<p>Just being curious....have you taken a college road trip this summer? Even a day trip to visit one?</p>
<p>Share where you have been. Any schools standing out for/to you or your child?</p>
<p>We have yet to do any visits this summer yet, but may be doing a day trip this next week. We'll be likely staying in Ohio though DS has an itch to at least VISIT Notre Dame.....</p>
<p>Just got home. Saw schools in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas.</p>
<p>Leaving Sunday for BU, BC, Tufts and Brown. </p>
<p>In August going to 11 schools in 11 days: Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Michigan, UofC, Northwestern, Wisconsin, WUSTL, Indiana, Ohio, Penn State, Penn.</p>
<p>In one trip we saw…</p>
<p>Roanoke College (Salem, Va.)
Elon U
High Point U (drive thru)
Wake Forest (with interview)
William & Mary (unscheduled walkabout)
U of Richmond</p>
<p>These were the 8th - 13th schools Son has visited. Now we’re done, unless…his October SAT goes up enough for some ubers to become mere reaches. </p>
<p>Of these, Elon zoomed to his favorite. That lasted until he saw WFU the following day. Now I think WFU is still his fave.</p>
<p>We’ll be taking day trips to Marist, UConn, a couple of SUNYs, UDelaware, whatever we can squeeze in. Did two big trips in the spring and thought we were done but D wants to check these out. Sigh.</p>
<p>Oh, yeah. I forgot. We went down to William and Mary last week for my daughter to interview. It was HOT!</p>
<p>We’ll be making some visits in August (sadly, before most colleges are in session).</p>
<p>Any particular advice re: summer visits - - especially since the campuses could be deserted or students on campus for the summers may be just visiting for special programs, and thus not accurately reflect the student body?</p>
<p>I’m a student, not a parent, but…
I took a road trip to Minnesota, saw Carleton (awesome) and Macalester (didn’t feel right).
In August I’m going to New England and seeing Brandeis, Brown, Vassar, Wesleyan, and Green Mountain College.
I also might visit Buena Vista University and/or Kalamazoo at some point this summer if I can talk my parents into it.</p>
<p>So far we’ve been to, in order of son’s preference:</p>
<ol>
<li> Chicago (dream school)</li>
<li> Notre Dame (liked emphasis on service and overall)</li>
<li> DePaul (loved location)</li>
<li> Illinois (loved academics, liked campus, disliked town)</li>
<li> our flagship State U (liked more than he expected - good choice for safety)</li>
<li> Rhodes (too fratty and thought Memphis was seedy)</li>
<li> Tulsa (hated the city and thought school was too white-bread)</li>
</ol>
<p>We combine our trips with visits to family. Later this year we hope to get to Texas (Rice, UT-Austin, Southwestern) and Boston (many possibilities there).</p>
<p>If we go to one area for the sole purpose of college visits, it will be OH/PA/NY (Case, Pitt, Carnegie Mellon, Rochester, RIT, Alfred, Cornell, Syracuse, etc.).</p>
<p>In order of visit:</p>
<p>Princeton, Amherst, Williams, Wake Forest, Elon, Duke, William & Mary, Bucknell. Wake Forest has percolated to the top.</p>
<p>We’ll be visiting in three separate rounds, with a week off between each:</p>
<p>Round 1 – a trip to Balt/DC to see GWU and Goucher
Round 2 – local day trips to UMass Amherst, Hampshire, Clark, BU, Tufts, and Wheaton
Round 3 – New York state trip to Skidmore, Bard, Cornell, Ithaca and Rochester</p>
<p>Went to Penn State earlier this week.</p>
<p>Will visit schools in New Orleans when we are there later visiting my parents. DS is not interested in Tulane or Loyola, but I want him to walk around the campuses just to get a feel for an “urban” campus. This will - I hope - give him something to compare to when he visits Purdue next month.</p>
<p>Will probably visit UT-Austin in September.</p>
<p>manotori - just curious about what your son didn’t like about Tulsa. I lived there for a year and really enjoyed it. Of course, I was married and had 2 very young kids…so I was at a different “point” in life! :)</p>
<p>In August, I will be visiting
Dartmouth [tour + info session]
Middlebury [tour + interview]
Princeton [tour and info session]
Brown [tour]
Brandeis [tour and interview]</p>
<p>Last April, I visited SUNY Geneseo, SUNY Binghamton, University of Rochester and Cornell [ended up crossing off Cornell + SUNY Binghamton]</p>
<p>Last August, my dad had a conference in Chicago so on the way we stopped to visit the University of Pittsburgh (Open House) and Purdue University - West Lafayette (tour).</p>
<p>I did a day trip to University of Massachusetts - Amherst (actually several) because I live 1 hour away from it.
On another day trip, I went to Union College and Syracuse University.</p>
<p>Another college visit, I went to Northeastern University. I just hopped on the subway and went there myself haha</p>
<p>The last trip I did was a southern road trip where I visited Clemson University and Virginia Tech.</p>
<p>pierre - this might have been covered in the “southern schools” thread - but what made you choose Clemson over VA Tech?</p>
<p>so far we have done u arkansas, lsu, auburn and alabama. may still do texas tech. not sure about any others. would like to consider OU and OSU, but i don’t think my DD will be able to get much merit $$ there, and without it the value isn’t there.</p>
<p>We have been camping in the Rockies and saw USAFAcademy in Colorado Springs. None of the kids is really interested but I can answer questions 
The chapel looks great from a distance!</p>
<p>The only thing that was stopping me from choosing Clemson over Virginia Tech was its engineering reputation (My parents still think I should have chosen VT because it’s ranked much higher in the US News engineering rankings). However, I looked at the places where VT engineers are employed and most of them were in the state of Virginia. I thus rationalized that it didn’t matter where I was going to school since I would most likely be working in that state (since Clemson and VT are both state schools) and that would mean being far away from Boston.</p>
<p>I loved Clemson because of the friendly atmosphere and the abundance of school spirit. It also has a beautiful setting and I just felt like I belonged there</p>
<p>RPI - tour and recruiting interviews
UDel & Princeton - drive through
MIT & BU - drive through
Next week we go to Syracuse and Cornell
Will do one more this summer to GT & Bama
May do Penn St too.</p>
<p>@ pierre0913 - be sure to look into Clemson’s merit $ for OOS. A guy in D’s HS got full.</p>