<p>To get to Ohio University from out of state....if you are flying, fly into Columbus. It is a 72 mile drive from Columbus to Athens on Route #33. A bypass part way there, north of Lancaster lets you avoid something like 10 lights. Enjoy Ohio!! It surely is cold right now!</p>
<p>I know what you mean. After all that quality parent/child time doing research, visiting colleges and agonizing over essays and THE decision - what happens? She leaves and I'm at home talking to the cat. <g></g></p>
<p>Let's start a parent/cat book club!</p>
<p>"Now your quest is to help all the rest of us and share all of your accumulated knowledge!"</p>
<p>So says karenindallas. But the major thing that I've learned is that there is no one set of answers for everyone. You can't just point to Ivys or popular schools and have people look there. The point is to look for fit. In ninth grade, I would have sworn that my son would be majoring in physics/astronomy. After lots of research, everything pointed to Rice. That school has so much to offer and I would have been ecstatic to see him there. But then his continuing interest in computer animation began to blossom, and it seem that for sure he was heading towards that as a career - not just the art part, but very much into combining the art with the technical aspects as well. More research, which pointed the way to several schools. I fell in love with UPenn's Digital Media Design program. It was very competitive but I thought my son had the stats and the dedication to get in. Paying for it was going to be my biggest concern.</p>
<p>Fast forward to the end of his junior year in high school. He had always made films - for scout projects, for fun - but he made two documentaries that got some attention and awards and he was hooked. He began adapting a script for a fiction film that he's STILL filming. He loved it so much that he now wanted to go to film school. More research in a new direction... But one thing I was now looking for were schools that were diverse enough that he could not only pursue film, but have options for a double major or for a complete change of mind.</p>
<p>One of the best pieces of advice I ever saw about film schools was from the book Film School Confidential, which I shared with my son. It said to forget an undergraduate film school, and instead concentrate on getting a good liberal arts education. That would be the best preparation for a graduate film school. Son wasn't persuaded by that advice, so we began to delve into searching for undergrad film programs that stressed the liberal arts portion of the education. The search narrowed and narrowed.</p>
<p>I won't go on and on, but the point is that the direction we took was so tailored to my son's wants and needs that it may not be of much help at all to everyone else. I guess each family has to research and visit and change minds and research some more and visit some more and then allow for changing minds even after admission.</p>
<p>On a bright note, the "Presidential Scholar" letter arrived yesterday for his first choice and that puts a lot of my financial worries aside. Not that the remaining costs will be cheap, but at least I know that we can get through the next four years.</p>
<p>It's a great choice, at a great school - and you should be very proud to have helped your son think it through so well.</p>
<p>I"m glad to hear that somebody else thinks of this as a hobby......I find it all fascinating......and my eldest is only in middle school......friends ask why I'm on college confidential and I just say, "its really interesting!"</p>