Ah, the New England college tour!  Here goes with what has become a rite of passage—at least among  parents, grandparents and seventeen-year-olds who motor across the Berkshires each summer in search of academic Camelot.

Quincy Market, on the
Freedom Trail in Boston.

In our case it's grandparents accompanying both Rachael, a "rising senior" (admissions officer trade speak for a student a year from high school graduation) and her fifteen-year-old sister Erin (you can never start them too young).

Exchanging shop talk with other “guides” along the trail, we discover areas of common ground.  First, any respectable college tour requires visits to at least five institutions.  They are to be conducted during a week-to-ten-days at breakneck pace covering hundreds of miles.

Since the trip involves travel in an auto crammed with luggage and snack bags, it should be looked upon as a kind of a working vacation.  Translation:  Faced with the prospect of stupefying tuitions bills over the next four years, we had better think of it as the summer vacation.

Make the best of it, right?

Stroll peaceful Beacon Hill.

We decide that two school girls from Colorado might enjoy a taste of the traveling life in “typically New England” digs. Are such lodgings to be found at a reasonable price?  Yes, assuming one plans ahead.

Let’s start with that grail of countless prospective students—Boston.  Within its metropolitan area are situated scores of colleges and universities representing alma mater to some 350,000 enrollees during the academic year.

There are institutions to fit every budget, taste and level of scholastic achievement, from privately endowed big hitters like Harvard and MIT to urban mega-universities such as Boston University and Northeastern.

We will spend half of our eight-day trip around Boston—bookending there (two days on each end) and settling on visits to four area campuses: Harvard, Boston College, Boston University and Wellesley.

The 5-Star Langham Hotel.
(Click photo.)

Having determined that this is a unique trip deserving of special lodgings, we set about finding summer deals which will provide convenience both to the tourist attractions of an historic city and to the schools we have chosen to visit.

For the two day kickoff of our trip we choose the Langham, a five star downtown Boston hotel noted for its traditional appointments and personalized service.

Located in the former Federal Reserve Bank building, the Langham features classic architecture of historic Boston, with gilded ceilings and elegantly carved doorways.  Its Wyeth Room contains N.C. Wyeth murals together with an extensive collection of early Massachusetts maps. The 318 guest rooms  offer rich furnishings and Italian marble bathrooms.  In other words, more than enough swank to dazzle our mountain girls and suitably impress their grandparents.

King Room at the Langham.

The Langham is easy walking distance from tourist attractions of the Freedom Trail like the Old North Church and Faneuil Hall, plus the waterfront, Quincy Market, Boston Commons and Beacon Hill.  We opt to check out several of these venues over a long morning, then board the subway for our first college tour at Boston College in suburban Chestnut Hill.

The soft gray, Gothic campus of Jesuit run Boston College is spread out over a leafy acreage of quads and hillsides that belie its proximity to a bustling urban center. Despite its name, BC is in reality a major university combining nine schools and colleges serving nearly 14,000 students.  For a prospective student aiming to combine variety of university life with an intimate collegiate atmosphere, plus promixity to a large city, Boston College has great appeal.

Everybody agrees that our week-long tour of college campuses is off to a good start!

Middlebury College in the Green Mountains.

After two days of steamy Boston it’s refreshing to motor westward into the Berkshires for a look at some  colleges known as “Little Ivies”.  Doubtless this cute moniker is meant to assure us that they are just as expensive and hard to get into as the “Big Ivies” like Yale and Princeton but feature smaller faculties focused on teaching a core of undergraduates.

With only four road days at our disposal we’ve decided to tour three campuses in western Massachusetts—Williams College in Williamstown and both Amherst College and the University of Massachusetts in Amherst—and a fourth college, Middlebury, in southwestern Vermont.

Bucolic hamlets like Williamstown and Middlebury appear to support a summer population consisting of entourages similar to ours mixed in with an arts crowd which patronizes the music at Tanglewood, the theatre at Williamstown, etc.

Alas, given our round trip drive of ten hours from Boston to Middlebury, plus a half day to tour each campus community, we haven’t much time left for Shakespeare or symphonies.  If you’d like to combine both the colleges and summer arts offerings, look to extend your trip accordingly.

First stop Williamstown. Along the single block of main street coffee shops are crowded, although not with the clientele served nine months of the year.  At mid-summer there is hardly a college student anywhere to be seen. Bubbling high schoolers from the Midwest, rather, sip smoothies alongside the middle-aged bohemians who’ve trekked hither for a country weekend.

From what we’re hearing, Williams College is a favorite among parents.  It’s easy to see why this lovely campus cradled into the Purple Valley is such a hit with older folk.  One deep breath of tangy air leads naturally to dreams of a winter sojourn ensconced with a carton of books and crackling log fire.  Tranquility abounds. Apparently too much of it for our girls, who are scouting about for a decent mall to shop for jeans.

As to mountain lodgings, we’ve opted for local color.  (Be warned, however. Mom and Dad’s quaint bed-and-breakfast can metamorphose into “What, no pool?  How come we’re staying in this old place?” once the kids weigh in.)

The Middlebury Inn proves colorful enough for most anyone’s palette.  Perched on a hill overlooking Middlebury’s historic center, this 70 room hostelry has been welcoming travelers since 1827.

“Eclectic” might describe both the spacious rooms and public areas.  Historic photos and antique furnishings grace the lobby, where guests may take complimentary afternoon tea with fresh baked pastries.  Predictably, the girls are sold on high-speed internet wireless and the promise of access to the nearby Vermont Fitness Center with its Olympic-size indoor pool.

Of course venerable colleges like Middlebury and Williams offer an array of elm-shaded quads and rambling Victorian homes adjacent to campus.  Our young ladies seem more interested in the cutting edge architecture associated with athletic facilities.

Both are serious competitors at track and volleyball.  At college they intend to claim membership in that society of Title Nine women who include sport and physical conditioning as a vital part of their education. 

Three of the colleges we are visiting (Williams, Middlebury and Amherst) are members of the New England Small College Athletic Conference noted for success at the NCAA Division III level. The other schools are Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, Tufts, Hamilton, Trinity, Wesleyan, and Connecticut College.  To these eleven are often added the Pennsylvania colleges of Swarthmore and Haverford to make up the so-called “Little Ivies”.

From the Green Mountains of Vermont we pass back southward along idyllic byways into the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts.  Within a few miles of the village of Amherst are situated four renowned liberal arts colleges and a major university.  Amherst, Hampshire, Mt. Holyoke and Smith colleges together with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst combine to form the Five College Consortium.

Students matriculating at one college may use facilities and take course work at any of the other four.   During the academic year a maze of bike paths and bus routes shuttle roughly 50,000 scholars hither and yon, creating in greater Northhampton/Amherst the second largest concentration of academic talent (after Boston) in New England.

All this professorial brainpower and passion for learning bids to overwhelm the weary traveler.  We observe teenager/parent tandems staggering away from their tenth campus tour in half as many days.  At this stage several are ready for that hot tub at Holiday Inn, delivery pizza and the flight home to Kansas.

Back to Boston in a pelting rain.  Our girls seem restless. Their grandparents, a bit weak at the knees, are looking forward to journey’s end at that deluxe hotel in Cambridge.

Of course no survey of New England colleges could be thoroughgoing without visits to the region’s Ivy League universities—Yale, Dartmouth, Brown and Harvard.  Time constraint limits us to the obvious choice given flights in and out of Boston—Harvard.

For a lodging in suburban Cambridge we consider both convenience and, coming off the road, relaxing amenities.  The answer for us is a no-brainer: the Charles Hotel, just a few steps off Harvard Square.