<p>My husband and son are planning a college visit trip over spring break. My son, who is a huge sports fan, is convinced he only wants to go to a big school with great sports to watch. However, his graduating class has 230 kids in it and I’m not sure he knows how big “big” really is.</p>
<p>The plan is to visit the following: Indiana, Michigan and Penn State. They are all far apart and they are driving from CT, so they are allowing a full day per school. They are leaving on a Monday morning, driving all day to Indiana, seeing Indiana on Tuesday, Michigan on Wednesday, and Penn State on Thursday. They wanted to do Maryland but they don’t give Friday tours.</p>
<p>My questions are:</p>
<li><p>Do you think my son will know after seeing a couple of these whether he really still wants a big school? Will he really “get” how big they are?</p></li>
<li><p>If he suddenly gets to Penn State and realizes these places are too big for him…is there a great public school with great sports that isn’t as big, that they could fit into the visit schedule? Or, a great, smaller private school with great sports? (Not a Catholic/Jesuit school though.)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>(I went to Penn State and Michigan and loved both schools, but I also went to a high school with over 2,000 people…)</p>
<p>You are from CT and he doesn’t want to watch UConn Basketball? (I know, most kids from CT don’t want to go to UConn but since it’s March Madness and I’m an alum I couldn’t resist).
Are any of the schools they are visiting also going to be on Spring break? If so, he may not get a true sense of how big they are. Can you get him to ask about average class sizes? Maybe when he hears 300 in Biology 101 he will understand…</p>
<p>It’s a shame that your husband and son couldn’t fit Maryland into it, though. Maryland has the advantage that roughly the top half of the entering class will be offered spaces in some sort of freshman/sophomore honors or special interest program. The biggest of these programs is called College Park Scholars; it consists of maybe a dozen special interest programs on various topics. You get to choose your topic. The kids who get into College Park Scholars are in the academic layer just below the honors kids. </p>
<p>The virtue of these freshman/sophomore programs is that they make a huge university seem smaller to begin with. The kids are housed with others who share their interests and have certain classes and activities with them. It’s a nice way to start.</p>
<p>Perhaps your son can find another opportunity to visit Maryland. It’s close to Washington, DC, so a campus visit could easily be combined with a day or two of DC tourism. </p>
<p>My son, who is now a graduate student, went to Maryland and really liked it. He was impressed by the amount of personal attention that he was able to get in one of the biggest departments (computer science) on a big campus. Although he was not in the freshman/sophomore honors program, he found an opportunity to do undergraduate research later and graduated with departmental honors. He also had an opportunity to work as a teaching assistant as an undergraduate. And he liked the proximity to Washington, DC, which students can get to easily. The one significant disadvantage of Maryland, though, is that once you get away from the immediate vicinity of the campus, the area becomes a borderline slum. It’s unpleasant and it contributes to a lot of theft. My son had bicycles stolen three times – twice off-campus and once on-campus. This is not unusual.</p>
<p>Edited to add: I see from another post that you’re from Connecticut. Most of the out-of-staters at Maryland are from your general area, although they’re more likely to be from NY or NJ (probably because those states don’t have state universities as nice as UConn). But anyway, they’re from your part of the planet.</p>
<p>I have one in a small school, the other in a large school. They both looked and applied to large and small. In the end, they made sound judgements and found the perfect fit.</p>
<p>I went to Texas and absolutely loved it. I never felt that it was too big, and I came from a fairly small high school. The advantage to a large school is that you can find WHATEVER you’re looking for. I was mainly in the engineering building with the same small group of students. But when I wanted to take classes in other areas, I had a huge variety to choose from. And then the social life and sporting events were a blast! I never had any problems talking to profs, either.</p>
<p>I do think he’ll know, after visiting all large schools, whether he still likes them. I wouldn’t discourage him, nor force him to visit a small school.</p>
<p>I might do a drive-by of a small school, at some point… if he hasn’t ever set foot on such a campus.</p>
<p>I, too, think that driving schedule is killer. Do they have to push it that way?</p>
<p>my son liked big schools…but he decided that AFTER he applied to a variety, including some very small schools. You see, initially, he really liked SMALL schools. Oh, they change their minds so much.
It’s good you’re doing the visits. But I would encourage him to visit some not so large schools just to get a feel for them. Wake Forest, for example is pretty small but has good sports.
