Pennsylvania road trip

Parents Forum
1

I am trying to quickly put together a college road trip to Pennsylvania for the end of the month. I don’t know the area at all and would love any help planning, or even just some feedback/ advice.

She is planning to be an English major, and enjoys more of the creative writing side. We are thinking about seeing these schools on our trip- Franklin & Marshall, Haverford, Lafayette, Lehigh and Muhlenberg.

Any suggestions on how to hit them over a 3-4 day time frame? We will be coming from the north. Any ideas on where to stay? Any general feedback on the schools? Thanx

2

Not to complicate your list, but you can do F&M and Dickinson together in a day, so I would add that one if you are in the area. They are in the middle of the state. Haverford is near Philly. The other 3 are together in one area.

Are you flying in or driving?

3

Thanx @gardenstategal. I do have that one on our list, but accidentally forgot to write it down on this post.

4

Fly into Philly, go to Haverford then 1 hour (?) west to Lancaster for F&M. (Dickinson is 1 hour west of F&M).

Alternatively, from Lancaster, drive north to the Lehigh Valley. A-B-E: Allentown [Muhlenberg], Bethlehem [Lehigh], Easton [Lafayette].

We did F&M and Lafayette in the same day and we were a few minutes late for Lafayette’s afternoon info session.

5

If you’re flying, you can fly into Philly or even into Allentown (ABE) airport, which puts you right in the middle of Lehigh, Lafayette and Muhlenberg. Stay overnight at the Hotel Bethlehem. You will need a car; can rent at the airport.

The upside of doing it this way is easy in-out at the airport, which is a small regional. No huge city airport hassles.

Downside is flight may cost more and airlines are limited to United, Delta, Allegiant and USAirways and I’m not sure how extensive the schedules are (some might even be phantom connecting “flights” from Philly that are actually buses - do check to make sure, if that bothers you)

Anyway, if you do it with the Lehigh Valley area as your base, you can make easy day trips to the others on your list that are outside the area. Think of the LV as the hub of your bicycle wheel, spokes radiating out.

I’d add Ursinus, in Collegeville, north of Philly and less than an hour from Haverford. Ursinus is where J.D. Salinger went to school (I don’t think he graduated) and they have some scholarship where part of the benefit is getting his dorm room.

Good luck planning!

6

I would definitely recommend staying overnight near the school you ate visiting the next morning. So if you flew into Philly one day 1 AM, see haverford and drive to Carlisle (pa tpke). Dickinson am and drive to F&m pm then five east. Visit two the next day, the third the next morning and drive to airport for pm flight. This will save you money by not staying in the most expensive area. I usually book hampton inns by default - predictably uniform.

The only thing I would add is that if you have a little time and want to enjoy yourself a bit, you might want a little time in Philly.

7

I just stayed at the Lancaster Arts Hotel this past weekend. It’s an easy walk to the F&M campus if you decide to spend a night out that way. Tons of hotels in the Allentown/Easton area, and F&M would be probably a little over an hour from there. Route 78 to 222 south is pretty much a straight shot right into Lancaster.

Keep us posted on what you think - my daughter is interested in the same majors as yours!

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None of these are actually far from one another. Lehigh and Muhlenberg are literally 10 minutes apart. On a nice day you could walk it if you had time. Lafayette may be 20 minutes from there. Driving time from them to Haverford, Dickinson, or Franklin & Marshall is probably a little over an hour for any of them (but it would be a completely different drive in each case). Dickinson and F&M are maybe 30 minutes apart. F&M and Haverford are an hour apart.

If you are driving from the north, you will come to Lehigh, Lafayette and Muhlenberg first, and you could see them then, or you could save them for last, or you could see two on your way down and another on your way back. Muhlenberg is minutes from the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and Lehigh a few more minutes, Lafayette half an hour. It would obviously be easy to see two of them in one day, but three is pushing it. The same is true with F&M and Dickinson, although they’re not quite as close. It would probably be a mistake to double up any of the foregoing with Haverford because of the extra driving time (and the possibility of traffic in the Philadelphia suburbs. That’s too bad, because Haverford is probably the smallest campus of the five (not sure about Muhlenberg) – you could almost step on every square foot of it in three hours.

Essentially, you are going to do a triangle – Allentown/Bethlehem - Philadelphia Main Line - Carlisle - back to Allentown. You can do it in either direction. You can hit Lancaster in either direction on your way between Carlisle and Haverford, or you can go to Lancaster from Allentown and drive by it again on your way from Carlisle to Haverford.

I don’t know where to tell you to stay other than the Philadelphia area. There, I would try the Radnor Hotel or the Wayne Hotel. There’s nothing right near Haverford, those are as close as anything and both fairly reasonable and somewhat charming, and they will give you a sense of what the Haverford area is like. You could also look at the Marriott in West Conshohocken, or any of the big hotels on City Line Avenue. Those maybe put you in the way of more traffic, but they aren’t a lot farther from Haverford than the first two.

