<p>Having read the thread on College Visit Dos and Dont’s, I’m beginning to think about sending my daughter on a few college visits without a parent.</p>
<p>There is one school in particular where it might work well for her to fly down with a friend, staying either at the college or a hotel close by.</p>
<p>Are hotels willing to put up high school students traveling alone? </p>
<p>Has this approach worked well for anyone?</p>
<p>We had the same question a few months ago.</p>
<p>Most hotels will not rent to people who are under 18. If both are under 18, they could stay at the college or at a youth hostel.</p>
<p>My daughter visited a couple of colleges solo, but was picked up at the airport by a shuttle both times and spent the night with a host student on campus. </p>
<p>Is there any reason she cannot stay with a host student on campus?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Is this an appropriate thing to do on a very first visit to a school?</p>
<p>The school is having a visitors’ day type thing, so I’d think they’d be expecting large numbers.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Depends on the school. Some schools host overnight prospects literally all the time. Others would look at you like you are little green Martian for asking.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s cause I live in a tourist area, but I can’t imagine any hotel letting underage girls stay in a room alone. It’s a liability. Think Natalie Holloway.</p>
<p>Not to say they couldn’t stay in the room with an adult chaperone and still go on the tour by themselves. Or stay on campus with another student.</p>
<p>She can definitely stay in a hostel on her own–but the first choice would be the school itself.</p>
<p>We let our son visit a few colleges on his own w/i a reasonably short drive-3-4 hrs.</p>
<p>Worked out fine</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Let’s see, better check with the school. Now that I think of it, it was a first visit to all of the schools at which she stayed overnight, but she had already been accepted to all of them.</p>
<p>Overnight visit info should be on the website of each college. </p>
<p>S. had a great time staying with three other prospects at one of his picks- before he applied. They put them all in one dorm room, had a schedule for them to attend classes, etc.</p>
<p>Since it was summer, none of the other LAC’s we were looking at had classes in session, which was too bad.</p>
<p>Just a thought - I would have loved for my mom to have been able to visit colleges with me. She’s not very internet savvy, which may have something to do with it (not being able to look at online brochures), but I think she would have been much more at ease knowing I was moving 1400 miles away if she had seen the campus before move in day. I would definitely have traded the months of her worried tension after I received my acceptance letter for awkward questions and a little embarasment on a tour any day.</p>
<p>But, if it works out better for your daughter to go alone, I definitely second the overnight host. She’ll get a better, more honest feel for certain aspects of the school (esp. regarding social life) she won’t get from the tour. Besides the fact that it might be difficult for her to find a hotel room if she’s under 18.</p>
<p>Son flew to one campus on his own. The college had an arrangement with one hotel put up minors who were visiting the campus and had a shuttle campus and airport service. Actually, I think it can make a good impression.</p>
<p>My daughter visited colleges on her own and I am very glad that she did. I think that she really got more out of the visits that way, even though her college “tours” did not always go as planned. </p>
<p>However, she did not stay in hotels. Here is what she did: she visited schools in the DC, NYC & Boston/Providence areas. (We are on the west coast). She stayed with a family friend in the DC area, and she stayed with kids she knew at their college dorms in NY and Boston. Neither was a college she had been interested in, but her stay with her NYU friend resulted in a change – she fell in love with NYU and added it to her list, managing to fit in a last-minute info session. </p>
<p>She did have a scheduled overnight at one college. She decided rather quickly that she did not like that college and it was dropped from her list. She had no interest in doing overnights anywhere else. </p>
<p>She used public transit within cities, and trains or buses between them.</p>
<p>srcameron - it is so thoughtful of you to consider your mom and how to alleviate her worries.</p>
<p>I’m happy to browse the Internet and get a feel for the colleges. </p>
<p>My daughter very keen on her mom butting out of her business, so I’m hoping that maybe a visit on her own would be a good way for her to get started on her college search… not to mention that it would be cheaper than both of us going, especially if I was supposed to spend my time fading into the woodwork.</p>
<p>Both of my kids did some college visits on their own, but only to schools where they had someone to stay with (friends or relatives who were students at the schools, relatives nearby), and schools that were accessible by public transportation from those schools. They are both pretty good about travelling on their own, though, and resourceful about solving problems. (My son got off an airport bus in downtown Providence and realized he had forgotten to find out where the AMTRAK station he was looking for was. He called a friend at home from the street, and the two of them figured out what he had to do from Google Maps in about four minutes.)</p>
<p>Can she go with a friend? I think that would solve some of the problems.</p>
<p>The one and only college I visited way back when, I stayed at a sorority house. If there’s a panhellenic association in your community, maybe they can help hook girls up in a house. It was nice- I got the three meals a day right there.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, during my stay (it was at UNC and I had to take a music audition), there was a huge snowstorm and I ended up trapped there another three days!!!</p>