Really, that seems like a silly reason to cancel the trip. I realize hotel and car rental costs are more expensive around LA than many other places, but they’re not that much higher. What’s a few hundred dollars compared to four years of tuition and living expenses?
I think OP was referring to cutting out random visits.
It’s not average temp as much as how many sequential days under X degrees. And the health needs. The occasional “warmer” winter days here, which to us are a delight, will still be cold for her. We’re talking the days when it might hit 34-38. Lol. I’d bet any poster here from New England knows what I mean. 38 and we might run a quick errand in a sweater.
What changes this from “not thaaat bad, you’ll get used to it” is her sensitivity to cold.
So, repeating frin northwesty, “Go south young woman!!”
@lookingforward 34 to 38 degrees in the winter and the boys wear shorts. I think Boston can be painfully cold in the winter with the wind and I live in NE.
@simba, @cafe9999 Canceling a trip is not silly if you can’t afford it; taking schools in CA off your list when weather is an important criterion, however, IS silly. Plenty of people apply to lots of schools without making cross-country trips to do so. Your D can visit after acceptances are in – oftentimes, in cases where there is financial need and/or URM status, schools will offer fly-in programs. Boston and Chicago are cold, esp. for a kid coming from the Southwest. CA schools would, in my option, be much better options.
You’ve gotten lots of good suggestions: Rice, Vandy, Davidson, Duke, Emory and WashU for starters. The Claremont Colleges, USC, Occidental, Stanford, etc. should probably be on the list for someone that has issues with cold weather.
@gearmom, you betcha! And flip flops. We can watch the college runners out in next to nothing.
Md and Va can get cold too, lately. Just for fewer days.
Thanks for the comments. I have looked at weather averages, but they really aren’t helpful. It’s cold throughout the northeast in February, and I was looking for more info. in terms of navigating the campus in the cold, the “real feel” and how extreme it can get. I agree MN, Canada and Hanover are too cold, as well as Middlebury, upstate NY, Maine. Our daughter has her heart set on the northeast, and there is no reason to deny her that opportunity. She wants to be near or in a major city so that she can go to museums, concerts, cultural events (Williams is the exception). This is even more important when you can’t do sports and many outdoor activities. I know I’m not sharing the details of her condition, but she can manage the cold as long as she can escape it. It’s okay if she can’t go out at night or walk around the city on a freezing day—it’s still worth it to her. On the other hand, she wouldn’t want to be around a student body whose primary recreational activities are skiing, mountain biking, and playing club sports (that would include her brother who is going to college in CO).
Also, I grew up in CT and lived in a cold, drafty house where Yankee values were such that the heat was never turned above 60, we collected wood from outside and started a fire every frigid morning, scraped the windshield and shoveled snow all winter… Fortunately in college, life is much, much more sheltered: toasty dorms, someone else shovels the paths, I think she will be fine. She will look at schools in the NY tri-state area plus MA, maybe DC/NC, not sure about Chicago. In the end the weather will probably be a factor that she will weigh alongside the strength of the math department and the location. I appreciate all the comments and additional suggestions especially when some people mentioned that some campuses are “compact,” the sense of how cold it is, and whether there is an overwhelming outdoor culture or not. We will use the suggestions to help narrow down colleges that we visit—so thank you.
@lookingforward @gearmom - Or they go for a quick swim in the harbor… 
Why not check out Swarthmore/Haverford/Bryn Mar? They’d be a bit warmer.
There are a lot of polar bear plunges in cities on the Great Lakes on January 1 each year.
I have lived in NY, CO, CA, VA, TX, NM, AZ, FL. It’s cold up north and as they say…winter is coming. If your DD is set on the NE then she will have to walk to classes in the cold, sometimes bitter cold. Even if the campus is fairly small, invariably it seems you have to walk to the farthest building away from your current class. I would advise following the advice of posters who recommend more southerly colleges.
@Mastadon @lookingforward It’s full on summer if it hits 38 in NE. Sunbathing on the quad.
But if you cannot tolerate the cold, you will be so limited. You can’t go off to Boston and walk around. No skiing with friends on weekends. No skating. No hockey games. No snowball fights. People get depressed if they are stuck inside up north in the winter. Not enough sunlight. It just won’t work.
@cafe9999 She just cannot do the northeast. It can be 15° but with the wind chill it is -5°. I really have trouble in Boston when we go for holiday functions and events. Even with proper clothing, she’d probably be so left behind with what she could do compared to her peers. Nevermind if she went out partying at night (when it is colder) and had an issue. Absolutely not.
A couple of winters ago, D2 was stuck in the Boston Red Line mess.
OP, so you know the weather. If this were my daughter, a serious question in the back of my mind would be this experiment vs the risk she’d be, as CU123 worried, back home early. For some, that’s reasonable. Others might not want to take the chance and would look for compromise.
I finished hs on the DC border and my family lived there more years. In my mind, for the education, exposure, culture, opps for fun, ease of transpo, DC is a great place to go to college. It’s sophisticated, people are generally well informed, up on events, and can still be laid back. Obviously, very international.
Sure, it can be cold. But it’s a city built to get people around.
Look, if VT, NH, ME, and upstate NY are too cold, then realistically she should scrap Williams too.
Williams is in Massachusetts, but being two miles south of the Vermont border does not automatically mean that you get a “southern New England” climate. In fact, Williamstown is is surrounded by mountains, and gets the same kind of cold and snow as “northern New England” schools like Midd, Dartmouth, Bates, or Colby. Note the presence of NCAA ski teams at all of these schools.
Amherst or MHC are warmer, though no one will confuse them with Florida or SoCal in the winter.
