How Much Does Travel Cost?

[Espadaleader]

Hello, I'm wondering how much did current interviewees pay for travel expenses this year. Bus, plane, train, hotels etc.

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[LifeTake2]

Hello, I'm wondering how much did current interviewees pay for travel expenses this year. Bus, plane, train, hotels etc.

I'm not interviewing yet; but without more information it is impossible to get a feel as it is going to be unique to each candidate. However, I used to travel for business frequently so I'll help with you with some rough ideas of cost.

Your profile says Buffalo; if that is correct I'm assuming anything in-state should be fairly cheap travel and you can guess.

If you interview East-coast mainly you are looking $2-400 for airfare + $75 for a decent hotel + $30 food (eating cheap) + $50-75 for a car & gas (if needed) = $300-600

If you go to the midwest then airfare is gonna jump up a hundred or two and West Coast may be as much as $600-800 for the plane alone. The other costs won't change much from region to region.

5 Interviews spread over the country could set you back $3000+, but get only 2 and both in-state and you could get off for less than $500.

If you know where you applied, and where you think you will get interviews you can estimate your costs.

 

[Ursa]

Seriously?

www.expedia.com
www.travelocity.com
www.priceline.com
www.hotwire.com
www.kayak.com
www.cheaptickets.com
www.orbitz.com
www.greyhound.com
www.trailways.com
www.amtrak.com
www.hotels.com
www.tripadvisor.com
www.independenttraveler.com
www.usa-by-rail.com
www.usatourist.com

 

[Lccjblu]

yeah.. i dont know how you expect people to answer this.

But id say I spend an average of 400 per trip including hotel and transportation.

 

[Avoidthetiger]

10 interviews for a total just of $1630.
This includes the cost of airfare, bus, train, car rental, gas, tolls, hotel, and student host fees. The break down is on my MDapps profile(<---). None of my interviews where in the state I live in. I didn't include cost of taxis, public transportation, and food (atleast another $100 on taxis/public transportation, and another $1-200 or so on food).

The way I saved on costs were staying with student hosts when available or family/friends. Lots of couches, but it keeps the prices down. Also -- always be on the look out for cheaper fares/options of travel. Also I scheduled most of my interviews one after another (either T/F or F/M) to cut down on costs.

 

[BigEast55]

I've had 11 interviews thus far and have been invited on 1 more thus far:

From the East Coast, but not a big city:
Two schools in NY I was able to drive to and needed no hotel
$70 to Virginia Tech but I drove because it was still summer
$60 to Case Western because I drove
$474 to Baylor
$200 to BU
$375 to Duke (and my flight got canceled on the way back agh it was awful, but the airline took care of everything, but it was worth it because Duke was so amazing and fantastic and I really hope I get in)
$550 for NYU and NYMC combined, I spent 2 nights in a hotel in Manhattan
$120 to SUNY-Downstate (flew there and back in a day)
$180 to Stony Brook (flew there and back in a day)
$330 for Tufts-Maine Track (flying to Portland, ME rather than Boston)

A total of $2,400 and that doesn't include food and airport transfers and things like that. Nor have I had to fly cross country, if you were from CA and had to make several trips to the east coast I can imagine that would add up really really quickly.

 

[takk]

I went on 11 interviews on the eastern half on the US (check MDApps for details) and I'd say I spent between $800-950 on travel. This is probably on the low end of travel costs, because (A) I always stayed with student hosts, never in a hotel (B) I was able to drive to three of my interviews and another was at my undergrad and (C) my dad has a ton of frequent flier miles so we only actually paid for half of the flights I took...

 

[Onres]

I live in SC, and I applied to mostly private schools up north, and my state schools. I interviewed at 2 in the northeast, and it was quite expensive. For those two trips (Yale and Dartmouth) I spent $1200 for flights, hotels, rental car.... I'm interviewing at Vanderbilt next month and that's going to be around $800, but my wife is going with me on that one, so obviously it would be much cheaper if it was just me. I drove to my state interview so I didn't spend money on that.

