TEN-STEP PLAN FOR SUCCESSFUL COLLEGE VISITS

From Janet Spencer, author of VISITING COLLEGE CAMPUSES  

(Random House / Princeton Review Books, $20)

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1 / Start by learning which days your child has off from school.  Ideal times: spring or fall breaks, or early September.

2 / Target a general geographical area to visit.

3 / Make sure the colleges will be in session while you are there.

4 / Consider checking out other nearby colleges you may not have considered.

5 / Plot your itinerary, taking into account how long it will take to get from home to the colleges, and from college to college.

6 / Estimate how much time you’d like to spend at each campus.  Allow at least 2-3 hours, and don’t try to visit more than two colleges in a day. 

7 / Get advance info from the schools on campus tours, on-campus interviews or overnight dorm stays.  Appointments may be required.

8 / Arrive early and don’t rush off afterwards.  You may want to re-visit areas on campus and speak informally with students.

9 / Repeat steps 6 through 8 for each school, being sure to allow adequate travel times.

10 / Make your campus trips also be fun visits to the colleges’ cities or towns.  Allow time to poke around shops and enjoy nearby museums or other local attractions.    

The Princeton Review Says Why Not

CombineCollege Visits and Family Vacation?

Planning on visiting colleges this summer? Planning on a family vacation? Combine the two, and you’ve got a perfect trip!  According to The Princeton Review, a leading provider of college admissions and test preparation services, visiting colleges presents a great opportunity to explore new territory, try new restaurants, and evaluate the place where your child may be spending the next four years.

The key to making a college trip fun and stress-free is doing your homework. The  Internet offers a host of free resources to help you research, plan and make your travel and hotel arrangements.  Start your search with  Princeton Review’s website, (<<www.PrincetonReview.com>> <<<http://www.PrincetonReview.com>>>)--the most popular destination on the Internet for free information and tools about colleges and graduate schools. What type of school do you want to look at? Big? Small? Public? Private? Over one million students, parents and educators use  PrincetonReview.com each month to research, apply online, prepare for and learn how to pay for college and graduate school.

Here are some simple tips to help you plan your combo family vacation/college visit:

·     Timing

It’s best to visit a college when you know there will be students and activities on campus. Seeing students walking around, talking, and busy with activities provides you with a sense of what life is really like on campus. We suggest planning your visit during the last week of August and the first weeks of September. Students are back on campus and ready to start a new year. Don’t mind the moving trucks! It will give you a great sense of what to expect a year or two from now. Another great time of year is Columbus Day. Most colleges are still are session, while many high schools give students that Monday off. .

·     Research the colleges and areas you want to visit

The Princeton Review’s free website (<www.PrincetonReview.com> <<http://www.PrincetonReview.com>>) helps students narrow down their list of colleges.  The Advanced School Search is a dynamic tools that enables students to enter any important criteria--including states and regions, majors, school location, cost, type of campus, diversity of student body, average SAT scores, religious affiliation, and more. The tool will then gives students a list of schools that match your unique criteria listing. From there, students can read a detailed statistical and editorial profile about each school to help them narrow down the list of which schools they actually want to visit. On PrincetonReview.com, students can find information about when campus tours are offered and how long they last, proximity to airports and accommodations, driving directions, recommendations for “hot spots” on campus and in the vicinity, and comments from students about campus life.

For those without access to a computer, you can find similar information in The Princeton Review’s book Visiting College Campuses by Janet Spencer and Sarah Maleson.

·     Plot your route

If you are visiting two or more schools in one trip, you will want to make a nice, easy loop requiring as little backtracking as possible. It’s a good idea to visit a larger university and a smaller college to make sure you get a feel for both types of campuses.

Calculate where your target schools are located in relation to each other. Once you have laid out your loop, establish the order in which you are going to visit your target schools and figure out how long it will take to get from one school to the next.

·     Schedule your time

You can estimate how much time you will spend at a school based on what you want to do when you visit. Your options may include: a self-guided tour of the campus using a map supplied by the Admissions Office, a student-led tour of the campus, an on-campus interview with an Admissions Office staff member, an information session (a group meeting with a staff member, often in lieu of interviews), a class visit, a meeting with a faculty member or athletic coach, an overnight stay. Call the school’s admission office to make arrangements. The basic college visit takes a minimum of 2 to 3 hours and we recommend no more than two visits per day, so plan your schedule knowing this and calculating how much time it will take you to drive from campus to campus.

