<p>My D has been accepted to Furman and Saint Louis University. She is having a difficult time with the decision. I'd love to hear from anyone with knowledge about Saint Louis University that could compare the two and give us some advice.</p>
<p>I can’t say anything about St. Louis University, but our son goes to Furman. They have a fantastic Chem dept with world class facilities. The science building is brand new and very impressive if you haven’t seen it. I also just saw on the Furman web site that the school just landed a very large chem grant.</p>
<p>My S was accepted to both Furman and SLU last year. Furman’s campus wins, hands-down. SLU is a great Jesuit university, but very urban. S was not a chem major, so I have no first hand information for you. S is a bio major. The one comment that people made to us about Furman was the fact that with grade deflation, it is very hard to earn As there. It is also located very far from our home, as we are midwesterners. Good luck with the decision.</p>
<p>What made your S decide on Furman over SLU. How does your son feel about the science classes he has taken? How does he feel about traveling there? What kind of activities is he involved in at Furman.</p>
<p>chem dad, here’s something from another dad. If you look at my previuos posts you’ll see that there’s no bigger supporter of Furman. I dont know too much about SLU but its probably a good school. My advice has always been to try to go to the best school you can get in to within a 3 hour driving radius. Unless you are wealthy and can fly. Over the years with two students we’ve been able to get to the schools (sometimes up and back in one day) to take care of things that happen. Only you know how comfortable you feel with your D being on her own and most times things work out. For a worry wort like me, 3 hours driving or less is just right. Just another thing to consider</p>
<p>George2007. thank you for the note. I would agree with you on the three hour limit. But if my D wants to go farther away I want to support her. She is waitlisted at her top choice which is 13 hours away.</p>
<p>future chem dad: My daughter is also close to home - about 2 1/2 hours. She was scared to go somewhere further away, although her high school guidance counselor tried to get her to consider it. The counselor’s point was that a few plane tickets to get home isn’t that expensive in the overall scheme of things, and after the first year, they don’t go home too much anyway. Our daughter came home for Fall break, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring Break, and Easter. She did come home for a short weekend before Christmas to get some high school art work to show a professor, but the rest were just regular school holidays. If she were further away, I guess she would have come home the same amount but just flown. We went up there for Parent’s weekend and I went up one time in the fall. Our family then went up in February since our younger daughter had something in Greenville, but that time we only had lunch with our Furman freshman. Anyway, this may give you some perspective on how much these kids typically go home, although our daughter said that many who live closer go home considerably more. However, there is a feeling of security their first year knowing we could gone up if we had to, or she could come home if she needed to. Also, two of the three girls that are at our house now with our daughter are from Memphis and came here since it was too far to go home over Easter break. They do seem happy to be here. I don’t know the answer, just some other perspective.</p>
<p>I guess high school counselors make a pretty good living these days… 4-5 plane tickets per year not that much in the grand scheme of things??? Holy smokes… a tank of gas can set me back</p>
<p>We are from midwest, S is at Furman. He had many choices but felt Furman was right for him, plus they gave him a great deal. He is getting learning opportunities as an under graduate that I don’t think he would have gotten at Flagship State U. As far as logistics, he only comes home at Christmas. D2 is at different Southeast school and she only comes home at Christmas.</p>
<p>George2007: Yes, we would have had trouble with the plane tickets also, but when making the best decision for your child, the tickets price on top of the $43,000 plus annual cost really wouldn’t have made too much difference in the long run. If Furman would have been further away from our home, it would have been worth it to us to still get her to Furman which she thought would be a perfect fit for her, and has proven that it actually was. However, there wasn’t another “Furman” school still in warm climate, which for some reason also meant a lot to my warm-blooded daughter (the flip flops year round type.). I’m just passing on different points of views. My daughter has three high school friends who all went to St. Louis and appear to love it there. The friend that went to NYU got quite homesick but is sticking it out. Again, we’re all from SC/GA.</p>
<p>SouCarMom, I wasnt referring to you, I was referring the the Guidance counselor. Glad it all worked out in the end. We love Furman and our children are doing very well with the FU degree</p>