<p>I'm currently a high school junior and was wondering how much college visits typically cost...because I don't want to spend too much on them.</p>
<p>Say I live in California and want to visit 3-5 schools on the east coast? How much would that add up to?</p>
<p>Are college visits worth it? And when would be the best time to do visits?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>for visiting the east coast i'd say your biggest expense will be the air fare. best time to visit is your school's spring break, because colleges will generally be in session so you'll get a sense of the student life/atmosphere. if you're concerned about cost, you definitely will NOT get an experience worth the money if you go when school is out of sesssion.
if the schools are fairly close together, then obviously visiting them all on the same trip, hopefully without having to fly from one to another, would be cheapest. start north and work your way down, for example.
if you have any east-coast relatives, ask if you could stay with them. or, if your family is wondering where to take its next vacation, overlap that with a few college tours.
i'd say that yes, college visits ARE worth it, but you may want to consider which schools you are REALLY considering if cost/travel is an issue. the irony is that you don't really know which schools you like, until you visit...
all i can say is, i visited several schools on the east coast, and several schools in oregon, and i ended up here in CA after all.</p>
<p>Airfare plus rental car plus Hotel?motel if you have no friends/relatives to stay with. Do your homework first to figure out best fits before even visiting. WE read the Fiske and Insider's guides before figuring out where to visit. College websites and brochures are going to leave out A LOT. And even a short visit--one day--is just a snapshot, but if you can meet profs, attend a class, wander around, you can learn a lot.</p>
<p>Well, if you are planning to bring a parent along, you would figure out the airfare to the nearest east coast city x2. I know that the cheapest flights we can ever get are around $400, coast to coast, so figure it's at least $800 for two to fly. Then there are rental cars and hotels, unless you have people to stay with. That could easily add another $400, probably more.</p>
<p>A cross country college visit can easily cost well over $1000, sometimes much more. I think visits are worthwhile, but not just wandering around a campus. We have taken two trips (driving) and are doing one air trip, and one more driving trip, and that will be it. At each school, DS has had specific professors, classes to visit, observe, etc. IMO, it is an expensive proposition without a specific purpose.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>If you plan ahead, you can get a JetBlue round-trip from SJC to Boston or NYC for around $300 each (depending on the days you choose to fly and whether you're willing to do red-eye flights east). You can use a service like hotwire.com to find affordable hotel rooms (I found some in Cambridge MA for $87 a night in April) and can consider taking Amtrak if renting a car is too expensive. When we made the east coast visit trips with our boys, we planned them for April school break, flew into Boston, rented a car or took Amtrak, visited several schools while driving/training down the east coast, and flew back from Baltimore/NY (depending which year we're talking about). It was highly valuable: each time, several schools zoomed higher on their lists and several fell off entirely. My younger S is awaiting some decisions now, and is tentatively planning to head back east in April to visit a couple schools he didn't visit before applying, should he be accepted there. Be sure to pre-schedule admissions info sessions, tours, and departmental visits at any schools you're serious about. As -Allmusic- says, just wandering around campus isn't that valuable.</p>
<p>Junior year is the right time for this trip, and if you're a CA native you'll probably want to make the trip to get a feel for how different it is back east. Feel free to PM me if you want further details, I'm happy to share (and we live near Cupertino).</p>
<p>I am a parent in CA and did the Boston and DC route with my son. What schools are you wanting to look at? Please post a list and I am sure that I and others will be able to post some tips on doing it as cheaply as possible.</p>
<p>Right now i'm contemplating as my top choices (roughly in this order):
Swarthmore
Dartmouth
Amherst
University of Chicago
Syracuse
Williams</p>
<p>...but these are all reaches, basically. And very likely to change.</p>
<p>Dartmouth
Amherst
Williams</p>
<p>These three can be seen in one day if you are very motivated.</p>
<p>They can but only if you definitely rent a car...that is why I was asking. The schools we looked at were all accessible via public transportation...your list will require a car which in the end will be cheaper than trying to use Amtrak or other transport.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Are college visits worth it? And when would be the best time to do visits?
