<p>My D has been accepted to 2-3 colleges that she is definitely interested in visiting and vetting. We are planning visits in April and since we need to commit by May 1st, we cannot really spread it out so much with work and school. </p>
<p>Has anyone visited 3 schools all within a few days?
Did your son or daughter stay overnight in dorm and sat in on some classes?</p>
<p>It just seems very costly to hop planes and stay at hotels, but want her to make an informed decision. It's worth the investment I believe but we don't want to break the bank. We would like to stop in NYC for a couple of days since she has never been.</p>
<p>Any insights, experiences, advice would be greatly appreciated. Daughter wants to visit OCU, Hartt, and possibly Boston Conservatory, if accepted. We have about 4-5 days to spare.</p>
<p>The planning will be extensive. Wondering if I need the help of a travel agent!</p>
<p>My daughter visited 3 schools over 4 days in December. We scheduled this whirlwind trip around an audition in PA. Since we are from the Houston area, we wanted to make it count</p>
<p>Day1 - Early flight into Phili. Toured University of the Arts and met with faculty. Drove to DeSales University and stayed overnight with students.</p>
<p>Day 2 - Auditioned for DeSales, saw a play that evening.</p>
<p>Day 3 - Drove to Rider University. Stayed overnight with students and saw a Senior MT recital.</p>
<p>Day 4 - Toured Rider and met with faculty. Drove to the first city and flew home.</p>
<p>In the end, she was rejected from U of the Arts but accepted to DeSales and Rider. So we are especially happy those are the 2 schools she spent the time with students.</p>
<p>Visiting the school and meeting faculty/students makes all the difference in the world! You are smart to take the time and money considering what you will pay for her to attend for four years! Many of our campus visits helped my D confirm not only her feeling about the program, faculty and students but the college and the area – and to determine if this was someplace & with people that she wanted to spend four years. Most were good experiences for us, but one school that we took the time to fly half way across the country to (that we really thought she would love) she hated the area, campus etc and did not have a great feeling about her interaction with the faculty. Sometimes things are not what you have visualized or been told!</p>
<p>DJexpress, I would strongly recommend visiting those 3 schools. My daughter auditioned for and visited all 3 two years ago, and they are all very different: OCU is on a small but pretty campus with an intense and thorough music oriented program that also supplies all classes needed in the other areas, including strong dance opportunities. Your daughter is fortunate to be accepted into the MT program there, as they are very picky! It has a beautiful arts center and theater. It is a little isolated from the downtown, which is only business oriented, anyway, as the main shopping area seems to be centered around malls. However, one of the best museums I’ve ever seen, the American Cowboy Museum, is not too far away and if you have time, I highly recommend visiting it. Your student is very lucky Hartt is on a much larger campus with more of a general college feel. It has a wonderful theater/dance complex that is a short bit away from the main campus, but easily accessible. (It was converted out of a car sales business!) The arts staff is warm and welcoming and my d was invited out of the hallway to join in on a dance class taught by a wonderful instructor! The main secretary there is very knowledgeable and informative and gave us a great tour! There is also a wonderful campus tour. My daughter was accepted there, but received no scholarship money as it is proveded by the main school to be used as each department sees fit, and the arts department often uses it to woo multitalented male performers (from the mouths of the staff . . .). Hartt is is in a very pretty suburb of the city, which is quite industrial. There are honors program and dorm options here. BoCo is on the edge of downtown Boston, and is housed in old, refurbished brownstones with a new theater building in one. It has a downtown feel with no real campus, and shares some facilities with other colleges in the area. They also tend to offer smaller scholarships as they are purely an arts institution. Students are immersed in excellent training, but when I did a review of performance opportunities over 4 years from looking at the resumes of the graduating class, it appeared that kids performed an average of 2 times in campus shows over the course of their 4 years. This could be because BoCo has a large admitted class size compared to some other programs. I strongly recommend that you contact departments and arrange for tours and discussions with MT staff. Also ask to arrange appointments or coffee with current students, or contact some through CC or FAcebook. We even took students out for meals and found out a lot!!! Best of luck!</p>
<p>I agree - all very different types of schools/campuses. As far as travel goes, I am not sure where you are located to know which of these schools is closest to you. I do think Amtrak runs between Hartford and Boston for about $100 - but I don’t know how long it takes or what the schedules might be. But taking the train between the two schools may be something to look into if flights aren’t available or are highly expensive. Of course Oklahoma City is quite a distance from Boston and Hartford. Southwest Airlines usually has some great fares to Oklahoma City and I think they fly out of both Boston and Hartford – but of course the fare depends on when you book and when you want to fly. We did find having a rental car in Oklahoma City was helpful when there but I read from another poster they took cabs while there – so for one day a rental car may not be necessary. You may want to consider talking to a travel agent. We had friends who have taken a very extended trip and their tickets were cheaper by treating some of their stops as layovers of the same ticket rather than getting individual flights to each location. Even though they stayed sometimes 2 weeks at some of these locations, it was still treated as a stop on the same ticket by the travel agent which evidently made the ticket cost quite a bit cheaper.
