I'll be in Manhattan with my family for a week at Christmas and we're thinking of breaking the time up with a day trip to somewhere else. I'm leaning towards a train ride to Philadelphia (I like history and have never been there) but I think my kids (18 and 16) would prefer to see one of the major universities. So I'm assuming I'm going to lose that one and that we'll take a train ride out to one of the campuses.

I know very little about US universities (I'm Australian). I've looked at the websites for Princeton and Yale and they both look like they'd be great to visit, especially Yale. I'm just wondering if anyone has any recommendations, for either of those or for another campus within reach of NYC?

Most campuses will be closed from just before Christmas until at least the New Year. Other than walking around and looking at the outside of most buildings on campus, I can't imagine there is much reason to go at that time. Sorry.

According to their websites, Yale and Princeton both still have tours up to a couple of days before Christmas, so I think we're OK timewise. We're in NYC from 18-26 Dec.

Princeton is much easier to reach than Yale. But what DebitNM says is true. Universities are totally closed over the holidays. All the more reason to visit Princeton, which s much more of a picturesque town than New Haven and even has decent shopping and restaurants downtown. Then of course there is one of the great Universities right in NYC ... Columbia. Not really sure why you'd need to travel an hour or more.

You can easily make everyone happy. Go to Philadelphia on the train. You'll get off at 30th ST station which is located in the University City neighborhood. The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn, like Princeton and Yale is one of our Ivy League universities) and Drexel University are next door to each other and blocks from 30th St.

Both campuses will be a little quiet but UPenn, especially, is gorgeous and the neighborhood is a shopping mecca for that age group. There are also museums and a lot of great restaurants there. You could spend the day in that neighborhood but if you still want to visit the historic area, it's easy to get to by train, taxi, bus, or subway.

http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/Conten..._Page&code=PHL

www.septa.org

www.upenn.edu

http://www.penn.museum/

www.universitycity.org

www.gophila.com

Princeton has one of the most beautiful campuses and is accessible by NJ Transit. Columbia is a top 5 university and just a subway ride away, but it is in an urban setting.

NYU is not ranked as highly as the Ivy League School above and is also an urban campus but has one of the best film (Tisch), business, and law schools in the country.

Among the graduates from the film school are Oliver Stone, M. Night Shyamalan, Joel Coen, Ang Lee, Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, and Jim Jarmusch.

NYU has swallowed up many properties and owns many buildings around Washington Square Park which attacts a decidedly electic crowd and the Washington Mews, a quiant street that harkens to by gone eras that few tourists visit.

Been to all of these colleges (I'm a college counselor). Go to Princeton. So easy on NJ Transit-get off at Princeton and you're right there on campus. It's absolutely beautiful and a great tour, too.

Princeton is great but Columbia has a campus and it is right here in Manhattan.

Columbia, Barnard and NYU should fit the bill for the kids of a major Unversity visit. There's also Hunter College and City University and a few other colleges and Universities in the City as well.

The kids will LOVE the area around NYU and a little further east try the lower East Side around Astor Place and St. Marks Place just off 3rd Ave around 8th St, lots of fun shopping and college age area.

Have a great time while you are here.

First of all, there are a bunch of schools actually IN NYC. Granted most have city type campuses - but others -like Columbia, a top-rated school, actually do have campuses. For the highest-rated campus (not school, but campus) in the US head to Princeton. It's gorgeous - but unlike most schools in the US. You can get a train to Princeton - not sure if you need a cab or what form there. Yale, while a great school, is located in New Haven - which has pleasant parts - but also rather gritty ones.

And I can;t emphasize too highly that Princeton is not at all representative of the many, many hundreds of colleges and universities in the US.

Also - unless you have been to NYC before - I really wouldn;t spend a whole day going to look at an empty college - when you could be doing much more interesting things in the City. Not sure why kids would want to look at a school they will never go to.

I think the answer here depends on what you and your kids hope to get out of the university visit. Is the idea to soak up some ambience and history at one of America's most famous and prestigious universities? Or to have a look at some collegiate architecture? To hang out a little in a college town and perhaps see what student life is like?

We don't have any formal system for ranking universities, but if the attraction is history and prestige, then Yale and Princeton would rank well above all of the other institutions mentioned above. As has been mentioned, the train to Princeton will drop you off right in the middle of campus. The campus is gorgeous and idyllic, one of the most beautiful American college campuses I've ever seen, and one of the most suggestive of Hogwarts Academy. However, unless you're lucky enough to get some fresh snow, the bare trees and dead grass will make the scenery kind of drab and gray, relative to other seasons, and it could be a little boring. The town of Princeton is safe, peaceful, and pleasant to walk around in, but it's quiet and suburban, without a whole lot of activities, compared to everyplace else mentioned.

Yale, on the other hand, also has lots of beautiful collegiate gothic architecture, but it's sort of incongruously plunked in a town that's a bit famous for being ugly, gritty, and depressing. Nevertheless, New Haven is a much livelier town than Princeton, and there's more to do there besides seeing the University.

