Obviously this will depend on budget and type of accommodation you prefer, I like Airbnb almost always more than hotels.
One interesting option for Barnard is I-House: https://www.ihouse-nyc.org/guest-accommodations/ - you’d be right in the neighborhood.
Eat at S&P Oyster in Mystic between Amherst and Vassar (while stopping at ConnColl between those.)
Or eat at Purdy’s The Farmer and The Fish in North Salem between Vassar and Barnard.
I have never been able to find a good meal near Barnard/Columbia–except a sort of breakfast-y thing at the Hungarian Pastry shop.
Good luck!
Hungarian Pastry Shop is my favorite from 40+ years ago @IvyGrad09 - I took a picture of it last month, was so excited to see it still there!
Decent alternative is Tom’s Diner (Seinfeld diner, it’ also been there for years). Or just do what NYers do and get an egg sandwich on a roll or a bagel from a deli. V&T Pizza is also still there, next door to the pastry shop, another oldie that has held on through the changes to the neighborhood,as is Symposium - neat place on 113 residential building.
I wouldn’t go from Smith/MoHo to Vassar via Mystic or New London (Conn) - if in a car it’s much faster to go west to the Taconic and down. We just did that about 10 days ago (taking D from Amherst to NYC - stopped at Vassar, where I went, she’d never been). Avoids the 95 traffic in Conn nicely.
If they were visiting Connecticut College @OHMomof2 then Mystic is 12 minutes away.
@IvyGrad09 understood - Conn itself isn’t on the way, unless they want to visit it specifically, is what I was saying.
We stayed at Hotel Northampton when visiting Smith and Mt Holyoke. Its a bit of a throwback hotel but lots of charm. Short 2 minute drive to Smith and about 10-15 minutes to Mt Holyoke. It’s right in the heart of the bustling town of Northampton. Lots of cute shops and restaurants walkable from hotel. There is also a Fairfield Inn that’s a bit cheaper but its not in the town. We thought it better to stay in town to get a good feel for the area. We really enjoyed our New England college tours even though it was bitter cold when we were there!
Honestly, Barnard seems like the best fit.
If you are going to NYC, perhaps look into Sarah Lawrence. They are reputed to have a very strong dance program.
You could
Day One: Fly into Boston, rent a car and drive to Wellesley for a visit, then continue out to the MHC/Smith area and stay overnight. Maybe drive around the campuses a bit if you have time before dark.
Day Two: Split between MHC and Smith. Stay there again so as not to be rushed.
Day Three: Drive to NYC, stopping at Vassar en route, and possibly add a quick visit to Sarah Lawrence if you have time. Walk around the Barnard/Columbia area in the evening and have dinner. (My S lived in I-House for a year, and it’s a great place. If you can stay there for a night or two, it would be a great idea. You can also actually park on the street in the neighborhood around it, which can be tough in NYC.) See a show (may have to skip Sarah Lawrence and have dinner in midtown instead).
Day Four: Visit Barnard (and check out Columbia). Leave in the late afternoon and drive to Princeton area. Stay overninght, taking time to walk/drive around campus as time and light permits.
Day Five: Visit Princeton in the morning, have lunch in the student union/center (can’t remember what it is called) drive to Bryn Mawr/Haverford area; again, take a spin around the campuses as daylight permits. Stay overnight
Day Six: Visit Bryn Mawr and at least check out Haverford and Swarthmore.
Day Seven: Visit Philadelphia, return car, and fly home.
BTW, don’t forget that MHC and Smith are in the 5 college exchange with U Mass Amherst, which may have more offerings in academics concerning deafness than liberal arts colleges normally do. At Wellesley, there have to be opportunities nearby in Boston.
It’s sort of ridiculous to say that you can’t take a train from Smith to Vassar, when you can easily take a train from Northampton to New York City and New York City to Poughkeepsie. That may not be the best use of your time on this trip – 4-5 hours by train, vs. 1 or so by car – but it’s far from impossible. My sense, though, is that you would do much better renting a car, at least for the portion of the trip that isn’t Barnard.
I also don’t think you need to use more than one airport, at least if you don’t include Wellesley. (And there’s perfectly good reason not to include Wellesley. It’s a great college, but not one with a big dance tradition. The ability to take classes at MIT – with considerable logistical difficulty – doesn’t really make up for that.) The distances really aren’t that great. If you fly into and out of Newark, Smith and Mt. Holyoke are 2-1/2 to 3 hours away, but minutes from each other (so easy to visit in one day), and everything else is less than two hours away. JFK or LaGuardia would add a little time, but not that much.
If your core is Smith, Holyoke, Vassar, and Barnard, that’s a great core. It would be easy to add Bard (strong arts and academics, 20 miles north of Vassar), and Bryn Mawr (a 2-hour drive from New York, or 3-1/2 from Vassar or Bard). You may also want to think about Wesleyan, which is on the way to or from Northampton starting from or heading towards the New York City area or Poughkeepsie, and Fordham, on two campuses in New York City, a different sort of college than the others we are discussing but one that has a lot to offer in terms of science and dance, or even NYU.
Here’s my proposal:
Day 1 – Arrive EWK/LGA/JFK. Rent car, drive to Northampton MA (2-1/2 - 3 hrs).
Day 2 – Visit Smith and Mount Holyoke. Stay second night in Northampton.
Day 3 – Drive to Middletown CT (1 hr), visit Wesleyan, drive to Hudson Valley (1 hr), stay someplace cute.
Day 4 – Visit Vassar and Bard. Maybe Dia/Beacon Art Museum if you have time. Second night at cute place.
Day 5 – Drive to Philadelphia (3 hrs), visit Bryn Mawr. Turn car in at Amtrak Station, take train to NYC (1-1/2 hrs).
