<p>Hello! Please excuse my posting in the parents forum, as I am, in fact, just a stressed out senior. Also, I hope that my post does not seem too lazy or ignorant as I have already read through previous threads on this issue, but am looking for some advice particular to my situation. Thank you so much in advance, neither I nor my family has ever visited the east coast or experienced the admissions process so we need your wisdom! </p>
<p>I am looking to visit Swarthmore, Haverford, Lafayette, Vassar, Bard, Amherst, Williams, Brown, Dartmouth, and Middlebury. How many days do you think this would take? What type of transportation would you recommend? Is this too many schools for one trip? What order/schedule would you use? Any other suggestions on how to cut costs or just in general?</p>
<p>Swarthmore and Haverford are very close to each other - it takes less than 1/2 hour to drive from one to the other, so you could visit both in one day. Bard and Vassar are close to each other and could be visited in one day. Amherst and Williams are about 2 hours apart by car from each other - you could fit them both into one day, tightly. If you plan to interview, it will be harder to see two schools in one day.</p>
<p>All of the college websites have travelling directions and maps as well as schedules for information sessions and tours of their particular institution. Some of them even give travelling directions from other colleges. They also tell you whether you need to make a reservation or not - most don't require a reservation, but some do.</p>
<p>I do think seeing ten schools in one week is very ambitious and it might all become a blur. However, being that you live in the west coast and can just make this one trip east and are a senior, I guess you could pack them in. I then would suggest returning to two to three favorites depending on your acceptances in April for more extensive/overnight visits. Ideally, I like one full day per school to have a deeper exploration that includes various elements that make a good college visit. But if you are content to mostly do the tours and info. sessions, it is possible to see two schools in a day that are close by if you plan it right, and then make drives to the next destination in the early evenings.</p>
<p>For a seven day trip with your ten schools....I suggest:</p>
<p>Day 1: Fly to Philadelphia, rent car, spend the night.
Day 2: See Swarthmore and Haverford (right near one another), half day at each. Drive in evening to Lafayette (about 90 min.)
Day 3: See Lafayette for half day, drive in afternoon to Vassar (approx. 2 1/2 hours). Spend night in Poughkeepsie.
Day 4: See Vassar half day, drive to Bard (half hour), see Bard half day. Drive in evening to Williams (about 1 3/4 hours). Spend night in Williamstown, MA.
Day 5: See Williams in AM, drive to Amherst (1 1/2 hours), see Amherst in afternoon. Drive in evening to Middlebury, VT (3 hours). Spend night in Middlebury.
Day 6: See Middlebury in AM, drive to Dartmouth (approx. 1 3/4 hours), see Dartmouth in afternoon. Drive in evening to Providence (3 hours). Stay in Providence.
Day 7: See Brown. Fly back to CA from Providence or if you get better rates and more flights or more direct, drive one hour to Boston and fly home from Boston. </p>
<p>The other thing you need to keep in mind, jamie, is that most schools don't have tours or info sessions on Sundays, and many have limited or no tours/info sessions on Saturdays.</p>
<p>We found it very difficult to visit even four colleges in one week! But coming from one coast to the other I recognize your constraints and your need to see as many schools as possible once you are out here. So, if you can manage the logistics and can actually visit all these schools and remain concious through all the tours after you hear the same (or very similar) speeches for the tenth time and hear people (if not yourself) ask the same questions over and over, I highly recommend bringing a camera that will date and time stamp the pictures you take, and be sure to take plenty of pictures. It would also be very helpful to take notes, except that note taking requires a lot of discipline and time that you may not have. Without the time stamped pics you run the risk of getting home and not being able to figure out which college was which!!</p>
<p>We made a spreadsheet with info that helped us differentiate 1 college from another after visiting. The only issue with this is you MUST keep it up daily when your impressions are fresh in your mind. </p>
<p>I hope you don't have the same problem that I did (I'm the mom). I fell in love with each school as we visited with my S! Hence, I guess my favorite... was the LAST one! :-)</p>
<p>If you have friends at any of the schools you plan on visiting, I would suggest dropping them an e-mail on the possibility of doing an overnight. In addition if you contact the admissions office at some of the schools, they many can and will assign you a host for an overnight visit. That way you see the school after classes are over and save some hotel expenses at the same time.</p>
<p>I can't imagine pulling that list of school visits off in 7 days. The first thing you should do is visit all the websites and note the times and days that tours/info sessions are available. Then consider geography--geographically, it's always the outliers that distort the travel plans. In this case, those are Lafayette, Brown, Middlebury, and Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Vassar, Bard, Williams, Amherst go together pretty well. You could also get Dartmouth and Middlebury in this group, and see all six of them with careful planning. I honestly don't see that you can feasibly see the rest in a one week trip.</p>
<p>Soozie could pull it off, but as a Californian unfamiliar with the roads and dealing with jet-lag and a long flight, you probably are better off trying to limit yourself. Driver's list is one option. Another would be:</p>
<p>Sun: Fly to Phila.
Mon: Tour Swarthmore and Haverford and drive to Easton.
Tues: Tour Lafayette and drive to Poughkeepsie.
Weds: Tour Vassar and Bard and drive to Williamstown.
Thurs: Tour Williams and Amherst.
Fri: Drive to Providence and tour Brown.
