Your revised itinerary sounds much more doable. But I will third the suggestion of RIT, as when I was reading your description of your kid, it’s what jumped to mind first when I saw that you were flying into Rochester.
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I’ll see if we can swing a Midwest trip. He does love Chicago and has been there before in summer. I know U Chicago and Northwestern are too reachy for his stats but unsure about DePaul and Loyola as fits—he is drawn to open/loose curriculums and he’s an atheist (though curious about the role of religion throughout history). The Jesuit emphasis on a strong core curriculum might be quite annoying for him.
If we saw Macalester and UMN, maybe St Olaf and Carleton (big reach), maybe that is a good trip. I think he might dig Oberlin, too, but that’s a definitely a flight from Minneapolis. I suppose we could drive through Wisconsin and see UW Madison, which I walked around this summer because I was in town for a colleague’s wedding (and loved, but it’s quite sporty and rah rah for him).
Kalamazoo has the K Plan, which typically comes up on the ‘open’ lists. And they tend to buy in students, best I can tell - so that’s a bonus too.
And it’s not reachy like a Mac or Carleton.
If you want to see big you could see neighboring W Michigan or get out to other schools in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, etc.
The academic description of the K Plan:
Our flexible curriculum allows you to explore your interests or immediately dive into your existing passions. Be a physics major with a history minor or a psychology major with a concentration in community and global health. With minimal general education requirements, no pressure to declare a major until your sophomore year, and with 32 majors, 22 minors and 13 concentrations to choose from, you will have the time and opportunity to find your niche—or niches!
While you are figuring out what academic path is right for you, you will benefit from the close mentorship and guidance of your faculty, staff and academic advisors. As a liberal arts college with an 11:1 student-faculty ratio, you and your success are our number one priority.
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FYI, DePaul is not Jesuit–it’s Vincentian. Not saying it’s a fit for your son, but my Bay Area atheist daughter has been very happy there. It’s a very liberal school and you really don’t notice the Catholicism. There are plenty of arty kids because of DePaul’s music, theatre, and film programs.
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Tell me more—what does your kid like about DePaul? Are the core requirements a burden? Have they found their people? My S26 is a visual artist, but values music and film communities too.
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My D, like your S, wanted real weather. She loves the seasons in Chicago (but is always happy to come home to Bay Area sunshine). She loves being in a real city–that was probably her top criteria for college! My D is quite shy, but has made a core group of friends, including the two girls she’s lived with for two and three years respectively. The core requirements are a pleasure actually. For each requirement there is a very long list of classes that will meet it and many sound fascinating. She has enjoyed most of her classes. DePaul is generous with merit so we are paying what we’d be paying for a UC. However, I’m not terribly familiar with the STEM side of things there–you’d have to research that a bit more for your son.
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But Loyola is…and the poster mentioned Loyola Chicago too.
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I disagree. What she describes her son likes, and as his attributes, sound like a great fit for Hamilton! They excel in a lot of areas she mentioned as important to him. I would definitely include it and pay a visit! Also, on a separate tour/trip, I agree with others that Oberlin could also be a good fit.
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I didn’t see it but is there a budget ? Abd ate any support services needed ?
Also, are you expecting a test score ?
What level of math will he likely get to ?
And what AP sciences ?
Thanks
Thanks! It sounds like your D has found a great fit. My S would like a city, too, though it isn’t the most important thing (so far). And nice to know about the merit money—the price of a UC would be pretty amazing. We aren’t chasing merit but aren’t going to ignore it of course. We’ll research some more on the stem front.
We are full pay, can afford to be full pay, and are willing to be full pay—I believe that covers the typical pushes on money 
Edited to add: we won’t ignore merit, of course.
He’ll take the SAT in March and May. My guess is around 1400-1500. He’ll take AP Calc BC next year. He has an A in Honors PreCalc this year (they don’t offer AP Pre Calc at his school).
He is in Honors Physics (no AP offered) and his school’s required Chem class this year. Next year, AP Chem.
As for support, he gets extended time on essay responses for APUSH, that’s his only accommodation. I do a decent amount of exec function coaching at home and I hope to phase it out over the next year, although I expect application season to be rough. But, he often surprises me by pulling through and kicking ass when it matters so, we’ll see!
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This. My tour with D19 had a similar schedule and it’s doable, but we did exactly this too - left a couple early because she totally wasn’t feeling them. Because we were flying across the country to do the tours we really wanted to get bang for our buck and try see as many different colleges as we could. D19 came back from the trip with both very firm ideas about the colleges we’d seen (they were either near the top of the list or totally off it), as well as the type of college she wanted to be at.
As I’ve posted before-- we made each kid name ONE thing (at least one thing) to love about every campus we visited. Even the dreaded safety schools (especially the dreaded safety schools…), even the “I guess I could go here if plan A, plan B, and plan C fall apart” schools.
It’s easy to fall in love with the mega reaches. It’s harder to fall in love (or at least “in like”) with the schools which it seems everyone from the kids HS is applying to. And it’s REALLY hard sometimes to see the charm/beauty/value/impact of the school which the GC says is a “rock solid” admit.
But guess what? finances change. Family situations change. And of course admissions can be unpredictable.
