<p>chinzy--we are going to NC for vacay in a few weeks also. Wondered if you'd mind sharing what schools you and your daughter visited? (any positive outcomes?) :-)</p>
<p>Hi all. I am lurking enviously out here. My D is away at a camp job for the whole summer, so the only college talk at our house is going on in my head :)</p>
<p>chinzy, maybe I wasn't clear - it's not a 2-week trip, it's a shorter trip (4 days) that starts in 2 weeks. Anyway, we're visiting 3 schools in 3 states: NY, Mass, and Vermont, with an approximately 3-hour drive between campuses.</p>
<p>Re: getting reluctant kids excited about a college road trip. </p>
<p>I have two DDs: one who is game for just about anything in the college search process, and one who needs some encouragement. After a disaterous first college visit where my D felt imposed upon and sulky I have tried to do two things w/ subsequent visits</p>
<p>a) allow her to opt out of all but 1 sceduled activity and hang in the coffee shop if she wants</p>
<p>b) include something fun and frivolous and totaly un collegy in the trip which the kids pick</p>
<p>c) allowed the kids to pick where we eat along the way.</p>
<p>It seems like giving them a carrot at the end of the stick and some control over the visit as well as the trip has turned these trips into fun times whereas our first one one difinitely wasn't.</p>
<p>Also read Accept My Kid Please before you start for some funny insight and a look at yourself, your kid and the other parent/kid combos you will see over the course of your tours.</p>
<p>ChiSquare, wave hi as you go through NY. What schools are you visiting?</p>
<p>You too, firefly - what schools?</p>
<p>We did a lot of visits in March (the scooter tour, Jolynne :D), so S1 is - theoretically - mulling it all over. What he really needs is a safety to love, though. </p>
<p>TheAnalyst, I think your goal is a good one. I know some people have had success mixing the visit with some other destination the S or D wants. [EDIT: historymom thank you! we cross-posted, but your story was one I was thinking of! ] We are fortunate that S1 had already seen D go through the visit thing, and took it as a given that he would do visits too. </p>
<p>historymom: They need to see NY schools, don't you think? :) We'll host.</p>
<p>Harriet, we're visiting Hamilton College in New York. Funny, Hamilton is a little lower profile, at least out here in the midwest. D & I heard about it when we were on our PNW college visit trip, and became friendly with a father-son duo. The Dad was a Hamilton grad, and we started chatting about the school.</p>
<p>D liked the fact that it was described in one guide as a "right brain" school. She likes, and tests better in, math and science than the humanities. That's what she said, anyway. I think she may be attracted to the "better" gender ratio than most LACs!</p>
<p>absolutely Harriet...you have so many great schools. The chance to hang with a pirate may be the carrot they need to get them east of the Rockies oh and is there still a restaurant called Twins in NYC? I told them I'd take them there someday so maybe they would go for it :D</p>
<p>EDIT cross posted w/ ChiSquare: LOL yeah that 60ish 40ish split doesn't do muc for my DDs eaither...maybe that is why my D added Cal Poly. Their 60/40 breakdown is opposite that of the LACs</p>
<p>Oh, ChiSquare, Hamilton's a fine one. S1's GC is a Hamilton grad and he can't say enough good things about it. Pretty, too.</p>
<p>historymom, Twins, eh? I'll go google. :D</p>
<p>Great, I'm glad to hear your vote of confidence for Hamilton. I'm really looking forward to visiting. And, we're staying right on campus in their guest residence. That will be a new experience! I don't know why D looked chagrined when I mentioned what I plan to wear to the toga party.</p>
<p>ChiSquare, too funny. Tell her it's okay, you'll help her tie hers if she's not sure how. </p>
<p>I do particularly like visiting colleges with on-campus or edge-of-campus inns/residences/etc. It's nice to have that almost-there feeling. It was especially welcome when D did her overnights - we liked being close by, even though we knew she didn't need us and wouldn't want to spy us strolling around campus.</p>
<p>chisquare if you really want to freak her out bring the ping-pong balls and cups and tell her that since it is summer and there aren't so many kids around, you invited the people in the coffee shop and book store over for beer pong to give her a more authentic feel.</p>
<p>beer pong? guess I need to rent Animal House to understand how that is played. That's a new one on me.</p>
<p>chisquare - did you mention what other schools you are visiting? I thought Hamilton would be a good fit for my D but she ruled it out b/c it's not close enough to a big city. But maybe we are looking at other similar schools....? We won't be able to do an East Coast swing until early fall, so I'd love to hear where you are going and your impressions.</p>
<p>No beer pong in Animal House that's soooo 1970s! ;) Beer pong is a game in which, like quarters, the goal is to get an object...in this case a pingpong ball, into a cup of beer. Regional rules vary from there. This is not an endorsement of drinking games BTW Rather an offshoot of one of my primary parenting philosophies: Forewarned is Forarmed</p>
<p>And its other name is Beirut. You could pose as a student and set up a very argumentative beer pong v Beirut thread, if you wanted some cheap fun. </p>
<p>PRJ, didn't mean to ignore you there. Where are you hoping to visit, in the fall and/or when your D's done w her camp job? Hamilton did feel a little too isolated to S1, though I think if he were a girl, he'd have looked more closely at it. Bear in mind, unlike all of the Ds out there, he's NOT AT ALL troubled by the gender imbalance at most LACs, so he does have kind of a long list already. :)</p>
<p>PRJ - other 2 schools are Middlebury and Amherst. Think rrreeeaaacccchhhhh. If any of these are on your list, I'd be glad to communicate our impressions! Too bad we are visiting in the summer. Well, from a college search perspective at least.</p>
<p>Oh, ChiSquare - D loooved Middlebury. Loved loved loved loved loved it. Ended up ruling it out only because she had not a prayer of making the soccer team.</p>
<p>Both D and S1 loved the Amherst campus, though D took it off her list for soccer reasons, and S1 because - we heard they're specifically, explicitly looking for science-y girls right now. Two strikes. :D</p>
<p>Look at all these posts! I toured Hamilton a few years back with D - it is lovely and I was quite excited to see a fox past us - had never seen one in real life.</p>
<p>So I did the LAC tour with D four years ago (and complained about the high price of gas at the time - if only I knew!). Now I'm touring techie schools with computer geek S - Missouri S&T, Stevens Inst of Tech, RPI, WPI, RIT, Allegheny, and Rose-Hulman. He's got a current favorite; it will be interesting to see if it is still #1 after the trip.</p>
<p>I only remember two drinking games from college - quarters and Buzz.</p>
<p>Jolynne, we did official visits with info sessions and tours at Duke, Elon and Wake Forest, and self tours at UNC Chapel Hill and UNC Greensboro. D loved Duke (huge reach) and Wake. Her freshman brother who was along for the ride loved Elon and UNCCH. I didn't like the way freshman are segregated on a separate campus (about a mile away) at Duke, but D didn't mind. Wake is really lovely. Heck, coming from N.E. in Feb to a state where flowers are already blooming is very seductive. Elon is very small, but has a great friendly vibe. S loved the tv studio.</p>
<p>Almost forgot--we also took a walk through NC State, which D hated. I think the neighborhood immediately surrounding was a little run down</p>
<p>Actually, ChiSquare, you were clear, I just can't read! Sounds like a great trip. I agree with you about summer visits. I think you get a much better feel for a school when all the students are there. The other problem in the summer is construction. We visited Brown and Williams two weeks ago and both schools had so much work going on it was hard to get a really good look at parts of the campus.</p>