@mommdc DD has never been outside New England and is reluctant to leave. She liked the class sizes and professor involvement at UNH Manchester but they do not have a major she is interested in, because she is looking to major in a language or IR/related field with a language minor, and the UNH campus in Manchester was much more limited in degree programs. We asked if it was possible to live at UNH Durham and take some classes at Manchester, and it is, but there’s no transportation between campuses and she will not have a car. The other issue is that the Manchester campus does not have dorms, and she is looking for a residential college. So we did rule out UNH Manchester.
Just an observation, but should your daughter really be majoring in IR or a foreign language if she really doesn’t want to leave home? Those majors likely require relocation outside of New Hampshire permanently.
@roycroftmom These are ongoing conversations in our home. DD speaks 3 languages fluently and is conversational in another, so it is a very significant interest of hers and our home is bilingual. She has been to French-speaking Canada, so I suppose “never been out of New England” is not entirely true, but Canada is closer to us than, say, New York so I just tend to think of it that way :). She is not opposed to never leaving New Hampshire, but is not eager to be extremely far from home at this point. She is very close with her twin and high school has been rough on them, with both having undiagnosed learning disabilities for half of high school which was interpreted by some of their teachers as them being stupid or lazy, so I don’t blame her for being a little gun-shy with college. Our aim is to find a place that we can afford where she can explore as opposed to barely keeping afloat like her pre-diagnosis high school experience has been. I appreciate all the suggestions and support.
Does this help at all?
http://www.nebhe.org/programs-overview/rsp-tuition-break/overview/
As thumper1 mentioned, Castleton might be an option. They do have scholarships that she might qualify for and potentially in state tuition. Though the overall price tag still seems above budget with $38k price before any aid. We’ve visited and it is a nice sized small university:
@happymomof1 Thank you for this. DD loves her guidance counselor, one of the few staff at the school who has stuck by her through a difficult year, and DH didn’t go to college so he considers the counselor “the college expert” and doesn’t want to challenge her advice. But every time DD has a meeting with her, she comes home talking about schools I know there is no way we can afford. We’ve been up front about that but sounds like it’s time for a reminder. I may use that script!
I live in the south, and an affordable option kids have been attending is Mississipi State. Based on the stats of a 27 ACT and 3.0 i believe the scholorship would be 12500 and with out of atate tuition being 21k it would come down to $8500.
Again, the New England tuition break program is very dependent on your major not being offered in-state. D1 had the problem that our flagship didn’t offer hers- but neither did others in NE. Close, but not close enough. And our flagship didn’t cut it for other reasons.
"New Hampshire residents are eligible for
degree programs that are not offered by New
Hampshire’s public colleges or universities,
and are offered through Tuition Break by
public colleges and universities in the other
five New England states.
Other ways to be eligible
Some colleges allow proximity eligibility – for
students who live closer to an out-of-state
college. Some community colleges allow
eligibility for most or all of their programs."
Thing is, though: does she actually have to major in IR? A chunk of college is distribution requirements or gen eds. Couldn’t she major in, say, history, and take IR classes in addition?
I second the U of Maine schools as an option- Farmington especially could be a fantastic fit
What languages? Does she really want to major in those or simply be able to continue in classes?
Have you run NPCs at any private colleges? I’d try a few just to see what they show.
@lookingforward the twins grew up speaking both English and Portuguese at home. DD began learning Spanish and French in elementary school. She finished the French offerings at school last year and will finish Spanish this year as there are no AP courses in languages offered. She’s been privately tutored in Arabic for 4 years and plans to keep going with it this year. She is not set on majoring in a language or specifically in IR, but wants a curriculum and later a career that uses language skills, and she has expressed a desire to continue with Arabic and possibly begin a new language in college. I think any major included in the broader “social studies” could suit her. She is undecided at this point but this is where her interests and strengths lie.
@lr4550 @thumper1 We will definitely have another look at the UMaine schools, and see if Castleton is a possibility. Thanks for the suggestions!
UMass Amherst? Arabic was tough to find, when it was one of D2’s criteria. Many reachable colleges only offer 2 years, A1 and A2, which start from the beginning.
*Sorry, I now see this is past your $.
I think you are going to have to make a list and decide what is more important to her and rank them. So far you have budget of $10k, to live in the dorms, small classes, specific majors, not a big campus, in NE. Which are the most important?
My daughter also wanted a smaller campus, but that was the first to go, and she’s very happy now that she’s at a bigger school (and I have to admit that I always thought a bigger school would be better because there are more choices). One problem with smaller schools, especially with a major like a foreign language, is that there might not be a critical mass of students wanting that major or classes, so they offer ONE French 201 class, or only offer French 301 in the fall. If you get off sequence, it’s an issue. If you want to change majors (my daughter is on major #3), it’s an issue. Big classes are not as bad as everyone thinks they are. There is usually a big lecture and then some smaller discussion groups or labs. The professors really do have time for all the students in the classes, have TAs to help, do have enough resources in the library or a big enough language lab for the class. My other daughter is in engineering, goes to a STEM school, but she’s in the smallest department. Once she completed the classes all engineers take (calc other math, basic physics and chem) there is usually only one section of the course she needs. She really wanted to take the cement canoe class but it is only offered in the spring and she can’t do it because of her sport. It’s hard to make her schedule work.
Your daughter is a good student, but not going to get a lot of big merit scholarships unless she’s willing to leave the area, willing to go to schools that don’t meet her exact criteria. She can’t be Goldilocks, looking for everything to be a perfect fit. I have a few friends with kids on the autism spectrum, and they actually do better at big schools as long as other things are comfortable - not too many changes in routine like live at home or near home, some medical providers the same, some friends the same. The class size or campus size doesn’t seem to be the thing that determines success.
Good luck. I’m sure you can find some good things about UNH as thousands of other students do.
@lookingforward I think Arabic classes will not be a dealbreaker for her, especially because we were able to find a workaround for her to learn it, even in our small town. Online resources for language learning are also getting better all the time. I did use Arabic classes as leverage to try to keep UNH in the game because they do offer it at multiple levels, but no dice!
Do you mean like these for reading practice?
https://news.google.com/news?ned=ar_me
https://news.google.com/news?ned=ar_lb
https://news.google.com/news?ned=ar_sa
https://news.google.com/news?ned=ar_ae
https://news.google.com/news?ned=ar_eg
Given your daughter’s interest in Arabic, she should check out these programs hosted by the US State Dept - fully funded merit scholarships.
http://www.nsliforyouth.org/ high school and gap year students
http://www.clscholarship.org/ college students
Arabic is going to have to come off the table. Although it is getting more popular, it is still not taught everywhere, and only at a very high level at a limited number of schools, none of which will work for you.
Your budget is going to limit there options. I’d present them with the affordable options, and let them decide which they prefer. They’ll need to just make it work.
Check out SUNY schools. NYS actually gives $$ to out of state students. As a NYS taxpayer I can’t imagine why we do this. It will be less expensive for my NYS kid to go to school out of state!!! NH is tough - you don’t have many state schools.