@Midwestmomofboys OMG I cracked up at this: “Staying at a Comfort Inn near the highway and the John Deere dealer is not going to endear the town to you!” So true!! Thanks for making that a priority!! I love cute little towns, and I definitely want to arrange for the best impression for D. In Philly we may want to stay on the train line to the airport, so that’s easy to get to for our flight the next morning. I’ll look and see where the Radnor Inn is in relation to the airport. I’d rather be closer to the campus or airport than downtown. I’m really excited about seeing the Philly schools.
@magtf1 Oh - I didn’t think there would be a problem bringing luggage on the train. I’ll research that. We’ll each have a 24" suitcase and a backpack. I was figuring we’d keep the luggage at the front desk of the hotel in NYC while we went to the show - if they don’t allow it I think I remember that there are luggage storage places near Penn Station. I think the rest of the time we will have a car with a trunk to hide it in (we always cover items in our cars, we are used to living in a city being susceptible to car break-ins).
@Bromfield2 Do you happen to know why Clark doesn’t offer the 5th year free Master’s in Psychology?
@craspedia For Philly – the train to airport leaves from “Suburban Station” – (not suburban at all, it is in the part of Philly not far from U Penn – just is where the trains to suburbs leave from). The commuter line from Bryn Mawr and Haverford goes to Suburban Station, so if you leave H’ford, you’d need an uber/lift the 1/2 mile to Haverford train station, take commuter rail to Suburban train station in Philly, then change for train to airport. SEPTA is the name of train system in Philly, to google schedules etc. Feel free to PM me, as I’m a BMC alum who spent a lot of time at Haverford, and know the area well.
Nothing to add but I’m enjoying this group planning process, thinking fondly back on the trips I made with DD16 and getting excited about a summer college tour I’m starting to work on for DS19.
@Lindagaf I’m thinking Lewis & Clark is a good safety, and maybe Whitman. I do think she’ll be happy at a women’s college, especially Bryn Mawr which appears to be closely integrated with Haverford (the website says they can live in each others dorms). I also think Mt Holyoke almost qualifies as a safety, she’s a legacy there. We may also hit Lawrence over the summer, that would be a safety too.
I also created a shorter trip, that’s more relaxed, cutting out the Midwest, and adding UMass Amherst as a safety:
Tues – Fly to Philly
Wed – Haverford
Thur – Bryn Mawr, train to Vassar
Fri – Vassar, train to NYC
Sat – Day in NYC, Broadway show
Sun – Train to New Haven, pick up rental car, tour Wesleyan, drive to Wellesley 1:15
Mon – Wellesley, drive to Smith (Clark on the way?) 1:30
Tues – Smith, UMass Amherst
Wed – Mt Holyoke, drive to Skidmore 2:00
Thur – Skidmore, drive to Middlebury 1:45
Fri – Middlebury, fly home (or fly Sat)
I guess I’ll run these two scenarios both by D and see which she thinks she has the energy for. I’m happy with the day in NYC with both of these plans.
I just don’t want her to run out of gas by the time we hit the midwest schools. I see what you all are sayin’.
We stayed in downtown Philadelphia when we visited. You can take the Septa from downtown to both the Haverford and Bryn Mawr stations. It doesn’t take very long at all. We walked from the train station to the campuses (it’s not far at all). To be exact, we took Septa from downtown to Bryn Mawr station, toured BMC, took the Blue Bus (free bus that students take to get from one to the other) to Haverford, toured Haverford, and then walked to the Haverford station and took Septa back to our hotel. We took a taxi to the airport the next day, but you can also use the local rail to get there. The Radnor hotel is nice and convenient to the two schools, but you might need to rent a car if you stay there since it’s more suburban.
@MamaBear16 Yes, I definitely don’t want to rent a car in Philly, given the school is so close to the Septa.
If we fly into Philly, I thought we’d be jet lagged, that’s why I gave 2 days for BMC/Haverford in the above short plan. First day would be an afternoon tour, next day a morning tour. If we then take the train to Vassar, I’ll need to keep the luggage at the hotel after check out, so maybe we stay near the 30th St. train station in Philly (not sure what that area is like - do you know?)
We stayed near Logan Square once and near City Hall another time. We were tired and took a cab, but I think we were maybe 5 mins from 30th St. Station when we stayed on Logan Square. That was in a business district and it was fine walking around and getting to the Septa station from there. We were glad we didn’t have to worry about driving and Septa worked well for us.
ETA: if you have tourist time there is plenty to see in Philadelphia. A highlight for us was the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, but they also have great art museums there.
@craspedia, it looks like you have a couple of good plans and a fine set of schools. I would vote for a separate midwest tour if possible, but YMMV. Is there a particular Broadway show you hope to see?
Encourage you to arrive in Philly early enough to do something fun; there’s so much history and so many great museums (the Barnes collection is a terrific smaller museum, closed to the public on Tuesdays but you can book a “premier tour” for $. Watch “The Art of the Steal” on Netflix if you go to learn about how the will was broken and the collection moved to its current location) and great restaurants (we loved Vedge).
We made a total of three shorter college visit trips – think we saw Wake, Duke, UNC, and Davidson on one trip; Rhodes, Centre, Vanderbilt, & Sewanee on a different tour, and W&M, W&L, UVa, & Richmond on yet another. (D was open to a range of schools but wanted to stay within a particular geographic area.) I loved the process and would happily have seen more schools in more parts of the country if we could have had more school breaks, but I don’t think I could have managed more than a week at a time.