Day 6 – Barnard, maybe Fordham, maybe NYC sightseeing
Day 7 – Whatever else you can fit in, shuttle or cab or uber or train to airport
If Smith/MHC is first on the list, you could fly in to the Hartford airport (BDL) and shoot up 91 to Amherst/Northhampton. Cut driving time and effort – if she attended Smith/MHC it’s either BDL or BOS for flying in and out.
The issue with flying in to Bradley is it’s often twice as expensive and a third as convenient as going to Boston or any of the New York area airports.
From Wash, DC it is often cheaper for us to fly to Hartford than Boston on JetBlue. Worth checking the prices.
Unless she is particularly dedicated to an all-women’s college, she might like Vassar, Bard, Connecticut College, and Skidmore- all are great schools that should match her interests in dance and science and social justice, and are historically supportive of women and skew female in the ratio.
Skidmore has a few merit scholarships for science and math, too, if she is a tippy-top student.
I do not know about deaf studies. I did not read up about it at any of the schools. The only people I know personally who are deaf went to Gallaudet and Rochester Institute of Technology respectively. The deaf student currently at RIT went there because there is a lot for deaf people both at the college and locally (there is some research institute?), so maybe it might be worth researching to see if it is a good place for someone interested in deaf studies?
Things seem to be falling into place!
We’ve got a tentative schedule worked out, sticking mainly with what @JHS calls the “core” of MHC, Smith, Vassar and Barnard… we considered bookending with Wellesley and Bryn Mawr, but neither were offering tours on the days we had available, so we swapped those out for Harvard and Princeton. Flights to/from Boston and Newark turned out to be the most affordable and convenient, so that lined up well.
Bryn Mawr does sound like a good possible match for D’s interests. If she gets accepted, we can schedule another trip for her to look at all the schools in the consortium, maybe do an overnight in a dorm and take a dance class. I’ve read many times on CC that the last campus on a long string of tours suffers by comparison, just because the kid is worn out. I think rushing through a self-guided tour at the end of a week of back-to-back campus visits would put BMC at too much of a disadvantage.
Thank you, @BearHouse for suggesting that D do interviews. Not all the schools will interview a junior, but Mt. Holyoke does, so we made an appointment there. We’ve also put in a request to observe an advanced ballet class at Barnard, and signed up for a tour of Columbia’s science facilities (which Barnard students get to utilize). We have a morning free while we’re at Smith so I’ve asked D to pick out a class to observe, either academic or dance. It’s great that (some) schools have so much to offer prospective students beyond just the standard campus tour and info session.
Thanks to everyone for so many helpful suggestions. I started out feeling a little overwhelmed at the prospect of this trip, but now we’re really looking forward to it!
This is very similar to a trip I did with D1 (senior) this past November. It was fun but exhausting - worth every ounce of effort. You’ll be happy for the time together and the adventure. As we get closer to graduation I am so grateful for those college tour trips.
The thing about Bryn Mawr is that it’s definitely prettier than the other LACs on your list. (Wellesley is, too.) I have to admit that I have never seen Mount Holyoke, so maybe that’s just as lovely, but Smith and Vassar, while having lots to recommend them, and being far from ugly, aren’t.
Princeton is great-looking, too, although you are going to be shortchanged by visiting in February and thus missing some of its amazing gardens.
@Curiosa , my daughter’s a sophomore at Mount Holyoke. She’s a Biochem major, doing super well, very happy. She took ASL for many years and wanted to continue, but they don’t offer it at MHC and as she’s got a lot of other activities (varsity athlete, job, etc) commuting to another campus to take it wasn’t practical for her. So that was a bit of a disappointment, and may be a consideration for you.
Please reach out to me if you have any specific questions! We did the whole Bryn Mawr/MHC/Smith thing (my kids specifically didn’t want Wellesley as we live practically next door) and there’s a lot to love about all of them. My mother and sister went to Bryn Mawr so we’ve got that perspective, too.
Bryn Mawr is the prettiest women’s college, hands down, IMO. Much better than Wellesley. It is one of the prettiest colleges of the 30 or so I’ve seen.
Someone can correct me if I am wrong but at Harvard and Princeton, you’re not going to see much in terms of building interiors which will such in February weather.
If you can’t visit before applying, definitely check each school’s Common Data Set (section C7) and see how they weight “demonstrated interest”. In Bryn Mawr’s case, it isn’t factored in to admissions.
We did Harvard tour in late November. You only see the hallway of the freshman dining hall. The rest is just a walking tour of campus. The info session prior was well done so be sure to attend that. be forewarned…after the Harvard tour/info session it became my D’s number one dream school which is causing me boatloads of anxiety. It hadn’t been really on her radar as a possibility before that…well she was still going to apply but without any hopes or dreams…now its real.
I’ve seen Smith, Byn Mawr and MoHo and I think Moho is prettiest, if you like dark Gothic. Smith has the best town/area, and Bryn Mawr just looked tiny to me. YMMV obviously.
@Veryapparent I’ve actually done such a good job downplaying the chances of getting into the Ivy League that DH is annoyed with me. He’s happy we’re visiting both Harvard and Princeton so D will see that there are actual human beings who attend school there. Thanks for the tip about the info sessions; we were thinking we’d skip that, so I’ll add it back in the schedule.
@doschicos, D says the campus aesthetics are a lower priority for her. She reminded me that her high school is exceedingly ugly (it really is) and she loves it. I do wonder how she’s going to feel after a week of dreary, overcast skies, though.
That’s a good point about only seeing the outside of buildings. We do have some distant connections to current students at the Ivy schools, so maybe I’ll try to get in touch and see if someone can (literally) open some doors for us.