[/quote]
This is something you have to decide for yourself, but I have a somewhat different perspective. Neither of my kids did any visits at all before their senior year, at a time that they had already narrowed down their list somewhat. My son actually also waited until after he had applied -- he ended up visiting 3 campuses in the spring -- all were places where he was confident of being admitted (or had already been notified). He just felt that he did not need to spend money on visiting until he was ready to narrow things down for his final decision.</p>
<p>My daughter used visits to help decide on the schools where she was applying, but she did the visits on her own during September & October of her senior year. She was adamant that she wanted to visit while school was in session. Since she also wanted an urban school, it was fairly easy for her to travel on her own (she stayed with friends and used local, public transportation). </p>
<p>I've noticed that you seem to have a list of mostly very highly selective colleges that you say are reaches ... it is fine to want to apply to reach colleges, but what about the colleges that are most likely to accept you? Is it an efficient use of limited travel dollars to concentrate on the places where you are less likely to be admitted, over those where you are more likely to be admitted? Not that a visit to match/safety schools always works out that well: my daughter ended up dropping her "likely" schools from her list after visiting .... but in hindsight, that means that the visits served a useful purpose -- she didn't waste application fees on schools that would have admitted her but where she didn't want to attend. She did also visit her reach colleges -- but the point is that her visit list was balanced -- and by ruling out some match colleges early on, she had room to consider and add in others.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Right now i'm contemplating as my top choices (roughly in this order):
Swarthmore
Dartmouth
Amherst
University of Chicago
Syracuse
Williams
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You've got some more homework to do before scheduling a trip East. It is very rare for someone to like Swarthmore and Dartmouth. They are at extreme opposite ends of the campus culture spectrum.</p>
<p>Syracuse is almost impossible to fit into any kind of loop. It would be like scheduling a trip to LA and San Diego and trying to fit in one school in Sacramento.</p>
<p>Your best bet for trying to plan an East coast swing is to base it around geography. So, for example, if you are going to visit Swarthmore, then think in terms of what schools you could see in Philadelphia, etc. For example, UPenn, Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, and Haverford are all within 30 minutes of each other.</p>
<p>If you are going from Phila to Amherst, you will be driving right by a number of other schools including Princeton, Vassar, Wesleyan, Smith, and so forth.</p>
<p>An important goal is to visit different types of schools -- large/small, urban/rural, etc. -- especially early in the process. That way you can form realistic impressions and start to eliminate whole catgories, like NO URBAN or whatever fails to float your boat. Also think in terms of safeties and matches, not just wishlist reaches.</p>
<p>The most important school on your list should be your safety - one you virtually certain to get in, would be able to afford, and be happy to attend. While I always think it is fine to visit all kinds of schools, I wouldn't schedule ANY of the schools on the list you posted (except perhaps Syracuse) until you have your safety established. </p>
<p>Once you have your safety, everything else is gravy, and then there is no great rush to visit - many of these schools you could even visit after you are accepted (if you are).</p>
<p>And if you simply wanted a two-hour tour, you are likely better off ordering the video.</p>
<p>Because of some heartbreaking stories about friends' children who visited schools-fell in love! with their first/second choices and then did not get accepted--we took the position that we would visit schools w/in driving distance during JR year, and then paln to actually visit the schools our D will get accepted to to make the final choice. This required more work on my d's part, as she has had to read, IM friends who are now attending those schools, review web postings...but she narrowed her choices-applied-and now she waiting to hear the decisions by the schools.</p>
<p>For us it was just car rental and airfare. We found friends or relatives to stay with every where. :)</p>
<p>tako:</p>
<p>A slightly different twist. If Syracuse is a reach for you, then the other schools are super reaches. You might want to try looking at a few other schools more in your "likely" range.</p>
<p>Tako - My compliments on having the courage to consider cold weather schools for your college education. The weather is nice in Cupertino isn't it. </p>
<p>My take on college trips is that they cost what you're willing to spend, and that they're most worthwhile if you learn what you need to about each school. I spent less than $3000 total visiting schools in Boston, Washington DC, St. Louis, New Orleans and Los Angeles. If you're willing to be adventurous these trips can be done cheaply. (There are many good ideas about how to do this noted above.) BUT the trip may be wasted if you don't have a good idea of WHY you are visiting. For example, UChicago is fairly large, urban, and um, sports-challenged. Williams is small, rural and very proud of its athletic traditions. Think Whitman College versus the UC Medical School in San Francisco. It's hard for me to see a person equally happy at both.</p>
<p>Regardless I'd encourage you to visit the Northeast. It's REALLY different from the Bay Area, but each area has it's charms. Good luck to you.</p>
<p>I'm with the parents/people that say visit the "close to your home school" now and then travel to the ones that are far AFTER you are accepted. We live in Washington State, my S visited schools in Calif; road trip and then visited schools on the east coast. For awhile it looked like we spent a great deal of money visiting schools on the east coast and he wasn't going to be accepted to. He was accepted to his second choice, east coast and attends there. HUGE difference between west coast and east coast. Have you ever vacationed, visited the east coast before? We had, so he had some knowledge of the east coast before applying.
If money isn't an issue, go for it and plan a family vacation that allows you to see the east coast, not just schools.</p>
<p>My daughter and I would like to visit Dartmouth, Boston College, Duke, Georgetown and William and Mary during spring break. Any advice on the cheapest way to do this? We live in Southern California.</p>
<p>Actually we visited the far away schools first. I figured that we could visit the close schools at our leisure. The only trouble was the first trip made it clear he was serious - he didn't care how big the school was, what the campus looked like or where it was located. OTOH the nerdliness of Caltech clearly appealed so at least we learned something!</p>
<p>OK well I am in FL and I have visited:
Dartmouth
BC
Harvard (haha dreamin)
Georgetown
George Washington
American</p>
<p>My advice is to visit during an off peak time. I just went to DC this past weekend and there was nobody there because it was sooo cold. But, I had basically 1 on 1 tours at both American and George Washington. Georgetown was busy because it was a Saturday. So, I would reccomend going during the week, because there will be less people there. It does get expensive and well I wouldn't really reccomend looking at the super reach schools because well if you get accepted, do you really need to see it to know that thats where you want to go?? I wasted my time looking at Dartmouth, Harvard and GTOWN because I don't stand a chance and I just get depressed because of course those are the beautiful schools!!! But, go look at the ones that you may have to choose from come decision time!!! It isn't cheap, but there are ways to save like not staying at the Ritz and eating steak and lobster for dinner...lol</p>