Travel With Teens and Tweens

The College Search Concludes! It’s UMass Amherst!

Apr 302012

As any parent of a college-bound high school senior knows, May 1 is the decision and deposit due date for most college admission acceptances. After visiting 14 different colleges, writing more than a dozen common application, supplement and scholarship essays, and participating in 3 accepted student programs #1 Son’s final decision is UMass Amherst – the very first college we looked at when we began this process 18 months ago in August of 2010. In case you are wondering why UMass Amherst? In the beginning of his search, #1 Son was strongly focused on small liberal arts schools that offered highly interactive classes. In fact, many of the schools he visited and applied to were only slightly larger than his high school. He ended up applying to 7 colleges, most of them small. He included UMass [...]

A Checklist for Getting the Most out of Accepted Student College Revisit Days

College Visits No Responses »

Feb 122012

January 1st rolled around and we were thrilled that #1 Son had successfully completed 7 college applications as well as a couple of additional scholarship applications. Now we thought, here comes the easy part! Wrong….. Unlike some of his friends who applied under binding Early Decision programs, #1 Son didn’t have a single favorite college when he did his applications and wanted to keep his options open a while longer. As a result he applied using a mix of non-binding Early Action and Regular decision programs that don’t require a commitment until May 1. (see our previous article about college applications for more details on the nuances of these various programs) Among his friends, two or three teens have already locked in their Early Decision favorites, but most are playing the waiting [...]

Hobart and William Smith Tour Gets Teen’s Attention

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Nov 162011

Hobart and William Smith Tour Gets Teen's Attention

Hobart and William Smith Colleges rolled out the welcome mat during our early November visit. Lake Seneca sparkled in the background during the admissions information session, the 195-acre campus sported green grass and lovely foliage, and our student tour guides went out of their way to answer our myriad of questions. It was one of the most energetic and useful tours we have taken. After visiting a dozen colleges that each promise to deliver a life changing educational experience it is easy to get a little jaded. Hobart’s student tour guides quickly overcame our doubts by exhibiting genuine enthusiasm for their studies, professors and the college community. Where some tour guides seem to walk through the script, our two guides were clearly engaged. The coordinate colleges share the theme of Community, [...]

University Of Rochester – First Impressions Tour

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Nov 112011

University Of Rochester - First Impressions Tour

Our recent college tour to the University of Rochester left us with a lot of conflicting impressions. Home to 4,500 undergraduates and about 4,000 graduate students, University of Rochester features a curriculum with few requirements, a student body known for engineering and the arts, and a physical campus that needs a little updating. With the exception of the performing arts and Eastman School of Music programs, most of the undergraduate classes and dorms are located on the River Campus just outside of downtown Rochester. During the information session, which was led by a representative from the Admissions Department, we learned about the Rochester Curriculum, which has no set requirements other than a writing course. Students do need to take small clusters of classes in the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences, [...]

Wheaton College, MA Impresses with Fall Open House

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Nov 042011

Wheaton College, MA Impresses with Fall Open House

Wheaton College in Norton, MA is a four-year liberal arts college serving 1600 students on a 400 acre campus in the suburbs of Boston, MA and Providence, RI. Once an all girls school, Wheaton went co-ed in 1988. The school offers small classes and 150 dedicated faculty members who go out of their way to get to know the students. On campus housing is available for all 4 years. Many students study abroad at some point in their Wheaton career. In recent years, Wheaton has made it a priority to encourage students to compete for prestigious academic awards like the Rhodes, Fulbright and Truman scholarships. The effort is paying off with over 130 awards in the last 10 years. We were very impressed with the energy and resources devoted towards helping students prepare to compete for these prizes. We [...]

A Halloween Fright – Your College Application is Due Tomorrow!

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Oct 312011

A Halloween Fright - Your College Application is Due Tomorrow!

For high school seniors, Halloween isn’t just a day on the calendar that provides a reason to dress up and attend parties. Rather, it marks the deadline for filing Early Decision and Early Action college applications since most are due by November 1st. For those readers who are not as far down the college application rabbit hole as we, are a little context might explain why tonight is such a scary time for so many teens. At many colleges, the applicant’s chances of getting accepted can be significantly higher if they make an early application and it can be further impacted by the type of Early Application that is filed. Specifically: Option A: Early Decision is a binding process that generally results in the highest percentage of applications being accepted when compared [...]

Two Washington DC College Tours in a Day

College Visits 2 Responses »

Oct 122011

Two Washington DC College Tours in a Day

With early action deadlines closing in we recently fit in a quick trip to Washington, DC to check out two terrific, but very different, universities. DC is naturally high on #1 Son’s list due to his interests in politics and economics so it made sense to visit both American University and George Washington University. For two schools located just a couple of Metro stops from one another they are as different as night and day. American University is housed on 84 sculpted acres designed by Frederick Law Olmstead. Approximately 6,000 undergrads and 3,000 graduate students call American home while hundreds of others visit for a Semester in Washington but are housed on a satellite campus a few blocks from the main campus location on Embassy Row in the Northwest corner of the [...]

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