So we found that forcing a discussion around “Hey, that course on planets, magic and astrology looked really cool” or “the dining hall uses only locally grown herbs” or whatever is a powerful tool.
It’s magical thinking sometimes to think your kid is going to click with every school. That won’t happen. But the old saying “don’t love anything or anyone that won’t love you back” is especially true for college admissions. Make sure your kid finds something to love everywhere you visit.
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Ok. Was just trying to figure out if the school list was reachy. Or too high pressured.
Mine wanted a city and while we looked at rural and or suburban, the city won out.
So while it might be nice to see a Vassar or Carleton, you might go see something close to home now - that’s small town etc because you might find yourself pursuing many schools on your list that don’t meet the city desire that you’d already know about. Maybe a Mac, Beloit, and K pus DePaul vs a Hamilton or Vassar or Bard etc.
I took my kid to over 30 schools. Applied to 21. She’s at her most urban choice but the other final three were also urban and the first came off of her 17 acceptances weren’t. My kid hated Miami of Ohio because there was little nearby that most would constitute as a ‘city.’ And while I loved Elon, she was mortified by the lack of immediate surround.
So with some planning or insight, you could optimize your list and only look at schools that meet the need .
In the end it’s not about who is highest ranked but who is a good fit.
Here’s a PhD feeder list. While you did not show an interest, if you use the right column (per capita), you’ll see a range of schools (such as Kalamazoo) that show up. So they’re likely strong in those majors.
You noted UMN - may be great. But is it too big ? U of MN Duluth is much smaller as an example.
Just another way to think about things.
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I definitely agree with finding something to love about every place we visit. So far we have seen UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis because they are easy-ish day trips from our town. They’ve been “alright” from his perspective. A few weeks out from our visit, Davis has downgraded in his mind as “too much farm” and “too hot” even though he liked some of the fun and quirky things about the school while we were there. Santa Cruz has elevated bc he likes the town, even though the housing situation is really tough and the campus seems sort of quiet/dead whenever we have visited. Location plays a memorable role in his perspective, especially over time.
Finding a small school that’s a couple hours drive from us isn’t a bad idea. I’m not sure he can separate the location from the school though. Maybe a drive over to University of the Pacific.
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And to be fair, if he’s going to live there for 4 years he needs to be happy with both. One of my younger colleagues was saying how she ended up hating her highly ranked LAC because it was in the middle of nowhere.
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Overall very very fast for that many schools and those distances and potential for weather slowing you down. 2 in one day, unless less than 30 minutes apart seems a lot to me…
You might want to add RIT when visiting Rochester (name doesn’t indicate lots of arts - top notch photography and lots of animation and film folks). Overall campus vibe may not be right though…
Our family did Syracuse, RIT, U of Rochester and a drive by of Hobart & William Smith on way to Ithaca over 4 days (flying in/out days before/after) and it was a LOT.
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Agree, fit is way more important. That said, he can be competitive with classmates, so he does talk about wanting to pursue places that are reaches. That will be tempered by what I anticipate will be his refusal to do the work often required by those reach applications. He’s not going to want to write a million supplemental essays. So we will be talking a lot about fit and finding schools to love that love you back.
Also—I just looked at that PhD list and saw that Western Washington (an OOS safety that’s growing in popularity in our area) is ranked well for chemistry—a nice surprise!
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My son and I saw many of the schools on your list over the summer, including U Rochester and IC on consecutive days. I think your revised itinerary is much more manageable; I debated trying to do those two on the same day, and I’m so glad we didn’t. It would have been very tight, even without the potential for winter weather. We really enjoyed having the additional time to explore Rochester and Ithaca, too. We also saw Vassar and Union on the same day. I realize you aren’t trying to pair these two, but for reference, we had a 10am Vassar tour and a 2pm Union tour, and they are about 90 minutes apart. We barely made our Union tour with no traffic and only a 15-minute pit stop on 87 to grab food and use the restrooms. It was very tight. If we hadn’t arrived in Poughkeepsie the night before and had time to wander, he definitely wouldn’t have gotten as good a feel for the campus and the area. For what it’s worth, if you skip Union and want to add another less reachy school, I’d second the suggestion above of Conn College. You can definitely see it on the same day as Wesleyan, as they are about 45 minutes apart. It’s similar in many ways to Skidmore, minus the fun college town location.
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If Davis is too farm, then why bother with the Vassars and Hamilton. Even Rochester - not in city.
You need to find city or city adjacent. The weather bill limit those choices. Mine is at Charleston because it’s in the city but doesn’t have your weather but maybe a DU or probably not enough academic breadth but a School of Mines. Tufts, Brandeis, Pitt, UMN, Syracuse, Drexel are more in at least city adjacent or urban parts of a city even if not downtown as is CWRU.
It’s already apparent many on your trip will be a no go.
We all want our kids to see things but they’re not changing their minds for us in most cases.
Better to hit city schools even if it allows you less to see. As @thumper1 said the afternoon schools are tough. Mine loved LSU in the AM but hated Tulane. Case Western - my son was negative on b4 we hit campus - low blood sugar after a hot AM tour bc lunch.
So 1 a day may be more fair anyway.