Planning northeastern college tour - help?

Parents Forum
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<p>This summer, my family and I (rising HS senior from CA) will be visiting the northeast to tour colleges and sight-see. We are not familiar with the area at all nor the east coast in general. I would really appreciate it if you could give us some advice/insight regarding our travel plans if you are familiar with the Boston/NYC/Philly area. We will be renting a car to travel from city to city.</p>

<p>Note: Hotels and flights are already booked, so please do not suggest changing any of that.</p>

<p>Here is a general outline of our plans:
Day 1: Fly to Buffalo, NY. Drive to Ithaca to spend the night.
Day 2: Tour Cornell in the morning, then drive to Boston to spend the night.
Day 3: Visit Northeastern and Boston University in the morning. Spend the rest of the day sightseeing in Boston.
Day 4: Visit Harvard and MIT (self-guided tours) in the morning. Spend the rest of the day sightseeing in Boston.
Day 5: Drive to New York City in the morning. Along the way, stop to visit Brown and Yale. Spend the night in NYC.
Day 6: Visit Columbia in the morning. Spend the rest of the day sightseeing in NYC.
Day 7: Spend the entire day sightseeing in NYC.
Day 8: Drive to Philadelphia. Along the way, stop to visit Princeton (no tours offered this day-not sure what to do while on campus, thread about it here</a>). Spend the night in Philly.
Day 9: Tour UPenn. Spend the rest of the day sightseeing in Philly.
Day 10: Fly home in the morning. :)</p>

<p>Are we planning to see way too much? Is it worthwhile to tour each of these schools (skipping most info sessions, doing maybe a few engineering specific tours/sessions, guided campus tours of most schools unless otherwise noted)? Any suggestions for must-sees in Boston, NYC, and Philly considering we are not spending much time in each city? Any other advice since we are not familiar with the area?</p>

<p>Thank you so much... this can all get a bit overwhelming.</p>

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<p>Too much and too little, IMO. </p>

<p>First, why fly into Buffalo? That’s quite a way off the beaten path for what you want to do. Buffalo to Ithaca is almost 3 hours drive. Ithaca to Boston is 5-6 hours. If I were visiting this group of schools, I’d probably start at Philly, Newark, LaGuardia, or Boston, and make the circuit, depending on which gave me the best combination of r/t airfares and car rental rates (including drop-off charge which can be steep if you return at a different location from pick-up).</p>

<p>Also, if the goal is engineering, I’d question the selection of schools. According to US News, the best engineering schools in the region are: #1 MIT, #8 Carnegie Mellon, #8 Cornell, #10 Princeton, #15 Johns Hopkins, #16 Penn State, #20 Columbia, #23 Harvard, #23 RPI, #23 Maryland, #30 Penn, #34 Yale, #39 Brown, #39 Lehigh, #44 Dartmouth, #50 Rutgers, #50 Pitt, #53 Boston U, #53 Drexel, #58 Northeastern, #58 Tufts, #58 UMass-Amherst, #58 WPI. </p>

<p>Your list seems pretty top-heavy to me. You propose to see 10 schools in 10 days. Of those, 7 are Ivies and one is the most prestigious engineering school in the country. From there you drop quite far down in the selectivity range, to schools that aren’t known for especially strong engineering programs (BU and Northeastern). What about strong engineering schools like Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins, RPI, or Lehigh? Or, for that matter, some of the stronger publics in the region, like Penn State, Maryland, Rutgers, or Pitt, which for engineering are every bit as good as some of the private colleges on your list, including, frankly, some of the Ivies? Or is this just a prestige quest?</p>

<p>Edit: I see you say flights and hotels are already booked. Then why bother asking the question?</p>

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<p>bclintonk: Buffalo was the cheapest flight.</p>

<h1>1 MIT - visiting, #8 Carnegie Mellon - too far off, but plan to apply, #8 Cornell- visiting, #10 Princeton - visiting, #15 Johns Hopkins - too far off, but plan to apply , #16 Penn State - not interested, #20 Columbia - visiting, #23 Harvard - visiting, #23 RPI - not interested in an engineering-only school, #23 Maryland - not interested, #30 Penn - visiting, #34 Yale - visiting, #39 Brown - visiting, #39 Lehigh - maybe should check this one out, #44 Dartmouth - not interested in their engineering program, and it’s a reach anyways, #50 Rutgers - not interested, #50 Pitt - too far away, possibly applying, #53 Boston U - visiting, #53 Drexel - I should probably check this one out, #58 Northeastern - visiting, #58 Tufts - not interested, #58 UMass-Amherst - not interested, #58 WPI - not interested in an engineering-only school.</h1>

