier (a lot easier) to rent a car for the trip. Each leg of the trip is going to be $50+ per person on Amtrak.
If the cost is really a big issue, then, yes, Megabus and Bolt Bus are much, much cheaper than Amtrak between the major cities, and their buses are pretty nice (with free wifi). Generally, though, it takes more time. You can also take significantly less expensive (and significantly slower and less comfortable) commuter rail between Providence and Boston, and between New York, Princeton, and Philadelphia. It’s more expensive and maybe less comfortable than the buses, but generally more reliable. After years of experimentation, that’s how my kids travel between New York and Philadelphia these days.
ETA…you may find that renting a car is your best bet for this trip. All of those train trips…for,two…are going to add up big time. My suggestion has you flying into Philly…
My suggestion…fly into Philly. See Penn and Princeton. Take the train from philly to NYC…see Columbia. Train to New Haven…see Yale. Do this before the competition.
Then bus to Providence…or train. Go to competition. Then see Brown.
Then bus or train to Boston to see Harvard.
Rent a car and drive to Dartmouth. Drive back to Boston and fly home.
OR…fly into Boston…see rent a car and drive to Dartmouth. Drive back to Boston…ditch the car…see Harvard. Train to Providence. Go to competition…and then see Brown.
Train to New Haven…see Yale. Train to NYC see Columbia. Train to Philly…see Penn and Princeton.
Fly home from Philly.