<p>School's on my daughter's list so far: Stonehill, Quinnipiac, URI, UConn, Roger Williams, Clark, Assumption - tho I really don't know how good their Comm. majors are.</p>
<p>Suggestions appreciated. Thank you.</p>
<p>Oh, BTW: SATS 600/680/750 (R/M/W). Not sure of GPA, but all honors and AP classes and even mix of As and Bs. Top 10% of class most likely (we’ll find out this fall). Varsity tennis and track, executive committee, student senate, Italian Club, Nat’l Honor Society officer, Providence College book award this past May.</p>
<p>bump…</p>
<p>Emerson? BU?</p>
<p>If she’s willing to go to NY - Syracuse</p>
<p>Definitely Emerson.</p>
<p>Lots of safeties on that list, Sandman62. You might want to aim a little higher.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies so far. Emerson and BU don’t fit because she really wants the whole “campus cocoon” feeling of a private campus. </p>
<p>I think we tend to gravitate towards some of these safeties because we feel there’s a stronger chance of her getting some merit aid. We really have no plans to spend $200k on her education. For instance, I spoke w/ an Admissions officer at BC and he flat out told me that w/ our income/assets, BC would probably only offer loans. That means, we’d essentially be footing the entire bill.</p>
<p>MommaJ, can you suggest any other non-safeties that wouldn’t be such a financial reach? Thank you.</p>
<p>bump…</p>
<p>Ah, I see your issue. Well, I can only speak from experience. My D received a $20,000/yr. merit award from American University with stats just a bit higher than your daughter’s. They have a strong Communications major and a traditional, suburban-style campus at the edge of DC. I’m not suggesting you reach to the point that merit awards are out of the question, just that you check to see what can be managed at the next higher level of schools. In looking for merit aid, I think the goal is to be in at least the top 25% of applicants, but my guess (and it’s only a guess) is that your daughter would be in the top 10% or even 5% when it comes to some of the schools you’ve named. I also wonder if UConn and URI offer merit money to out-of-staters. (She must be out of state for one of them!)</p>
<p>Thanks MommaJ. I’ll look at collegeboard again. One of our saved searches is for “Close to home”, and has about 100 schools in it. I thought Stonehill and Quinnipiac were pretty good fits for her. A friend of hers (graduated this year) only got $13k from Quinn., and her stats were about the same as my daughter’s - and she was ranked 4th too.</p>
<p>We live in RI, so that’s our state school. UConn’s merit aid didn’t SAY anything about not offering to OOS, but maybe they don’t? One of their schollys was for half tuition, and my D’s stats seemed close to that.</p>
<p>At the risk of sounding like a nitpicking perfectionist (ok, I suppose my wife and I are ;))… We’ve exhausted the 100 or so shools in our collegeboard search of RI/MA/CT. With my D wanting a traditional private campus setting and wanting to major in PR (and perhaps minor in Marketing or Graphic Design), and my wife and I still wanting a good shot at some merit aid, we’re quite frustrated to find that only RWU, URI and Quinnipiac seem to fit. :(</p>
<p>Most of the schools were omitted for not having a PR major or even a Comm. major that looked like it could morph into something more PR-related. Even Stonehill’s Comm. program doesn’t seem so great, w/ no PR courses and no Journalism (or Advertising, etc.). Other reasons: lack of desired minors, not wanting a very large school (i.e. UConn, UMass), no merit aid (BC, Conn. College), tiny campuses (i.e. Emmanuel, Sacred Heart) . Some other schools (i.e. U of Hartford, U of New Haven) just don’t seem any better than URI (i.e. similar SATs, major offerings), yet we’d have to pay OOS tuition (unless supplemented w/ merit $). </p>
<p>Greatly appreciate any other suggestions. Thank you.</p>
<p>I second the Syracuse suggestion!</p>
<p>Thanks for the offer jota, but she wants to stay in RI, CT or MA. Syracuse is 5+ hrs. away and she wants to be within 2.</p>
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<p>There actually is a journalism minor at Stonehill, check the bottom of this page for the minor course requirements - [Major/Minor</a> Requirements - Stonehill College](<a href=“http://www.stonehill.edu/x7501.xml]Major/Minor”>http://www.stonehill.edu/x7501.xml) and there are a couple of PR courses (Public Relations I: Principles and Public Relations II: Practices) offered every semester.</p>
<p>Thanks skyhawk. I think I had seen that Journ. minor on Stonehill’s site before, but when I posted, I must’ve forgotten about it? My bad. </p>
<p>Are you a student or admin at Stonehill? I’m curious if you can create your own minor, maybe by combining some marketing and journalism courses? I only see a Bus. minor, but not a specific marketing one. And the Bus. one requires the usual Accounting, Econ, Mgmt, etc. courses.</p>
<p>I’m a student. (rising sophomore)</p>
<p>I’m not sure if you can create your own minor. You can create your own multidisciplinary major, and you can create an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary concentration - I don’t know too much about this program, but it sounds sort of like a minor. </p>
<p>I’m actually considering studying the same type of thing as your daughter - maybe by creating my own major like Marketing Communications by combining communications, journalism, and business courses or by doing a communications major and a business minor (even though you have to take all the intro business courses for the minor, I figured that the business foundation will be good and there’s plenty of room in the curriculum for a bunch of marketing electives).</p>
<p>Another school suggestion might be Merrimack (in MA). There isn’t a specific public relations major, but there is a general communications major, a public/professional writing minor where you could apply some journalism classes, and a good business program that she could take some classes in.</p>
<p>skyhawk, you have a PM.</p>
<p>Quick update: daughter received GPA and class rank… 3.5 unweighted and 4.88 weighted. Ranked 14th of 264.</p>
<p>We’ve added BC to the list, even though we would probably have to pay at least our entire EFC (~35k/yr). Can anyone else suggest any other “good” schools in MA/CT/RI that offer Comm. major and meet all of the other criteria specified earlier in this thread?</p>
<p>On a side note, we’re a little confused about how so many good northeast schools like Holy Cross, Fairfield, PC, etc. don’t even offer a Comm. major. We’ve heard that “Comm is the EASY major”. Instead, they have lots of “generic” critical thinking majors like Anthropology, Psych., Sociology, Medeival Studies, etc… For someone who thinks they’d like to pursue a Public Relations career, they’d have to major in English and take 10+ Literature courses, whereas the Comm. major at most schools is more focused on writing and media relations, etc… One of our friends even suggested “Get into the best school you can, don’t worry about your major”. But if our D doesn’t plan on grad school (at this point anyway), won’t it be harder to break into a competitive career like PR w/ an English degree (not to mention that she really doesn’t want to study Lit. that much)???</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>Correction to above: Fairfield DOES offer a Comm. major. And their English major only required 5 Lit. course, and can concentrate in Journalism, which would work for a future PR specialist.</p>
<p>I don’t know if the curriculum is offered, but Northeastern is a fit based upon your daughter’s stats. Same comment for Bentley. Union College and Skidmore are stat matches, although modestly over the border into New York. Based upon our visit in the Spring, BC may be a reach, although your daughter’s EC’s are strong. She’d probably get close to a full ride at New Haven, but we were very underwhelmed at our visit (forensics and law enforcement are its strengths). Good luck.</p>