Columbia is another member of the famous Ivy League, but it would not usually be considered among the top five universities in the Ivy League, let alone in the U.S. I'm not sure a visit to Columbia would offer too much. It has that main quad that's kind of nice, but otherwise I'd say the area feels mostly like just another part of New York, and it's not one that most tourists would want to visit.

I would definitely second travelbuff's recommendation of the area around NYU. NYU is a large university, but it's not one of America's "major" ones, in terms of fame or prestige. It also doesn't have a campus per se, just buildings scattered around an area that's centered near Washington Square Park. One doesn't feel like one is walking around a university there. However, the NYU area is lots of fun, for tourists and New York residents of all ages, especially those around 16-18 years old, and it's heavily infused with collegiate energy. This might be your best chance to experience a college student vibe in the middle of Christmas vacation. The nearby East Village, West Village, and Lower East Side are great destinations too. NYU might or might not suffice as a university visit, but don't miss Greenwich Village!

I would think that Penn could be a good choice, as you were interested in visiting Philadelphia anyway. I haven't been to Philadelphia for more than a quick trip in years. I vaguely recall the Penn campus as being very pretty, situated in an area that had some parts that seemed lively and fun, and others that seemed ugly and perhaps unsafe. That was a long time ago -- seek others' more update information about Penn.

Maybe you should add more about what you are looking for in a college visit...is there a chance that your kids might want to apply someday? Do you want to see art galleries/libraries/great architecture?

You've gotten a lot of good information here about visiting East Coast colleges, but I think Birdie's suggestion of combining your interest in Philadelphia with a campus tour of the University of Pennsylvania is the best because everyone will get a chance to see/do something of interest to them.

As a parent who has done many college campus visits with my kids, I know that if you visit when classes are not in session, you do not get any real feel for the university or university life. Even though a campus may be lovely in appearance, it isn't going to have any real "life" during late December because all the students will be gone; classes will not be in session; the dorms will be closed; etc. If you focus your day trip out of NYC exclusively on a college campus visit, I think you will all be somewhat disappointed.

Please note that Columbia was recently ranked fourth by the US News and World Report Annual Survey.

And many of NYU's graduate programs are top ten.

Sorry - Columbia is top Ten on the list of anyone you can think of. And the entire area around it is interesting (if you don;t like Morningside Heights - that's fine - but it's certainly an interesting view of what a college campus can be.). And while NYU isn't Ivy - it's a top-rated university and has some graduate programs that are unmatched.

I still don;t get why these kids would want to see a US college campus - since there are so many and they are so different. And agree that without students - there's not that much to see do.

Columbia is defintely on most "top" lists.

Another school that might be interesting, although totally unknown to many is Swarthmore, outside Philadelphia. One of the top ranked colleges in America (academically) and their entire campus is an arboretum. Lots of big stone buildings to admire as well.

Personally, i'd just go to Columbia. it's easy to get there, and looks like an Ivy league school. Because it is in the city, there will actually be people out and about on the campus, even if it is closed for Christmas.

"Sorry - Columbia is top Ten on the list of anyone you can think of."

Sorry, but that's false. If necessary, I'm willing prove it, by posting the name of the person I just thought of. Columbia is a fine place, and I'd consider it a privilege to study or teach there. It has many highly regarded graduate and professional schools, including a law school that is solidly established in the second tier of American law schools, among the traditional "top five" quoted to me by many lawyers. But its undergraduate college isn't generally among the more prestigious or competitive in the Ivy League. And NYU isn't "top rated" in anything other than the arts. Either easily fits the description of "major university," but the OP's mentioning Yale and Princeton suggests that he or she is thinking of a different sort of place.

As others have noted, it's not entirely clear what kind of an experience the OP is looking for. And I agree that visiting any of these places during winter vacation won't really convey much of an impression of American college life. Nor will the more scenic campuses be particularly scenic in winter. Without knowing more about what the kids are looking for, I'd be inclined to recommend skipping the trips to Princeton and New Haven, doing a visit to Philadelphia that includes a stop at Penn, and then spending ample time walking around Greenwich Village, which will be a great time for everyone.

OK, so it's not on hawksbill's top 10 list - it's on everyone else's!

Penn, Princeton and Yale would all be great choices from the standpoint of seeing great university architecture, but, as noted, there won't be a college "ambiance" during the holidays (at Columbia either, so you should probably choose one that is just one part of your reason to visit, which would rule out both Yale and Princeton).

FWIW, when my son visited Stanford the first time, it was "dead". He would have decided against attending had a family friend not insisted he come back on a Tuesday that classes were in session. I can't tell you how different it was!

Wonder where the OP went....

I am staying out of the "what school is better" debate but wanted to jump in to clarify that the train to Princeton doesn't leave you off in the middle of campus. You take Amtrak or NJTransit to Princeton Junction and then transfer to the Dinky to get to campus.

Also, I disagree that University City in Philadelphia is anyone's shoping mecca. There are shops along Walnut and Chestnut, but visitors' expectations should be managed.