Ivy League Tour 2025

Depart for home from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport

Recommended departure time on DAY 7 is in the morning or afternoon. Tours staff will provide transportation to the airport. 

These terms refer to hotel room occupancy. All aspects of the tour are the exact same for each attendee, so we base the tour price on the attendee's hotel room preference. If you select QUAD, you reserve ONE SPOT for yourself in a hotel room with 3 other people. The hotel room will have two beds, with two people sharing each bed and 4 people sharing the room in total. If you select TWIN, you reserve ONE SPOT for yourself in a hotel room with 1 other person. The hotel room will have two beds, with one person in each bed and 2 people in the room in total. If you select SINGLE, you are reserving an entire hotel room for yourself. All tour pricing is per person.

Yes! To attend the Ivy League University Tour, each attendee (parent, relative, or guest included) must purchase a tour by filling out an enrollment form individually with their personal information. Parents are allowed to accompany their students on this tour, and they would participate in all aspects of the tour just as every other member does. Tour prices are per person, not per member. 

Each attendee (parents, relatives, and guests included) must complete their own enrollment form to attend the tour. Please note tour prices are per person regardless of group size. Adults can only be placed in a room with students they are attending the tour with. If a parent and a student would like to attend the tour and room together, the student would fill out an enrollment form and select TWIN. The parent would fill out their own enrollment form (with their information as both the traveler and emergency contact) and select TWIN. If the student does not want to room with their parent and would like to be paired with other students attending the tour, the parent must select SINGLE, and then the student can select any rooming option. For a group of 4 attending the tour (any combination of parents, students, siblings, or guests), ALL attendees would fill out their own individual enrollment form with their personal information, and ALL select QUAD.

No! As an NSHSS member benefit, members and their relatives can use the NSHSS member tour pricing. Please note that tour prices are per person. Non-member pricing is reserved for students unaffiliated with NSHSS who would like to attend the tour. If a member is planning on bringing a high school student-aged guest who is not an NSHSS member, then Non-Member pricing would apply, but they are welcome to apply for NSHSS Membership to reduce this fee!

Each attendee is responsible for their own transportation arrangements. NSHSS does not assist with airfare, and flights are not included in this tour price. With NSHSS members all over the country, it would be too difficult to facilitate flights for every member coming from different airports at different times. Some members are also within driving distance and don't need flights, so we are able to offer a lower price for everyone without flights included.

The package includes hotel accommodations for the week, charter bus transportation, breakfasts and dinners, guided tours and activities, a full-time tour director, an NSHSS backpack filled with NSHSS tour essentials(water bottle, notebook, etc.), overnight security, illness and accident coverage, and all gratuities.

Due to this being a traveling tour with certain days spent on the road for a good bit of the time, some university stops will be longer than others. Each campus visit differs depending on schedule constraints and the university's restrictions. Generally, the first university stop of the day will be longer than the second to allow for free time for students to eat lunch on campus. We do our best to secure a guided private group tour of each university, but occasionally, a school will not allow for group tours and only offer self-guided or public tours instead. Each campus visit will include a stop at the university bookstore.

This a traveling tour with a very tight schedule. We are fitting nine university stops into five days while traveling across nine states, so much time will be spent on the road. We will be doing A LOT of walking – anywhere from 10,000-20,000 steps and at least 5 miles PER DAY. We will be outside a lot, and it will most likely be hot since it is summer. When we are at a tour stop, there is no option to wait at the hotel or on the bus, so please keep this in mind when inviting relatives or grandparents with mobility issues to attend. Students are encouraged to pack comfortable clothes and shoes, sunglasses, hats, sunscreen, portable fans, and some snacks to keep with them during the day or at night in their hotel rooms. We will make a grocery store run to let attendees stock up on snacks for the week if needed, and the hotels will also have snacks for purchase and a fridge in every room. When we leave the hotel in the morning, we will not return until the day's end. The days will be very long, but the experience will be worth it!!

NSHSS will provide a welcome dinner reception upon attendees' arrival in Boston on Day 1. On each full tour day, breakfast and dinner will be provided. For most lunches, tour participants will be taken to a popular area and given free time to eat lunch with other attendees at an eatery of their choosing. Due to time constraints, one day where we will stop at a grocery store to pick up a grab-n-go lunch to eat on the bus, and another when we will eat at a university dining hall. Be sure to plan to pay for your lunches; costs vary in every city and eatery, but around $15 is good to have on hand daily. This is always a great opportunity for students to make friends with other participants, shop for souvenirs, and have some freedom to explore the campus a little. On departure day, attendees can enjoy breakfast at the hotel before arriving at the airport. 

The NSHSS Ivy League University Tour is only sold as an all-inclusive tour package, so, unfortunately, we cannot remove the hotel's cost from the tour price as that is a large part of the package. Keeping all tour participants at the same hotel makes it easier to keep everyone accounted for overnight so we don't run into logistical issues in transportation to and from the hotel and daily activities. This is also a traveling tour, so attendees are often staying at a new hotel each night. The package, however, does not include airfare as members are flying in from all over the country, so that's great you are so close and won't have to worry about purchasing travel arrangements!

Upon arrival in Boston, tour staff will meet attendees at the airport baggage claim. Students will be assigned groups based on similar arrival times and taken to the charter bus to drop off their luggage and then head into downtown Boston. Early arrivals will have some free time to explore the Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market area with the tour director while the bus goes back and forth from the airport to pick up the next group of students. Tours staff will be stationed at both the airport and with the group downtown. All arrivals by car are encouraged to drop off at the Boston airport for easier access to load onto the bus. We will not be checking into the hotel until after dinner on day one.

As NSHSS tours are entirely optional to our members, we currently do not have any financial assistance programs for our tours at this time. However, payment arrangements are very flexible to allow participants to create their own payment plan and pay the tour fee in increments of their choosing at any time and as many times as they would like up until the final due date. Please be sure to check out our NSHSS Scholarships page for multiple scholarship opportunities, where many of the scholarships are open to both high school and college students. Keep an eye out as new scholarships are always being added!