I know there are fellow CCers who live or are familiar with NYC 
D and I are going to visit my niece who goes to NYU for 3 days in April. We’d like to stay closer to the campus with a budget of $250/night. Any suggestions?
AND if D agrees to look at schools ( she says she’d like to stay on the west coast), any ideas of what we can cover in 3 days? Columbia, maybe drive out to Philadelphia for Drexel, Carnegie Mellon, Penn.
Thanks in advance!
Can’t help with hotels but wanted to mention that Carnegie Mellon is in Pittsburgh not Philadelphia.
Those are very tough schools to get into. Are you certain your daughter has a realistic chance to get in?
The Mercel a Gramercy
Park South Hotel
The James New York - NoMad
are some good options
You are only going to be in NYC for 3 days. I think the most you will be able to cover are NYC schools, unless you go to Philadelphia on your way home. Princeton could be on the way. How are you getting in and out of NYC? It would be very expensive if you have a car, 200-250 for 3 days.
Fordham has two campuses – a small one in Manhattan and a larger, more traditional one in the Bronx if that is of interest to her.
I use Priceline - you can get very good rates if it’s not a popular weekend. Look for “East Village”. I’ve stayed at both the Walker and the Standard for great rates and both were wonderful. Alternatively NYU is pretty easy to get to via subway, so staying near Penn Station is an option - just stay below Penn and not above to avoid the crowds.
I never bring a car to NYC, even when we were visiting schools - any of the schools in NYC proper are easy to get to via subway and/or Uber.
CMU is a haul - you really need to fly. Philly on the other hand is about a 90 minute train ride. Amtrak is cheap (imo) and fast. I went to school outside of Philadelphia and always took the train everywhere - it saves you a lot of hassle.
In 3 days…don’t schlep out of NYC…especially if your kid says she doesn’t want to go to school on the east coast. You can visit Columbia. If you are dying to see more than one college, take her to Fordham and NYU. You don’t want to waste days visiting Philly or wherever. And everyone else is right…Pittsburgh is a real haul.
Have some fun in NYC…it’s a nice time of the year to be there…and you will be plenty busy!
IF and only IF you feel you must pop down to Philadelphia, do it by rail or by Megabus, Bolt Bus, or one of the other discount buslines. The roundtrip would be do-able in one day.
But frankly, I’d just stay put in NYC and see a couple more shows on or off Broadway.
I agree. Stay in NYC. If Princeton is of interest, that’s an easy day trip on NJ Transit. But Philadelphia is probably worth its own trip.
@music227 - D has the stats to apply to these schools but she can’t see herself leaving our state. We’ll be visiting Cal Berkeley then flying out to NYC.
@oldfort, I haven’t booked flights yet but we’ve flown into LaGuardia, JFK and Newark before. Newark is my last choice. Thanks for the hotel suggestions.
@CaMom13 - I’ve never used Priceline. Thanks for the “East Village” search tip.
I think it will probably be best to stay in NYC and not venture out this trip. I was under the impression that Philadelphia was closer to NYC than it is.
There are a lot of colleges she could see without going that far from NYC. Among the many possibilities in addition to NYU, Columbia and Barnard:
The New School–personally, I think Eugene Lang is a very interesting college; it’s part of The New School.
Fordham, both campuses
Cooper Union, if she happens to be interested in engineering or art
Manhattan College, in the Riverdale section of the Bronx
Sarah Lawrence-an easy train ride on Metro-North
SUNY Purchase, sometimes called Purchase College, especially if she’s interested in performing or visual arts
–again an easy train ride
Fairfield–via Metro-North
SUNY Stony Brook via the LIRR
Others for special interests: Pratt and Parsons for art; FIT or Fashion Institute of Technology, which is a SUNY, Marymount Manhattan for performing arts.
There are many more.
Thank you @jonri. There’s definitely lots to visit on this trip!
You will not have time to visit schools in Pittsburgh if you will only be in NYC for 3 days. It’s too long of a haul…hours and hours.
I would consider NYU, Columbia, and Fordham and then spend the remaining time sight seeing.
What is your D interested in studying as that could help limit the list.
There’s also Pace, particularly if she’s interested in performing arts.
Stony Brook is 2+ hours each way on LIRR, so I wouldn’t recommend it unless it’s really a potential contender, as it will take up most of one of your days. It’s my H’s alma mater but when we took sons 2 and 3 to look at it, they refused to get out of the car because it’s so hideous.
If your D is really not that interested in going to school in NY, I would concentrate on having a fun trip - see some shows, visit the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island, eat in Chinatown and Little Italy, visit the Planetarium at the Museum of Natural History, etc. When I visit another city, I often take the bus tour that is offered on one day and see what I like and then return to those spots later on.
I live near Philadelphia and would disagree about the practicality of visiting Philly from a base in NYC…IF there were a Philadelphia school of great interest, it would be an easy day trip by train or bus. It’s less than 1.5 hours on Amtrak.
When we visited our niece at NYU last spring, we stayed at the Kimberly Hotel. It’s probably not as close to NYU as you would like, but it’s an excellent hotel and less than $200/night. While we were in NY, we visited NYU, School of Visual Arts, Pratt in Brooklyn. If we had more time, we would have visited Pace, FIT and Parsons. I found timing depends on whether you’re going on official tours - those take time, not just for the tours, but we found we had questions afterwards or decided to eat lunch nearby. But campus visits without tours were super quick (but for us, not helpful at all). In NY - maybe also check out Barnard, Hunter, Cooper Union?
Actually I do not like to fly out of LGA right now because of all the construction. EWR is pretty easy to get in and out. You can take a train from Penn to EWR during rush hour, and you can also take public transportation to JFK. D1 travels a lot for work and she flies out of EWR most of the time now.
EWR is also my airport of choice and we fly someone in or out of NYC from LA about 10 times a year!
I agree with the other posters that Newark is actually the most convenient to the city.
You can definitely take the train to Philly for the day but if you only have three days, your time might be better spent in or near the city.
Enjoy!
On the recommendation of a friend who lives in NYC, I’ve stayed at The Maritime Hotel in Chelsea. It was a really fun, funky boutique hotel and the price was around $200. Here’s the link–https://www.themaritimehotel.com The hotel is not next to NYU–probably just a mile or so away.