<p>My list doesn’t seem that far off, does it? All the schools I am visiting are in the list you provided. I’m not interested in most the public schools. I realize they are good for engineering, but do not match with other preferences (not enough geographic diversity, too much focus on IS students, etc). Pitt seems somewhat appealing, but it is too far off to visit. I’m not interested in a STEM-only school. That knocks out RPI and WPI. MIT would fit this category too, but I might as well visit since I will be in a Boston and I am only going to do a self-guided tour. Dartmouth and Tufts don’t seem to have very strong engineering programs. I plan to apply to CMU and JHU, but they are too far out of the way for this trip. Lehigh and Drexel seem like good options to check out, though.</p>

<p>I was under the impression that BU and NEU were pretty strong in engineering. From my research, BU is one of the top BME schools in the country. I am strongly considering majoring in BME (or ChemE depending on the school), so this seems like a good option. NEU has a strong co-op program and I have heard good things about their engineering program in general. Both offer competitive merit scholarship that I hope to qualify for. Plus, they are in Boston which seems like a city I would like.</p>

<p>I realize it seems like I am on a prestige quest and I realize my list is top-heavy, but that is kinda just the way it worked out lol. These were the schools that were closest to Boston/NYC/Philly that I have an interest in. </p>

<p>Thank you for your help. I will look into some other schools (esp. Lehigh and Drexel) to try and even out the list a bit.</p>

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<p>I think you will find it difficult, if not impossible, to visit two schools per day in Boston AND do much sightseeing, unless you just plan to take a quick walk through the campuses. If you want to attend information sessions and/or take tours, which are scheduled at fixed times, or check out the food options or bookstores, you’ll probably have to see one school in the morning and one in the afternoon, which won’t leave much time for daytime tourist activities. Squeezing two college visits into the drive from Boston to New York will also be a challenge. Don’t forget that you’ll need to take time for meals and account for rush hour traffic. And if you’re tired and cranky from rushing everywhere and extended car rides, you won’t absorb much from the visits. I know my kids and I would be at each others’ throats by day 2 of that schedule.</p>

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<p>Have you visited any schools around your area? Maybe do that even if you aren’t interested. This will give you an idea of what you want in a tour and also the length of time tours take. I agree that seeing two schools in one day may be difficult, but definitely not impossible. I live in Maine and drove down to Boston to visit northeastern and harvard in one day, and we managed to stop by MIT(which to be honest, I was not interested in and only spent time there for lunch) and get some sightseeing in. Good luck! My advice is to record as much as possible about the general feels of the campus, the students, life there, etc. everything else you can find online.</p>

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<p>Are you flying home out of Philly or Buffalo?</p>

<p>Agree that the list is too top-heavy.</p>

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<p>You’re not going to get much of a sense of student life during a campus visit in the summer. You will see the buildings and have an info session but won’t experience what many of us here would tell you is most important–fit. I would cut your list in half. You can see buildings and get info on the schools’ websites. </p>

<p>This trip sounds physically and emotionally exhausting. You DO care about prestige and will likely apply to most if not all of the Ivies, MIT, etc. whether you visit or not. You can always go back if you get in to any of these schools and are still interested at that point.</p>

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<p>You can tour two schools in a day, but I’m not sure it’s possible to tour two schools in the same morning. Harvard and MIT are both large, and driving and parking in Cambridge is not easy; there’s a lot of traffic, many of the streets are one way, and parking is either scarce or expensive. (That said, summer is usually better–you don’t say when you’re making this trip.)</p>

<p>As for sightseeing, that very much depends on your family’s interests. My personal preference is for art museums in NYC, but Boston and Philly have fabulous sites for early American history (the Liberty Bell, Paul Revere’s house). The Boston Aquarium is quite good, the Museum of Natural History in NYC is one of the finest in the world, and the Boston Museum of Science is very good. The Philadelphia Museum of Art is also good, though not nearly as big as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. But some people go to NY and all they want to do is see a baseball game, so it’s futile to try to answer such a general question.</p>

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<p>It seems like you’ll spend a lot of time driving, and very little time actually exploring each campus. Are you just trying to see the layout of each school, with a more in-depth trip in the future? Is there are reason you want to be in the northeast, versus CA?</p>

<p>Since the trip seems to be already set, I would take lots of notes, and lots of pictures. When I was doing college visits with my oldest, we would use the car time to talk about pros and cons, write up notes about each school, that kind of stuff. I fear that these colleges will all run together in your mind.</p>

