Bruh.
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It’s a wash. If you fly, you’ll be stuck in security for 8 hours or if you drive, Atlanta rush hour traffic is between 6am-midnight.
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Thank you! Yeah - I feel like I rather just drive and get there an odd hour into the night!
Someone posted recently that there is a daily “megathread” of ATL airport wait times on Reddit (it’s pinned at the top) –
I’ve been looking at this, and the airport seems to have improved dramatically in the last few days. I don’t know if it will still be bad on the weekends, though. Another member here – @ECCA2026 – is flying in with his daughter for another school this weekend, I think maybe they got in tonight? He will hopefully report back with their airport experience flying out on Sunday.
Personally, I would fly in and risk it instead of driving 11 hours. Driving in the city and finding parking at Tech is pretty miserable. (CFP is not wrong about extended rush hour, lol.) You can take the MARTA train directly from the airport to the North Ave station, and it’s fairly convenient to campus.
MARTA can be a little sketch, but if you’ve ever taken public transportation in a city, it shouldn’t surprise or scare you. I take it all the time, as do my kids, with no issues.
My D26 has committed to GT for this fall! Feel free to msg me if you want to want to chat about the school. 
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Thank you so much!!
You’re welcome! Also, congratulations! GT is crazy selective for out of state!
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Yes. We landed at Atlanta airport tonight. It seemed calm when we were exiting but that was after 7pm. We fly home Sunday night so will report back on Monday how airport is on Sunday.
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We have arrived in Urbana Champaign ahead of the admitted students day tomorrow. The trip was not uneventful. Getting out of Chicago on a Friday evening was easier than I had expected, but then …we had a blowout on the way down to Champaign 
thankfully the road wasn’t too busy when it happened as it took a few seconds to get the car under control, kind of scary. No idea what happened - we didn’t feel like we went over anything. Then we discovered the spare is one of those “biscuit tires” (I think you call them donuts in the US maybe?) anyway we made it down safely but obviously took longer than planned as we had to drive more slowly. Hopefully they’ll have cars here at the car rental branch that we can swap out in the morning.
Then… got to our hotel to discover that our one bed suite (to give C26 - and us - some privacy) had been downgraded to a normal double room …no advance warning, apparently they did this to a few people tonight. The young woman on the desk seemed a bit stressed and it obviously wasn’t her fault - and the hotel is full so she couldn’t change us - we’ll take it up with the manager in the morning, to at least get a partial refund. (Then the tv in the room didn’t work, I don’t really care about that but DH was a bit put out). Anyway, things can only get better, right?
We took a little walk around a small part of campustown and it seemed quite a nice atmosphere. Big game tomorrow vs Iowa in the elite 8 - I assume will be on in various pubs etc and will be nice to see what that atmosphere is like then too.
Hope everyone’s weekend has gotten off to a less dramatic start than ours!
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We’ve started to buy a few things we know D26 will need for school. Amazon is having their “Big Spring Sale” and some things are actually really on sale. I think I mentioned I made the nutty decision to drive the 20 hour drive from home to her school so we can bring all her stuff down. With all the travel chaos and airfare hikes it actually is not the worst idea. DH and D will meet me down there. The plan is to start slowly buying things as I see them so it is not a huge expense all at once. She has decided on a color palette (light green, light blue and white) so she is starting to plan a little. Room selection was Wednesday so she is starting to connect with the roommates. She says the two “randoms” are not super responsive and seem quiet and not into planning ahead of move-in. Monday she schedules her orientation dates and we are keeping our fingers crosses she gets the dates she wants. There are two sessions that work well with her crazy calendar. None of the others are really convenient, though we will make other dates work if we have to. DH is away for a conference this weekend so we are enjoying a girl’s weekend.
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Oh no. Glad you guys are safe after the tire thing – ugh, it’ll be a good story someday. Hope the rest of the time goes smoothly, and that C26 loves the vibe despite the travel woes.
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My D22 is a 13-hour drive away, and we have always driven her stuff for move-in and move-out, too. Because the child had TEN of those blue IKEA bags packed full to move into her initial dorm room, lol.
