Boston Area Visit

Pizzagirl · 11-06-2009, 01:37 AM

Is this schedule crazy? I just don't have a sense for the distances.

Fly into Boston Sat night; spend Sun exploring Boston. Possibly do a drive-by for BU.
Mon: Tufts AM, Brandeis PM
Tue: Wellesley AM, drive out to Clark PM ... After Clark, keep going west and get next to Northampton area, spend night there.
Wed: Smith, Mt. Holyoke.
Thur: Fly back out of Western Massachusetts.

Please, don't tell me to add Harvard, MIT, or Amherst to the list.

And would I be totally crazy to try to add Bates & Colby (which I recognize would mean flying into Portland and starting there?).

No interviews ... just tours for the most part.

BunsenBurner · 11-06-2009, 01:57 AM

Spend the Sunday exploring Harvard Square. You will see many MIT kids there as well. That counts as a tour of both schools

I think your schedule might be a bit too loaded. It also depends on the kid. My child could not tour two colleges in one day. She was very meticulous about her college reserach and would explore every nook and cranny, taste the food, check out the athletic facilities, etc. - one college was all she could fit in one day!

bclintonk · 11-06-2009, 02:24 AM

Pizzagirl,

Your Mass tour sounds eminently doable, and a good mix of schools. Tufts & Brandeis should be OK in one day, or Tufts & Wellesley; you could reverse the order, though I'm not sure it would make much difference. Personally, I'd find it easier to find Wellesley (rather than Waltham) from Somerville (Tufts) under time constraints, but maybe that's just me. Clark is a good and frequently overlooked school, easily accessible from either Wellesley or Waltham, and from Worcester it's an easy shot to Northampton. Definitely stay in Northampton, a cute town, see Smith first, then Mt. Holyoke. Given the range of schools you're looking at I'd only suggest Hampshire as a possible addition/alternative, but it sounds like you've already got a full plate and a tight time constraint.

Adding the Maine schools would be awkward. They're not that far from Boston (2.5 hours for Bates, 3 hours for Colby) but if you've only got 3 days I think it would require you either to ditch the Western Mass Schools, or to ditch Clark plus one of the three Boston-area schools. On the other hand, it sounds like you're planning on using the last Thursday as a travel day. If I'm not mistaken you're coming from the Chicago area, which means you should have have only about a 2-hour flight. If you can use that back-end day to combine schools and travel, I think you could possibly squeeze in the Maine schools on the front end, using Sunday afternoon to get up to Waterville (Colby), coming back down to Boston via Bates on Monday, and bumping everything else back a day. But it's a stretch, adding a lot of driving to an already-demanding schedule. If you had the whole week I'd say sure, and throw in Trinity (Hartford) to boot. (Hartford-Springfield Bradley International is the nearest major airport to the Northampton-Amherst area). But I guess on 3 days I'd be inclined to stay in Massachusetts.

I know 2 schools in a single day sounds like a lot to some people. But when you're coming from out of the region, you don't always have time to linger over any particular school---and if you try, the school you choose may turn out to be a dud. D1 & I visited a lot of schools and never had trouble handling 2 in one day. More than that would have been overload.

danas · 11-06-2009, 03:33 AM

Your plan is doable for sure, though Boston is tough to navigate by car, compared to Chicago. Highways are based upon 17th century cow paths, rather than a grid.
The distances are very easy. You might do another drive-by or two on Sunday, like Boston College or Simmons.
Unfortunately, Harvard Square is as much a tourist and shopping destination as a place to see MIT or even Harvard students.

'rentof2 · 11-06-2009, 04:05 AM

We did 2 colleges in a day several times. It worked fine for us. Enjoy your trip!

cnp55 · 11-06-2009, 06:41 AM

I think you can do this. Realize you are probably flying out of BDL in Connecticut (Hartford-Springfield) on your way home which is IIRC less than 20 miles from Hartford. The suggestion to add a Trinity driveby is not an impossible one. Another 20 miles downriver, err.... I-91 ... would net you Wesleyan, and yet another 20 or so would get you to Yale.

