What program?
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I’ll add my daughter’s look back. She decided to go to a state school two states away that gave her a fantastic merit scholarship. Senior year of high school she attended our state flagship full time (true dual enrollment where she was attending physically at the U with all other college students). For this post will call the flagship where she did PSEO “the U.”
She is really happy her first year away at college. She is a mathematics major (actuarial science emphasis). She is in honors program at at state school. They gave her accelerated honors because of all her PSEO and AP credits, which is nice and she can start her capstone type project earlier and gets less requirements in terms of honors classes to graduate honors. After this semester she will be a junior credit-wise. They gave her credit for all her classes and her only frustration was that she has to take their freshman level writing course–got turned down for meeting that requirement through one of her classes from PSEO.
She added a risk management/business minor. She finished through calculus 3 her senior year of high school at the U. At her new school, she says her math classes are just as hard. They are all taught and graded by professors not TAs which she likes. At the the U the TAs had seemed very distracted with their own graduate programs and slow to grade everything. At her new school professors are approachable. She is a kid who takes advantage of office hours and the tutoring center.
At the U there was a separate tutoring center for URM and first gen which she didn’t have access to so I can’t speak to that, but compared to regular tutoring at the U, her new school has worked out better for her as a resource. There are several math grad students that work there and have been able to help when she needs it.
She belongs to
multiple
student organizations now (math, risk management, dance, one for recipients of her scholarship, and fashion one for fun). She is in the Orchestra, only one orchestra at this school center and they are really good. Challenging for her since she is not a music major (and there are some higher level musicians in her section) but she really enjoys it being part of it. Through her scholarship she had the opportunity to have dinner at the President of University’s house which was a fun opportunity.
In general she feels much less “like a number” than she did at the U and is being academically challenged. For instance she is in a 5xxx level statistics course as a freshman. Her other math class this semester only has 7 kids in it.
She has made great friends. She is enjoying the town the school is in.
Negatives- there aren’t convenient flights and 10 hours is a long drive. No direct flights
home. We really miss each other and I am jealous of parents who can go and take their kids to lunch on a random Saturday etc.
She is meeting kids from a part of the country she would not otherwise have met. She is finding more diversity there than she thought she would.
She hates the food service food and is spending $60 to $80 a week at Target on groceries etc.
All the kids in the dorm get sick - a lot. That was unexpected and difficult at times. Word of advice, send an air filter - that has helped some I think.
She is enjoying the relatively milder winters there.
She is planning to do a semester abroad, probably spring semester next year.
All that stress around applications and essays and scholarship applications and school visits is a fuzzy memory in the rear view mirror now.
To sum it up, your kid will probably thrive where they land. There are lots of ways to get a great education.
Best wishes on your families’ journeys!!
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He is pursuing a PhD in Physics. He was accepted into 6 programs, all funded with tuition and a stipend for being a TA/ Research Assistant. - I would rather not say where he landed as it’s a small program and it would be very easy to identify who is he based on his background from Union. But his fellow Physics students at Union did equally as well!
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Thanks for posting your story. Can other parents also post their kid’s final choices and how are they liking there. That will really help in decisions for 2023 students.
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Perhaps starting a new thread and then sharing it with the Parents of the HS Class of 2022 might get more responses?
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Thanks for sharing though. Not sure how they come up with the rankings, oregon st is considered a top school at my work and several alumni work here.
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Where do you work? Do you work in Oregon State ?
tech company in bay area
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Thanks for your sharing! My son just started his new adventure at OSU (fall 2023). He was also accepted to few more same ranking schools at California. After visited most of the campuses, he picked OSU. He said it is the most beautiful one and it let him switch major easier than other campuses. Also it is not too far away from home in case of emergency (we are living in California). School has just started one week , he said the professors are very nice and he already joined 2 clubs. I believe he picked the right school for himself!
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Go Beavs!! 
I hope he likes it as much as my D22! She definitely had some “missing home” moments the first half of the first year, but threw herself into activities and now Corvallis IS home.
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