<p>Also: Do actually get out of the car at Oswego and take a look at the new Student Union building where the new hockey arena and new broadcasting facilities are. It's quite lovely. Also, see the attached newly renovated classrooms and spaces in the 2 neighboring buildings. Theses are all attached now and makes the treck from one end of campus to the other quite a bit warmer! Also, see newly renovated Johnson Hall (a freshman dorm) and Lakeside dining. Both directly on Lake Ontario and quite scenic and luxurious by state university standards! You have an ambitious trip- take lots of pictures and start a notebook!</p>
<p>musmom2,</p>
<p>Thanks for the pointers on what to look at on campus. I think having a rink on or adjacent to campus is a bonus at many D3 schools. Newer facilities are always of interest.</p>
<p>I think with the amount of driving (about 6 or more hours a day) we are planning, the get out and walk will be a necessity and not hard to do. And pictures (with notes) will be necessary so as not to confuse the facilities on so many campuses in so little time.</p>
<p>I'm not too worried about the driving, as I've done the 2400 mile trip in 46 hours a couple of times. This is only slighly longer and drawn out - but with more stops.</p>
<p>Make sure to report back on your trip!</p>
<p>Finally back (and somewhat recovered) from the trip. For the most part, campuses were deserted (what we expected) so parking and walking around was easy. Here is the report...</p>
<p>Vermont (5PM Friday) - The only school where we could walk into the arena. Goaliegirl noted that it seemed a bit worn and dated, but seemed to have good school spirit. Liked the architecture of the campus. Was a bit spread out. Good location in relationship to town and commercial locations.</p>
<p>Plattsburgh (7PM Friday) - Campus and surrounding town reminded her of Mercyhurst and Erie PA. Small humble town. Not difficult to deal with.</p>
<p>Drove to Potsdam and stayed at the Clarkson Inn. The only decent place to stay in town. Interesting drive across the North Country getting there. You can see down to St. Lawrence Seaway and Canada. Saw an interesting Hot Pink 50's style Diner (nice neon signage) and almost stopped for dinner.</p>
<p>Clarkson (8 AM Sat) - Campus was pleasant and nice looking. Nothing extrordinary. The town of Potsdam was close enough and charming enough. Rink also contains student union which says a lot about what sport is #1 there.</p>
<p>SUNY Potsdam (8:45 AM Saturday) - Academic part of campus resembled a brick fortress, walled off from the outside world. Not as inviting as you would want it to be. Was clean and neat though.</p>
<p>SUNY Oswego (Noon Saturday) - By far, the most updated of the SUNY schools we visited. Beautiful location on Lake Ontario, with a new dorm with a staircase down to a large rock on the shore (took pic there). Most dorms seem to have a lake view from some part. Nice looking new arena building as well as newer academic buildings. Campus on the edge of town with a couple of things within a mile but mostly residential in the campus area. A pleasant surprise overall.</p>
<p>Syracuse (2 PM Saturday) - Probably one her favorites of the weekend both the urban setting and the architecture (mixture of old and new). It is amazing how they can hide the hideous Carrier Dome in the corner of the campus. She seems to really like the large school feel. Don't know where they will play hockey, so we didn't find a rink.</p>
<p>Utica (4 PM Saturday) - Small campus. Up to date facilities, but not much else going for it. Isolated area of town with no amenities nearby. Rink is shared public facility downtown - didn't look for it. Probably will only be considered for 1 possible program and becaue it may be generous with FA.</p>
<p>SUNY Cortland (6 PM Saturday) - Kinda average SUNY college. Reasonably nice archetecture, average looking athletic facilities. Pleasant town. Nothing that jumps out at you or says stay away. </p>
<p>Drove to Elmira through Ithaca. Did not stop at Cornell (not looking at extreme reach schools) but our GPS took us by campus. Graduation had just completed and the town was a zoo. If you've ever been there you'd understand. The town is a labrynth of narrow, winding roads up and down and around steep hills. Took us 25 minutes to drive through the city. Nice place to visit, but passing through is a pain.</p>
<p>Had dinner at the Elbow Room in Elmira recommended by ecalum - too close to dark to tour campus. Caught the end of the first period of the Red Wings game after competing to get a tv switched (too much sports coverage on a Saturday evening - not enought tvs). Drove back to our hotel during the intermission and enjoyed the rest of the game there.</p>
<p>Elmira (8:30 AM Sunday) - Surprisingly for the smallest school on the tour (1200 students), Goaliegirl very much liked Elmira. As much as people joke about all the purple on campus (doors are painted purple, all flowers are purple and gold, even the curtains in many buildings are purple) Goaliegirl liked the school spirit it showed. School was as neat as a pin despite graduation being held the night before. Nice older and newer architecture and parklike setting in the middle of a charming town (lots of well-maintained early 20th century housing). Rink (and athletic complex) was a 3-domed facility about 8 miles from campus in the middle of nowhere, though.</p>
