<p>My son is a junior and has the above 3 colleges, and where they are located in Pennsylvania,
how does your student get back and forth for beginning/end of year and major breaks? It looks like a transportation nightmare.....bus to Harrisburg, one flight out a day from Harrisburg to Boston. Is it as bad as it looks?</p>
<p>To go from Gettysburg or Dickinson to Boston, I’d take a bus to Harrisburg, and then take Amtrak. It runs through Phila. Just make sure you buy Amtrak tickets in advance - the price goes up the later you wait. It is especially impt. to buy tickets early for Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>Amtrak is a fast way to travel when the roads are crowded over Thanksgiving weekend.</p>
<p>Amtrak is usually a pleasant way to travel - they have electric outlets and free wireless, and you can get up and walk around and grab a meal onboard.</p>
<p>From Gettysburg, it might be possible to find a student who lives to the south who would be willing to drop off a fellow student at Marshall/BWI airport, which is south of Baltimore. There is some light rail service to BWI airport from various parts of the Baltimore region.</p>
<p>There are cheap city buses that run from Carlisle to Downtown Harrisburg, which is where the Amtrak station is located. The Harrisburg Amtrak station also serves as the inter-city bus station. </p>
<p>With one transfer, you should be able to go from Carlisle to Downtown Harrisbug to the Harrisburg Airport by the CAT bus system. The bus service from Downtown Harrisburg to the Airport is cheap and frequent.</p>
<p>For Bucknell, your best bet may be to catch a ride from someone driving to the NY area, and then catching a train to Boston.</p>
<p>You might want to check and see if any transportation is offered by the school. Surprisingly my daughter’s college in Pa (Muhlenberg) has a bus that goes to and from Boston at each break.</p>
<p>We live in MN and my D attended Dickinson. My D flew in and out of Harrisburg. No direct flights so she always changed planes. Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia were common stops for her (always only one stop). Dickinson runs shuttles to and from the Harrisburg airport, the kids just need to sign up for a spot. There is a fee (not sure, maybe $15 each way)? But they run them pretty often (every couple of hours) during the days when kids are most likely to travel. Flights weren’t cheap, but it really wasn’t too big a hassle. D2 will also go to a “2 hop” school from our house (will have to change planes once), I have no concerns about it.</p>
<p>Amtrak also goes to Harrisburg – no idea what would be involved to go to Boston, but I know my D used it a few times to other cities on the east coast.</p>
<p>Once she had been at Dickinson for 6 months she had friends with cars, and could arrange a drop off or pick up with them if needed in a pinch (like when she flew someplace for an interview mid-semester).</p>
<p>I don’t know why admissions offices don’t do a better job of addressing this concern in their admissions literature for out of state students… a lot of colleges have shuttles, etc. to and from the airport on key dates, but they seem to assume everyone knows this. I wonder how many students they lose in the application process because the transportation seems too daunting when it really isn’t.</p>
<p>bucknell is a bit harder…but look at Muhlenberg College and Lehigh University and then you can use
[Lehigh</a> Valley International Airport (ABE)](<a href=“http://flylvia.com/index.html]Lehigh”>http://flylvia.com/index.html) to get in and out.
changing planes is probably not avoidable.
I know you did not ask about those two schools, but just figured I would give those schools a plug, since they are very similar to the ones you listed.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Gettysburg is not much farther from Baltimore than it is from Harrisburg, and Baltimore is a much better transportation hub. If you are going to Boston, you can use Amtrak or fly from BWI. In Gettysburg, they are all Ravens/Orioles fans.</p></li>
<li><p>I think it’s pretty easy to get from Carlisle to the Harrisburg train station, and there is regular Amtrak service between Harrisburg and Philadelphia, where you can get a Northeast Corridor train to Boston. </p></li>
<li><p>Bucknell: Get a car. You will be a long way from anywhere.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>You should check the colleges’ websites. It wouldn’t surprise me if any or all of them had some sort of regular shuttle service to major airports/Amtrak. At Bucknell or Gettysburg that would almost be a necessity.</p>
<p>Gettysburg has a shuttle service, that for a nominal fee, they will have a retired community member drive your student to Harrisburg or Baltimore to link up with some form of transportation. This needs to be worked out ahead of time and it can get busy depending on when you want to travel. For all three of the schools you mentioned you are not real close to anywhere. It can be a blessing… and a curse. Best of luck.</p>
<p>Megabus has connections between Harrisburg and Philadelphia, where a student could pick up the train or another Megabus to Boston. [megabus.com</a> | Now serving over 25 million bus customers in North America](<a href=“http://us.megabus.com/]megabus.com”>http://us.megabus.com/)</p>
