<p>January audition at Thornton--any suggestions about hotels in the area? We'd like to get by without renting a car to save money, but Thornton's list has only two they say are within walking distance of campus, and they don't sound too favorable according to TripAdvisor. Hoping for some advice from CC friends.</p>
<p>Clarimom, we live in LA. Unfortunately, USC is not in a great hotel area, to say the least. If you’re not renting a car, you’ll need a cab. PM if you have specific hotels you want to ask about.</p>
<p>Clarimom, we made this trip last year and son is currently a very happy freshman at Thornton. We had good luck staying downtown and getting very good pricing on Priceline of around $70 for the Westin Bonaventure. USC is about 2 miles south of downtown LA, so a fairly short cab ride if that is what you choose to do. We did rent a car and the cost of parking downtown was very high ($35-40/night), so if you aren’t going to do other sightseeing while in LA taking a shuttle from the airport to downtown and then a cab back and forth should be fine. There is also a USC specific shuttle that runs downtown for $.25 but I don’t know its hours or where it goes, but someone in admissions could tell you. We have also stayed at a couple of hotels by the airport and have been much happier with the downtown hotels although things tend to be cheaper by the airport. The Radisson is a USC owned hotel/dorm that is right across the street and very convenient. Not sure what a combination of dorm and hotel is like or how well it works. Audition weekend is pretty busy, so I suspect the Radisson books pretty fast. </p>
<p>One other suggestion, when S auditioned last year the Dean of Thornton had a 1 hour talk/question and answer session and it was very helpful. Explained the role of the audition vs grades and gives you some idea of the values of the head of the school. If they have this again this year I strongly recommend going to it.</p>
<p>Good Luck!</p>
<p>I would just add that if you ARE renting a car, I wouldn’t dream of staying downtown. There are so many better parts of LA to stay in. Santa Monica, Westwood, Century City, West Hollywood, Sunset Plaza area, Beverly Hills, to name a few. If you’re going the cab route and NOT doing other sightseeing, like raddad said, downtown is very convenient to USC.</p>
<p>IMHO stay in downtown LA or in the hotel USC has across the street. That is at least for the night before your audition. I work at one of SC’s campuses and drive that way from the Westside of Los Angeles daily. LA traffic can be horrendous and quite unpredictable. It is currently worse due to construction on some streets around the SC campus. So I would say don’t try to commute from LA’s westside, Beverly Hills etc., on the day of your audition, you would not want to add undue stress to what is potentially already a stressful situation. </p>
<p>Good to nice hotels in Downtown LA are The Omni, Bonaventure, Biltmore, and Hilton Checkers. All are failry short cab rides to SC’s main campus as would a drive in a rental car.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions! I very much appreciate it! My S is doing eight (!) auditions–Thornton will be #2. So, I imagine I’ll be asking for more hotel suggestions again soon!</p>
<p>S and I stayed at the Radisson across the street last year for audition and it was fine and oh so convenient. I’m pretty picky but it was clean and even pretty quiet considering we were on the street side (ask for a high floor). Gym was ratty and only one sit down restaurant on site (very expensive) but a great choice for us. Best part was the stretch limo ride returning to the airport for the same price as a cab (the guy was sitting there with time to kill)! Much easier then renting a car if you don’t know the area.</p>
<p>P.S. I second raddad’s suggestion of the Dean’s talk - it was really informative and a small group, so felt very congenial.</p>
<p>The audition invite information my son received doesn’t say anything about a Dean’s talk. Is this something you can miss if you don’t have the details?</p>
<p>They will have an itenerary for your day including the option of 1-1 interview for your son with an Thornton admissions person, probably tours etc. The Dean’s talk was on that itenerary. I don’t remember if we got that much in advance or not. I don’t think it was with the invitation to audition, but might have come with additional information after we confirmed or we might have got it when we registered that morning. Feel free to PM if you have detailed questions. I would be happy to give as much specific info as I can.</p>
<p>Hmmm. The email my son got does not ask him to confirm, only to respond if he cannot make or doesn’t want the audition after all. Since we live in LA, I’m wondering if there is some information we’re not getting regarding the day.</p>
<p>ETA: Never mind!!! I’m wrong. There is info on the link they sent.</p>