My son has an upcoming summer camp at Stony Brook, and prior to that we were thinking of doing some college tours.
The night before camp starts we were thinking of touring NYU and Columbia in a single day. NYU has a 10-Noon tour/info-session and Columbia has a 3-5PM tour and info session. But I have a few questions about this.
How long would it take to get from NYU to Columbia by car, if we left just past noontime?
How long would it take to get from Columbia to Stony Brook, again by car, if we left Columbia around 5:15PM?
I know that traveling by car in NYC is a pain, but given that we are driving to see colleges that week, there’s really no way around that. I suppose an alternative would be to leave the car at NYU and take the train to/from Columbia, and I would welcome comments on if that would make getting to Stony Brook faster.
What weekday? On Sundays on-street parking is generally free in NYC. Likewise on Saturdays it is possible to find free parking around Columbia. During the work week outbound traffic around 5pm from Columbia towards Stony Brook is likely to be very heavy. Otherwise Columbia to SBU should take about 1h30mins, NYU to Columbia perhaps 30mins.
@hebegebe The most valuable part of both tours was the info sessions. Unfortunately the Columbia tour was just looking at the buildings outside, we were not even allowed in after the info session. We were supposed to be shown a dorm and when we got to the building suddenly it wasn’t available. It was a lot of walking and it’s a pretty campus but the info session was enough. For NYU we also didn’t see any dorms if that matters to you.
I’d respectfully disagree with the above post…we found a number of campus tours to be more valuable than information sessions. Campus tours are often led by students who can give useful insights into college life and walking around campus can help prospective students to get a better sense of the school.
In terms of logistics…where will you be staying? what day of the week will you be in NYC?
@happy1 I didn’t say tours were not valuable, in the case of Columbia the info session provided the most valuable info for us and we were surprised that the tour did not involve going inside the buildings which can give better insight into campus life. If you were low on time and had asked all questions you needed to ask from the student tour guide sticking till the end wasn’t necessary.
NYU tours do go inside a number of buildings if not the dorms, though. And a number of the dorms are open for admitted students days.
(I have to say we found Columbia’s attitude to applicant tours to be somewhat dismissive to the applicants in general, but maybe we jist had a poor combination of people we interacted with.)
Perhaps during heavy traffic it could take from 1:30h to up to 2:30h from Columbia to SBU. By the way, nearby Port Jefferson is nice, could be a good stop over spot for dinner.
I would imagine Columbia would actually be easier to park near, given that it’s much more residential in comparison to downtown Manhattan? And it’s only about an hour by train–with those tour times you should be completely fine.
I would say the same thing. You have enough time between the tours to get some lunch and then take the subway to Columbia. After Columbia, have dinner in NYC and leave for SBU later in the evening. The LIE is a slow moving parking lot during rush hour.
Thanks everyone. The one unknown so far are the check-in times for the dorm at Stony Brook, as that may influence whether we eat in NYC or have to deal with the slow moving parking lot. We should hear back about that in a couple of weeks.