<p>Tiki, congratulations to you, too. It sounds as if you’re a very loving parent with a really nice kid. With his great attitude, it seems as if he’ll be able to navigate his way through life–and UMass–just fine. I’m glad for both of you that the roller coaster ride is over, for now anyway. I know a lot of kids (ahem, like mine) go through a lot of anxiety and second guessing between May 1st and the day college starts for real, but if they can get through that, they can get through anything. </p>
<p>And heck, UMass was good enough for Richard Gere, Natalie Cole, Bill Cosby, Bill Pullman, Rob Corddry, Paul Theroux, Julius Erving, Jack Welch, and a whole lot of other famous folks (thank you Wikipedia), so he’s in good company!
<p>For anyone thinking about attending Salve Regina ~ Salve is a fabulous school ! Best choice my daughter ever made. Got into Umass, Providence, and many more great schools. Smaller school great staff etc…</p>
<p>My daughter will be a senior at Providence this fall. She has a fabulous internship this summer and the networking couldn’t be better. Many of her friends remained in Rhode Island this summer working at internships found through the school.</p>
<p>Just read through this thread (as it is, in a way, ‘close to home’), and I was struck, as I often am, at how the options we are ‘forced to accept’ are often the best ones anyway. </p>
<p>UMass has so much to offer on a level that no unjustifiably expensive, holdover debutante school of yore or feel-good, Big East Private school with a sometimes decent basketball program (and trust me, I have a deep and personal affinity for eastern Franciscan schools) can ever match. Yes, the first year and a half are daunting and have all those ‘bogeymen’ Loren Pope unnecessarily terrorized the parents of College bound seniors with in his two useful but overstated polemics (Large classes, TA’s–who are often the most motivated teachers btw—a sometimes Byzantine bureaucracy). But, for those who allow themselves to mature and find their way in a big pond, they find as they float to the top, the benefits of an excellent research university with copious options socially, academically and professionally in a great, progressive and lovely part of the country. And they get this at half the cost. </p>
<p>The number of students who I have talked to over the years who came to UMass under similar circumstances, only to find after a few years that they made the best decision (even if unwillingly, or just economically) after all is staggering.</p>
<p>Just some thoughts as I draft a few syllabi…</p>