<p>My D (2013) and I are headed on the Jr Yr Epic College Visit trip on Sunday. We will be driving and will take about a week to do the trip. She is in the "overwhelmed thinking about actually going to college" phase and I think she feels pressure when she thinks about the future. Consequently, our usually easy-going relationship can become rather tense.</p>
<p>I would love "seasoned" parents to give me tips on a long college trip like this:</p>
<p>What are good things to say/do to help get info from the child about what he/she thinks without making them feel pressured?</p>
<p>What are things you said or did that really set them off (I want to avoid this as much as possible!)</p>
<p>What helped make the car driving hours pass happily? D is a permitted driver and will be accruing necessary driving hours during this time, so she can't be spending much time on the computer or watching movies. </p>
<p>I'd love whatever advice you all can share! If you have funny stories, share them too!</p>
<p>If you are going to a target rich environment maybe try a few schools quickly that you are pretty sure she’ll hate. My D was much better at articulating what she didn’t like about schools before she was able to really express what was a fit. Give her a dry run or 2 with lots to talk about in terms of icky stuff. The real target schools will seem so much better then.</p>
<p>During our last college tour, we turned it into a vacation. We stayed at great hotels and didn’t jam in too many colleges in one day. She took charge of the visit and we switched college visits around as she liked. Basically, I removed all unnecessary pressure. We had a blast and at the end she gave me insight into what she was looking for in a college. A few weeks later, I showed her a list of colleges similar to the ones she liked and I think our college list is now complete. </p>
<p>My advice would be to make trip as fun as possible and let her take the lead.</p>
<p>Get to the college you plan to visit the night before. Don’t get up and drive in the morning, and then do the college trips. Get there the night before so you can have a less hectic morning.</p>
<p>We tried to do something for fun in each place…lunch out, a little shopping, or just relaxing. </p>
<p>If the trip feels rushed, you will all be on edge!</p>
<p>I was given this advice by experienced CCer’s “When you are on your college trips, let your child initiate the college conversations and let her be the first one to comment after the tour” I think it made a positive difference in our experience.</p>
<p>Before the trip my son wanted nothing to do with all my notes, etc regarding each college so I brought it along for my own purposes - he reached for my folder many times and silently looked over the info…</p>
<p>When visiting a school, don’t jump in with your opinion until they’ve had a chance to take it all in and present theirs to you. It should have come naturally, but I actually had to remind myself to do this–</p>
<p>I agree that visit to a school you think your child won’t like is not a bad start to a trip - I did it with my youngest. There were things I really liked about the college (Bard), but there were some things that were just awful that made both of us laugh. My main advice was don’t nag them to talk and don’t try to squeeze too much into a day.</p>
<p>D2 (who is not really a people person, although she tolerates me best :)) and I just got back from a week of this. A few things:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Once we both knew within a couple of hours that the school was not right for her. We ditched on the tour and skipped the info session, took the rest of the day off.</p></li>
<li><p>I copied the pages for each college out of the Fiske book before we left, and handed it to D to read as we drove from the hotel to campus each morning. Also with a sheet of what she was scheduled for on campus that day so she was prepared to approach the admissions desk and get herself checked in. I had a folder for each college with some questions I had written on each.</p></li>
<li><p>I took the notes on campus and asked a lot of the questions. D was fine with that, she knows she can look them over later as needed/use them for “why X” essay prep. I noticed later in the week she started asking more questions herself as she got more comfortable with the process.</p></li>
<li><p>I generally asked for her opinion as we drove away from campus. Usually we hashed over the pros and cons of the college for 15 minutes or so, then that was IT. I made an effort NOT to bring up college in general for the rest of the day.</p></li>
<li><p>Just FYI, I think it would have been HUGELY stressful for my D to try to mix her permit driving with this type of trip. You are always driving in an unfamiliar location (and sometimes getting lost). If it were me, I would not plan to combine those no matter how convenient it seems. Maybe driving to dinner if you had passed the place on the way to the hotel. Or if you are in a non-city highway area without a lot of traffic, and want her to do an hour of highway driving. But I just wouldn’t try to put those activities together hardly at all.</p></li>
<li><p>One night we were hunting for food, it was late, and a Chipotle miraculously appeared. It made her day… just saying, picking food they like is a nice boost.</p></li>
<li><p>We check out all the coffee shops and snack bars on campus. If D goes to a class, I usually try to meet her with a mocha or smoothie when she comes out.</p></li>
<li><p>Although D will not major in studio art, she likes to take classes in it. One of our last acts on campus is usually to walk through the art building to see what the student art and studios look like. It seemed to sort of relax her to think about her extra curricular activity at the end of each visit.</p></li>
<li><p>One night we stayed in D1’s college guest house, and had separate rooms. I left her COMPLETELY alone after dinner, didn’t talk to her again until morning. As I said, she is not a people person (it is rather like traveling with a cat). She appreciated some alone time. I also left the hotel room to work out in the evening most of the time.</p></li>
<li><p>My “cat” is quite introverted, and did not want to interview. Once on an earlier trip a college “sprang” an interview on here, and it was awful. This time we brought some what I call “nutshell” sheets along that summarize her academics, in school ECs, and out of school ECs. Put two copies in the daily folder (one for her, one for the ad com) just in case she got mugged into an interview. It did not happen on this trip, but it gave her some peace of mind to know we had that to help direct the conversation just in case.</p></li>
<li><p>At one point after several hours of driving we played that game, “I’m going on a trip, and I am taking an alligator… an alligator and a banana… an alligator, banana, and cork.”. Just once, spur of the moment, it actually made the last half hour of a long drive bearable. I blew it while trying to recite and pay the turnpike toll at the same time. She was smug. :)</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Make it an enjoyable trip for your D, not just all business. Enjoy this precious time together. Set the tone yourself. She will be more comfortable and get more value out of the trip if you are relaxed and not stressed out.</p>