BTW, my son is at PSU and is fine with the size. Most kids find their groups in the first 6 months and this helps to make a big place feel small. I went to a big school too and did the same thing…</p>
<p>Believe me, I wish they weren’t doing so much driving. I think it’s a crazy schedule too, not to mention the wear and tear on the car. I think they have this glamorous picture in their heads of two guys…out on the open road…staying in the nearest Motel 6 and listening to sports from each state on the radio. The reality may be much different.</p>
<p>I did look into maybe having them fly out to Indiana, then rent a car and drive their way back, but the one-way rental is very expensive, and flights aren’t necessarily cheap either. If anyone has a suggestion…please bring it on!</p>
<p>P.S. Yes, he will go look at UConn at some point. At least that is a short drive!</p>
<p>P.P.S. He has seen other campuses when younger, because he was in the Johns Hopkins CTY program and spent one summer on the campus of Dickinson, and one summer on the campus of Roger Williams. He didn’t like the Dickinson campus (don’t know reasons though) but really liked the Roger Williams one…which I believe is small. (Roger Williams would not be a good academic fit for him, however.) However, this was all a pretty long time ago…Dickinson was the last place he was and that was the summer before freshman year.</p>
<p>Big schools have a certain attracticeness to them. I am from CT also and 40 years ago all I wanted was big schools. I wound up at Michigan State. My kids are all different, the first wanted a small school (like Hogwarts) and she wound up at St. Anselm in NH. The second will wind up at Uconn.</p>
<p>I think the big difference is Midwest schools are not eastern, and easterners are not mid-westerners. Make sure he can sense the difference in population bases. Midwesterners call it pop and easterners call it soda, etc. etc. I know it’s a generalization, but midwesterners are a little more laid back than easterners, and easterners are more aggressive. He needs to be comfortable with the population, not only the school.</p>
<p>That said, I went to Michigan State and loved it. </p>
<p>Big is good, small is good, it all depends on the kid.</p>
<p>What’s wrong with a big school? Let him decide. D also went to a small school (graduating class 75) and all she wanted was a biiig school experience with big sports team, the whole nine yards. She visited several small schools (Davidson, William and Mary) but wrote them off. she was ready to spread her wings. I can understand your son’s preference.</p>
I think this drive will be an excellent time for father/son bonding. The dynamics are always different on a trip like this with just the father and son as opposed to the entire family and it should end up to be a positive experience that your S and your H will remember and appreciate for a long time.</p>
<p>OP, tell them to go for it. My D and I did at least 3 trips like that. (Many more but 3 like that- multi-state, multi-school driving only trips.) Each was over 3,000 miles. It ain’t that bad. In fact, we had a ball. Some of my best memories.</p>
<p>my son initially had few criteria except BIG and in a city. we did our first road trip just over a month ago to see 2 small schools. one city one rural. i think it was a great trip… confirmed the city aspect but definitely changed his mind about big… he fell in love with rhodes. we have to plan a much bigger trip to see a few of his others including , upitt, iu, utdallas, hendrix. works out to be about 2000 miles…not sure if will fly and rent car or drive. but my suggestion is find a small one somewhere on this trip just so he can see, he might be pleasantly surprised!</p>
<p>I, also loved these kinds of trips with my kids. It will be a real adventure.</p>
<p>Your S should definitely be able to get a feel for the size. I always tried to get mine into a lecture hall to see the atmosphere. We would then discuss strategies to help, like arriving early to sit near the front. Kids at big schools just need to understand that they need to be proactive and advocate for themselves. My shy #3 was also drawn to big sport publics. He is at a large midwestern flagship and figuring it all out. If your S is comfortable with the feel, he should be fine.</p>
<p>Give the trip your blessing. The guys will have an adventure together and will remember it forever. My d and I used to drive from Colorado to Upstate NY at least once a year, a twenty seven hour drive. It was a great time for us.<br>
I would suggest getting a couple of books on tape from the library that your guys would enjoy. We always enjoyed them and radio signals can be iffy in some areas. Does your son have his driver’s license so they can share the driving? I say let them go on a Road Trip.</p>
<p>those are all first rate big time schools, though Indiana lacks the football experience of the other two. What they have in common as well are interesting college “towns” surrounding the campuses.S also wanted this big school experience,when we visited UConn we were sorely disappointed in the lack of surrounding town (though we liked the campus alot).He wound up down south at U South Carolina, which has the same,urbanized big campus big sports experience.D also found the same atmosphere
out west at Arizona State.Of course, their choices also fit their needs as far as major/honors/merit $$ was concerned.</p>