<p>Thank you, this is just the kind of help I needed and hopefully it will help others as well. Will do what I can to add colleges (or exchange for others on the list). sly, “preppy urban” might fit one of the girls, but not necessarily the one who is intrigued by Wesleyan! She had researched both and decided she was more interested in Wesleyan, but of course you can only conclude so much on paper. It sounds like the Connecticut College to Wesleyan route would be worthwhile though.</p>
<p>I do know about the two train options to Providence. Since we are staying at Copley Square and the station is right there, I think we’ll take that. We did it during the summer and it was very comfortable. Also know to take the subway from Logan rather than trying to use a taxi and basically subway everywhere after an excruciatingly long taxi trip after the tunnel collapse this summer. I’ll look into the drop charge issue for rental cars; in the past it hasn’t been a problem but I’ll let you know. Our plane leaves late in the day so it wouldn’t be that hard to scoot back to Providence if it is that big a deal.</p>
<p>So far, I haven’t seen any schools that offer weekend tours but I will call and see–if Smith does, that might be reason enough to reverse the trip order (and then I could rent in Boston/return in Boston). I was thinking the Boston schools on Friday, just playing and sightseeing in Boston/Cambridge on Sat/Sun, then leave either Sunday or first thing Monday to start looking at the rest of the schools. </p>
<p>Will definitely look into the Contemporary Art Institute, thank you!</p>
<p>I think you probably have the maximum number of schools on your list already. Maybe more. I don’t think kids can really process more than 5 or 6 schools in 6 days. I remember from travelling with my kids the thousand-yard-stares of West Coast families trying to cram two-a-days into a week’s trip east. Yes, Wesleyan and Yale are only 30 minutes apart (and Amherst-Smith-Holyoke-Hampshire closer than that to one another), but that doesn’t mean you can really see two or more of them in one day, and certainly not that you could see 4-5 of them in two days, unless your goal was simply to see what they looked like. Also, since each school’s spiel is about 80-90% the same, it’s hard to get kids to listen hard enough to focus on the differences after they’ve heard it a couple of times, much less 5-6 times.</p>
<p>My son’s biggest trip was 5 schools in 6 days, and he zoned out on the last one. My daughter’s was 5 in 4 days (but that included Columbia, Barnard, and NYU), and she kind of zoned out for #4, and refused to visit a 6th school on the way home. In both cases, their enthusiasm level for a school was almost directly proportional to the amount of time they spent there and the number of things they did other than just the tour and info session. (That and whether they or their parent had advocated to visit the school.)</p>
<p>I never saw a dorm room on the Wesleyan tour. In fact, I never saw a dorm room on maybe half the tours I took. And I wouldn’t recommend the motel where we stayed in Middletown to anyone, except that it was there and it was cheap. I didn’t find anything close to Wesleyan, though, which was too bad, because the campus area is quite nice, and the place where we stayed – 3-4 miles away, in the middle of a commercial strip, across from a big liquor store – did not show well at all.</p>
<p>When we visited Conn College, we stayed at the AmeriSuites in Mystic - a lovely hotel with a continental breakfast, not expensive, 15 minutes from Conn. Mystic is a great town to spend a day in - the Seaport and the Aquarium are a lot of fun.</p>
<p>It’s fairly new; I’d say within the past four to five years. Oh, and you’re correct; O’Rourke’s has not reopened yet. Brian, last I heard, is “cooking up a storm” at “Weswings” which is at the corner of Lawn Ave and High Street (the old Delta Tau Delta house), right on campus. THAT is worth a visit.</p>
<p>To Chedva and Momrath (and anyone else for that matter):</p>
<p>I would be interested to hear your impressions of Conn College and Skidmore.
