Spring Break College Tour Trip 2023
Hey, Friend! So we’ve officially made it to Spring Break. We may have been coasting in on fumes to get through those last few days of school before the break, but BY GOLLY we made it.
This year, our oldest two girls are a junior and sophomore in high school. So we decided to make the most of this week by visiting some prospective colleges. Our oldest daughter has always had her heart set on Princeton, so we started planning our trip around it. Then, as we considered how far of a drive that would be, I insisted we make the most out of all those hours in the car by stopping at other colleges along the way. We’ve wound our way up the east coast, and we’re making the most of every day of this trip.
Here’s a look at our itenerary:
Day 1 ~ Travel day:
8:00 AM Leave from my brother’s house in Chattanooga, Tennessee for the 11 hour drive to Princeton, NJ.
8:15 PM Arrive at our hotel in Princeton, NJ; eat dinner nearby.
Day 2 ~ Princeton Tour:
9:45 AM Leave hotel and arrive on campus at Princeton University
We left the hotel in a hurry, because we didn’t have reservations for a scheduled tour. This was my fault, because when we first made our plans for this trip sometime after Christmas, I wasn’t sure yet what our schedule would be. In hindsight, we would have been better off to schedule the tour and not make it in time…but you know what they say about hindsight. Anyway, we called the student center and spoke to the nicest receptionist, who encouraged us to just hurry up and come on to campus and keep our fingers crossed that someone didn’t show up for the tour. So, after praying and praying and flying out the door, we arrived on campus to find an open parking spot in the visitor’s lot AND some open slots for the tour—God answered our prayers!
11:00-12:30 Take student-guided tour around campus. Highly recommend!!
Our experience on the Princeton tour:
The tour consisted of a 30 minute Q and A info session in a classroom-type setting, upstairs in the visitor’s center. Then, student guides broke us up into small groups and led us around campus, giving lots of helpful information about everything from freshman writing seminar classes to financial aid.
Our guide was a senior and had participated in many extra curriculars on campus. She also gave us a rundown of the eating clubs, which had always sounded like an odd concept to me until we were there in person and hearing about them firsthand. Parents in our group asked questions about meal plans, dorms, and more; all of which she answered with great detail. Overall, our tour was an A+ experience.
The architecture on Princeton’s campus is absolutely stunning.
12:30 Lunch at Mediterra Restaurant in downtown Princeton
*This restaurant is delicious. We had fantastic food and friendly service, coupled with a great view of the village of Princeton. Doesn’t get much better than that, if you ask me!
1:30-3:00 Explore campus and find academic buildings that house their prospective majors
3:00-6:00 Rest in the hotel room—very important!
After quite a bit of walking, we were all ready for a little bit of downtime in the room. Plus, I think EJ had a lot of new information to process about the school that has been her dream school since she was a little girl. I found that it worked well for her to have some time right after our visit to sit down, look through the notes she’d taken, and mull it all over.
6:15 Dinner at Seasons 52, a chain restaurant that we’d never tried till this trip. The food is mostly locally sourced and upscale, and we enjoyed our dinner.
7:30 Quick trip to Barnes and Nobles to buy a few new novels for the trip, including Poverty, By America by Matthew Desmond, a sociology professor at Princeton!
8:30 Early bedtime
Day 3 ~ Yale Tour:
6:30 AM Wake up, exercise, pack up
8:30 AM Everyone downstairs with luggage to eat the free hotel breakfast
9:00 Get on the road to New Haven, CT
12:00 Arrive at the New Haven Hotel in downtown New Haven. Park in hotel’s parking garage to avoid paying to park on campus, walk to lunch at Shake Shack and then to start the tour at Yale visitor’s center.
The New Haven Hotel was an EXCELLENT choice for us to spend our one night at Yale. The hotel is located directly downtown, within walking distance to both the university and places to eat! The staff was very friendly and more than willing to help us find where we were going. It was probably my favorite hotel of the trip, in fact!
Yale’s visitor’s center is housed in the oldest residence in New Haven. Inside, you’ll find an exhibit full of famous alumni and historical facts! If you’re like me and love historic homes, you’ll love the Mead Visitor Center. You can find it at 149 Elm St in downtown New Haven!