<p>RIT (Noon Sunday) - Isolated suburban location with very new and nice looking student housing - on average even better than Oswego's. However, the main campus was a brown brick with brown metal trim, post-modern industrial look that completely turned off Goaliegirl completely. Had a huge (40 ft) rusted steel and stainless stell sculpture as a focus point. Rink was decent looking (we peeked in from the doors). If not for finding the rink, it would have been a 2 minute tour, as it is now officially off her list.</p>
<p>Niagara (2 PM Sunday) - Pleasant enough campus with well-themed architecture. The old and new were well thought out. Feels like a catholic school without being over the top. Rather isolated from town. Easy to understand.</p>
<p>Ohio State (7 PM Sunday) - Once again, Goaliegirl loves a big campus. And there was lots of activity on campus and in the surrounding neighborhoods (always interesting to kids). Amazing how no 2 buildings are alike architecturally, but yet they are well integrated. I didn't say anything to Goaliegirl, but juxtaposing the womens hockey rink with the Shottsenstein (men's) arena nearby tells me that while Title IX is well addressed in the breadth of women's sports, the men's sports seem to get the attention on campus.</p>
<p>Well, there you have it - 12 campuses in 3 days. I'm happy to be out of the driver's seat for a while.</p>
<p>Overall it was a very succesful trip as it achieved its objectives. Goaliegirl got a sense of place for a large variety of schools (in addition to the schools back east she has already seen). I've been able to watch her take it in and have gained a good understanding of what her priorities are. And of course we got to spend some time together talking about things and enjoying a Red Wings win - hockey is never on TV in the girls dorm.</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone for their help.</p>
<p>What an ambitious trip!!! Not being into hockey, we've done the lower latitude NY colleges only so appreciate comments on whether the rest of them are worth seeing! Can you drive direct from UVM to Plattsburgh? It looks on the map like you have to take a ferry.</p>
<p>We took the ferry from Grand Isle. I believe it was about $13.25 and about 25 minutes later (waiting to load, transporting, unloading) we were on the road again. It was a nice evening to be on the water.</p>
<p>There is a Ferry from Burlington, but it takes longer runs less frequently, and costs more. Even my GPS directed me to take the Grand Isle Ferry.</p>
<p>BTW, I wouldn't recommend these long college tour trips for most folks. You have to be a seasoned car trip person - I spent about 55 hours in the car - goaliegirl about 38 and it was about 2800 miles of total driving (for me - she was about 1100 less). I give her credit for a lot of patience and the ability to sleep and keep herself entertained on the road. For us with limited presence in a region and lots of schools to consider, this trip helped a lot. She appreciated it.</p>
<p>A couple of more thoughts on a couple of the schools.</p>
<p>Potsdam - while it seemed uninviting from the outside - the brick fortress - once inside the courtyard it wasn't confining at all. And if the buildings are logically organized, it could be quite easy in the winter to stay indoors during the academic day. RIT also seemed well connected buildingwise. With both campuses though the residential areas are far enough away and not connected that you will have to deal with the elements.</p>
<p>Actually I am surprised that the campus buildings aren't more connected in these snowy areas. I guess it works for them though.</p>
<p>IDK about the others but RIT has underground tunnels for use in the bad weather.</p>
<p>With the campuses pretty much closed up for summer, I couldn't get the underground tour of these campuses. It would make entire sense for RIT to be connected as it was built more recently and planned in advance, so these things are easier to engineer (and it looks like a lot of work went into the design of RIT).</p>
<p>And don't get me wrong about RIT. I'm just reporting goaliegirl's reaction to the walking tour. I could easily see the typical RIT (very technically oriented) student feeling very comfortable in the setting. It is all a matter of taste. It just wasn't her taste.</p>
<p>Oh gosh, no offense taken goaliedad. I have absolutely no affialiation w/ RIT, just wanted to clarify in case it interested you.</p>
<p>I do live quite near Utica College though and I will say that you are correct on the subject of better FA packages there. I know A LOT of kids from my D's who turned down other schools bc the UC package was so attractive. You said possibly she is interested in one particular major there, would you say what it is? UC has a thing for starting their own majors from scratch. I find it amusing.</p>
<p>The auditorium they use is across town in a very bad section (although across from the police station). Not at all what I would call a well kept facility, most of it looks like the early 1970's time period it was built in. IDK how much any of this means to you.</p>