These are 2 of the 5 schools we are touring with my D in March (Brandeis, Dickinson & Goucher are the others).</p>
<p>D is a B+ (weighted) student at a VERY academically rigorous private high school. Her interests are natural sciences and studio art. She scored 2050 on the December SAT (730 CR; 660 math and 660 writing).</p>
<p>RE: Trinity - maybe it’s because I work in Hartford, but darned if I can think of a good reason to want to spend your college years in Hartford. Maybe if you want to work in the insurance industry.</p>
<p>dg5052, we visited Skidmore last February in the middle of a very cold snap. My d has gone to summer camp in the Adirondacks, and we passed Saratoga Springs on our way to and from camp. It’s a cute little town (and from my d’s perspective, emphasis on “little”). The main Skidmore campus is within a decent walking distance of the downtown area.</p>
<p>Skidmore has a lovely campus, lots of trees and open areas. The main quad, though, seemed small to my d. Because of the winters and the relatively young age of the college, all the buildings are connected with enclosed glassed in walkways and underground tunnels. So they are quite close together. The walkways made d feel as if she were still in high school, and it made the campus feel much smaller than it really is. So much of the open areas are spread out behind the main quad. D’s visceral reaction (and yours may be quite different) is that the campus felt too much like her camp. D’s a dancer, so I don’t know anything about the studio arts program. Libertarian - no problem. Vegan - don’t know.</p>
<p>That being said, I know quite a number of Skidmore students who love the intimate, rural feeling of the campus and are thrilled with the school.</p>
<p>Conn College was the 6th school we visited in 10 days and it was Juniors Day, which I think might have been off-putting for d. It is also a beautiful campus, much more spread out than Skidmore. We didn’t take a tour, since they had so many other activities/discussions for the juniors, and d was approaching overload (“Yes, they have buildings, a library and dorms. Next.”) Very nice, helpful people there, lots of campus activity (this one was in April), lots of students apparently engaged. Probably no problem being libertarian there; don’t know about vegan or about studio art. I would have liked d to apply there, but she felt she had enough other options.</p>
<p>One thing to know about Conn College, though, is that they do not require the SAT Is; however, they do require 2 SAT II’s or the ACT.</p>
<p>To me your plan sounds good. I’d prepare a list of “other schools we might want to see if time permits” for that inevitable moment when you find yourself leaving a campus 2 minutes after you got there. (For us, that was a drive-through at Amherst: “I’m not getting out of the car, it’s too preppy.”)</p>
<p>I might go see those glass flowers!! I have a collection of glass pumpkins, and I love flowers, so…</p>
<p>I agree with the idea that seeing too many colleges isn’t a good idea. I am pretty flexible and although of course I expect them to see SOME of the places, if they get tired of the whole thing we’ll just cross a few off the list. </p>
<p>Maybe in Connecticut we will just sleep in the car (KIDDING!!)</p>
<p>Williams and Middlebury might be pretty tough to add in–
Wms quite west, Middlebury quite north.
The first time we visited Tufts we took 95 North, up from Providence area. Would NOT recommend it. Am sure there are better ways to reach it while avoiding Boston rush hour traffic…</p>
<p>dg, Conn College and Skidmore have a lot of overlap in ambience and student type. They were both all women’s colleges in the past and both have a reputation for leaning toward the preppy, upper middle class, suburban. Personally, I think these stereotypes are both true and not true: ALL elite privates are fairly upper middle class and the old preppy designation just doesn’t apply across the board anywhere. Even the prep schools aren’t preppy anymore.</p>
<p>My son who was (and is) interested in both art history and art studio found the offerings of both schools intriguing. Both seem eager to “upgrade” their intellectual draw and are putting a lot of focus on interesting multi-departmental programs. The course catalogs make stimulating reading.</p>
<p>Both campuses are lovely. Skidmore is more rural and gets a severe winter, but the town of Saratoga Springs is lively. Conn College is close enough to New York, Boston, Providence to get away occasionally.</p>
<p>Other schools that I’d suggest for a combination of academics (including sciences) and studio art are Hamilton, Kenyon, Vassar, Smith, Wesleyan and Williams. (Williams and Wesleyan are more selective than the others on your daughter’s list, so she may not want to consider them, but I include them because B+ at a VERY rigorous school puts her in the running.)</p>
<p>I would stress that a strong portfolio can boost admissions even to schools that are considered more academics than arts focused. She should be sure to plan to submit one.</p>
<p>While visiting the Lake George area this past summer (not too far from Skidmore), we made a side trip to Middlebury on an overcast day. If I recall correctly, it was around 2 hours away. This might be more manageable than trying to squeeze it into a Boston area visit. Also, if you visit in the summer, try to go during racing season at Saratoga. You can have breakfast prior to the races and watch the horses warm up! My whole family really enjoyed this.</p>
<p>Before your trip, go online and locate and print out the campus maps of each school you want to visit, with the admissions office clearly noted. Speaking from personal experience, the last thing you want to do is arrive on campus short on time and trying to make a tour or an admissions session and have to go searching for their admissions office.</p>
(KIDDING!!)</p>