<p>I drove the NJT south on a Thursday morning. Took the Cross County through Westchester and the Henry Hudson down the West Side. I think we crossed the GW bridge at about 8:00 am. I was surprised it was clean sailing the whole way, which just a slight slow down at the merge. And the only bad part of 95 was in Delaware. I think the construction on 78 must be mostly done, we didn’t run into any problems at the end of August. I don’t know exactly what detour you have in mind, but if you leave early you may be okay. (Or maybe no one is on the road the Thursday before Labor Day and I was just lucky?)</p>
<p>archiemom</p>
<p>My advice is to try to get south of NYC on Thursday night; at any hour I95 heading into NYC can be tough. </p>
<p>If that’s not possible, then take Merritt Parkway to I287 then up through White Plains. You’ll cross the river on the Tapan Zee bridge. Then stay on I287 south to I95 to Philly.</p>
<p>Connecticut to Villanova: I would take either 95 or the Merritt/Hutchinson Parkways (depending on local traffic reports) to the Cross Westchester Expressway (I-287?), to the Tappan Zee Bridge, and then 10 miles farther west (which gets called “North”, misleadingly, on the signs there) to the Garden State Parkway. Down the Garden State to the NJ Turnpike (about 40 miles). Then the NJ Turnpike South to exit 6, the connection to the PA Turnpike, and the PA Turnpike to the fifth exit (Midcounty/476). Interstate 476 south about 8 miles to the exit for Wayne/Route 30, and west from there about 4 miles on Route 30 to Villanova.</p>
<p>At rush hour-y times, there isn’t any way to avoid some delays on portions of that route – southwestern Connecticut, the Garden State around Route 80, the last few miles on the PA Turnpike and from there to Villanova. But otherwise, it isn’t bad, especially with EZ Pass. Traffic-free, it would take me 3-3.5 hours to get from New Haven to Villanova; traffic could add up to another hour. If you are trying to get to Villanova by 10:30, and you live this side of New Haven, you should be able to leave around 6:00 and make it without too much anxiety.</p>
<p>The suggestions to do more night driving than morning also make sense from a traffic standpoint. We often decide where to stay for a night based on how much further we can drive- evenings in hotels are typically wasted time, much easier to be able to sleep in and then go after rush hour. </p>
<p>Do plan on Boston if it works, but be willing to forgo his dream school visit if it means less stress/rush at the time. He can plan a trip if he is accepted. Harvard is only a couple of T-stops from MIT, H and I saw both on vacation after son was at his safety- he refused to see Harvard when H and he visited MIT (they also bypassed schools on their way south to one, with much more time for it than you have). It could be your only chance to see it, although you may want a vacation trip to see cities/sights you won’t have time for on this trip.</p>
<p>Your son will likely spend time sleeping in the car, make sure you get enough sleep to drive safely. The mountains in the dark and rain with cars and trucks speeding takes all of your attention- the daytime fall colors make up for it, though.</p>
<p>JHS, that’s the route we’d take – only caveat is that when we took the Merritt bringing S1 home from Boston two weeks ago, there was intermittent construction, which slowed things down. We use the Tappan Zee whenever possible now that my FIL is no longer in Co-op City. We’ve done the Palisades Parkway, too.</p>
<p>To the OP -
If you can stand leaving out Baltimore, I’d look into grabbing the 9:30 flight one way from LGA to Pittsburgh and picking up your rental car there. This would give you extra time to see CMU, U Pitt and Case Western, which is about a 2.5 hour ride from Pittsburgh (Case Western is on the east side of Cleveland.) We did that trip in reverse in April and found it very easy, and found CMU and Case to be a good comparison. You wouldn’t be driving much out of your way to get over to Rochester, and I think it would eliminate some the exhausting driving scheduled on your first days.</p>
<p>As others have said, it’s very important to get as close to the school as possible the night before. I try to stay in a neighboring hotel, my teens are so sleepy in the morning, and you guys will be on a different body time - two hours difference. Also, a school and its neighborhood can look very different in the AM versus the PM, and that goes double for Hopkins.</p>
<p>By the way, 200 miles to Baltimore from “southern New Jersey” sounds way too much, although maybe not if you call anything south of Newark “southern”. Without traffic, it takes me two hours to get to downtown Baltimore from northwest Philadelphia, and I don’t think it’s much more than 120 miles.</p>
<p>“Without traffic” is the rub whenever you are driving the I-95 corridor, though. Driving to or from Washington D.C. at odd hours takes me 2-1/2 hours, but on a Friday afternoon or evening it can take 5, and even on a Saturday morning the last 20 miles into DC can take over an hour. Baltimore isn’t as bad, though. And I would make certain not to cross into PA or Delaware until after you are past Philadelphia if you are driving between 7:30 and 10:00 in the morning.</p>
<p>Sounds like great schools and a great trip, here are my 2 cents:</p>
<p>I always found it very helpful to start the day refreshed by staying very close to campus for the morning tour/start. Less yelling to get going and less stress about where to park if you are already there.</p>
<p>It is possible to fly from Baltimore to Pittsburgh (on Southwest), take a $2.70 bus from Pittsburgh Airport to CMU/Pitt area hotel and never need a car in Pittsburgh. This may not save you much time or money but could be less stressful than a long night drive.</p>
<p>Pitt is worth a look.</p>
