During the summer of 2023, the kids were all away at summer camp for two weeks, and we got a second our chance to get away with no kids. In Summer of 2022, we were so consumed with life at home, we never really left town. If I am being completely honest, I was also working with my mother trying to get her to follow through with her physical therapy to insure she wouldn’t go back to the hospital. In the end we skipped the opportunity to get away. One year later, we jumped at the idea of a couples vacation and booked a 5 day trip to NYC to go see the shows. While we were there, we ran into two families who also happened to passing through NYC. One family was there to do college tours for their rising Juniors.

I was interested why they were doing them so early. The main reason was due to one of their twins possibly doing early acceptance for sports during her Junior year. My friend pointed out that their hectic schedule during the school year, and the sacrificing they would have to make for family vacations. I was sold on the idea immediately. Everyone talks about how Junior year is such a pivotal year for high school kids, because it’s the one year that colleges look at the closest for academic performance. It’s also a list building year, if you are working with a college counselor.

We sat down with Paley before the start of her sophomore year and proposed the idea of doing a college road trip the summer before her 11th grade year. We explained, it mean’t not having to spend what little school vacations she gets running around looking at schools. I am a firm believer of your kids looking at schools before they even apply to a school. When you are on a campus, a student really can have a feeling of possibilities or a complete disconnect. My parents did the same thing with me back in 1992 when I looked at schools. When Paley sat down with her college counselor early in her sophomore year, she shared her current list of schools and our plan to go look at the schools over the upcoming summer. We got a thumbs up and Summer of 2024 was on the books.

We started with her list of schools, amassed over her sophomore year. NYU was still on the list, a school Paley heard about all her childhood, mostly because of me. As she looked at the schools more and more, it slowly moved around on the list. She had her ideas for a college, a vision of how the campus functions, what she would have access to and a few other important items. Hearing these items, was a wakeup call to myself, let her take the wheel. It’s her future, it’s her decision. There is a very fine line between the parent getting involved in the decision process. We’ve watched family and friends adventure down in this process. We’ve also seen varying degrees of how much freedom kids had in their selection process. One thing I will say, they are all connected because the kids had the responsibility to make a decision. and a parents role or opinion can easily suade things. We’ve even seen this with deciding which High School to go to, no matter if it’s public or private.

Watching our daughter build her school list, brought back memories of our baby naming process. The list of schools slowly got chipped away as she learned about the difference between an open and closed curriculum. Whether or not a school would allow non theatrical majors to participate in productions and even exploring the areas of studies she is interested in. The list probably started out around 18 schools and by the time I needed to start booking hotels, cars and more for the trip, the list was now down to 12 schools. The trip also morphed into a family vacation. We would spend a week driving to schools in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Then spend several days in NYC as a family, while checking out four school in NY and the city. Then make our way to Provincetown, to revisit a place, Clem and I are seriously thinking as a place to retire.

After Provincetown, we were back on the college road trip with the whole family in tow, for four days of back to back schools. Some days had three school in one town. This college trek led me to write a series of post about helping your college bound student explore and search for schools. I won’t be posting which school Paley has chosen until she’s gone through application process a year or so from now. But I will share the moments on our trip that taught me something, and how to hunt and pay attention your student’s ah-ha moments. Was this trip ambitious, probably! Would I do it again. Absolutely! Overall I think taking your potential college student to the schools they are interested in, cements their interest in the school, as well as helps them envision themselves in those environments. This will be the topic of the next post.

The College Road Trip: Jumping into the College Pond

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