We flew from Denver. Red eye. Got in a 3am or something. Had sleeping bags and napped in the car before the Wesleyan tour. I don’t recommend this, but we were very limited for time.
We should have cut out Dartmouth, which D was meh on, and bit the bullet and driven to, say, Union, which was recommended to D. I wasn’t keen on adding long drives, but I could have. I’m afraid I was a bit ‘star struck’ looking at the Amhersts, Middlebury and Williams’s of the college circuit. It was hard to be more practical and realistic. We should have visited Bennington since we drove by it. It would have been good to see a different (much smaller school).
I felt our walk-through of Tufts didn’t give D much of a sense of the school. Without a tour or info session, all we did was walk around campus and the library. It was a longish drive from Wellesley to Tufts. I think Boston College is closer (maybe?)
Yes D did class visits as Wesleyan and Amherst. I did look at the schedules online before hand so I knew what would work time-wise. The approved classes are in in the visit section online. But I didn’t set anything up; you didn’t have to. D just showed up, introduced herself to the teacher and that was it. One was ‘ok’ (programming class) another was fun (Environmental Science).
BTW, my D is at St Olaf in the same town as Carleton. Easy shuttle multiple times a day to the airport from both campuses. Lots of direct flights to the west coast (where we are).
@thumper1 I took your advice to heart! I looked up Mall of America and the Flyover ride looks like Disneyland’s “Soarin” - fun!
@ayushkhaitan Thanks for the Philly tips. As for New York, I don’t know what show yet, but not Hamilton, thankfully we have tix to see Hamilton locally. If we do a separate Midwest tour, it’ll be summer and there won’t be any students. So that’s the benefit of doing it all in one trip. hmmmm… what to do, what to do…
@liska21 “We flew from Denver. Red eye. Got in a 3am or something. Had sleeping bags and napped in the car before the Wesleyan tour. I don’t recommend this, but we were very limited for time.” O. M. G. “I don’t recommend this” is the understatement of the thread! I am cracking up!
I’m really curious about class visits. Me, I’d be really nervous/awkward doing it. Your kids don’t mind sitting in with a bunch of college students in a topic they probably know little about? Do they give that much more insight to the process?
What if you get a dud professor, or a dud class of students? Has that happened to anyone and then the college is summarily removed from the list?
The midwest schools are sounding better and better to me. Maybe I’ll flip the schedule with those schools and put them first. I don’t want D to be burnt out when we see those.
We stayed there a few times when we were visiting our youngest D (she’s a BMC grad). I also liked the Wayne Hotel. http://waynehotel.com Both are older hotels–if you want something more spacious and modern, then downtown Philly is better. My H hated both places and when we went together we’d stay in the city.
@Bromfield2 Oooo! Thanks for the lodging tips! I’m liking the on-campus options (also at Vassar and Wellesley)! Wayne Hotel looks to be in the commercial area, which is also great!
@craspedia – Wayne Hotel is maybe 5 miles from Bryn Mawr. Main Line is set up basically as a series of lovely residential communities, with a “town” center with shops near the train station, each about a mile apart – literally. Narberth, Wynnewood, Ardmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Rosemont, Villanova, Radnor, St David’s, then Wayne. Bryn Mawr is more of a central location, with public library, hospital. Seeing “downtown” Wayne wouldn’t really translate for a prospective student’s experience. Wyndham House would be a great solution for overnight.
@craspedia yep, sitting in on a discussion class with dud students was a definite turnoff at one school. D sat in on classes that were interesting to her so she was able to generally follow along (think that was reassuring). Profs were uniformly welcoming, and a couple of them engaged her in conversation after class to offer to answer questions about the school or their department. We encouraged D to view these impressions as just another data point. It was good to have some free time while D was in class to form our own impressions from people-watching or browse a few shops in those small college towns.
Agree that sitting in on class was useful for my kid. The procedure for visiting class was usually specified somewhere on Admissions page – some schools said the students needed to contact the professor in advance to request a visit, others just gave my son a list of possible classes when he arrived. Some profs chatted with him afterwards, others didn’t really interact with him. Sitting in on class helped confirm he really wanted a small school with no lectures, and remove the nagging worry about being prepared for high level work. The experience of seeing how students interacted before/after class etc was instructive – whether students were relaxed and comfortable waiting for the prof in a small seminar room, how much interaction there was in the halls etc.
@liska21 When you went to Smith in the afternoon, after Amherst in the morning, did you feel you got a good sense of the place?
Right now, that’s the only pair (with Mt Holyoke in the morning + lunch at MoHo with a student) and I don’t want Smith to get lost. The lunch should over by 1:00 and the Smith info session is at 2:00 with Tour at 3:00.
Try not to base your schedule on info sessions. I think most people agree that in general, info sessions aren’t that useful. Some colleges make it difficult not to attend the info session, but if you have to choose, preference should be given to the tour.
The main problems with info sessions are:
Often, a parent will monopolize the session with questions specifically about their special snowflake.
Usually, all the info is easily found on the website.
They are often very dry and boring.
By the time you finish, you are already sick of the college.
You get much better student-centric info on the tours, especially if the parent asks all the questions their kid won’t ask.
As I said, the only genuinely good info session was at Clark, because it was a student Q and A with Clark students. Every college should do it that way, but they don’t. Northeastern’s was the worst, a slick video sales pitch hosted by a weird monotone guy that reminded me of Max Headroom, if anyone remembers him. We did try to avoid info sessions if we could. We visited, all told, over 25 colleges. Thankfully, we only had to go to about six info sessions.
ETA: My D liked sitting in on classes, but only did so after being accepted. She found that useful.