While in the Smith/Holyoke area, I'd be tempted to do a driveby on UMass and Amherst, just as area information and maybe Hampshire too.

If you are doing Western Mass, I wouldn't try to do Maine unless you have a lot of extra time.

*Dean J* · 11-06-2009, 06:56 AM

As a former Bostonian, I have a Pavlovian response to threads with the name of the city in them. I'm resisting the urge to tell you where to eat right now.

Quote:

Highways are based upon 17th century cow paths, rather than a grid.

Total myth.

And the Back Bay is a grid. The streets are in alphabetical order (Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, etc.).

marite · 11-06-2009, 07:04 AM

PG:
The schedule seems quite doable to me. I would leave longer explorations for the time when your child, with acceptances in hand, has to make a decision. But then, neither my S took the quality of the food into consideration, even though they did eat at some college cafeterias.

If you want to explore BU, don't do a drive by. Use the T and walk around Commonwealth Ave and Kenmore Square. There's an art exhibition at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis--the one that was threatened with closure. It's got rave reviews from the Boston Globe. Make time to go through it.

lje62 · 11-06-2009, 07:39 AM

It all sounds doable, with the exception of Colby and Bates. When in Boston, I would advise taking the T rather than driving. You can see a lot and it is really a city to be seen on foot.
Hope you have fun !

cadbury · 11-06-2009, 08:26 AM

Hi Pizzagirl.

This is a doable but punishing schedule. If you can add another day or two, it would be great. Boston/Cambridge is eminently walkable. So I'm with the folks who suggest that you keep the rental car parked -- or pahked, as the case may be. :-)

Sounds like your kids have a pretty good idea re: which schools to look at; so I'd resist the urge to add any additional schools to an already crowded schedule.

Two pieces of advice: Given that you are so far away, it might be a very good idea to get interviews out of the way on this trip. We found that getting back to schools at much shorter distances than this was very difficult for us.

Second, an earlier post says that you're planning on coming to the area in March or April. Be aware that the Boston Marathon is Monday, April 19. That can be a plus or minus, depending on your perspective.

ebeeeee · 11-06-2009, 08:37 AM

Ditto the resisting food suggestions..we just did a thread on that on the parent cafe though so that should hold me off for a while. Depending on where you are flying from check Southwest. They now fly out of Logan and still fly out of Bradley. You may be better off to pick Bradley as your airport and stick with that. You will avoid the charge for dropping the car at a different airport that way.

mathmom · 11-06-2009, 08:45 AM

Sounds doable - try to plan to eat lunch at Tufts - they have great food!

I'm not fond of driving in Boston, but now that the Big Dig is dug, maps should work again.

ebeeeee · 11-06-2009, 08:50 AM

Ugh..driving in Boston..park and take the T.

ihs76 · 11-06-2009, 08:53 AM

Advice I got for our trip that was useful:

Take quarters
Get EZ pass with your rental car (Hertz came with it automatically) for tolls
Get to where you are going the night before
If you are socially liberal and need a place to stay, PM me and I'll tell you about the place we stayed in in Cambridge.

shawbridge · 11-06-2009, 09:23 AM

All good advice and doable if you schedule the tours appropriately. For Bates/Colby, you would add a day at the beginning and fly to Portland? You might also be able to fly into Manchester, NH on Southwest. With the extra day (or two -- I don't know how long the drive is between Colby and Bates), I think that works. You can then drive to Boston/Cambridge. Then park and take the subway (affectionately known as the T). Though you'll want a car to get to Tufts and Brandeis, and need one for Wellesley. One way to keep hotel costs down in Boston is to stay in Waltham or Newton.

Smith and Mount Holyoke are nearby and you could likely do both and take a quick walk through another school. Good luck.