<p>I've looked at the very helpful older threads on Pacific Northwest college road trips and would love to have some of you veterans chime in on my rough draft of an itinerary.</p>
<p>The goal here is to get a taste of some of the colleges in the area and to possibly return to the more serious contenders later, therefore, some places will not get the attention/time that they probably deserve. Timeframe is early to mid-September.</p>
<p>Day 1 drive from Seattle area
Morning visit to University of Puget Sound. Take tour and make notes for possible future visits. Main goal, just get a quick sense of the campus.</p>
<p>Drive on to Portland.
Afternoon visit to Lewis and Clark College. Evening in downtown Portland, foodie restaurant and Powell's books.</p>
<p>Day 2
Voodoo and possible morning return to L&C. Drive to Eugene. U of O tour. Neither U of O nor OSU will be in session and I am thinking that both schools probably are going to be too big to make the final list, so I am planning on just getting a quick look of the campuses.
Drive to Corvallis. Afternoon tour of OSU.
Either drive to Salem or overnight in Corvallis.</p>
<p>Day 3
all day at Willamette. This LAC is probably the main focus of the trip. Tour, info session, possible interview. Overnight in Salem.</p>
<p>Day 4
Drive to McMinnville. Quick tour of Linfield. Drive back to Seattle in the afternoon.</p>
<p>Will do more Seattle/Washington state colleges later in the year. Deliberately left off Reed, University of Portland and Pacific, so not looking to incorporate them at this time.</p>
<p>I look forward to your trip reports when you get back, especially Lewis and Clark.!!</p>
<p>It sounds like fun! My only suggestion would be to allow more time for U of O. The school is beautiful. They have an honors program that has a lot of perks, and the town of Eugene would be a wonderful place to spend four years. They give tours even when school isn’t in session. Try to schedule one.
I’m a Californian and only visited U of O after my kids were already launched, but I was very impressed with the tour, the campus, and loved the fact that it was right in the middle of Eugene.
You’ll be able to take in the campus of Lewis and Clark in a couple of hours, or less. It’s very, very small, and a bit isolated. Use some of that time to explore U of O.
Take my opinion with a grain of salt, as I have no idea what your future plans are.</p>
<p>This just came out last week, for your dinner in Ptd:</p>
<p>[Portland</a>, Oregon Dining & Restaurant Guide | Diner from The Oregonian - OregonLive.com](<a href=“http://www.oregonlive.com/diner-2012/]Portland”>http://www.oregonlive.com/diner-2012/)</p>
<p>Andina is in the Pearl District close to Powell’s, it’s been top of the list for several years. There’s also a Voodoo in Eugene now, if you miss it in Ptd.</p>
<p>Day 1&2 look tight but doable, anytime you do two schools and significant travel you’ll have to stick to a strict timetable. You might want to overnight in Corvallis night 2, less travel that day and better restaurants IMO, but I’m biased ;).</p>
<p>Interesting list to leave on linfield and leave off U of P and Pacific.
We always visited one school at a time. Older D toured L& C, Puget Sound,Linfield and U of O with her school, I looked at L& C & Pacific with the youngest.</p>
<p>Seems like a lot to do both U of O & OSU the same day, but otherwise you have everything nicely spaced. If you haven’t been to the downtown Powells before, I’d suggest downloading their app, or at least pick which book sections you want to look at ahead of time.
We just ate at the Deschutes brewery which is close to powells, they were very good.they have a gluten free menu & H had a crab meat sandwich that was full of crab.
We also like Pho Van, but I probably wouldnt consider either a foodie place. D is interested in trying lots of microbrews though.</p>
<p>I second whoever recommended UofO. The campus is gorgous - its definitely one of the better schools in oregon. </p>
<p>Their business school & accounting program in particular are excellent with lots of businesses in the Portland and Bay area recruiting those students. </p>
<p>However, if you are looking for small schools. I had a friend who went to Corban University (in Salem) and liked it alot. Don’t know anything else about it though.</p>
<p>Sounds very good overall. I’d do some research on OSU and U of O before the trip, especially consider where they would fit since seeing both is going to take some time.</p>
<p>kathie, I am in the process of doing some more in-depth research. From my initial look, I was leaning to UofO being the better fit of the two.</p>
<p>I don’t think a very large school is going to be a good fit in any case, but between the two, I got the sense that UofO was less fratty, stronger academically with the exception of engineering, and less of a large state school feel. People who know others who attend both schools are now telling me otherwise, so yes, definitely, more research is in order.</p>
<p>I have heard excellent things about Clarks Honors, but when I look at the tuition I don’t think that option works well for OOS. Anyone have any experience with this?</p>
<p>Definitely consider distance and traffic on this trip. Depending on when you leave Tacoma, it could take 3 hours to get into Portland. We usually allow 4 to get through Seattle, Tac, JBLM, and the Portland freeways to our usual destination.</p>
<p>It’s a long way to Eugene and I probably wouldn’t think about doing a return to L&C and UofO and OSU in the same day. My D and I drove Portland to Corvallis for a tour of OSU and it took most of the day. Fitting in OU wouldn’t have worked without short changing one or the other. Fortunately, OU wasn’t ever under consideration. L&C and Linfield are doable in a day.</p>
<p>For people in the west looking at OOS western colleges.
