“What are the top 5 criteria for choosing a college?” My name is Harvey Rubin. I am a college advisor. I spend much of every summer traveling the country to give my 8-minute speech to academic basketball players hoping to Earn A College Uniform at camps with college coaches watching them play. I took my son, a rising Junior, with me last year. He played at camps, and we visited college campuses in the area – and sometimes well beyond the area. The family spring and summer vacations had visits to additional colleges in the areas we did not see at the camps. One hundred colleges visited, and at the end of the summer, we had perhaps not quite a dozen we should see again later. The proper and honest answer to the ubiquitous question “How was your vacation?” frequently heard as school restarts and I return to work in the office: “Wonderful. I spent a lot of time with my son while we took five flights, drove 8000+ miles, and had too many early alarms ring. But I found some time to see more of the best colleges and universities in the country and more, spending unforgettable time with my son, so PRICELESS. I think everyone should drive through the cornfields of Iowa and get to Dyersville the same way Yellowstone National Park calls you to have a friendly chat with bison and elk – this was a part of a family vacation years before. Seeing everything in Florida EXCEPT Disney and Universal is unusual, for sure. But dinner at The News Café and showing our kids where we got married in South Beach, walking Ocean Drive, and taking note of The Bird Cage – daring not to go in, of course – was similarly priceless. What’s it like spending most of the summer in a car or small hotel room with a 16-year-old intending on majoring in Arguing (he is truly gifted at it; it is his calling, I am sure)? Surprisingly wonderful. All I had to do was keep him well-fed and allow him to rebut just about everything that came over the talk radio available only everywhere other than where we live in Connecticut in what is commonly referred to as Metro NYC. Indeed, a sheltered perspective of American life is available at home. Seeing a lot of the rest of the country was refreshing for me and enlightening for Thibaud, and seeing California, with the ocean on the other side! Houses hanging from cliffs was eye-opening. Farmland for miles and miles in the heartland followed by different crops, but so much more of the same in the deep south is remarkably diverse from the streets and sprawl of Metro NYC. I did not hear a single complaint the entire summer, so I consider myself blessed. We played just enough golf and watched a remarkable theater-camp performance. And, of course, we enjoyed our beloved food haunts at home and on the road, finding many new ones to love. No matter where we find ourselves, it is all about the food!