2:00 PM Begin student-led walking tour of Yale’s campus
Our experience on the Yale tour:
When we first reached the Mead Visitor’s Center, all three of us were struck by what a different atmosphere we found in comparison to that of Princeton. While the historic home’s interior was undoubtedly elegant, the formality seemed to bleed into every other part of our experience. The student working at the information desk spoke to us in whispers, and only when we first spoke to him to ask where we should go. Instead of the bustling, friendly, maybe even noisy environment we’d been in the day before, the tone of the Yale campus tour started in a very serious, quiet manner.
Once we got through the initial 30 minute information session, we were divided into small groups once again to be shown around the campus by a Yale undergrad student. Ours was very nice and only slightly less approachable. I’m sure it didn’t help him (or us!) that it was a cold, misty, dreary day—we could notice a BIG difference between the mid-Atlantic climate in New Jersey and the New England climate of Connecticut. At the end of the hour long tour, only one parent hung around to ask our tour guide any questions, and it wasn’t me! We did give EJ the chance to rub Theodore Dwight Woolsey’s toe (well his statue, anyway…), so hopefully she’ll still have good luck in getting admitted if she decides that Yale’s the place for her!
2:45 Head back to hotel to read, relax, and regroup
5:10 Walk to Abate for an early dinner (we had to try some apizza while we were in New Haven and see what all the fuss is about!)
According to The Spruce Eats, “apizza is a thin-crust pizza that is traditionally baked in a coal-fired brick oven.” To read more about apizza, you can check out this article.
8:00 Back to the room to read our new books and get to bed
Day 4 ~ Columbia Tour:
6:30 Wake up, exercise, pack up
9:00 Leave for New York City!
10:43 Arrive at Columbia University—we parked on a side street across from campus, again to avoid having to pay high rates for a parking garage. We just fed the meter for a couple hours.
One thing to note was that Columbia’s campus, as of spring 2023 when we visited, was still very particularly following Covid restrictions. Visitors were not allowed to enter any building without special permission, and all visitors were required to show proof of up-to-date Covid vaccination. Also, the tour mainly remained outside.
12:00 Begin student-led tour of Columbia
Our experience on the Columbia tour:
Columbia’s walking tour was by far the most crowded of the 3 universities we toured. Each group had 40+ families in it, and 7 or 8 groups began the tour at the same time. Despite the larger crowd, our guide was still very approachable, and we had no problem getting our questions answered. I will say that the process before the tour started, where we all had to meet on the steps in front of the main library and find a tour guide to show our proof of vaccination, felt more like we were getting off the boat at Ellis Island than trying to get a good idea of what Columbia’s all about. It was very chaotic, with the guides shouting and people pushing and shoving to get into different lines. And it probably took about 45 minutes to find a guide and begin the tour, which was much longer than the other two universities we visited.
Once we got moving and seeing the sights of Columbia’s campus, I must say we were very impressed by the school. We especially loved the programs they have in place which encourage undergraduate students to take advantage of all that NYC has to offer, for example the Broadway ticket lottery and the dining passes around the city. And for parents who are worried about their student’s safety in the city (as many would naturally be), the university has a Safety Escort Program and an On-Demand Evening Shuttle that runs well into the wee hours. You can read more about their safety services here.
All in all, we really enjoyed our tour of Columbia, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that EJ will find herself as a Columbia student eventually—law school, anyone?
2 PM Find a late lunch ~ we ended up stopping at Community Food & Juice, which had great local food and plenty of outdoor seating. We treated ourselves to iced coffees, sandwiches, a salad, and superb people-watching!
So that wraps up our east coast, in-person college campus tour trip. We had a fantastic time, and here was my biggest takeaway:
There’s no substitution for seeing prospective colleges in person.
Our pre-conceived notions of each university were probably only about 50% correct, and EJ’s short list of her favorite schools might have gotten a tad shorter after our trip.
Yeah, you’re right…it was a really long trip. I think I calculated that we drove a total of more than 1500 miles in our one week of Spring Break! But it was important to me that she experience JUST HOW FAR away she would be from home, should she be accepted and go to one of these schools. In other words, you’re not just hopping in the car for a quick trip home on a Friday night. Turns out, this didn’t deter her. Go figure? Maybe we had too much fun on the trip and I should’ve included a little more drudgery…
What did your family do for spring break? Have you started discussing college admissions yet? If so, let’s chat about it in the comments below—because listen, friend. This is a whole situation and we need to cheer for each other!
Until next time, I’ll be over here in the bleachers with my sunglasses on so you don’t see me getting emotional about my sweet girl trying to move 14 hours away…