I would try to avoid planning to leave or to arrive at your Haverford-area hotel during rush hour, since you will not really be able to avoid substantial highway traffic at those times (say, 6:30 - 9:00 am, 4:30 - 7:00 pm). I think what that means is that you plan to arrive in that area after 7:00 one evening, driving in from elsewhere, then tour Haverford the next morning, and leave by mid afternoon.

9

Three in a day kind of precludes meeting with anyone other than Admissions. I’d try to avoid that unless you don’t rally think you need to talk to the English dept or coaches or anything like that. Sometimes you get a vibe pretty quickly when you step onto a campus, but we found it valuable to grab a coffee in the student center and walk around to watch students and take some notes whenever we could find 20 mins after a tour.

10

We liked the Hyatt Place in Bethlehem for Lehigh, Lafayette and Muhlenberg. It was a little cheaper than Hotel Bethlehem but still near the downtown area for dining options.

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Check ahead with the schools to see if your kid can sit in on a class. Tour, a class, and a meal in a campus dining hall if there is time. Better use if her time than info sessions, IMHO, and gives youns good flavor for the school. It is tough to do if you hit 2 campuses a day, though.

I definitely agree you should hit Dickinson for sure.

12

Depending on time, it could be worthwhile to look at Bryn Mawr when you’re at Haverford given proximity and size of both campuses. If she really ends up preferring the proximity to Philly and is looking for merit, BMC could be right up her alley. The vibes at several of these schools are quite different, so it’d be a little surprising if they didn’t sort themselves out by the end of the trip.

13

When you visit Haverford, visit Bryn Mawr as well. Both can be done in a day, one early morning slot say 9am, have lunch in the area (let me know if you want suggestions), then the other mid afternoon after lunch. Bryn Mawr’s campus is beautiful and its a great school and easier admissions than Haverford and they do give have merit aid which Haverford does not, if that matters. Even if your daughter thinks she does’t want a women’s college, you should visit because of the bi-college arrangement with Haverford. The vast majority of Haverford students take classes at Bryn Mawr. My daughter thought she wouldn’t like women’s colleges but she really liked BM and both of the colleges wound up on her final list.

For hotels around Haverford, there surprisingly aren’t too many close by. You can stay in Philly which is close by but expensive. Even parking will run you at least $40. We always stayed a little further out in the suburbs where there were plenty of hotels around Plymouth Meeting or King of Prussia and always got really good rates on Priceline or Hotwire.

That said, if you have a day or even half day to spare, its worth leaving some extra time to explore Philly a little. I suggest either the Barnes Foundation or the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Reading Terminal Market.

Muhlenburg, Lafayette, and Lehigh are all super close to each other. Take 2 days to see the 3, not 1. If you are driving down from the north, perhaps you could drive early enough to knock one off on the first day in the afternoon.

Dickinson and F&M can be visited in a day as well. In Lancaster, pop into and explore Lancaster Central Market and grab a bite to eat there.

As @gardenstategal recommends, I also suggest staying close to whatever college you are visiting the following morning.

If you are driving down, put a cooler in the car and fill with drinks/snacks for the trip. Makes it easy to grab something while running around and keeps anyone from getting hangry. Plus, you might find some Amish products you want to bring home. :slight_smile:

14

I might suggest, considering the interest in writing, visiting Susquehanna.

15

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. We are going to drive down. Think it will be good to have my D19 see just how far of a drive she will be away from home.

I feel like this college list just keeps growing… 8-}

16

We visited Lehigh and Lafayette in the same day. We had to leave the Lehigh tour a little early so that we had time to grab lunch before driving over to Lafayette. But we toured on Good Friday and there was a large crowd so it took a lot of time to assemble students into the various tour groups. Would have probably taken less time on a less crowded day.

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Not to complicate things - have you considered Pitt - writing dept is very strong.

18

We loved Bucknell but Lewisburg is small. It’s around 2 hours to the west from the Lehigh Valley.

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In addition to taking a look at Haverford while you are there, I think it would be worthwhile to look at Swarthmore’s campus. The schools are very big on the “Tri-Co” and these days it’s highly unlikely to graduate without taking at least one class on one of the other campuses. My DD was surprised on our visit to Swarthmore to find out that several classes in their catalog that she was interested in weren’t taught at Swarthmore. It was a deal breaker for her. There are shuttles constantly running between campuses; it doesn’t seem like it’s difficult to commute between the two. Still it’s a good idea to get an understanding of what the commute a

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I’d second Dos Chicos recommendation that you look at Bryn Mawr as well as Haverford. Haverford students take many classes at Bryn Mawr–there are shared departments, e.g., art, music, theater, geology, to name a few… The two schools are less than a mile apart.

Also second the recommendation to stay at the Wayne Hotel. My H graduated from BMC and we often stayed at the Wayne–it’s just a few miles up the road from Bryn Mawr/Haverford. Another option is to stay at the Wyndham Alumni House on the Bryn Mawr campus. It’s a very nice bed and breakfast that’s open to the public.