Sat: Fly home.</p>
<p>Catch Dartmouth and Middlebury another time.</p>
<p>Whatever you do, plan everything out in advance. Reserve where you're going to stay, and plan exactly which tours and information sessions you're going to attend, what you're driving times are, what route you'll take, what the exact location of the tours and info sessions are, etc. The directions on the websites under Admissions - Visiting X or Information for Visitors - are more accurate than what you get if you use mapquest, google maps or yahoo maps. Print out maps in advance.</p>
<p>jaimie, all of these schools are within reasonable driving distance of each other; however, to squeeze all 10 into a week would be a punishing schedule, so maybe you should strategize another way.</p>
<p>First, make sure that you see your number one and number two choices. Sometimes after a visit priorities change, but you won't know until you visit so they must be on the list.</p>
<p>Second, make sure that you visit your safety (or safeties). Judging from the caliber of your list, you may not need a safety, but it's always good to have one or two that you're comfortable with so that you can relax. A visit really helps to "sell" the less selectives.</p>
<p>Third, think about which schools put the most emphasis on demonstrated interest, e.g. which add points for visits. I may be wrong about this but I don't think visiting Brown or Dartmouth would particularly help in admissions. If you get in you could visit afterwards. On the other hand schools like Amherst, Swarthmore, and Williams really like to see that prospective students have visited.</p>
<p>Even the natural fits make for a very hectic day. For example, you could take a 9:00 a.m. tour of Williams, go to the information session at 10:15, rush over to Amherst, maybe have time for a quick lunch, and then go to the 2:00 information session and the 3:00 tour. But that would leave you no time to look around by yourself, ask questions after the information session, have an informal interview or conversations with students, or visit a particular department. If you have a special talent having a meeting with the appropriate person can help at these schools and would be worth taking the extra time to do even if it means only seeing one of the schools in a day. My child was admitted to both Williams and Amherst I think in part on the strength of interviews in my child's performance area.</p>
<p>Just to clarify, I am not recommending the trip I wrote out, but was merely answering the inquiry for a west coast person. We did NOTHING like this. However, we had the luxury that the schools on the list were on the eastern seaboard and not 3000 miles away. We always only did one school in a day. And no college trip involved more than two schools total (in two days). This person can't do that, it seems, and it is already senior year. I also am NOT into just doing info. sessions and tours, though realize that is what many people limit themselves to. I did not post or take the time to post what I really would do in terms of college visits. But I simply went with what this person was wanting to do....a tour of many schools in one week....hoping that at least he/she will revisit and do an overnight at the favorites he/she is admitted to in April....and simply gave logistically how one might group schools and the drives involved. I would not want to do that trip but if that is the sort of thing they are going for, I just gave a possible itinerary. Ideally, even for THIS kind of trip, if the list could go down to 8 schools, it would be better, not great but better. I think, however, IF they do this, the drive time each night is not that signficant. However, the whole week would have my head spinning. But I realize those who must fly and see all their schools in one week, do do this. For me, I would not prioritize based on which schools want you to show interest. We visited simply because we wanted to explore the schools for our own interest. So, that would not have changed our choices of where to visit. But I surely agree with others about doing more than the tours and info. sessions but that will be more difficult if you only have a half day at each school. It will be very basic. Another idea is to skip the info. session maybe and do the tour and add some appts. instead, or more informal things. Perhaps for the schools where you are in town for the evening, see if you can overnight or do something on campus in the evening. </p>
<p>As I said, this is a very ambitious schedule but I merely provided the geographical possibility to someone unfamiliar with the east coast. </p>
<p>Hope you decide what your priorities are and how you want to go about it. Perhaps you want a survey and can go back in April for the in depth visit to admitted schools. Hopefully you do explore beyond the surface before commiting to your eventual school. </p>
<p>I would skip 2 or 3 schools on the list, and I'd eliminate the ones that had the best combination of (a) most capricious admissions and (b) most time-consuming to travel to. I'd visit them if I got in.</p>
<p>Do you have a sense of when you plan to travel? Winter comes early to New England, so it would be prudent to factor in extra time to what soozie provided should you come in November and it's snowing or there's even a heavy rainfall. (We've been getting a lot of that lately.)</p>
<p>Our experience was that two schools per day didn't tax brains too much, but it's also important to build in some down time to visit sights, etc., if possible. We did a week on the West Coast last year but visited only six schools in five days. It provided us with time to talk with students, faculty, administrators, sit in on classes, etc., that greatly contributed to narrowing the application list.</p>
<p>You could prioritize the schools and do just a drive through or a weekend visit for those schools that would be safeties or are peripherally on the list (if their geographical locations permit). But 1D2TG's suggestion of skipping select schools is a sound one.</p>
<p>Thank you all so much for your thoughtful responses! I (she) am really amazed by how helpful the college confidential parents are. The plan right now is to arrive on Saturday, November 5 in Philadelphia, rest on that Sunday, and then visit Swarthmore, Haverford, Lafayette, Vassar, Bard, Amherst, Williams, and Brown, returning home on Saturday, November 12. This is five days of visiting time for eight colleges which is certainly far from ideal, but both doable and necessary in my case. I have noted all of your suggestions, as far as pictures, spreadsheets, rental cars, etc.-all of which I will try to use to get the most out of these cursory looks at the colleges. </p>