[Western</a> Undergraduate Exchange (WUE) | Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education](<a href=“http://www.wiche.edu/wue]Western”>Save On College Tuition | Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE))</p>
<p>OSU is a typical land grant college, it’s strengths are engineering, agriculture, forestry, and other applied sciences. Not to say other areas can’t be proficient, but these are it’s stronger, larger programs. </p>
<p>Agree w/zeebamam that traffic is always questionable, it depends on the time of day and luck. </p>
<p>I hadn’t realized that Clarks Honors college is a few k higher for OOS than regular UO tuition. I do know that UO has been known to give some small merit awards to OOS applicants.</p>
<p>zeebamom, thanks so much! </p>
<p>Now I am seriously wondering if I should keep OSU on the list.
For some one who is not instate in OR and not a sports fan, what would the draw of OSU be over U of O, and more specifically either one over UW, Western Wash or WSU?</p>
<p>I was under the impression that U of O might be a good, but slightly less selective alternative to UW’s business program, for example, but obviously am still learning about the Oregon schools.</p>
<p>IMV:
- UofO and UW are comparable - being the best business schools in their respective states. Portland and Seattle businesses recruit massively out of their respective schools.
It’d come down to location. If you want to live in the big city, Seattle, or smaller city, Eugene. </p>
<ul>
<li>Western WA, WSU, & OSU are lessor business programs (in comparison to UW & UO). All three are more “college town” environments, WSU being the extreeme, when compared to UO & UW. If you go to WSU, prepare for some brutally cold & snowy winters. Western Washington’s campus is beautiful. </li>
</ul>
<p>Based on strengths of their programs alone, i’d pick UW if you want to live/work in WA/Seattle after graduation and UO if OR/Portland is more your taste. But the very best students will find success no matter where they go.</p>
<p>I would also highly suggest Little Big Burger, across from Powell’s Books. Yummy little morsels and to die-for truffle fries. If you’re looking at L&C, you might also want to look at University of Portland and Pacific. I’ve heard Pacific is pretty generous with merit aid and UofP has a major expansion underway.</p>
<p>^Love those fries! And there’s one in Eugene now too.</p>
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</p>
<p>These comments are about the schools in general, not for business:</p>
<p>As I stated earlier, for engineering and many applied sciences, the choice is often OSU over UO.</p>
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<p>UW - I can’t think of many (any?) reasons why one would choose to be an OOS @ an OR public over IS @ UW. Maybe if the student was from Seattle and wanted to get further from home, but I don’t think that’s worth the cost differential.</p>
<p>WW - I think both OSU and UO are arguably stronger schools than WW, in many fields. Worth the money???</p>
<p>WSU - OSU and WSU are very similar in academic strengths, very different in location.</p>
<p>*
WW - I think both OSU and UO are arguably stronger schools than WW, in many fields. Worth the money???*
If you want a larger school than WWU, OSU has about 10,000 more students and UO is larger than that.</p>
<p>Kiplinger ranks both public and private schools for value.
[FAQs</a> on Our Public College Rankings](<a href=“FAQs on Our Public College Rankings | Kiplinger”>FAQs on Our Public College Rankings | Kiplinger)
In their top 100 for public OOS schools, UW ranks18, WWU ranks 75 & UO ranks 98.</p>
<p>DS visited and applied to several school on your list. Another you might want to consider is University of Portland. It’s in Portland, but feels suburban. About 3000 students and seems to give pretty good merit money. It is a Catholic school, but didn’t feel overly religious. Someone also mentioned Corban University. Just be aware that it is a Christian college.</p>
<p>OSU and U of O each have there supporters and many who wouldn’t consider attending the other school. You’ll have to visit and decide. Not having a tie to either and looking at my ds’s classmates attending each of them, it seems like many of the stronger students are going to U of O.</p>
<p>I take it your (the OP’s) family has no interest in PLU nor Evergreen in the UPS area?</p>
<p>Evergreen would be a great choice for a different type of student. </p>
<p>Don’t know much about PLU, but don’t think I could get the student to consider anything with a religious reference in the name…</p>
<p>You might want to check when UPS’s Fall Preview Day is. My D and my H went and got such a nice, deeper view than the usual tour. Really well done, and it put UPS higher on her list. </p>
<p>We live in Eugene-- Eugene is bigger than Corvallis, and some find Corvallis too small, but I find Corvallis rather charming, and both campuses are really nice. OSU has a “tighter” feel to thei campus, and is better for engineering, pre-vet, things like that. </p>
<p>If you’re tired after your OSU day you can stay in Corvallis; but Salem is very very close. Salem is the least interesting by far of the cities you’ll be seeing in OR, but WU is very nice. Too small and too close to home for my D, but a real up-and-coming school and they give lots of money!!! (So does UPS).</p>