<p>I agree with the others that recommend visiting one school per day. It’s a lot less stressful and we have gotten much more out of visits when we didn’t have to stress for lack of time and didn’t have to choose what to miss.</p>
<p>My D and I have visited Chicago twice since November. We only use public transportation. The Chicago cabs are excellent. It’s very easy to get one in front of any of the larger hotels. We rode the “L” train a lot too. (But not after 8pm.) You can purchase one or three day fare cards for the “L” at the CVS Pharmacy.</p>
<p>On the day your daughter visits U of Chicago, she could also visit the Field museum (you have to get there by cab or bus), the Art Institute of Chicago, or just shop on State Street. State St. from Monroe to Lake has a large Macy’s, Urban Outfitters, H&M, Agaci, etc… Lots of places to eat in the area too.</p>
<p>The Red train is more of a subway that she can take to get to Michigan Ave again. Just exit Grand or Chicago stops and walk a few blocks east.</p>
<p>We went last summer and we went to both schools but on different days. The same day would have been difficult.</p>
<p>Going to UChicago from downtown was not too easy, if I remember right we had to take a bus that had a limited schedule. The tour was really good and we learned quite a bit. When we were trying to go back, the bus we had planned to take was not running because it was summer so we had a long walk.</p>
<p>The trip to northwestern was easier L all the way but once we got to campus it was difficult finding the building where the tours started from. We asked somebody and they gave us directions. Check the schedules for the L and note the comment about the purple line’s schedule.</p>
<p>My daughter did most of the navigating and I think she could have navigated the L alone (she navigated the NY subway a couple of weeks later by herself). If she is good at directions and has a good phone with GPS and Internet access in case she needs to look up a schedule, she may be fine. CTA has some information easily reachable from a smart phone.</p>
<p>I would be comfortable letting her wander around campus but keep in mind how early it gets dark - sunset is about 5pm (I think) and make sure you have a meeting place. At U Chicago, the bookstore had a coffee shop where they can meet and it was fairly easy to find. Northwestern’s campus was really big and I am not sure we could have found the bookstore again without a good map. </p>
<p>BTW, there was a girl from CA who went alone to both tours.</p>
<p>We were told that not everyone does both because they draw such different students. If she can decide ahead of time which one she is more interested in, you could focus more on that one. We saw Chicago one afternoon, stayed overnight in Hyde park and headed up to Northwestern the next morning. It took at least 2 hours by public transportation and was confusing.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the helpful suggestions/ideas. I am going to send her the links to the CTA and this thread and let her plan the mode of transportation.</p>
<p>Am trying to convince H that it might be best if he dropped her off at NU in the morning before he heads out to work. If she ends up at NU around 9 in the morning and has to kill a few hours before the tours, is there anything specific she can do? Will ask her to see if she can arrange to sit in on a class or two. </p>
<p>UC is apparently only 15 minutes away from where H is working, so that could be easily handled the next morning.</p>
<p>Just noting: an advantage of any official tour is the tourguides have access to show a model dorm room, gain entry to locked buildings and so forth. Students with their critical thinking caps on sometimes don’t like the “all positive” view the tourguides offer, but they cope. We generally got the most out of college tours by doing both: the official tour and the knock-about spontaneous talk-with-whoever freetime following. Our kids asked for us to go with them on tours because they said they wanted someone to process the information with them following the experience. Other students feel very differently about that, especially if there might be a more serious return visit someday in the future. At this point, your D might simply enjoy being on campus without a parent and feel that independence.</p>
<p>That said, if the only way to see a school is on the student’s time alone, that’s better than not seeing it at all. If H is working nearby UC, they might simply enjoy “some” time together on campus, at an evening event or to share a cup of tea at the Student Union to soak in the sounds of students around them. If all H can do is spend some time on either campus, that’s very supportive and he might enjoy it very much. Keep everything positive; you’re just at the starting gate here :)</p>
<p>She can be in downtown Evanston - there are tons of little coffee shops, cafes, etc. where she can grab a bite, and then she’s only a block or two from where the campus tours will begin. It’s perfectly safe and she can easily find her way around. She could even wander over to the lake and just get a sense of what the lakefront is like, and then imagine it on a pretty day :-). </p>
<p>Or, she could get to Norris (the university center) and just sit there for a bit and people-watch. He couldn’t drop her off at Norris directly, but if he drops her off at, say, the campus entrance at Fisk Hall near where Sheridan Road curves back south, someone can point to Norris and she can walk there. </p>
<p>Getting from U of C to NU is pretty inconvenient no matter how you slice it; the city just doesn’t connect those two points very well; I, too, think the idea of a cab is not a bad one, for convenience purposes rather than for safety purposes. I know what I’m doing and I don’t think I’d try to see both NU and U of C in one day.</p>
<p>Evanston is so easy to do by public transportation. I assure you she can manage it. There is a giant Barnes and Noble, Whole Foods and the public library close to the Admissions Office. BTW, in other replies the El stops of Foster and Noyes were mentioned, but for the Admissions Office she should get off at Davis. She’ll have less than a mile to walk. Have her trace a route on the map, if that makes you both feel better.</p>
<p>For the U of C, being dropped off is certainly helpful. After the tour, she should investigate more of the campus. They have a lovely art museum and the Court Theater is a gem - there may be a daytime performance. Robie House, one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s seminal works, is also on campus. The Museum of Science and Industry is within walking distance. Are they staying in the southern part of downtown, or near Midway airport?</p>
<p>There are directions on getting to NU by public transit on their website [Northeastern</a> University Undergraduate Admissions > Visit Campus > Directions, Maps, Parking](<a href=“http://www.northeastern.edu/admissions/visitcampus/campusmaps.html]Northeastern”>http://www.northeastern.edu/admissions/visitcampus/campusmaps.html) Sitting in on a class is a great way to get a feel for a school. If she has some sense of what she wants to study she could also e-mail the chair of that department to see if he or she could meet with your daughter. That was a huge help to my son when it came to making decisions about colleges.</p>
<p>Over the summer I took three rising seniors to Chicago to see UC and Northwestern. On Sunday morning, we did architectural boat tour, which i suspect is not a good idea in the winter. We saw the permanent impressionist exhibition at Art Institute, which was dazzling. We went to Second City on sunday evening. On Monday morning, we left downtown at 7am to drive to Northwestern where we did the 9:15 information session and subsequent tour. We drove on Lake Shore Drive to UC and went to the 1:30 information session with subsequent tour and interviews and caught a 7pm plane to go back east. It was a blast. One of the kids got into UC EA and plans to go. My son is very interested in Northwestern. The third had no interest in either.</p>
<p>An update. D came home this weekend after a successful trip to Chicago, pretty much on her own. Going by all the suggestions here, she didn’t attempt to do both schools on the same day. She wandered around downtown Chicago one morning, then took the EL to Northwestern. She was there early, so wandered around campus, sat in on a class and then did the info session/tour. She really liked the campus and the town of Evanston. I think she liked the fact that it was a small navigable place, but close enough to a big city.</p>
<p>The next day, H dropped her off at UChicago. Said the neighborhood was a bit suspect. D was a little nervous, but managed. She did get lost on the campus a bit - she claims she has walked all over the campus thanks to that! She wasn’t that thrilled with UChicago -I think her perception was that the students/officers there tried too hard to make it seem like a fun place. She said she had a “fake” feeling about the place.</p>
<p>Overall, she loved the trip - first flight by herself, first time navigating a big city transportation system on her own - she loved being independent and proving to herself that she could do it! Northwestern is on her list for now, although UChicago isn’t.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for all your suggestions/ideas!</p>