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<p>Your list has way too many reach type schools. Since you are flying into Buffalo you should visit the UB engineering school, and if you can swing by the Watson School of Engineering @<br>
Binghamton while in upstate NY you should try that as well. It is going to be very difficult to see all of these schools and get in some sight seeing. You should also check out the University of Rochester, BTW.</p>

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<p>I don’t have time right now to analyze, but I do want to chime in and say that you are not allowing enough time for your visits, and it doesn’t seem like you are accounting for enough time stuck in traffic. Traffic can be brutal in these places–between Boston and NY!!!-- and you may end up spending hours more on each leg than what google maps has suggested.</p>

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<p>I would say your plan is very ambitious. We visited Northeastern/MIT and took 4 days to do so. We did not rent a car but used public transit/taxis/walking to get around. We spent half a day at MIT – walked to it from our hotel. Then did Northeastern the next day. We used the bus to get to Northeastern and then walked back to our hotel from it. Did not bother to visit BU (even though it was a block from our hotel) since DS had no interest in it. Frankly, we were exhausted from all the walking at each of the campus. Did sightseeing on the third day before flying out.</p>

<p>The driving will be difficult especially with the traffic in Boston and NYC. I would definitely just park the car in NYC and take the subway up to Columbia.</p>

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<p>We went to Boston in March to visit Northeastern and BU. We also stopped by Harvard and walked the campus. It was exhausting with a TON of walking. With my older one we managed to visit 6 upstate schools in 5 days and it was do-able but brutal. These schools were all within 2-3 hours of each other. The schedule that you have planned is even more exhausting.</p>

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<p>My D and I did something similar - flew into Albany and drove to Colgate looked around and headed to Williamstown where we stayed for three nights (sports recruiting event to attend and tour to take) Middle day drove to Boston to meet a coach at a school then back to Wiliamstown. 4th day headed to South Hadley and saw coaches and took tours at Amherst and MHO and spent one night there. Then headed to NYC the next morning - saw Columbia, spent the night and headed to Philly the next morning. Toured Swarthmmore and then UPenn that day - spent the night at the airport hotel and flew out the next morning. We had a good time - it was a lot of driving but we are from Texas and it seemed like easy driving to us!</p>

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<p>Chiming in with similar comments: </p>

<p>Buffalo is nowhere near Ithaca, really. And it’s hard to believe you had a “cheapest” flight to Buffalo that doesn’t involve some connections that extend the travel time and introduce risk to the planning. Three hours is a way optimistic estimate of the time to drive between them, and Ithaca to Boston is a really long drive, at least six hours if you don’t have traffic. That part of your trip is actually do-able, though.</p>

<p>If I were recasting your trip, I would start in Boston (or Providence, or Manchester, or Hartford, if any of them was cheaper), and I would go from NYC to Ithaca and back to Philly/Princeton via Lehigh.</p>

<p>Many of these universities are huge, and you can’t really see them and get a sense of them in an hour. You could probably tour Harvard and MIT in a day (and feel a bit fried at the end), but in a morning? No way, unless your only goal is to say that you’ve been there. And that isn’t even your most ridiculous plan (apart from the fact that you really have the day to see both). Your most ridiculous plan is to drive from Boston to New York and to visit Brown and Yale on the way. On a weekday, and not in the wee hours of the morning, that can easily be a 5-6-hour drive with traffic. Yale is very spread out. </p>

<p>You might be able to make it work if you leave Boston and drive to Providence latish Day 4 evening. After 8 or so, it could be a 80-90 minute drive. Then you could see Brown first thing in the morning, do Yale in the afternoon. (Plan on 3 hours for that drive. It may be less, but the casinos in eastern CT often produce bizarre traffic jams in the middle of nowhere.)</p>

<p>You can see Penn and Drexel in a day, or even part of one. They are physically adjacent; it’s not even really a matter of crossing the street, and Drexel is somewhat more compact than Penn. Drexel is a great “matchier” option, and if you have the profile that makes looking at all these Ivies not crazy, you have a chance at decent merit inducements there. Ditto Lehigh. They are both engineering-centric, but not engineering-only.</p>

<p>Re Princeton – It’s gorgeous in the summer, and relatively compact. Worth getting out of the car and walking around the main campus area, even without a tour. For my money, Princeton and Cornell are two of the most beautiful campuses in existence.</p>

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<p>I’ve toured a ton of schools with my kids on college tour loops … a few thoughts …</p>

