@MYOS1634, haha nowadays (with apologies to the purists) I struggle with any sport more than few hours thanks to 20-20 Cricket and Football …but really looking forward to the whole American sporting experience …
There isn’t much of a choice for a professional sport in July. I doubt anyone from the UK would be impressed with a MLS game.
ok a few suggestions based on you flying to Chicago and driving east all the way to Maine:
- visit U of Chicago and Northwestern (1 in the morning and 1 in the afternoon)
- take an Architecture boat tour on the river in the evening
- if you stay to visit a museum visit the Art Institute of Chicago
- Drive to South Bend and visit Notre Dame
- Consider stopping in Sandusky, OH at Cedar's Park Amusement Park as someone mentioned earlier. This is a major roller coaster park so if everyone loves roller coasters it will be worth it.
- Case Western in Cleveland is a possible college to visit or Kenyon College - I wouldn't try both
- Travel via Pittsburgh and visit Carnegie Mellon if desired. If the Pirates are playing baseball it might be the easiest and cheapest ticket to see a baseball game.
- East of Pittsburgh you could visit http://www.fallingwater.org/ - tour the house and walk the grounds.
- Travel to Philadelphia and visit Haverford and Bryn Mawr and I would visit Swarthmore for your son. If you want to visit a quirky museum that won't take long I suggest http://muttermuseum.org/ of medical oddities.
From there you are heading North. It’s 6 hours to Boston so most of the driving is done but many schools and things to do between.
In terms of the study of economics, the essential schools on your list may be Wesleyan and Chicago (as per the analyses in post 44).
Actually, for soccer, the Copa America is in the US this year. Google times and dates. That should be memorable.
Otherwise, Cubs at Wrigley or Sox at Fenway.
And I travel to eat. In Chicago, get Italian beef at Al’s, a Maxwell Street Polish at Portillo’s, Chicago-style pizza at Gino’s East, and a Chicago-style dog somewhere (I like Gold Coast Dogs).
Lobster roll in New England.
I also have restaurant suggestions for NYC if you go there.
Oh, and eat at the top of the John Hancock Tower in Chicago.
You won’t want to miss that.
Chicago’s worth spending a couple of days in.
…
posted at wrong place.
Little league will be in session (baseball for kids, but there’s a big national competition at the end of the summer!)
Watch Josh Radnors’ film Liberal arts and visit Kenyon for a quintessential American small town and a quintessential LAC 
@Dolemite, have bought myself a Uni map from Amazon…but still quite confusing with the routes etc so all feedbackis very helpful. Kenyon wasn’t on our radar before…but got some very positive feedback …and would be keen to explore if the logistics work out …
Just a tip in case it works out, Bates has a half day summer open house on July 29, including a tour, admissions and financial aid seminars, meetings with current students and faculty, and a free lunch in the dining commons.
http://www.bates.edu/admission/visit/#summer-open-houses-july-15-july-29-august-12
@PurpleTitan, likewise and fantastic …would certainly plan atleast a few good meals (slightly cramped by small/healthy eaters on my team) …
don’t mean to be “greedy” but would very much appreciate your NYC suggestions as well…
@MYOS1634, great suggestions, would certainly be researching Kenyon…but first, let me try and download the movie if I can for the flight ahead…
@merc81…thanks and Wesleyan from web-site etc seems like a great option for my D, but realise v Low acceptance rate and a big reach. The UChicago we were thinking more from S perspective who is a lot more academic and quant oriented, and somehow has had UChic on his radar for a few years now…
Actually after looking at your list again and thinking about it. I’d visit Chicago for 2-3 days and then fly to Philly and visit the Philly area schools - no car needed. And then take the train to NYC - if you fly back out of Newark you can take SEPTA/New Jersey transit to Newark and rent a car or get to JFK/La Guardia and pick up your car. Then drive a big loop from NYC up to Boston/Maine and back down with Vassar being your last stop before returning the car and flying back. Driving from Chicago to Philly will eat up a lot of time with none of your colleges listed in between.