<p>Like Kajon and lspf72, I always try to elicit my D’s thoughts about a school before I speak about it and carefully choose my comments to help her understand and frame her feelings about the school and not to impress my opinions about it onto her. I try to arm her with the tools needed to make the best decision for her, not steer her toward the schools the appeal to me. I find that can be very difficult at times.</p>
<p>As the parent remain flexible to your child’s preferences … it’s possible you’ll be on a campus for about 10 minutes and your child will say they are done even though you were planning a full tour; go with the flow and change plans … in most locations there are other schools that can be seen instead.</p>
<p>I never asked questions. Not my job. I stayed T the back of the pack. My ds and I didn’t mich walk together on the tours. If they did walk with me, it was a sign they weren’t that interested and wanted to make fun.</p>
<p>We hated hated harped the parents who asked questions and hogged the guides, drove us nuts. Asking minutia about meal plans.</p>
<p>What we did find help was free time, fun, we did a Boston tour on the water, and went to Salem while seeing several schools. </p>
<p>We didn’t sit thru every info session. One school soon as we walked around ot was eh, not a chance. And thT was fine. </p>
<p>We did a long road trip to la. It was exhausting. A big help was really planning the logistics. Howling did it really take to get there. Was there parking. Little things like where the heck is the parking lot makes things less stressful. And quiet time.</p>
<p>Make sure you explore the area too. That is part of the school experience too. If you live in a landlocked area and she is visiting a school on one of the coasts, make time to spend a couple hours at a beach, for example. Don’t do too many tours. Explore on your own for some campuses or at least, don’t sign up for the tour and info session and meeting with department people at every school, especially if you know you will go back for a second visit after acceptance. OR, if you are visiting a school you know is a good school, do you really need to do the “official” tour? Maybe that is a time just to meet with the department chair, have lunch in the dining hall, etc. </p>
<p>Just a tip, all freshman dorms are small, cramped and not nice. If you go into your tours with that attitude, it will be a lot easier :D. </p>
<p>Make sure you eat meals before tours. Our last tour we drove from quite a distance. We had signed up for just the tour and to meet with the coach for DD’s sport. They added a lot of things to our schedule, but no meal time. DD gets crabby if she doesn’t eat. We had planned on the tour and coach meeting to take 1 1/2 hours and we were going to eat after that in the dining hall. Well, 3 hours later we are starving. It is the only tour we have been on that didn’t work in a meal if you were there over meal time. Weird.</p>
<p>If you will be going out of state, check the laws and make sure your D is allowed to drive there. Not all states allow non-resident drivers with only a permit to operate a vehicle in their state.</p>
<p>Chime on what others said about letting the kid take the lead in any discussion about colleges. Then talk about anything and everything else–or nothing at all. Books on CD were a fabulous help during a particularly long, boring couple of days of driving.</p>
<p>Our number 1 requirement (for road trips): Music. Good tunes for the car, a mix of options for all travelers and a plan for song rotations (when is it mom’s turn, when D’s, etc.). </p>
<p>Other than that, I think the key is remembering that the kid is the one going away to college. If they get a bad vibe somewhere, trust it, as long as that’s not the norm (i.e., they are negative about every school they see).</p>
<p>Another thing we do on any long road trip, but especially college tours is that we rent a fun car. Sometimes they are sporty, other times it was a nice minivan with a DVD player and lots of room to stretch out. We use National Emerald Aisle where you get to pick whatever car you want on their lot. We mainly do that to keep from adding all the miles to our cars but the fun factor is a bonus.</p>
<p>Lots of good advice. For early, preliminary college visits (which these are–serious ones will be senior year), I never asked a lot of questions following the visit. After it was over, Kid and I would look at each other and the only question was, “Is this school still on the list?” That’s it–just yes or no. If the discussion got more detailed, fine, but if not, that was fine too.</p>
<p>And I agree with the rental car. Because of my work situation I put a lot of miles on my car, so have always rented one for long trips. The kids are oddly intrigued by being in a different car. (In fact, I’m currently visiting one kid in college with another in tow and we’re in a rental car. They’re usually not as nice as my own car, but pretty new and different and fun.) (We sometimes luck out and get a car with satellite radio–love love love it, as do the kids!)</p>
<p>My D had her license about 6 mos. when we went on a similar trip the summer after soph yr. She was happy to do the highway driving, but not so much in the cities we were both unfamiliar with. Let your D decide.</p>
<p>We did do some drive-bys of campuses that were nearby but not of interest. It did give her the chance to say with no pressure on herself, “I like . . . I don’t like . . .” </p>
<p>We did another trip the following summer and stayed on campus in an apartment at one top choice to get a feel for the space. That’s now where she attends. Since you’re going during school, try to at least see inside a dorm room at each place.</p>
<p>My D kept fairly quiet on the tours. If I had a question, I would say to her, “I wonder if . . .” If she seemed to be interested, I’d ask her if she wanted to ask (usually no) then if she wanted me to ask (sometimes yes).</p>
<p>Early on in the week-long trip, we tried to eat lunch or at least get a snack in the school cafeteria. After about three of those, she’d had enough dorm food. Sometimes we’d poke our head in the caf to look, sometimes not even that. Local eateries were much more fun to explore.</p>
<p>A few last tips that made the trip better: a GPS that you’re familiar with using AND a good road atlas, satellite radio or the connector to play her iPod tunes in the car, reading material other than college info for when your eyes start to glaze over.</p>
<p>If you drive a rental car and the car doors won’t lock, check for the keys. They may be in the ignition or on the seat!
Have fun!</p>
Since you’re going during school, try to at least see inside a dorm room at each place.</p>