<p>My D has a friend at Elmira, she loves it there. </p>
<p>Congrats on a very productive trip. I am exhausted just thinking about it!!</p>
<p>Wow, that is so many miles and so many schools! I am impressed. Glad you were pleasantly surprised by Oswego! You did a great job of showing your D a wide variety of schools to help her sort out what she might like. Interestingly, my S1 (engineer) had the same reaction to RIT and would not even get out of the car! If you think of any questions about Oswego (graduated many yrs. ago and have son there now), or SU (S1 graduated last May), let me know.</p>
<p>I think RIT is a place that most students will either love or hate the campus. I'll give them credit for making a statement with their architecture in a greenfield type campus built in a short period of years, though.</p>
<p>And thanks for the offer of help. It may be a bit before I take you up, though.</p>
<p>Although I realize that this particular topic is several years old, I’d thought I’d throw in my two cents for anyone trawling for information.</p>
<p>First, being a Northen New York native (and having taken classes at SUNY Potdam, although I decided to attend college elsewhere), I can agree that there are limited places to stay: the Clarkson Inn and the Best Western are the only two I can think of. Maybe one or two motels in Massena (2 s’s. Spelling it Masena is incorrect. 
). </p>
<p>Potsdam’s campus is not the most beautiful place, but it’s fairly easy to navigate and they are good about doing construction during the summer and not during school. The professors I’ve known are wonderful people and the theatre program there is FINALLY being updated in 2013. Any more questions, don’t hesitate to ask.</p>
<p>Goaliedad, my daughter is a junior in high school here in Las Vegas and needs to play somewhere for her senior year. Her hockey history is unique and short, but she wants to play college hockey, and wants to go to a boarding school so she can really focus on playing goalie. Playing in Phoenix or Anaheim is a possibility, but that’s driving 4- 6 hours every weekend, and as goalie, the coach may not want her missing weekday practices. She thinks that she could get much better at an eastern school than just weekend playing here. I have no clue on how to approach finding a boarding school that is still accepting applications and whether or not they need a goalie. Any advice?</p>
<p>Tough situation you are in. Your local situation sounds a lot like what we went through back when my daughter was in 8th grade (the boys locked her out becuase she couldn’t play post season with them - a big political stink because they never made post season anyway). She spent that year playing on both boys and girls teams 2 states away (325 - 375 miles for home games for each of the teams). Both teams were flexible with regards to practice (only when it happened on weekends) as they could find practice goalies during the week. To get ice time during the week, she basically played mens league (they actually enjoyed it because she worked hard).</p>
<p>It was a difficult season physically on me (I did all the driving and racked up 20K miles just going to games), but it was far more rewarding for both of us than playing locally.</p>
<p>I’m guessing that with your situation, if she were to play with either the Anaheim or AZ teams, you would be flying for most of your team’s games. And if my recollection of rosters from years past is accurate, those teams tend to have a couple out-of-town types on their rosters. You should definitely discuss the possibilities with them of weekend only participation - as for goalies, this can work.</p>
<p>That being said, we should focus on your daughter’s objectives which should be getting a quality education and then being a part of a team. Playing college hockey is a great goal, as participation in these activities generally helps an academically focused student with completing a well-rounded college experience.</p>
<p>First let me tell you a little story about my daughter’s first year college experience. If you haven’t read my previous posts, in addition to playing DIII hockey, she is on a Army ROTC scholarship. Definitely keeps her focused and organized. She came into a school needing multiple incoming goalies, one of which was recruited out of a sports academy in Canada. She was also being recruited to a Canadian University to play as well. Much like your daughter, she didn’t have a long career in hockey (about 4 years IIRC), but knew she wanted to play hockey in college. She was given every opportunity early in the season to grab the starting job (in a 3-goalie toss-up), didn’t play particularly well and didn’t get much ice time after that. Come the end of the season, her frustration with how hockey was going, focused her attention on the fact that primary reason that she came to the school was to play hockey and that there wasn’t much else she liked about the school. She is returning to Canada next year, hopefully to a school where she will be happier.</p>