<p>Possibly as fast as the train, almost certainly cheaper than the train, but also probably not as easy to stretch your legs on as the train!</p>
<p>From Bucknell’s website:
[Card</a> Services & Student Transit || Shuttle Schedule || Bucknell University](<a href=“http://www.bucknell.edu/x8734.xml]Card”>http://www.bucknell.edu/x8734.xml)</p>
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<p>You might also ask students (on the college’s forum here or Facebook or if you know graduates from previous years who attend that college) whether there are any charter buses to your area for breaks. Sometimes, these buses are not affiliated with the college and won’t be mentioned on the college’s Web site.</p>
<p>Don’t underestimate the travel difficulties to and from college—especially when colleges are located where snow storms are pretty commonplace. </p>
<p>Unless he has his heart set on these three colleges, have him add a few colleges that are more easily accessible from Boston. There are plenty and I’m sure he’ll be able to find at least a few that offer what he’s looking for in a college. </p>
<p>Make sure he considers the town/city where the schools are located. Does he want to be limited to spending the majority of his time on campus or does he want to have the option to have things to do off campus on weekends? In our experience, having a decent amount of off campus options are a big plus----restaurants, malls, movie theaters, clubs, etc.</p>
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<p>Don’t overestimate them, either. My daughter went to Cornell. We live in the Washington, DC suburbs. There were remarkably few transportation issues (mostly thanks to a charter bus that runs from the campus to a shopping mall 10 miles from our house for every break). Even snow didn’t turn out to be a major issue (except for getting her home from that mall one night when it was snowing in the DC area).</p>
<p>Some schools have ride boards; it was very common at my law school (and the attached undergraduate school) for students to pick each other up at the airport, or drop each other off. Often, you just pay the person who drives for their gas, or split the gas - the driver likes the extra cash, the rider gets a comfy door-to-door trip.</p>
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<p>Agreed. Biggest hassle my D has was a hurricane one time… flights were cancelled (before she left home), she did not get back to campus until 2 days after classes started. But her profs were fine with it, she had a valid excuse. It was not a big problem.</p>
<p>Bucknell does have a ride board.</p>
<p>Also, my son says that there is a bus that picks you up near the Bucknell campus that goes to NYC every day. Not sure about buses directly to Boston as we don’t live in that direction. He did have to get to Boston to attend a Sociology conference during the school year. The students got a ride to Baltimore and then took a plane to Boston. I would assume that there are lots of ways to get to a major city like Boston.</p>
<p>We live in central PA and S1 has gone to school in Boston for eight years. He has traveled by nearly every means and now usually takes MegaBus. It is generally cheaper, offers more frequent departures and wifi onboard. He sometimes flies for Thanksgiving but has spent more than one night at Dulles when flights were cancelled. There was also one night when his train was so late the T was no longer running. Of course, there was also the time his MegaBus backed into a semi at a rest stop.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the input about transportation in these areas of Pennsylvania. He is also looking at a few schools in the Philly area when we are taking a week’s trip down to the state. Funny story 1moremom about the Megabus!</p>
<p>WHen I went to Bucknell there were hundreds of students from the Boston area. It’s not a bad drive, and there is a ride board. Plus the buses,e tc that everyone has mentioned. I imagine the same about the other schools</p>
<p>My D will start at Dickinson in the fall, so we haven’t had to deal with travel yet, but will soon. However, we’re in NJ, so D won’t have to fly. Dickinson’s location in Carlisle, just off the Penn turnpike, makes it relatively easy to get to Philly and NJ, via 76 or 78. </p>
<p>According to the Dickinson website, there are shuttles available for students to several locations.<br>
[Dickinson</a> College - Transportation](<a href=“http://www.dickinson.edu/student-life/campus-safety/transportation/]Dickinson”>http://www.dickinson.edu/student-life/campus-safety/transportation/)
[Dickinson</a> College - College Semester Shuttle Service](<a href=“http://www.dickinson.edu/student-life/campus-safety/transportation/College-Semester-Shuttle-Service/]Dickinson”>http://www.dickinson.edu/student-life/campus-safety/transportation/College-Semester-Shuttle-Service/)</p>
<p>Try flying out of Wilke-Barre/Scranton airport or Allentown. More frequent flights than out of Harrisburg. Greyhound bus runs from Lewisburg to Scranton. Bus ride to Scranton isn’t any longer than the bus to Harrisburg.</p>
<p>I used to ride the bus between Scranton and Lewisburg every weekend. (DH was student at Bucknell; I was a student in Scranton.) Dh and I both used to fly in and out of the Scranton airport when flying for grad school interview and/or cross country to visits relatives.</p>