<p>Remember that transferring isn’t a guarantee either. Your DD’s best bet is to go to the school where she’s been accepted and try her hardest to fall in love with it.</p>
<p>re: Roger Williams: “While it might not be a top tier school, if they have offered good money and your daughter likes it, I say it could be the right fit school.” </p>
<p>D does like it, but they have offered half; I am in no position to help her, and I can’t see the logic in graduating with a $90k loan obligation. </p>
<p>Also, I found many unfavorable reviews that are unsettling: <a href="http://www..com/RI/RWU_comments.html%5B/url%5D">http://www..com/RI/RWU_comments.html</a></p>
<p>Leftycatcher -</p>
<p>Your daughter probably can’t graduate with a $90k loan obligation because it would be almost impossible for her to borrow that much. The only loans that she can qualify for on her own are the Staffords, and the total for four years is $27k. Anything above and beyond that amount would require a co-signer, and it looks like you are not merely unable to co-sign, but also smart enough to know not to!</p>
<p>If your daughter wants to start college this fall, you need to find some place that is affordable for your family. Is there a community college that she can commute to, or another branch of the UMass system that would work for her? The other campuses aren’t as huge as UM-Amherst. Have her sit down with her guidance counselor and reconsider her options.</p>
<p>Wishing you all the best!</p>
<p>Like some people have suggested, you can take a gap year. But how sure are you that you can get in? I think it’s just better to see how this year goes and then transfer if the school doesn’t seem like a good enough fit.</p>
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<p>Well, this is a great problem with the Internet, in my opinion. You can find unfavorable reviews about most anything online with just a little bit of looking.</p>
<p>I can’t get this link to work for me, but I think it hardly matters. This sort of thing is the reason why my wife and I can’t make any decision comfortably any more. No matter what we try to do–help our daughter choose a college, book a vacation, shop for a car, find a contractor to fix our wet basement–we can find somebody writing about his or her horrible experience with whatever we’re investigating. Any business or institution or product that’s been around any length of time will have a mixed record of successes and failures. But anybody with an axe to grind can put a bad review online. Heck, if you post stalk me, you can find me expressing serious doubts about the quality of life at a university or two my daughter was considering. Those are just my opinions–based on some reading and a couple of campus visits. They don’t deserve any more weight than your own opinions, and certainly not more weight than the opinions of those same schools’ enthusiastic boosters, who haunt the message boards shilling for the schools they chose to attend.</p>
<p>As far as I know, Roger Williams is neither extraordinarily good nor extraordinarily bad. If you and your daughter have investigated it, visited it, and come to the conclusion that it might be good for her, then I don’t think you should give too much weight to the online opinions of some disgruntled 19-year-olds with Internet access. And most of the bad reviews of RWU that I’ve seen online (I went and looked at a couple of sites) have a pretty high ratio of carping and name-calling to substance. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if RWU is going to break the family bank, that’s a whole other matter.</p>
<p>re: unfavorable reviews.</p>
<p>Sikorsky: I realize anyone can post negative reviews about anything, but seemed like an inordinate amount of criticisms about RW, far more than a handful. More importantly, many echo the disturbing complaints a friend has been expressing all year about Rollins, where her dau is currently a freshman (and not returning to). Friend tells me, “listen to the complaints, the students KNOW”. </p>
<p>I’ll compare it to assessing long term care facilities for a family member (which I have a lot of experience in). You take guided tours. What do you see? Resemblance of grand, Victorian estates, professionally decorated in Queen Anne motif; expensive draperies, manicured lawns, lush gardens, bookshelves filled with classics, overflowing floral arrangements on mantles, Frank Sinatra soothingly piped in the background. Masterpiece Theatre. Things are not always what they seem. </p>
<p>If you read online an unfavorable review (verbal abuse, neglect and patient intimidation), would you simply chalk it up to a disgruntled person? Or would you take pause? </p>
<p>These are not restaurant reviews, where perhaps a few people received bad meals, or car reviews, where people complain about lemons. </p>
<p>Some of these are well-composed, intelligently written reviews (of college) by thoughtful students; why wouldn’t you give them credence? </p>
<p>You said, “They don’t deserve any more weight than your own opinions.” How does one form opinions?</p>
<p>By visiting the campus, sitting in on classes, eating a meal in the cafeteria or meeting with a professor.</p>