It doesn’t sound like the OP particularly cares what others think or recommend - she says that her D “…has her heart set on the northeast, and there is no reason to deny her that opportunity.” I can think of a whole host of reasons, and many fine suggestions have been made, but it’s their dime…
Given the criteria of wanting to be “near or in a major city so that she can go to museums, concerts, cultural events” I think the Philadelphia consortium (Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore, U.Penn) might make sense. Still, if it were my kid, I’d encourage her stick with CA or southern schools or check out the Pacific Northwest, but it’s not my D, so…
The first thing I’d want to know is how cold is “cold”? Are we talking below zero, in which case any of the schools you’re talking about would be fine? Few people who aren’t actively involved in winter sports would be out in those temps for long on the few days when the mercury dips that low. Are we talking 40 degrees, in which case they should probably all be scrapped?
For instance, Williams has Mountain Day in early October, a day on which the whole school climbs a nearby mountain. Normal temps would be in the 40’s or 50’s but she’d have to factor in wind chill on the mountain. Would she be comfortable setting off on a hike like this without the chance to get inside if she got chilled?
Would she feel stressed about walking to a club or event in town with her friends on a cold night? Would she feel funny about excusing herself from a football game if she got too cold? How much warning does she have that her condition is being triggered and how serious is it?
If the MBTA broke down or a bus was late would she be in trouble?
Would she feel left out if she couldn’t participate fully in winter carnival or in trips her friends were planning or would she just say, “That’s fine. I can be outside for 20 minutes, inside for 10 and then back out for another 20.”
I’d encourage OP to revisit the idea of the Claremont McKenna colleges (Pomona, CMC, Scripps, Pitzer, HM). They’re magnificent, and weather will never be an issue. My son ended up at Williams but absolutely loved Pomona. Just too far away from us on the East Coast.
Thanks for comments. Please know that I’m not being cavalier about my daughter’s condition and where she attends school—I am very concerned about it and that is why I posted. I was asking originally about schools to consider (and visit) or rule out based on how cold the campus would be given that the three I mentioned were HIGHLY desirable based on our daughter’s interests. I first received some conflicting info. of not too bad, and then a chorus of no, go south or west. Haverford, Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr have always been on her list to visit. I could also see her happy at Brown, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Wesleyan, Barnard, JHU, too, but that’s too many reaches. Of course Williams and Amherst are too, but ED rates are higher. For now, she is not interested in the Claremont colleges or the South (Tulane) or the PNW (otherwise Reed would be a good choice) or Vanderbilt. I encouraged her to look at the Claremont colleges and offered to take her out there this summer, but it’s so expensive, the car culture is awful, and we don’t know anyone there. We have family in CT and friends in NYC which makes a huge difference, and as our first is in college now, we know how helpful it will be to have family close by. In DC, there is JHU but I’m not sure if GT is strong in math/science (need to research). GWU and American do not meet full need. We may visit, and my brother teaches at JHU so we have family there too. Thinking Chicago and Williams are just too cold. Good suggestion about applying and not visiting to some warmer out of the way options like Pomona and Rice, so she can do that if she doesn’t do Questbridge. Thanks.
@cafe9999 I grew up in Massachusetts and attended UMASS Amherst. In winter, there are often week long stretches with temps in the teens or single digits. Night time temps will be colder than day time temps, and it will get dark early during the winter months. There is slightly less of that in parts of PA, but your D would likely still have restrictions on her activities. Some nice PA colleges to consider are Franklin and Marshall College, Ursinus, and Villanova, in addition to the consortium schools.
I also second the suggestions to look at colleges in DC, and Virginia, as well as the Carolinas. There are transplants from all over in all of the southern states. Some Unis which come to mind and may appeal to someone who likes the feel of New England LACs:
University of Richmond - one of my Ds graduated in 2016, another D is a current student. Excellent academics and research opportunities. Good opportunities for merit aid for high stats students also. One of my Ds received a full ride merit scholarship, the other received a full tuition merit scholarship. If rankings matter to you, the latest USNWR ranking is #23 National LAC. Richmond definitely still experiences 4 seasons, Spring and Fall are especially lovely, and there is usually a bit of snow in winter, usually several inches, rather than feet, as you would sometimes encounter in New England. The snow melts away fairly quickly as well. UR students usually get to sled on cafeteria trays several times during the winter, which are truly fun memories for my Ds:)
Wake Forest University, College of William and Mary, UNC Chapel Hill (larger than the rest I list in post), UVA all have attractive campuses with strong academic reputations.
A few more colleges that we considered, but did not end up visiting, are Furman University, Davidson, Washington and Lee, and Elon. We have family friends at all of these schools who had or are having wonderful experiences.
Also, if she’s only a junior, have her look at some of the fly-in programs offered primarily in the fall (although some are available in the spring).
Many, if not most, of the schools that have been mentioned in this thread offer fly-in programs in which the school pays to fly students in to visit and spend one or two nights on campus, attend classes etc. Most programs are in the fall (applications due in the spring or summer and generally require essays, top scores, etc.) Reed also has a spring program for juniors (that’s one of the schools I was thinking of when I mentioned that she might consider the Pacific Northwest).
Sometimes, if you work with the people arranging the programs, which can be Admissions Offices or Offices of Diversity and Inclusion, you can piggyback the trips if the timing works. The programs are designed as a means of increasing diversity and are typically offered to under-represented minorities and people of color (including asians), first gen students, and students from low income backgrounds. The programs require applications and cover transportation, food and lodging for the student. Acceptance into and attending these programs generally bode well in the admissions process.
College Greenlight has a pretty comprehensive list:
http://blog.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/blog/college-fly-in-diversity-programs/
^ helpful suggestion on the fly-ins.
I’ll PM you.