OP, I would insist he visit and be an adult about it and give it a fair shake. Your goal is to give him information; now is the time to get it. Be frank about finances; let him know that there is only so much $ to go around. Ultimately it will be his (or largely his) choice where he goes to school, but part of that choice needs to be facing financial realities, and then living with whatever choices he makes. And an actual visit can completely reverse your preconceived notions of a school; back in the day I was bound and determined I was going to UDel, and that was it. I too did not want to bother thinking too hard about college: I knew I did not want to go to UMD College Park (because back then, almost nobody in-state did if they had a choice … yuck!), and UDel was away but not too far away, so perfect! Decision made. My dad insisted we visit Virginia Tech the summer before my senior year. I moaned and groaned because why would I want to go to such a geeky school that had “Polytechnic” in the name and was in the middle of absolutely nowhere, but I went … and by the time the visit was over, my view of the world had completely changed, and VT was my # 1 choice.
We are visiting UA, Auburn, UAHuntsville, and Mississippi State during my junior DD’s spring break at the end of March. She is very meh about college right now … she definitely wants to go, and has big things she wants to do when she gets there, but doesn’t want to deal with thinking about it now, and has said she is not looking forward to jumping through the application hoops to get there. She’s very pragmatic about it, “I’ll go wherever gives me the most $.” We’re pushing back a little on that, because we also know that no amount of $ really makes up for a very bad college fit. So, we’re insisting she visit a variety of schools; we’re doing the most far-flung ones on spring break, and we’ll fill in with more local schools via day trips. She’s not fighting the spring break road trip, but she’s not looking forward to it either. Whatever … our goal is to get her on campus and getting a feel for different schools; maybe that will get the ball rolling, and if not, at least when it comes time to apply and then decide, she’ll have some basis besides just $ for the decision. Besides these, she’s visited UMCP (which has completely turned around and aside from the negative of being in College Park, is a really great school) already and has said, “I don’t love it, but yeah, I could be happy here.” We’ll also do UMBC, UDel, and Bucknell. She already knows she likes Virginia Tech (DS goes there), but not much $ likely there; she’ll apply anyway, because, who knows?
You mentioned that he would like to earn his associate’s degree at the local community college by the time he finishes high school. I would make sure that this does not result in his reclassification as a non-freshman. If that were to happen, then the scholarship might be off the table.
I am not personally familiar with dual degree programs and their limits, so perhaps I am way off base. But I have seen mention on this site of students having too many CC credits and having lost eligibility for financial awards for incoming freshman. Better safe than sorry!
Back in Jan 2015 when we started looking at possible universities for our son he quickly focused in on Cal Poly SLO as his top choice. UCLA, UCSB and the others just never quite clicked. We live in California and his high school counselor advised us to look at in state because out of state would be too expensive.
Luckily while we all loved CalPoly our son is at least realistic about money and agreed to ‘consider’ possible alternatives if we could identify cheaper options than the $30K per year at SLO. While the bar was set pretty high we hit US news rankings for Mechanical Engineering schools and came up with 8 out of state options that offered Merit scholarships, a couple being in that far away state of Alabama. The Presidential award at Bama was enough to at least justify the plane ride especially as we could visit Huntsville at the same time which was offering pretty close to a full ride.
Jumping forward a year it was a couple of days ago when our son received confirmation of his admission to Cal Poly SLO. The last of the 10 colleges that he actually applied to and luckily his tenth acceptance. There was no particular celebration however as his no 1 choice had been replaced many months earlier. The school and the Engineering college of his new first choice were great but it was the Campus and the friendliness of the people that really made the difference. In August our son will be moving to Tuscaloosa as a freshman at the University of Alabama studying Mechanical Engineering in the Honors college.
He is excited, we are thrilled and to all those who are skeptical about Bama holding its own in the big league, I can only say plan a visit. After two days in Tuscaloosa, the decision for us was amazingly simple.
As long as the college credits are being earned while STILL in high school, the student doesnt lose "incoming frosh status, even if he/she will have junior standing when he/she arrives on campus
@Britchick1, that’s a great story. Thanks for sharing.
There are a lot of California families sending their kids to UA. If you want me to try to put you in touch with any of them, I’d be happy to. Just shoot me a PM.
Britchick1: "The school and the Engineering college of his new first choice were great but it was the Campus and the friendliness of the people that really made the difference. In August our son will be moving to Tuscaloosa as a freshman at the University of Alabama studying Mechanical Engineering in the Honors college.
He is excited, we are thrilled and to all those who are skeptical about Bama holding its own in the big league, I can only say plan a visit. After two days in Tuscaloosa, the decision for us was amazingly simple."
I haven’t logged on in a few weeks. thank you everyone for your feedback.
we just found out that the full tuition automatic scholarship from Alabama and Ole Miss, also covers the full cost (tuition, room & board, meal plan) for the Ole Miss Summer College for High School. so now I think the plan is to go to Ole Miss this summer, then stop by Alabama on the way home. this gives him a chance to check out both schools offering this scholarship.
I mean, I’m not going to put my foot down and insist he goes to either Alabama or Ole Miss, but at the same time, I want him to understand that if someone offers you $100K+, at the very least you thank them and investigate what they have to offer. I believe if he does this he will be pleasantly surprised and have his eyes opened a little bit.