Family is thinking of travelling to the NE to visit most of the Ivies. Logistically, it seems the best option may be to start at UPenn and go to P, C, Y, B, H and finish at Dartmouth? Probably skip Cornell due to the location. Is there a best/cheapest airport to fly into from Texas? It appears Boston is cheapest but may not be the best starting point? Any ideas?
You can really think creatively, since, with Cornell, you would essentially be making a loop. For example, you could fly to Syracuse and then proceed to Ithaca, Princeton, Philadelphia, New Haven, Providence, Cambridge and Hanover before returning to Syracuse. The entire trip, as measured by the distance between extreme points, would keep you within the boundaries of Texas
Are you starting with all reach schools? It might be a better idea to mix some matches and sateties in, as odds are good that kid may end up at one instead. And it will be a pain to have to make more visits late in the game, and stressful to apply to schools not visited. Also, the Ivies vary quite a bit in personality. Really, no student would be happy at all of them. You can probably narrow it down before going and focus on more of a mix of schools.
The Fiske Guide to Colleges is a great resource to read up on the strengths and vibe of each Ivy, and also to identify some lower ranked schools to see as well.
I see now that your C referred to Columbia. My post was written as if Cornell was tentatively in.
If I were you, I would start at Penn, then catch a train to NYC, visit Columbia, if you had an extra day, you could fit in Princeton either before NYC, or a day trip, while you stay in NYC. Day 3 hit New Haven on the train, and stay two days. first day visit, Yale, and on the second day, drive up to Providence. Last segment, I would train to Boston to visit Harvard. If you plan right, its doable all in one week.
Only schools missing would be D and C.
Agreeing with @intparent. Do some homework, and visit some of the great colleges you will be driving by anyway. Cornell, Dartmouth and Brown are pretty different, and stretch your loop substantially. If research suggests that kid prefers A > B, add in competitive LACs that are more like the preferred college along the way.
Dartmouth is a good 2+ hour drive from Boston, and unless you’re then going to drive back to Boston, there’s no way you’re getting a direct flight to Texas from any of those airports. Unless there’s specific interest in Dartmouth, if you’re willing to just skip Cornell to be convenient you might as well just skip Dartmouth too. Then you can start either in Philly or Boston.
Since you said Boston is cheaper and now you’re not doing Darmouth, fly into Boston for Harvard, take MBTA commuter rail to Providence for Brown, take Amtrak to New Haven for Yale, take Metro North to NYC for Columbia, take NJ Transit to Princeton for Princeton, and then I’d suggest driving from Princeton to Philly for Penn rather than taking the trains/busses since it will take significantly longer. Then fly back to Texas from Philly.
If you still want to start in Philly, just do the reverse.
In my itinerary (#1, with Cornell), Philadelphia and Princeton should be reversed. New York and New Haven would then follow from Princeton.
Thanks, DDs safeties will be in Texas most likely. Agree we will probably try to reduce the list and she is aware these are reaches for virtually everyone. DD wants a school with at least 5k+ students. She would be a recruited athlete and has had some positive feedback from an Ivy coach but again knows its still a reach. She has to be on campus to get a feel for the school though. We have researched the web for several other schools and traveled to them and got a completely different feel once there.
We are used to driving everywhere :-(. Would it not be advisable to rent a car for the duration of the trip or are some schools just too difficult to drive to?
No, you could easily drive to each of these schools and do a one way rental from BOS to PHL or vice vera, I just imagine between the rental, gas, and potentially parking that it would end up costing more. I must admit I wasn’t thinking about how many people “family” was and so the costs of trains for 5 people is of course very different than the cost for 1 person.
Don’t know if your DD’s 5k number is undergrads only or not, but Dartmouth undergrad is <5k students.
Honestly, you should just stay in NYC, take public transportation to Columbia, NJ Transit to Princeton, bus to Yale, bus to UPenn, then check out from your hotel, and do Amtrak to Brown, and continue north and do Amtrak to Harvard.
There really are colleges worth paying for outside of Texas that a top student might prefer to an Ivy. Williams, Amherst, Swat, Wellesley for example.
Thanks for the advice. Intparent, thanks those colleges don’t meet the “size” requirement DD is looking for.
No, that’s definitely not the way to do it. Now you’re adding return trips to 3 of the schools which would probably add about 7+ extra hours of travel time. The only reason to do it this way is if you want to be in NYC for multiple evenings, otherwise it’s far more efficient to go city to city and the fewer nights in NYC the cheaper the trip will be.
None of these are even close to the >5k students requirements though.
There are some great airfares available, and finding the best ones might determine your route. If you are in Houston area, for example, you might be able to fly Frontier to Trenton Airport. That is just minutes from Princeton, within an hour from Philly, and an easy drive to NYC. You should figure out which hub will be cheapest to fly into from your vicinity, and then figure out an efficient loop, depending on whether you plan to rent a car or rely primarily on public transportation. You would almost certainly need your own wheels to get up to Dartmouth.
Otherwise, you can fly into southernmost (ie. Philly, unless you decide to add DC/Baltimore to trip) and out of northernmost (ie. Boston) hubs . . . or vice versa. Transportation between most of the locations is pretty easy. The “fast-bus” between Philly and NYC is much less expensive than Amtrak. A car rental makes sense, though, if there are going to be several of you traveling.
Pomona in the 5Cs would, just didn’t suggest because it won’t fit in on this trip. 
Be careful with One way rental. Sometimes the rate id 5x the regular rate.
We flew into Newark. Stayed in NJ. Hit Princeton, Penn then drove to Yale. Yale done, drove to Brown. Stayed in providence. Then drove to Boston…Harvard. Next day drove to Cornell (don’t skip Cornell! It’s a beautiful campus. Then drove down to NYC!
We put lots of miles on rental car but had a wonderful time and used drove time to decompress and discuss what my son thought of the schools.
Good luck
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5K overall or >5K undergrad? (Dartmouth undergrad falls a bit under the mark.)
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