College tours: Making the most of campus trips with high-schoolers

In a 30-mile stretch of the San Diego freeway, my 16-year-old son and I passed three major traffic accidents — including one that left a school bus dangerously close to rolling down a hilly median onto Interstate 405.

That's when I thought to myself: This college touring stuff is not for the faint of heart.

We logged 400 miles on jampacked Southern California freeways to visit four universities in four days. We took two student-led tours (at UCLA and UC San Diego) and two self-guided tours (University of Southern California and UC Santa Barbara), ate a lot of fast food and spent more money than I care to relate.