<p>I want to travel to the US in a couple of weeks to visit some campuses, and get some information about the Universities. I am from the UK, and I am 17. I will travel alone, but meet family at the airport. </p>
<p>I wanted to know if it is okay for me to travel unaccompanied to the US at my age. I have checked the embassy's website, the VWP website, and all other websites which don't give a clear answer. Some say that I need to a parent's consent form, others say that I don't. </p>
<p>I am not sure about parent’s consent form, but one thing to be aware of is it would be hard for you to stay at a hotel by yourself. Many hotels will not allow a minor to check into a hotel by him/herself, sometimes it is even 21 and under. Once you</p>
<p>Which schools do you plan to visit?
Do you have a credit card and an ATM/debit cards in your name?
Have you booked/paid for all your airline tickets?
You need to make reservations for school tours at the more popular campus tours.
You may have problems as a 17 year old, checking into hotels, so hostels may be the way to go.
You aren’t old enough to rent a car so you will have to deal with public transportation, cabs.
Don’t get arrested for public intoxication or anything stupid like that, but I don’t know any reason you can’t travel alone.</p>
<p>lol!
Thanks for the advice! I didn’t make it clear before, but I intend to stay with some of my family who live in the US for the duration of the stay. I hope to apply for an ESTA as soon as I can, because I believe i’m eligible for a VWP into the US.
I am in the process of finding out which Universities offer tours for the date : 5th Aug - 9th Aug. MIT has one, so does Harvard, and Stanford. However, today, I hope to look into more.
My family live in New Jersey, so I want to stick to Universities quite close to there, such as Universities in Massachusetts, Conneticut, New York, and New Jersy (so North-East USA). This is because the time and cost of travelling needs to be kept as low as possible.</p>
<p>I want to visit for a week only, so I will probably be able to fit in 4 University visits at most, which is still pretty good.</p>
<p>In terms of transportation to the Universities, what is the cheapest way to get from New Jersey, to Massachusetts for example?</p>
<p>If you budget your time well, you can see 2 universities per day. Over a 7 day period, they might start blurring together, but you may thus see a lot more than 4. In addition, none of the universities you listed would be safeties and those are absolutely essential so I wouldn’t concentrate on touring only dream school where you have at best odds of 1 in 20 to get in (a few of those is fine but finding a good safety school is harder than finding a dream school). Since you’ll be in NJ, you should do 1° Pennsylvania (there are perhaps 20 colleges not far from the border), 2° NY State 3° further north for 3 days 4° back to NJ. Since many colleges track interest, make sure to leave your name at the admissions office.</p>
<p>(BTW you won’t be able to see Stanford since it’s in CA you’d need to fly there - touring MIT, Harvard, BC or BU, some of the Little Ivies, all in a couple days, is very doable however.)</p>
<p>For transportation, you can use trains but that limits you to cities along the line. Won’t your relatives drive you around a bit? Greyhound buses exist but they’re similar to what your grandparents would have known in the 1960s.</p>
<p>Thank you - I completely agree with what you are saying.
The reason why I only included those Unis is because they are the only ones that I know of at the moment. However, today, I will do a proper college search using the COLLEGEBOARD to find a list of 15 colleges that I am considering. I will create this list using some preferences that I want, such as they have to offer Chemistry as a major. Once I have 15 colleges that I am considering. I will shorten the list down to 6 colleges which will be made up of - 2 ambitious colleges (very competitive, and high entry requirements), 2 match colleges (I meet the requirements, and this is realistic hope), and two insurance colleges (colleges where I exceed their requirements, and they are my back up). I was hoping to visit these.</p>
<p>Although, I like the idea of visiting some in surrounding areas to New Jersey. I will definitely consider that. The problem is, I need to book tickets, register for an ESTA, and confirm arrangements with family in New Jersey before Wednesday next week. It is very last minute because my Mother suggested the idea two days ago and is adamant that I go as soon as, before the end of summer. So I need to decide on Universities now, especially if I need to pre-book a campus tour!</p>
<p>A problem that I have faced, is that I have emailed about 4 colleges so far to ask them about their campus days since some of them did not include the dates that I wanted to go, but only MIT replied. I am still waiting for a response from the others.</p>
<p>Perhaps you should get accepted into colleges before you visit.
This will give you more time to research each school’s requirements for application, the strength of their Chemistry program and plan your visit.
You can reserve a slot for college tours yourself online at each college’s website but you may not get one at this late date.
Pay close attention to the cost of college for internationals:
50 thousand USD per year for 4 years.
Will your family pay 200 thousand USD for an undergraduate degree with NO promise of a job in the US after you graduate?</p>
<p>You can take Amtrak trains between the major East Coast cities (e.g. Boston - NYC - Philadelphia). Each of these cities will have their own local transportation network. It’s called MBTA in Boston, MTA in New York and SEPTA in Philadelphia. Your relatives in NJ might be living close to a NJ Transit station. NJ Transit trains can take you to Penn Station in New York City or to Trenton, from where you can take a SEPTA train to Philadelphia. </p>
<p>Universities that are not located in a big city will be harder to get to. For example, you could take a Greyhound bus to Cornell but that’s gonna take forever…</p>
<p>I think your parental permission would be for the flight. They have some restrictions for “children” under 18, depending on the airline: “unaccompanied minors”; so you want to check that first.</p>
you’d need to fly there - touring MIT, Harvard, BC or BU, some of the Little Ivies, all in a couple days, is very doable however.)</p>