Doing a Spring Break tour with my son. We’re flying in and out of Atlanta, driving to Raleigh and looping back. So far we are seeing:
Georgia Tech
Duke
UNC CH
Wake Forest
Elon
Davidson
Emory
We’re in the SF Bay Area and this is our first college trip. He’s a sophomore and so part of the point here is to expose him to a variety of types of places. Likely looking at a STEM major. I want to break the trip with one more visit between Charlotte and Atlanta and I’m debating between University of South Carolina and University of Georgia. Given what we’re already seeing, which one would be more different? Neither is especially on his radar or really stand out for STEM, so I’m having a hard time picking.
NC State. You’re already going to be in the RDU-Chapel Hill area and they’re a STEM standout.
But also check out Clemson, which is great for STEM and right on the route between CLT and Atlanta.
(I say this w/out knowing stats etc. for your son but this is one I’d visit.)
(Editing because I realize you were maybe looking for a choice between USC and UGA and although I grew up in the Old North State and am familiar with a lot of the schools on your list, these two I’ve never seen. I have heard great things about Athens as a college town and my sense is that it might be a more accessible analog to UNC-Ch.)
I was going to suggest either NC State or Furman until I read to the end of your post.
I’m going to lean towards UGA, mainly because it is less out of the way for your driving plan. I know from experience how a college tour involving a lot of driving can start to wear on the parents and kids. Full disclosure I’m a UGA alum but I don’t see a big enough difference in these schools on the surface to push you toward one or the other, particularly if the Honors College is a reasonable probability at USC.
UGA’s campus is more spread out than South Carolina’s. Athens is a college town (often cited in lists of best college towns) whereas Columbia is a small city. Which environment would you rather him see?
ETA: as you get further along in your planning I’m sure many of us can add suggestions to round out your plans (fun restaurants or sites that may help breakup the trip a bit as time allows and give a peek into the vibe of the area).
I’d let your son pick. Point out the options, let him scan the websites and look at the map/driving times, and then pick.
Why? With each of my kids- the last school on any trip was the one that got the most “why did you drag me here?” questions. Exhaustion, they all blur together, lots of sitting in traffic, how many times can you hear “we have exceptional programs for study abroad” before you get tired? Whatever the reason.
So if I had to do it all over again, I’d make the kid in charge of picking the final school on each trip. Put a little skin in the game. And allows him to get a little more invested in the trip!
How long is spring break? I’m leaning towards no extra schools if this is a 7-10 day trip. You’ve got 7 on your list already and they really do start to blend together after a while. Especially if you’re hitting 1-2 schools in a day for a sophomore for whom college seems a bit far off at the moment.
One more thought – do you need to do a round-trip out of Atlanta? When I did our trip last February, I ended up booking a point-to-point (flying into one place and out of a different one, with a rental car that I dropped off somewhere else too). I think when we were younger this kind of thing was $$$ but it actually felt cost-effective, especially considering all the driving.
If your plans aren’t set in stone, consider flying into RDU and out of Atlanta (or vice versa).
Okay, editing with more advice because we’re a STEM family from the Bay Area who made some tactical errors on our explorations last year and I know the Southeast reasonably well.
Depending on your definition of STEM, you might reconsider visiting Elon + Wake + Davidson. I don’t know anything about your kid but one thing I’d dig into a little is whether or not they’re interested in engineering. If so, you could probably eliminate one or more of the above. Davidson is a phenomenal school – my dad taught there and my sister went there and got a great education – but my brother (who just left a hybrid faculty/dean role there a year ago) felt that the some of the most serious STEM kids he was advising were a bit frustrated with the lack of opportunity to do research. Not saying you shouldn’t visit it anyway, but all three of these schools have distinct personalities and opportunities and while all three would probably work socially for a certain type of kid (not mine…), an aspiring engineer or physics researcher would probably be better off somewhere else.
These are the driving times for additional big state schools in the area (with their town names circled in red on the map):
Adding U. of South Carolina: 13h45m (an extra 1h6m of driving)
Adding U. of Georgia: 13h21m (an extra 42m of driving)
Adding NC State: 13h23m (an extra 44m of driving)
Adding Clemson: 13h4m (an extra 25m of driving)
So none of the schools would add on a ton of extra driving in the big picture. But you may want to think about how many times your family wants to pack and unpack, as adding a location that would require an overnight someplace else could be an added hassle that is not preferred. Alternatively, if a school is in a location where it would help breakup a long stretch of driving, that could be to its advantage (in which case, Clemson makes some sense).
Right now the schools on your list have a mix of urban, suburban, and more remote as well as small town and college town. It’s some great geographic diversity.
In terms of admissions, all of these schools have low probability admit rates apart from Elon, so adding some schools with more probable admissions could be beneficial (U. of South Carolina probably being the best of the big schools in the area for that).
