New England college tour

It would depend on scheduling your interviews and tours. Harvard and BU are close enough to do in one day and Holy Cross and Amherst are about an hour apart, Amherst is about an hour and a half north of Wesleyan and Wesleyan and Yale are less than an hour apart. Brown is about an hour and a half from Harvard and BU. Brown is about two hours from Yale. You could do a loop from Boston Harvard and BU west to HC west to Amherst, south to Wesleyan south to Yale, east to Brown and back to Boston the drive times, without terrible traffic would make things work. Getting over to Vassar would make things longer, but you could do a loop from New York: up to Vassar, over to Wesleyan, up to Amherst, east to HC, east to Harvard and BU, south to Brown and down to Yale and back to New York. I'm assuming you would be flying in, so you should look for flights also into Hartford (start or end a loop with Wesleyan) or Providence (start or end with Brown). Do be aware that traffic can be a factor in this area which can affect the time it should take to get from place to place.

You definitely don't want to be driving on a Friday during the summer. You will hit terrible weekend traffic. I found that when we saw too many schools together, the last school got sacrificed. Or if my sons were tired, they weren't so interested. Did your son or daughter really enjoy seeing two a day. I am a Brown parent - LOVE the school and kids there!

Depending on where you are coming from, you may find flying into Providence less expensive and more convenient for doing a loop. You could see Brown in the afternoon, then head north to Boston that evening. It is only about 45 miles, so you could see Harvard next morning with Brown fresh in your mind. If you are not sightseeing Boston, next head west to Worcester to see Holy Cross, if a small Catholic university is a possibility. Then on toward Amherst to spend the night. Enjoy the town and see the college next morning. While you are in that part of the state, you should look at Williams, a must see. You can see it in the afternoon, then spend the night in charming Williamstown. Day Four will have you driving to New Haven, a slowish drive since there is no really direct route, but some of it is through beautiful country. See Yale, then head east on I-95. You can make a side trip up to Middletown to see Wesleyan, then return to I-95 for a quick return to Providence.

This leaves out Vassar because it is way off your route, and it leaves out BU because it is nothing at all like the other universities you mention. This is not a criticism, just a fact. If your child were interested in certain majors (arts, drama, etc) I would recommend it and some other Boston and southern NE institutions above Harvard and Brown! But it is very different. You can drive through it fairly easily if you want after leaving Harvard, and you will see the difference.

Your tour also leaves out the Maine colleges (Boqwdoin, Bates, and Colby) which are the equals of Amherst and Williams. But that's another trip. Unless you have ten days.

As Ackislnder pointed out, that's quite an assortment of schools: a mix of urban and pastoral, large and smallish, etc. It would save you some traveling if your student could figure out what sort of community they want.

The other thing that may influence your plan is what time the schools are offering tours. Since you are doing this in the summer when most students are not on campus, I would think that you would want to be on a tour for prospective students that might be led by a current student.

Boston (area) is also home to Tufts, Brandeis, Northeastern, Wellesley (daughter or son?) and Boston College. I think Williams and Vassar are the two (literal) outliers in these lists, in terms of driving distance from the others.

Are you up to some more input? Maybe more than you bargained for. I used to work in Admissions in a school mentioned here. And I have kids at Smith, Vassar and Brown. So I know a thing or two.

First, very good advice from Anonymous last week: kids totally overload on visiting schools. They all blend into each other after a while. Sit down and do a serious assessment of what they are looking for and what they can REALISTICALLY expect in terms of acceptance. The Ivy Leagues thrive on the hopes of second tier students; that is how they get to claim acceptance rates of below 10% nowadays. My daughter got tons of letters begging her to apply to Harvard. We just laughed because we know the game. She was a stellar student, with a great app and she is very happy at Smith. But her chance of getting in to Harvard was almost nil.

Save a lot of time and money by limiting choices. Not only the academic realities, but urban/rural, etc. My middle son was an Ivy calibre student, but opted for a liberal arts college because of class size, philosophy and focus on the undergraduate experience. He is very happy at Vassar. So as a happy Vassar parent, I urge you to take a look there. It is a 4 hour drive from us in Boston. But I think it takes him about an hour to get to NYC on the train, which he does regularly for fun.

You won't hear anything bad about Brown from anyone! Happiest students, great location, amazing academics. My boy loves it (he transferred after an unhappy first year at Cornell; we tried to tell him!) and the opportunities available in terms of recruitment, etc are unequalled.

Have your child read something like College Confidential to get a sense of the vibe of a school. My kids think of Amherst as embarassingly preppy. My daughter dropped a class there because she found it so lame (I'm not saying it makes sense, I know Amherst is the #1 LAC in the country). That said, the Maine colleges are very fine schools, but cannot compare to the top tier LACs like Wes, Amherst or Williams.

Then again, if they do the research and think a school is a fit, they can apply and just visit if they get in. Some kids do that. It's true that summer is a poor time to visit, since they won't really see the school in action. Good luck, try to enjoy this time if you can. The Times had a cute column this week by a writer taking her kids around on their college tours.

Wow, Andrea, I guess its all in the personal reaction, huh. My son was turned off at his visit to Brown because he spoke to 3 students who hated it and were thinking of transferring. (He ended up at Tufts and loves it). A friend's daughter transferred from Vassar because she couldn't stand all the preppy (wealthy + overconcerned with wealth) fellow students it seemed to have.