<ul>
<li>I think two a day is quite doable … but I’ve recommend one in the morning and one in the afternoon.</li>
<li>Try to spend the evening/nights in the neighborhoods of one of the colleges.</li>
<li>We found college led tours much more useful then self-led tours … while some of the time is wasted compared to a self-tour the incremental information gained from the tour guide was well worth it</li>
<li>I’d recommend the student up front near the tour guide (there tended to be lots of interesting small talk in between stops) … and parents behind all the students with their mouths shut.</li>
<li>Remember this is your kid’s tour and be flexible … you may have a master plan … however about 10 minutes into visiting a school the student may be ready to move on … in the northeast there are about 100 alternative options</li>
<li>You do not have any LACs on your list … it might be worth adding a couple on to your plan. For example, if you student is female I’d suggest the Barnard tour after the Columbia one (it’s a 5 minute commute). Near Boston and near Philly there are a ton of possibilities.</li>
<li>Take some notes and some pictures … doesn’t have to be extensive … however, after a bunch of schools they will start to run together and reminders will help keep everything straight … Lehigh is the school with the hills!</li>
<li>A portable GPS is your friend … if you don’t have one the $100 will be the best $100 ever spent</li>
<li>Finally, relax and enjoy the trip … as crazy and tiring as the days were this was seriously great time with my kids … both have fun but also getting to know them better as they talked about the schools and the college experience for which they were looking.
(PS - if your kid is quirky smart I’d take a pit stop in Chicago to check out University f Chicago … a school I thought was amazing)</li>
</ul>

<p>With my oldest we did a vacation week driving tour of northeast schools with 2 tours planned a day … and also did some quick drive-bys and walk-throughs while we were close to schools and saw about 20 schools in a week. If it were me and I was paying for flights I’d fill all the days with tours. Feel free to ask in the thread or PM me if you have any questions about our week…</p>

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<p>We visited six schools in three days but all were within, at most, two hours of each other. In an attempt to gain a feel for the surrounding area, we stayed overnight in the town where the morning school was located so that we could have dinner and walk the area. As soon as we completed the AM tour, he hightailed directly to the afternoon school. If time allowed, we ate lunch on the campus of the afternoon school so that we could try to learn a bit more about the afternoon campus. (Sometimes lunch was at 3pm after the tour.) We would drive around the town of the afternoon campus on our way out of town, again to gain a feel for the local college town area. We felt it was important to approach a campus from a direction other than the one described on the school’s website. (For example, one side of Johns Hopkins is not quite as nice as the other. Excellent info session though!) We liked to walk the towns to see what was nearby.</p>

<p>I agree with everything said here about the distances involved and the potential for traffic. I have owned a car while living in Boston and Manhattan, so do not hesitate to drive to either city, but summer traffic can be brutal and unpredictable. It is pointless to attempt to move your car w/in Boston or NYC as you run the risk of sitting in traffic and paying twice for parking. (Overnight hotel parking in either city is $40-$55, at least for my large SUV.)</p>

<p>I agree with the poster who suggested driving out of Boston the night before you plan to tour Brown. You can then spend the evening checking out Providence, complete the Brown tour and hopefully drive down to New Haven in time for Yale’s tour. You should be able to travel between Providence & NH in less than two hours but could also easily take three. And, the drive from NH to NYC will be traffic-filled but you won’t be on a deadline then.</p>

<p>As to sights to see, check the Top Attractions list on Trip Advisor for each city. Not knowing what you are interested in, I would suggest the DUCK tours in Boston (book in advance–a little expensive), Central Park, 9/11 Memorial (free but must book ahead), & the High Line in NYC, and Independence Hall (book ahead, nominal charge) & the Philadelphia Museum of Art (have to at least climb the “Rocky” steps and it is a beautiful building) in Philly.</p>

<p>Having suggested all of these sights, I agree with the poster above who suggested filling your days with actual info sessions & tours and leaving the sightseeing for another time. Or, simply walking around these cities w/o agendas as these cities are very walkable and have plenty to observe w/o the benefit of an actual organized tour. Good luck!</p>

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<p>We did a bunch of two-a-days (Tufts/Brandeis, Smith/Mt Holyoke, Georgetown/GWU, Bryn Mawr/Haverford) – but with no sightseeing. </p>

<p>And this list is entirely too top-heavy and almost arrogant.</p>

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<p>We did some pretty aggressive college tours, but yours is really too aggressive. You will find that it will be very difficult, if not impossible to go to info sessions and/or organized tours at all of these places.</p>

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<p>@PG: I almost wonder if that’s the point. For a competitive kid, what better way to gain bragging rights and rile up similarly motivated peers than to talk about your epic east coast college tour?</p>