In terms of size of school, there are a lot of mid-sized schools, but nothing with an undergrad population between 1900 and 5500 and nothing between 7400 and 20k. I wonder whether a school that hits one of those population mid-points might be helpful to experience for your son to determine his preferences. Of the schools you’re considering, UGA is at 32k which would be another size difference that could be helpful to see.
Size of current list:
Davidson: About 1900 undergrads
Wake Forest: About 5500 undergrads
Elon: About 6400 undergrads
Duke: About 6500 undergrads
Emory: About 7400 undergrads
Georgia Tech: About 20k undergrads
UNC-Chapel Hill: About 21k undergrads
Size of big state schools in the area:
Clemson: About 23k undergrads
NC State: About 27k undergrads
U. of South Carolina: About 28k undergrads
U. of Georgia: About 32k undergrads
Some other schools that might be interesting additions include:
Furman (SC): About 2300 undergrads, so could be another example of a small school to see if your kid doesn’t like small schools or just doesn’t like a particular small school. It would be a 13h11m trip (i.e. an extra 32m of driving over the current one), located in the white metro area a little northeast of Clemson. Strong academics with an admit rate of 53%, between the 22% of Wake and the 67% of Elon.
North Carolina A&T: About 12k undergrads at this HBCU in the same metro as Wake Forest. I’ve heard there’s been a lot of investment in the sciences on the campus. It’s admit rate is also between that of Wake and Elon. It would be a 12h54m trip, so about an extra 15m to the trip and it would also show a school between 7400 and 20k.
It was $800 more to drop off the car in Raleigh so I decided to do the loop instead. Also, at this point I’ve already booked all the campus tours and hotels so I don’t want to rethink the route but yeah, for future visits I may just eat the cost of dropping off at a different location.
We’ve had great success renting cars with Costco deals…if you are dropping off at a popular location, you can often get them to waive the drop off fee. Plus no extra charge for the second driver which helps on a long car trip.
Thanks all for the great information! I think I’m going to leave it with him and have him choose between UGA and Clemson. Doing some sleuthing online, I’ve decided to rule to UoSC for now as I don’t think the extra driving is justified enough to warrant the visit.
I just edited my thing to add more about the Elon/Davidson/Wake part of your trip; feel free to ignore since you’re all booked and everything. Leaving it for posterity.
Thanks, that was helpful. Right now he’s leaning CS unfortunately, given how competitive it is, but I’m not sure how things will shake out by 12th grade. I’m actually curious how he’ll react to the more hyper STEM-focused vs the more liberal artsy ones.
My thoughts for narrowing down between Clemson and UGA… if your son is leaning towards engineering I’d visit Clemson as a more accessible public alternative to Georgia Tech. If he’s considering the natural sciences or other non-engineering careers I’d visit UGA. I realize he’s a sophomore and this could all change.
Have fun planning. The driving tour I took with my daughter of Virginia and the Carolinas was such a special time. I hope you and your son experience the same.
And I realize my reading comprehension needs work. Congratulations on being this far ahead of the game, @sandokan! Glad you’ve got so much time to figure things out. (May I gently recommend using summer programs to kick the tires on various kinds of STEM exploration? There’s apparently an amazing one-week program at Purdue and my son really enjoyed the WPI Frontiers program. These can double as college visits, which simplifies things later.)
I think I’m emphasizing this because we spent a lot of time visiting and falling in love with a bunch of arty LACs (Kenyon…Oberlin…St. Olaf…Macalester…) and then my son took a late interest in mechanical engineering and those plans kinda went out the window. I wish he’d figured out that interest a little earlier in the game. Hard to find those sweet spot campuses that also have really strong multi-dimensional STEM education. (topic for a separate thread as you get further in the process).
Consider: Eliminate Elon; add NC State; then add either Clemson or U Georgia (my suggestion would be Clemson due to the location, but college kids love Athens, Georgia).
P.S. Confused by your list of schools if you are driving to Raleigh, NC as NC State is located in Raleigh and it is a solid school for STEM. Outstanding school for STEM.
Your son is very fortunate to have a family that is thinking about college and helping to provide opportunities for him to hone in on his preferences. Quick question, though: How does he feel about this trip? I was a college nerd from a young age and would have found this super fun. Shockingly, not all high schoolers feel the same way.
If he’s excited about the current trip and its extensiveness, I’d say, full speed ahead. If he’s not as excited, then I would make sure to intersperse activities that have nothing to do with college. Go for some hikes or watch a sporting event or just do some hangout activities that he finds fun. If he ends up being bored/tired out, etc, from visiting colleges on this first trip, then it may be like pulling teeth for future college visits or even for discussions about college as he gets closer to the college application process.
