<p>Lots of choices close to VT! That’s a great thing.</p>
<p>A soccer coach friend of mine noticed that many kids that go East for college come back. (That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It can be a good experience to live elsewhere for a while.) He thinks they have a hard time with the weather. We have snow in CO, but with 300 days of sunshine it is usually bright. </p>
<p>I was relieved that son in Boston was ok with the more gray weather last winter. And also the “cold rain” - what I miss the least from the many years in NY.</p>
<p>mathmomvt, if your son was interested in going to Canada, Queen’s University dorms have lots of singles and an engineering school that is highly ranked in Canada (don’t know how that would relate to US because engineering is not my field). Room, board, tuition and fees for a US citizen would probably be around $22K or $23K and they give merit aid. But, you only live in dorms (they call them residences or res) in the freshman year (they call it first year). Then, you get an apartment with kids you’ve met. The key characteristic of the school is fabulous school spirit. Every student and alum we talked to loves/loved the school. A Canadian economist who is a dean at a top 20 school in the US advised us to look at Queens rather than McGill because “it does a much better job of educating undergraduates, especially in pre-professional programs”).</p>
<p>Canada is certainly a possibility. We’ve thought about Waterloo as well. He actually has dual citizenship so could go for the Canadian price.</p>
<p>Waterloo is world class for computer science and generally highly regarded for engineering. Our kids are dual as well and the Canadian price is $15K less merit aid. It is cold up there at Queens or Waterloo, but it’s pretty cold in Vermont too.</p>
<p>He’s not all that into the whole extra-curriculars and “well-rounded applicant” thing either, which makes the Canadian schools that don’t care as much about that stuff more appealing. (He was quite into fencing, but there isn’t a consistently available club around here, unfortunately.)</p>