I guess the point is everybody has their own reaction to a place, and there is no substitute for a visit. And even then, a visit won't give you a perfect ability to predict your future. My advice is to not obsess over picking the perfect school -- it is not possible to know in advance what that is.

Good points, capxxx. I was going to respond to Andrea's comment above about her kid being happy at Vassar. When I visited the Vassar campus with my older daughter, we were there only a few minutes before she wanted to flee, though it wasn't due to preppiness but to the isolation. I'm not sure whether it was the single-sheet handout that listed all the upcoming activities for the next two weeks, or the undue commotion caused by the appearance of her new little brother accompanying us in his stroller, but she knew she needed a campus with more going on. We later spent an hour driving aimlessly around New Haven, searching for the Yale equivalent of Harvard Square.

And then my younger daughter, seeing herself as being just as much of an urbanite as older sister, was astonished to discover, via campus visits, that she really wanted that old-fashioned pastoral quad feeling. But then the school that fit her perfectly as a freshman didn't fit two years later and she transferred to a city school

These gut reactions to the physical ambience are a key reason for campus visits, IMHO, and a second reason is to talk to as many students as possible. I've never attended an orientation session, tour, or any other activity sponsored by an Admissions Office that told me anything I couldn't learn from print or online sources.

I think you could fit Amherst in reasonably well but Vassar is pretty far out of your way.
It sounds as tho your child isn't sure about a small liberal arts school in a rural area vs an urban university. If that is the case seeing some of each makes sense to me

Tufts does seem to be a school you should at least consider visiting when you are in the Boston/Cambridge area

The schools you are seeing are far enough apart that it would probably be hard to see two in one day many days. The tours all tend to be at the same time of day, one late morning and one early afternoon.

I agree with other posters that prospective students are strongly influenced by how well they relate to the tour guide and other students they talk to on campus. Some schools offer options of staying overnight with students and/or attending classes.

Some people enjoy road trips more than others. Our nephew and his father saw an amazing number of schools in the northeast in 10 days last summer. Both my kids would have hated this schedule.

Someone suggested looking at the college confidential web site. I know our younger son did and I checked it out from time to time. I am not sure it is a great way to get a realistic idea of what a school is like since it is made up of a lot of people's subjective impressions. Also a lot of the students who post (and their parents!) seem very competitive

If you just do the Boston area plus CT there are many colleges to consider. Trinity in Hartford impressed me. Connecticut College might be worth exploring as well.

I want to thank everyone for their responses. Air Tran is running a great sale that unfortunately ends today so I think I want to book something for the summer. I really appreciate the specific suggestions.

Enjoy your visits!

Interesting responses and so much information. As one who did the college tours for myself and then my kids, who have both long graduated, I can tell you that all the looking will not guarantee the best pick. You can't get to all the schools mentioned in one trip and it isn't worth the time since you won't get into all of them. You need to choose a type of school to see - example, one city school, one small rural school, a big school etc. When you visit try to envision yourself traveling there and living there and participating in the classes and activties they offer. The culture of the school is something you can learn on-line or from talking to students who have or are attending. You could visit fifteen schools and then have a conversation with someone one day, decide to apply to a school you never thought about, visit if you are accepted and decide to go there and love it. Either narrow your choices or visit college types but don't see so much that they become a blur. And if someone hasn't already told you, take pictures of what you see, your views. It is a great reminder of the school once you get home and try to sort it out.

Hi -- We are now getting ready for this college tour. Can I have some feedback on this itinerary? We live near DC so we figure we can drive to Vassar (5 1/2 hours), then go to Wesleyan and Yale (either are about 2 hours away from vassar and 36 min from each other). Then we could go to Brown (about 2 hours) and Harvard (1 hour) the next day. Then we intend to see Holy cross (1 hour) and Amherst (1 hour from Holy Cross). Finally we really want to see Williams which is about 1 1/2 hours away. This puts us about 7 hours from home. It would be handy to leave off Vassar or Williams, but they are good fits (although hard to get into). We also could still fly, but I wonder if that is worth it from where we live. Anyway, if anyone would change the plan, I'm glad to hear it. Also if there are any other schools around there you recommend, please let me know. Thanks, Burry.

I can't figure out how to get Vassar into the itinerary, but since I like to start at the farthest point from home FIRST, I'd recommend this:

Start at Williams ( you may need to break up your drive with a one night stay somewhere along the way from DC)

Drive to Amherst, which is about 1.5-2 hours from Williams

Drive to Holy Cross, which is a little over an hour from Amherst

Drive to Boston to see Harvard, which is about 45 minutes to an hour ( depending on time of day/traffic) from Holy Cross

Drive to Brown, which is just under two hours from Boston

Drive to Middletown to visit Wesleyan ( not sure of the distance from Providence, but it's the right direction)

Drive to Yale

(Drive to Vassar??)

Drive to DC

Dump luggage and college brochures. Order takeout. Pass out on couch!

Good luck from a mom ( and son) who are done with all their college tours...!

A last thought. I don't know how far Poughkeepsie and Williamstown are from each other, but it would be worth checking. If they were within striking distance, you could start at Vassar, proceed to Williams, then follow ( or not) the rest of my suggestions for your itinerary. Less driving that way, I think.