Metro North from Grand Central to White Plains takes around 40 minutes, (very easy), and S has never had any trouble getting an Uber from the station to campus or vice versa. There are also city buses that run from the station to campus so you wouldn’t be stranded. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble getting there and back using public transportation.
You could rent a car as well, but you might want to wait to make that decision until you find out what time the audition is. If you’re driving during commuting hours it may take longer than public transportation would, and depending on your comfort level with city driving, could be pretty stressful.
Thanks for the great advice everyone. I think we will take the train from Grand Central and uber to Purchase once we get there and do the same on the return. This is all premature since D hasn’t been officially invited yet but assuming she is then I wanted to be prepared. Now onto the VRBO’s. I found a great apartment in Boston for the 2 nights and another super cute on in west village for 4 nights. The only problem with that one is it’s on the 5th floor with no elevator! Yikes! Not a problem for the time we are there (I say while huffing and puffing thinking about it haha!) but lugging suitcases up on arrival and down on departure doesn’t sound pleasant. Probably why it’s so cheap.
I’ll look at the Pods too. Might be a nice and cheap alternative.
I have spinal fractures and my kid had a bad injury but we managed to go up a few floors and enjoy ourselves. Teamwork. Try to enjoy the trip.
You guys probably have better humidifiers than we did but I have a mold allergy and woke up stuffy the few nights we used one. Not sure if that is relevant to anyone and it seems most of you have tried on successfully, but for others reading this…
I have been lurking for a month. Finally caught up after the holidays. We are a midwest family. D is VP Soprano. We toured many (12) midwest schools spring break of jr year and summer after. Many were just ho hum, with a handful of stand outs.
With much pushing, D got most of her apps in EA. I think she ended up applying to 9 schools. Her top choice since day one has been Lawrence University. We toured twice. She has been very active in choir and musical theatre in our community. She was looking for a place where she could do both. Lawrence has a five year program BM/BA, but to be accepted you had to apply by Nov 1 and audition mid November. Decisions Dec. 15th.
D made it happen. She auditioned Nov. 11th. The faculty was amazing and welcoming. D felt right at home. As her mom, it was awesome to watch. I knew it would be a great fit for her.
Knowing the decision from Lawrence was coming mid Dec, we put off any other prescreens/auditions until January, hoping we would not have to do them. It was a long month of waiting, but Dec 15th at 18:47 (year of founding) the posted acceptances.
She is IN, with great merit! She will be a VP BM/BA Theatre Arts student. She will go back mid Feb to audition for Theatre scholarship money, but that is it for us.
I am so grateful/thankful to be done so early. The audition schedules you guys have been posting seem grueling! I wish you all the best.
Hi @3gigglinggirls!! Thanks for the post! Wow I can’t begin to tell you how envious I am of you! First off Congrats on your D’s acceptance! I’m envious that you get to avoid all of the travel, stress, auditions and $$$$$ in travel/hotel etc for the next 2 months. I’m also envious that your D knew exactly where she wanted to be and got her acceptance so early there. My D really still has no idea at all. It’s mind-boggling to me. I have a clear choice FOR her where I feel like it’s the best fit for her but whether or not SHE comes to that same conclusion, as well as the money coming along with it remains to be seen. Ultimately, the journey and the decisions are all hers provided it comes with a price tag that we can afford.
I have spent the better part of last night booking flights to Boston and NYC along with VRBO apartments. I found the cutest and greatest deal on an apartment only to lose the booking within hours. ACK! Oh well…back to the search. Trying to stay in a decent location for fun and activity and comfortably as well. And cheap haha! Sometimes the three are exclusive of each other.
Once again, huge congrats to your D in finding her fit so early on!
Congrats, @3gigglinggirls ! I am also very jealous. I thought Lawrence would have been perfect for my son. I even have an office in WI so visits could be dual purpose! But alas, he refused to apply anywhere cold. Best of luck to your D!
Congratulations @3gigglinggirls ! Lawrence is a special place and one of few where you can make a Classical VP heavy double major with Theater work… my D also strongly considered it! How WONDERFUL to be done and have everything in the bag in January! @vistajay we visited in February last year and had glorious weather (in the 60’s), but there were still giant mountains of frozen snow in parking lots all over town taller than us!