<p>You really don’t need to fly between these cities. It’s going to be expensive, and by the time you accommodate to airline schedules, clear airport security, undergo delays, and rent/return cars or take cabs, it won’t be much less time than driving. I don’t think the OP has more than a 5-hour drive at any point on her trip, and there’s no commercial airline trip that takes less than 3+ hours door-to-door.</p>
<p>My suggestion of a 9:30 flight applied to the night they arrived at LGA; the connecting flight to PIT is 30 minutes from their arrival (which may be too brief - I’m hoping the OP “rounded up” his or her arrival time and has an extra 10-15 minutes to spare.) Subtracting 1/3 of the driving time from this trip would make a significant difference in the pace and timing of the weeklong visit. I’ve had many pleasant college tours with my three, and ones that turned unpleasant, and know that overload is a good thing to avoid.</p>
<p>Don’t give up seeing the dream school! There has to be a rainbow at the end. Besides, based on D’s experience, having the support of a coach can’t hurt. If admissions isn’t already leaning towards admitting the kid it’s not going to help, but when there are a pile of outstanding apps and not space for all those kids, making a coach happy could be the tipping point. </p>
<p>Olin - scratch from the list, if it were ever there. No athletics.</p>
<p>You have a great list and probably don’t want to complicate it any further, but if you haven’t visited CalTech yet and are planning to, you might want to stop by Harvey Mudd as well. They also have Div 3 athletics.</p>
<p>Also, the College of Creative Studies at UCSB has a program for physics majors. Very small, very selective, and they are very committed to producing top physicists. Might be worth taking a look at, although the OOS tuition is a definite deterrent. UCSB is Div 1 but not at the Pac 10 level.</p>
<p>JHS: the 200 miles refers to LGA-Baltimore, portion of which I hoped to cover night before.</p>
<p>Midwesterner: Hoping to meet with a coach at Hopkins, so probably should go. DS also has no idea about Hopkins, so would be good to see. Case Western’s supplement does not ask for the dreaded “why do you like us” question (in fact, has no additional essays!) so it would be easy to apply as a match/safety even without seeing, and go visit if it comes down to looking at attending there. Do they really have 70%+ acceptance rate? </p>
<p>I’m going to look into what it would take to change our ticket to fly into Baltimore and fly out of Boston. Cutting out those 400 miles, the most congested of all, would probably help a great deal. Or at the least, maybe take the BOS-LGA shuttle ($180/2 people) although that’s likely to be 3+ hours including travel/security time. </p>
<p>Somehow, I keep thinking that we should look at something in the NYC area though, not that we have time or a school…</p>
<p>Marin Mom: cross posted. Already saw Caltech and Harvey Mudd and they are both at the top of the list! I saw the UCSB program before. Too small, I think.</p>
<p>You might want to give the UCSB physics program another look. They’re gunning to be small but elite. Both SB and SD are selectively trying to move up on their bigger brethren, LA and B.
Fwiw, SB is one of only sixty-some universities that are members of the AAU.</p>
<p>Side note: from personal experience, UCSB is a terrific place to go to school and a horrible place to have to study.</p>
<p>Case does have a generous acceptance rate, and it also awards a lot of merit money. However, if your kid is truly MIT material, it would be a safety and could wait, as you say. Meeting with coaches is obviously an October priority. Good luck with the driving!</p>
<p>Sorry - I see Harvey Mudd on your list now, right at the top. I must be going blind.</p>
<p>I think you’re overestimating the drive time from NYC to Baltimore. In the past (and continually) I have made the drive from Manhatten to D.C. in one afternoon.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If it’s too costly to change your airline tickets, you might also consider staying out near LaGuardia upon arrival and taking the 8:00 am Southwest flight to Baltimore the next morning, renting the car in Baltimore. Car rental prices have gone sky-high in lots of markets lately; don’t know the latest but they’re usually very high in/around NYC, possibly cheaper in Baltimore. Watch out for 1-way rental charges, though. </p>
<p>You can get Southwest tickets on the LGA-BWI route for as little as $51 each with 2 weeks advance purchase. Baltimore-Pittsburgh is a relatively easy 4-hour drive, though the trucks on the Pennsylvania Turnpike can be a nuisance with all the hills and curves. Pittsburgh-Rochester should be a breeze at 4.5 hours, Rochester-Albany a painless 3.5, Albany-Boston an easy 3. The only hard part of this is NY-Baltimore and Boston-NY.</p>
<p>Another option is Amtrak. The Acela Express is a little pricey, but conventional regional service is on sale this fall for $48/ticket NYC-Baltimore and $49 Boston-NYC. Amtrak also has a special rate for kids doing college tours, I believe 50% off for the kid if accompanied by a full-fare parent but I’m not sure you can stack that on top of the Fall fare sale. The conventional train takes about 2.5 to 3 hours NYC-Baltimore, and about 4 hours Boston-NYC: faster than driving, cheaper than flying, and generally pretty hassle-free.</p>
<p>bclintonk: you are a veritable treasure trove of information. Train would be an intriguing option, except for: My son is a fencer and for a variety of reasons we plan to bring his stuff, which we carry in a hard sided golf bag. The vision of the two of us, one very small woman and a smallish young man, traipsing through Grand Central Station with a large bag full of ‘weapons and swords’ made me burst out laughing. Fortunately, I wasn’t drinking any coffee. I wonder what security issues that would pose :)</p>
<p>Oh thanks a lot for that image. I just snorted wine out my nose into the keyboard. Must go clean it up now.</p>
<p>OK, so maybe worse than driving to LA with a 12 foot pole (for vaulting) on top of the car and two petite blonde girls in the back seat. We got a lot of stares but weren’t considered terrorists.</p>