·     Making the arrangements

Campus tours are usually run on a set schedule (hourly from 10 to 3, for example) so you should time your visit accordingly. At many colleges, regardless of whether a student has submitted an application or not, an Admissions Officer may still want to conduct an interview. If an interview is required as part of the admissions process, call the Admissions Office far enough in advance so that a convenient time slot is still available. Make sure you visit PrincetonReview.com for interview tips and advice for how to keep relaxed during what many students consider to be a stressful process.

·     Accommodations, Sightseeing and Having Fun

Many college towns have great character. Why not stay in a local inn that has some special charm? Poke around in the shops or visit some of the local attractions. Or stay at a nearby resort, dude ranch, spa, campground, etc. In your free time, you can swim, play tennis, canoe, fish, or hike. Or splurge on a luxury hotel with an indoor pool and health club near shops and other amenities. Investigate what is within walking distance. There might be a delightful bed and breakfast with afternoon tea and homemade muffins in the morning, for example, right up the block. Sometimes the school itself has accommodations available.

Here are a few schools to consider as both a college and a vacation destination:

West Coast: Claremont Colleges

Pomona, Pitzer, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, and Scripps are the five members of the Claremont Colleges in southern California. Claremont’s location puts it close to beaches and lakes, mountains and valleys, forests and deserts, each with a catalog of outdoor activities to offer. Just minutes away, the ClaremontHillsWildernessPark in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains have plenty of hiking options. To the west of the park is the Marshall Canyon and to north is the Angeles National Forest, including Pyramid Lake, a haven for anglers, water skiers, jet skiers, and swimmers. Culture lovers need only travel 30 miles west to downtown Los Angeles and the renowned Museum of Contemporary Art. Reachable by train and by car, the thrift shops of West Hollywood, beaches of Santa Monica, culinary delights of China and ThaiTowns, are waiting to be explored. Pop culture? A quick drive to Anaheim brings you to Disneyland.

New England: DartmouthCollege

A visit to DartmouthCollege in Hanover, NH, provides a chance to wander through the stately buildings of one of America’s premier universities. Located in the heart of the UpperConnecticut RiverValley in western New Hampshire, Dartmouth is a drive away from many of New England’s attractions.  The Appalachian Trail winds its way through Hanover. The Quechee Gorge and recreation area is 15 minutes west, Mount Washington is just over an hour away.  The Billings Farm and Museum, a living exhibition of the region’s rural heritage is less than a half hour drive from the Dartmouth campus, just over the Vermont state line. While in eastern Vermont, stop to enjoy the picturesque beauty and quaint shops of Woodstock, which has been called “The Prettiest Small Town in America.” Hire a hot-air balloon in Quechee. Watch glassblowers practice their art at the Windsor headquarters of glassware extraordinaire, Simon Pearce. In Waterbury, about an hour and a half from Dartmouth, there’s another Vermont hotspot: The Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream factory, the state’s number one tourist destination.

St. John’s College, New Mexico

     When students-to-be decide to visit St. John’sCollege in Santa Fe, N.M., they’re usually drawn by the college’s unique emphasis on self-designed courses, learning without tests, and using the great books in literary history as guides. But once students-to-be arrive in Santa Fe, they’re as enamored with the region as they are with the college. The narrow streets, adobe buildings, and varied artwork of Santa Fe’s art district along Canyon Road give it an aesthetic unique to this region of the UnitedState.  The region sits at the confluence of Native American, Hispanic, and European cultures reflected in the nearly 250 galleries in the city.  The multi-cultural heritage are also reflected in the architecture of the city’s historical sites such as the Chapel of San Miguel, the Chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Francis Cathedral, Barrio de Analco, and the SenaPlaza. For nature’s masterpieces, a quick drive to the SkiBasin leads to the breathtaking views and an unbeatable sunset in the Sangre de Cristo mountain range of the Rocky Mountains.

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