@sue22, thanks for sharing and that might actually work out given the way the trip is evolving…i think an “open house” should be very interesting…
@Dolemite, thanks for the follow up/option…it seems have to decide fairly quickly re the logistics …will go back to the map a bit later to get the bearings right …assume trains etc generally family friendly options …was earlier was thinking flight/car as being the only two realistic option
@valent2016, there is a lot of super-helpful info here (and relatively few rabbit holes!), but I thought that a little 30K ft perspective might be helpful. For background, our kids had their schooling pretty equally divided between the US, the UK/Ireland and ROW, and are now in colleges in the US (including 2 on your list) and the UK. UK collegekid knew what she wanted to study and loves that focus; US collegekids wanted the breadth of the US as well as the ‘collegiate’ experience.
What we found (and what I have found with the dozens of students whose college admissions process I have been involved in) is that as long as expectations are kept somewhat realistic, it tends to work out. The colleges are better than they get credit for at recognizing a good ‘fit’, and they are more holistic than many believe. Yes, as the college acceptance rates get smaller more kids who were qualified and would have done just fine get turned down- but the kids who get accepted tend to fit well. The number of students that transfer out of the selective LACs/smaller unis is astonishingly small, especially given the seeming randomness of the process!
Because your kids both have good safe options in the UK, and you can manage the tuition for the US, you can do all this great homework, make a plan (with several options and lots of flexibility) and then really focus on enjoying the process. In real life, if your D finds herself with 2 options and really struggling to choose she can go to the revisit weekend for admitted students (we did this both directions, as we moved country between college rounds!), so this doesn’t have to be absolute decision time. Upthread a poster noted the importance of cross-checking your list of visits to make sure that you get a taste of different types of schools- imo that is almost more important than the specific schools.
My biggest recommendation is to try hard to keep the stress / work part of college visits to a minimum. As other posters have noted, burnout is real! But you are coming up to the stage of life where it is harder and harder to get everybody together for an adventure, so I would flipp your 60 college :40 fun balance to 40 college / 60 family fun. You will have plenty of college info to work with either way.
Why would the OP visit Notre Dame? Theiy are committed to a student body of 80% Catholic – the thread is long and maybe I missed it, but I don’t recall the OP saying they were Catholic and interested in ND. It doesn’t seem much like the other schools the D is interested in, either.
It is a very well known school, particularly for American Football. They have played multiple games in Dublin over the years. One of my UK neighbor’s lists of things to do while an expat in Chicago was to attend a ND football game and see touchdown Jesus. He was Anglican. Chances are if a UK resident could identify a US school, ND would be one of them.
ND is two hours away from Chicago, and is five minutes from the expressway the OP would be taking if they drive from Chicago to NYC. The campus itself is very pretty. Finally, BC is the OP’s list, and that is a Catholic school (no condoms on campus!).
Hey, why are so many diverting OP from his original plan, making this so distracted before they even get to the northeast? Again, the family isn’t here to tour every school out there, ‘just because.’
Fly into Philadelphia, if Haverford’s the southernmost school. Enjoy a little history there, see the college. You’ll get a city time and Haverford is in a non-city area. Then drive north. For the heck of it, Princeton isn’t far off the highway, just drive through. Or not.
I’d drive straight to the Boston area, a little over 5 hours from Phila (plus traffic- time it so you miss rush hour in NYC.) You could spend a day at the NJ shore, if you want to, wide beaches. You’d get the vista of NYC as you passed and one driving option takes you straight through Boston. I’d then head to Maine,definitely mostly more ‘small town.’ After the tours, spend a day in some quaint little coastal area there. (Gotta say, many of us adore Maine.)
Then back to Boston for those tours, that city. Consider going out to the Berkshires for Williams and the summer culture, more quaint towns. Down to Wesleyan (that town isn’t great but the campus is nice.) Then either Vassar and NYC or plant yourself around NYC and do Vassar as a day trip. From there, fly to Chicago and then home from there.
This way, if you “have to” see ND (and I agree, why?) and whatever else is there, you aren’t taking from your original interests.
This is a big country. NO way I’d drive between Chi and the east coast, ‘just to’ see some random colleges not on your radar, use up that energy and confuse the kids. You can’t do it all. The 11 hours between Chi an NYC is like getting off the ferry on the continent and driving east of Prague. For what?
A different idea would be to fly to Boston, then drive to Maine, then come south, again ending in Chicago. The idea of starting in the East allows you to add some schools there, manage your energies, before adding random midwest (-ish) schools some CC folks personally like, which may or may not have any bearing on your kids’ interests.