www.avis.com
www.hertz.com
www.nationalcar.com

Come on, man, do a little of the work yourself.

Do you have a debit card? Also, if you do rent a car, it might be cheaper to drive WAS-UVA-RDU-WAS, and then fly WAS-BOS-WAS. One-way car rentals can have mileage charges that might end up causing a one-way rental + RDU-BOS to be more expensive than roundtrip car WAS-WAS and a WAS-BOS roundtrip by air/train.

I was thinking of taking the train to uva and back and then flying to the rest of the schools with delta(I have status).Seems to be similier in price considering i have to pay more because i am younger and gas price...

As someone said, 100% aid does not mean free. A large component of your financial aid package will probably be comprised of loans.

Seriously dude? You're 24 years old and an adult. You should be able to go to google maps and look up the locations of these places. It's not hard to see what cities these universities are near and how to get there. It seems from your posts like your American. You should be familiar with websites to book flights, rent cars, etc.

I don't mean to be a prick, but I honestly think you need to do more homework before you post on message boards. You cannot get through life relying on the niceness of the community. You seem to be trying to take the easy way out by asking the folks on this forum for every single thing about your trip.

I'm not saying you shouldn't ask for help. But be more specific. Something like: "I would like to visit X, Y and Z in the time period A-B. I plan on flying from Spain to X. I will travel from X to Y by car and Y to Z by train. I will finally fly back from Z to Spain. The total cost is coming out to be $$$. Is this reasonable?" will be well received.

This is just my 2 cents. Feel free to ignore my advice if you wish.

I will take your advise and formulate a plan.However you have failed to read all of my posts.I think i mentioned uva and vanderbilt have a no loan policy(all grant no loan).Ok so i will set up a schedule and then ask again if its worthwhile to do it.I am israeli but i have a green card.I wouldn't say i am american...

I'm glad to see that international students now get to go to our schools for free while citizens have to pay. Yay Obama!

YAY! Well I have been living in the usa since 2006,And its private funds that would sponser such a grant.It really has nothing to do with obama my friend... I have the grades to get in the very competitive schools.Those schools decided that everyone should be able to afford them.I see nothing wrong with that.Have some shame my friend.I wonder when i become a citizen in say 2 years or so would have as much obnoxiousness as you?

What exactly does Obama have to do with setting financial aid policies at private or state-funded universities?

Someone with a green card is not an international student. He has likely been living in the US and paying taxes for years.

This is Flyertalk, not the comments section of some trashy blog or political forum. If you don't want to help, then don't, but insulting other participants with completely baseless allegations is not called for.

Ok, this helps understand where you are coming from. Nevertheless, I think you would receive a lot more useful responses if you had more well-thought out questions.

Good luck with the applications!

What does being an international student have to do with the discussion at hand? :rolleyes:

FWIW, there's no free lunch. We international students get tuition/fee waivers by ways of:
1) some or full scholarships;
2) RAs, TAs, & other legal employment on campus.
3) other financial assistance from schools.
4) grants offered to international students.

We work for it! We don't get handout.

It took almost 3 pages before OP finally made a clear statement of being a greencard holder. I am still not certain if OP has come to a fully comprehensive understanding of his financial standing for each school. As a green card holder, that's totally up to him to discuss it with the admission offices/advisors.

+3.

I had to say back when I was 21 and before coming to the States for the 1st time as an international student, I had known much better about my financial options and choices of schools than OP. I didn't even have any internet message board to take advantage of.

OP, you have to take the initiatives and show FTers the result of your research, if you want some serious answers and help. Homework time!

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

As previously mentioned, using inexpensive buses like Megabus and Bolt Bus can be a cheap way to get between cities in the Northeast U.S. You can even get from Manhattan to Ithaca for less than $20 one way by combining a Manhattan-Binghamton Megabus fare with a regular Binghamton-Ithaca one-way fare. (You stay on the same bus for the whole trip.)

Amtrak may still offer an unlimited travel pass for foreign passport holders. I would investigate that option if rail travel is preferred to bus travel.

Not trying to be anti-international students....just a little concerned with the amount of free aid/loan money being churned out while tuition continues to rise....

Anyways, this is an extremely straightforward trip with only two logical routes.

So the OP is flying into DC. Probably can visit the GW first since it's already there. Then Amtrak to BOS, or possibly an OW flight since it's reasonable. Megabus doesn't go all the way to BOS from DC - will have to change in NYC. So then visit BU, and then book a one-way SOUTHWEST ticket to BNA from BOS/PVD both of which are accessible on public transit. Then visit Vandy, rent a car to drive to UNC, then up to UVA, drop the car at DCA and call it a trip. I'd avoid the rental car in an urban area as that will make the trip unaffordable. Amtrak offers a 15% student discount, and southwest is cheaper when booked in advance. Hertz has a code to drop the under 25 fees (or at least had).

Good luck

Why do you care? He is asking for help arranging travel, not help with financial issues.

You are being completely unrealistic. It doesn't matter how old you are, no one is born with this knowledge. That's the purpose of this website, to ask questions and get information. If you didn't want to help, then why post?

Looking back, perhaps my post was a little overboard. I really have nothing against the OP or against asking questions (I do so myself too). I just felt that the OPs posts were scattered all over the place. A little structure to his thought process would help him get better responses. Right now, people are just telling him whatever comes to their mind- like where to fly to, when to rent a car, etc. He's getting all kinds of scattered information which is probably just going to confuse him even more.

Again, I'd like to help. But the OP seems confused and I don't think the responses he's getting are really helpful. A little background research before asking more questions, I feel, would greatly help him get more useful feedback.

If you think my comments are not helping the OP's cause, just let me know. No offense will be taken; I will just shut up for the rest of the thread.