As far as the programs and campuses themselves, I have only visited OCU so I cannot comment on the others. OCU is very strong in music and dance and acting is coming along. What my family remarked on while there was how happy all of the students seem to be. That made a big impression. The other 2 programs are well thought of also – very, very different from OCU. BC is definitely a conservatory with little academics and no real campus. But you have the amazing city of Boston as your playground. Hartford is not the prettiest of cities but I hear great things about that program too.
Sounds like you have great programs from which to choose! Best of luck to you!!</p>
<p>Wow!! Thank you everyone for your wonderful input! E definitely have to choose how we go about this since we farther west. I used to work for a travel agency so maybe I can do this right.</p>
<p>Yes djexpress, this is do-able! As a veteran of travels from December - March (my son did not do unifieds so we visited 12 campuses!) - this is definitely possible. Book a multi-city ticket - go to OCU first. Arrive the day before your campus visit, spend the night and go see OCU. Book a flight out in the mid to late afternoon of that day for Hartford – repeat. You can drive from Hartford to Boston in a rental car for about $50 per day and might be cheaper than two Amtrak tickets. Fly home from Boston. Very similar to a trip we took back in February with three feet of snow on the ground!!! Enjoy this time because it’s so exciting!</p>
<p>Great advice, mcpcwhite! Did you book you multi tickets online, through travel,agent or on the phone? We may want to stop in NYC on the way back from Hartford. I guess we could take a train if that is the case. Thanks! Excellent example. :)</p>
<p>I booked a multi-city ticket online through the airline (American). If you’re going to NYC, then you might want to do the train for sure. Good luck!</p>
<p>Could be cheaper to fly in and out of Boston than into Hartford from Oklahoma (check). I know it is a lot cheaper to fly to Boston than from the west coast city I live in to any of the regional airports. If you start from Boston it should take less than 2 hours each way to drive from Boston to Hartford. Sometimes you pay more for a car rental that isn’t being driven back to the same location so consider that if you are taking a car from Hartford and leaving it in Boston.</p>
<p>You can get tickets for either the Boltbus or Megabus (see their websites) to go one way from Boston South Station right to Penn Station area in NYC. Booked far enough in advance they are about $13.00 one way and they run all day. Wifi on board and faster than the train because it is direct door to door with no stops. I want to say it is under 4 hours which is technically faster than you can get to the airport, from downtown Boston, go through security and wait to board then fly and land at whatever NYC airport you fly into and take a very expensive cab ride (or train) to Manhattan. It’s very easy and I’ve used it several times. You don’t need a car while actually visiting schools “in” Boston and you won’t want one either since the “T” (subway) has stops right near the schools you’re looking to visit. Or you can brave the traffic and Boston drivers (I used to be one so I can say it.)</p>
<p>Just saw mcpcwhite’s post above. Trust me. Don’t do the train, take the bus. The train is fine but the bus is way cheaper and faster especially if you think about travel during non peak traffic times. The train tends to be even more expensive than a shuttle flight to NYC from Boston (not accounting for cab fair from the airport).</p>
<p>^^^absolutely could be the case. Depends on where you’re coming from. Only raised it to say, “be sure to look” since Hartford is a reasonable driving distance from Boston.</p>
<p>Megabus also goes between Hartford and Boston and then between Boston and NYC. My son lives in Boston and uses it frequently to travel to NYC. Clean and cheap and even if you can’t get the $13 tkt you probably can get one for around $25 each.</p>
<p>Right that’s true too lojosmo. Forgot about that. The only catch is that I think one would want a car in Hartford wouldn’t they? (Not familiar with where the Hartt campus is in relationship to any public transportation.)</p>
<p>I used to live in Boston and my daughter is studying in NYC right now. We use those busses all the time for her and I’ve done it myself probably 3 times as well when visiting her and family in New England. They are fine and the way to go.</p>
<p>Check all the airport permutations from a major/hub airport. Oklahoma City is definitely not a hub of any kind. I did my fair share of these trips last year and it can be done, but allow time for rest or your kid may not have a favorable impression of campus simply because they are too tired!</p>
<p>True that. Sometimes it is worth it to think of some of these trips as their own trip from wherever you live and not try to group them. We had to do that for visiting U Miami since it was too much of an outlier from everything else. The rest made some sort of logical sense as certainly does a combined Boston/Hartford/NYC jaunt. That could not be easier.</p>
<p>I would not let my D take either the Bolt or Megabus. I always had her take Peter Pan. Peter Pan is a sub company set up by Greyhound to compete with these other companies. Peter Pan is only about 10 bucks more expensive.</p>
<p>Boltbus is actually a joint venture between Peter Pan and Greyhound. Mega is different but I’ve taken both with no concern. I’m cool with keeping my $10 but that’s me. I actually took Bolt from NYC to DC a few weeks ago as part of a college visit tour over Feb break with my son. It was perfectly fine.</p>
I used to work for a travel agency so maybe I can do this right.</p>