It is definitely cold in Appleton, WI. But for those of us living in the midwest this year…it can’t be that different. I mean if it’s 20 degrees or -10 degrees, kids won’t be outside. It is a small campus, so really not much walking required.
I loved that it was directly next to the downtown area. Lots of restaurants, coffee shops, bars, shopping within walking distance. D will not be bringing a car, so that is huge for her.
congrats @3gigglinggirls ! Lawrence is a great place. Alas by D18 refused to apply because they are in the process of hiring a new oboe professor. It is important to know who you’ll be working will for the next 4-5 years, but man Appleton is only 2 hours away from us.
@oboemom65 I wish I could be that close. It’s really going tough to be that far away. She is my first born. We are vey close. I’m sure I will be a disaster when she leaves.
@3gigglinggirls we stayed at The Copperleaf Hotel right in downtown Appleton last year, and it was an excellent stay… you are walking distance to the college, and all the downtown shops and dining. The Copperleaf also set up airport pickup and drop off for us. Just excellent service, so I recommend you try them sometime while visiting your D! (Appleton is a really nice little town!) Sigh… someone should probably start a thread for post college drop off for us parents. The past few months have been full of adjustments for me, and I think especially for performing arts parents, there is a big void left when our artists leave for college.
@dramasopranomom We didn’t try the Copperleaf yet, but plan to during drop off. It looked really nice. We did eat at the restaurant in that hotel. It was excellent. As for the void, it will be huge. The lessons, performances, constant singing/dancing in the house…as much as it annoys me now…I will miss it so much. Luckily, I will still have two girls at home (D20, D25). They are also performers, but not the extent of D18. So, at least I will have them to distract me from my sadness. Honestly, I will probably be the one performing just to keep them from being sad that they are losing their big sis. I’m not ready, but ready of not…it’s coming.
@3gigglinggirls When we dropped our eldest off at college over 3000 miles away and drove away from the dorm, my wife turned to me and sobbed “we’ve made a horrible mistake.” Now halfway into her second year, it is much easier. My wife did a lot of “performing” to keep it together though.
@3gigglinggirls - everyone may be different, but we parents of S put so much support into his efforts before he went off to college, and we saw so clearly that where he was going and what he was doing was so in-line with what he had been doing and what he wanted to do, that even Mrs. GoForth did not cry, to her surprise. She thought she would. She knows what S is doing and has hopes about seeing him every few months. I was surprised how smooth it went. Of course everything quieted down back in he home state with no more rehearsals and performances of his for us to go to. We did enjoy it when there was music noise in the house - we knew it was all for a good reason and that it would only be here for so long.
Well after speaking with D’s vocal coach and D, she decided to toss in an 11th hour application to a midwest school due today! LOLOL. Good grief. We just found out that the vocal jazz prof at Loyola is no longer there. UGH. I’m not sure what that means and we haven’t heard back from the head of jazz studies so I’m hoping that what had been a very affordable and viable option isn’t off the table now. Then after someone suggested D take a closer look at CCPA-Roosevelt, an easy drive to Chicago for us, D decided to go ahead and throw in her application there. The upside is she was able to upload video auditions so we don’t have the added strain of more travel for another audition. If it ends up being a viable option we can make the trip and check it out.
Does anyone have any info on it? They look like they have a good jazz and contemporary music program. And the location can’t be beaten with beautiful looking dorms right in downtown Chicago overlooking the lake. It looks very nice. I know I’d looked at this a long time ago but I’m not quite sure why it didn’t make the list other than D wants to get out of the midwest. If anyone has any experience there I’m all ears.
I do not know that program, although I’ve been aware of its presence. For those staying in the city of Chicago, other places that come to mind would be DePaul and UIC. I looked at the faculty list for CCPA and did not know the folks there, which means I just don’t know enough people. It can be surprising what great instructors are hiding all over the place. We have a really fantastic professional young jazz vocalist in the area who went to her local college in Naperville, a far far suburb of Chicago and is doing quite well in the area. I think she took charge of her learning and came up with some of her own ideas.