I've only been invited for 5 interviews, so I imagine if you're a highly desired applicant and go on like 10+ interviews, you'll be a lot of money. A safe estimate would be at least $3000, I would say more than that, but it depends on where you live and all that...

 

[HumbleMD]

I went on about a dozen interviews, and I usually quote people that my soup to nuts cost of med school application was roughly $2K.

 

[wanderer]

Counting it all up got depressing, but even the short trips can be expensive. For example NYC to Philly only takes 2 hours but the tolls can be ~20 and the gas would cost another 20 or so and the parking would be around 10. Flying out to the midwest cost about 400-500 a trip.

To cut costs, the most obvious thing is staying at student hosts. I never did that but the next best things are to look for hotels with free airport shuttles, and free breakfast. Sometimes the hotels themselves don't have shuttles but there is a shuttle service that will take you from the airport to the hotel or the school for less than half the price of cabs. I also tried to drive as much as possible (about 7 hours driving was my limit), but some of the Chinese buses are much cheaper than driving, though they may be somewhat risky to take.

Also sometimes flying to a more distant airport and renting a car ends up being cheaper than flying into the local airport.

 

[Asyouwereatrio]

10 interviews for a total just of $1630.
This includes the cost of airfare, bus, train, car rental, gas, tolls, hotel, and student host fees. The break down is on my MDapps profile(<---). None of my interviews where in the state I live in. I didn't include cost of taxis, public transportation, and food (atleast another $100 on taxis/public transportation, and another $1-200 or so on food).

The way I saved on costs were staying with student hosts when available or family/friends. Lots of couches, but it keeps the prices down. Also -- always be on the look out for cheaper fares/options of travel. Also I scheduled most of my interviews one after another (either T/F or F/M) to cut down on costs.

Holy moly that's a very good deal...about 160 per interview. That's less than half of one of my flights lol.

Just to help out the OP:

I was fortunate enough to have 5 interviews as of now with 2 in NYC at one time, 2 in Chicago, and the last one again in NYC 3 weeks after the first one.

2 Schools in NYC--3 day period:
Airfare from CA: Approximately 280-300
Ground Transportation: 15 for a private bus, 100 for car service b/w schools, 35 for a taxi to the airport.
Food and misc: about 15-20/day x 3-4 days.
Total: 500-600 bucks.

2 SChools in Chicago--5 day period:
Airfare: 300
Ground Transportation: 2.50 for subway to downtown hotel, 6 for commuter train, 40 for taxi to airport.
Hotel: 400 for 4 nights in total (3 nights at 100 each + 50 at another hotel near the other school)
Food/misc: 20-30/day + tour of the city (30 bucks)
Total: approximately 1000

1 School in NYC--1 night:
Airfare: 300
Ground Transport: 12 bucks for train round trip, 30 for airport ground transport to train station
Food/Misc: 20 bucks
Total: 380

Sum total: about 2K.

I've still got one more interview to go to in Montreal, CA. That's going to be a kicker since airfare is 680 round trip. Thankfully I have people to stay with...lol.

If you look at my numbers, a HUGE chunk of it is airfare + hotel. If you can stay with a student host, it'll save you hundreds easily. You can also cut here and there by eating out less (that's pretty hard to do IMO) and possibly not treating your trip like a vacation, which I did.

Moral of the story: Cut costs wherever you can by using cheap, public transportation...and staying with a student host. I would say for a Cali applicant, it'll be approximately 500 per interview (interview costs only--airfare will be about 300 and 200 in either hotel/transportation costs/food).

 

[Avoidthetiger]

Moral of the story: Cut costs wherever you can by using cheap, public transportation...and staying with a student host. I would say for a Cali applicant, it'll be approximately 500 per interview (interview costs only--airfare will be about 300 and 200 in either hotel/transportation costs/food).

Yeah, I have been blessed to be living in a middle state with easy access to southwest/continental/megabus. I also love hunting for the cheapest options.

congrats on your upcoming McGill interview!