For freshman year, we loaded up a rental car with all her stuff, and my husband left in the early morning to drive out. D22 and I flew that afternoon (it’s only a 2-hour flight). He got there in time to actually pick us up at the airport, but I had to sit with a bag on my lap because the car was so full. 
We moved her in the next morning – the school gave us exactly 1.5 hours to get it done before kicking out parents, so we had a precision plan 
– then DH and I returned the car and flew home.
Oh, and we had left our 15-year-old twins (S25 and D26) home alone for 24 hours. They were fine and could obviously take care of our pets, but during that 24 hours, all the smoke alarm batteries in the house started to chirp, increasingly loudly. Kid you not. So the kids started calling us during the short window we had to move D22 in.
It’s really funny in hindsight, and a good memory. Plus drop-off for orientation week at Rice is one of the best things ever – the O-week advisors memorize all the new freshmen’s names, which they start yelling as you drive up. I still tear up when I watch my video of it.
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Kiddo is registered for admitted students day now. She applied ED and knew she’d want to go to this, so months ago I tried to guess the likely dates of “Cornell Days” based on past years in order to book a hotel before they filled up. I guessed right, yahoo!
They offer the programming on both Saturday and Sunday. Registration opened yesterday but kiddo didn’t get around to it until today - and Saturday already is completely booked for Engineering-specific programming! So we will do the Sunday….not ideal but it will be fine.
I think we will still go up Friday and use Saturday as a “play day” to just check out the area. Not super psyched about having the full day of tours and sessions followed immediately by a 5 hour drive home, but it’ll work out.
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YES!
So nervous but excited
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Looking for advice on a bunch of topics -
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Currently D26’s best options (assuming she does not come off the WL at the UCs she wants) is UW and Univ of British Columbia. But I’m reading about seasonal affective disorder and how Seattle is one of the top places for it and it worries me. She loves the sunshine and warm weather (one of the main reasons she wanted to stay here). How bad can it be? I hated Baltimore in the winter when I went to grad school in Hopkins but I came straight from a warm tropical place outside the US.
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Vancouver apparently has a mild winter. Is SAD etc better there?
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What about be the main questions to ask when we go to admitted students day? She has a bunch of good questions already but I just want to double check here so that I don’t miss any important ones.
Thank you all for your help.
UW and UBC are also high on my D’s list!
For climate (and this goes for everyone considering schools right now) a great site for comparing locations that I have used before is https://weatherspark.com
I believe that Seattle and Vancouver are pretty similar in terms of climate. Here is a Weatherspark comparison: https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/476~913/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Vancouver-and-Seattle
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If your daughter is seriously interested in law school, pick the one that has grade inflation. It may sound crass, but that’s a practical answer.
Law school admissions is primarilly driven by GPA and LSAT. A higher LSAC GPA can affect admissions, scholarships etc.
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My impression is that neither UBC nor UW is known for grade inflation. (My D is also thinking about this because of possible pre-health interest.) UW has an unusual grading system in which students are graded on a 4.0 scale in 0.1 increments, and anecdotally, students seem to stress out about grades a lot. UBC uses percentage grades, which compared to US grades tend to be a bit on the low side as far as I can tell. I am not sure how these grades are interpreted by law schools (or health professional schools).
I would definitely ask this question at admitted students day. Try to find someone who can answer it while you’re there.
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I wonder how that works with a place like Reed that doesn’t have grades only discussion.
S was rejected by UCB and waitlisted by UCSD so now he’s considering CC transfer or going to UCD which has a very strong environmental science program. We are going for student day in two weeks and he’ll get a better idea of the school. My guess is he will commit to UCD and wait to see if UCSD waitlist comes through. But he changes his mind all the time so who knows he could go the CC route. And here I thought we’d be done with this process by now.
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My D22 just completed her degree this past December at UW. We’re from Colorado, so we definitely worried about how she’d adjust to the relative lack of sun. She got through it, but she did say the winter quarters were always the hardest because of the gray skies and the sun setting so early. It took extra effort, but she always tried to stay active and involved to help keep her from going into “hibernation” mode.
Minus the winter weather, she loved her experience at UW. She felt she got a great education (business major) and met some lifelong friends.
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