<p>Now my daughter didn’t get a whole lot of starts this season either, but her outlook is far different from the Canadian’s. We visited the school (~850 miles from us) a couple of times before she committed (to the ROTC scholarship and hence the hockey team). It had the major she wanted, the ROTC opportunity she wanted and a chance to compete for ice time. And when asked, even if she couldn’t play hockey next year, she has plenty of good reasons to get up in the morning.</p>
<p>My point here is that even if she gets into a prep school and has a chance to compete for ice time, it may not turn out to be what she thought it would be (very short season, limited recruiting opportunities) and would she look back and say that the boarding school was better than her home school situation. (Easy for my daughter, as she was bored stiff in our public schools)</p>
<p>If you have answered that question satisfactorily, then we look at what a prep school can and can’t do for your college hockey career. </p>
<p>First, it is not going to get her serious Division 1 looks. You need a club experience in addition to that (which can be done at a boarding school, but that is even more difficult than getting a late position at a boarding school at this time). If she has the D1 itch, do what you need to play for either western team and hope she is good enough to take them to the top of the Polar Bear Tournament in December (I think both teams still go there). Very much a crap shoot.</p>
<p>Now that we are looking at D3 college hockey, you need to decide which region (west or east) she wants to attend college in. Western schools don’t recruit from eastern preps, but do look at a lot of “western - i.e. where you live” players. Eastern schools don’t look at western students, except for NESCAC does look at western “club hockey” girls. </p>
<p>A lot of that will have to do with her academic ambitions and what type of college enviornment (urban vs. rural - public vs private - small vs. large - how much can you afford?). </p>
<p>To give the simplified view of the difference between west and east - </p>
<p>West - You have the Minnesota private schools in the MIAC, great LACs, most in the twin cities area which is a great city for young adults and makes travel home relatively simple. The NCHA has a number of inexpensive (relative low OOS tuition) public Wisconsin schools and a variety of private schools. Most are set in small cities (although Lake Forest is in a beautiful Chicago suburb) that are safe places (low crime). The publics are medium size, offering most majors that a student could want (check carefully though because they don’t all offer certain types of programs). </p>
<p>In the east you have 3 leagues - NESCAC (Williams, Amherst, Bowdoin, etc.) which offer the equivalent (in most cases) education to an Ivy for the Liberal Arts. If she gets into a good prep (I recommend doing a repeat Jr year for this purpose - don’t worry it actually helps with admissions), and has the grades and the skill, there are some advantages to doing the eastern prep. </p>
<p>ECAC West - A hodge podge of Private schools and medium sized NY state publics (also with relatively low OOS tuition). These schools are mostly NY based and the coaches don’t necessarily go to NE to watch too many kids play, but are familiar enough with the prep teams (they do get a good number from them) to know what level of hockey she would be playing. </p>
<p>ECAC East - Mostly private schools of all different types (LACs, schools with professional type majors, etc.). These schools are in the heart of NE boarding schools territory and if she is interested in a specific school, they coach will often come to a Wednesday game.</p>
<p>My best advice is to take a day and research the schools in the different regions and decide (if your daughter has any idea of what type of college she wants to attend) where she should be focusing her efforts. It may line up with a NE boarding school. You may want to look at college hockey rosters (always available online) and see where their players attended school as this is a good indicator of what they consider a good hockey experience.</p>
<p>With my daughter, it wasn’t until her Junior year in boarding school that she decided that she wanted to do ROTC and go into the military. Unfortunately, the east has very few schools with on-campus ROTC (you can do it off campus, but it complicates things). Fortunately, things worked out where the coach was comfortable with her as a walk-on (based upon another coach’s evaluation), but even then she had to beat out an incumbent backup to get a spot on the team.</p>
<p>Now to get to your question about where to find boarding schools needing goalies at this time of year. Not easy. He may now know directly, but there is a user named Hux on the USCHO (you can google it) womens hockey forum who can put you in touch with people in the know in this regard. If he asks, tell him that someone “not from around here” sent you.</p>
<p>Now that I’m done with my first cut at this, I will extend my sympathies to you in finding out late in the game that your daughter has ambitions that are difficult to achieve. Just understand that if they are in hockey for the right reasons, it is all worth it in the end. </p>
<p>You can PM (or email using the link) if you would like to discuss further.</p>