<p>Hi,
I’m new to the forums. I am currently undergoing a very difficult decision. Spelman has always been my DREAM college with Howard following closely behind.
My current stats are:
1310/1600 SAT
3.7 GPA
6 AP classes/6Honors classes
Young Democrats of America chapter treasurer
Newspaper Editor
250 Service Hours
Black Student Union Member
I’m qualified to get accepted into both schools, but Spelman doesn’t give as many merit based scholarships. They only give 5 full rides a year. At Howard however I qualify for a full ride for all four years if I maintain a 3.0 GPA.
I like both schools but I do prefer Atlanta to D.C. My parents think I should go where the money is because I want to attend law school which will also be alot of money. I have around $10,000 in outside scholarships but both schools cost $30,000 per year so $10,000 won’t exactly help.
What would you do?
I love the whole Spelman-Morehouse(Spel-house) connection, and one of my guy friends is actually going to attend Morehouse. Do you think it’s worth it though to graduate indebt by quite alot of money in order to go to your dream school? Especially when your close second is basically free.</p>
<p>Tough call. I went to Howard but my D applied to Spelman. We loved it too, but alas, no money.
Here's a link to an HBCU discussion</p>
<p>Howard is an awesome school. You might just like it up there,O but i'll prolly be at Morehouse next year</p>
<p>You need to apply to both schools, and you need to go visit both schools when they are in session if at all possible. While they are both HBCUs, Spelman is a women's college which is a very special environment. I would suggest that you check out some other women's colleges so that you can see if that is the important factor for you. For a full list, go to the Women's College Coalition website at Women's</a> College Coalition Homepage and click on "Our Colleges" at the top of the screen. While you are in Washington, DC to tour Howard, you can check out Trinity University (near Catholic U), you might like what you see there.</p>
<p>Wishing you all the best.</p>
<p>While Spelman does cost more and does have a reputation for minimal financial aid, the tuition cost at Spelman is much less that colleges that don't have as great a academic reputation. Also, you need to apply for many independent scholarships as possible.</p>
<p>Thanks guys for all the advice. I've already visited both schools, which is why I know that I like both of them. I went on a black college tour. I really did prefer Spelman though.
I don't think I really want to check out other womens colleges because I'm really set on going to an HBCU. I'm only applying to one school that isn't an HBCU and I'm applying to that school as a safety. I know that there is one other womens HBCU but I'm not fond of its location.Plus Spelman is in the AUC so it's still a very co-ed environment. Guys at Clark and Morehouse can take classes at Spelman and vice versa.
I saw Trinity a few years ago when I was a freshman, but again I just really would prefer an HBCU.
D.C. definitely isn't my favorite city, but Howard is nice and has good scholarships.
I plan to be a corporate attorney like my father so he doesn't think I should worry about the loans that much because of the average salary of a corporate attorney graduating. My mom however thinks I should consider the loans because I could change my mind about becoming a corporate attorney. Plus they refuse to pay for my college if I get a bigger scholarship elsewhere.
Especially since they both worked their way through school. </p>
<p>I've checked out Hampton and will be applying there as well. I qualify for a full ride there also. I doubt I'll attend there though. Don't care for the location. Even though the campus is beautiful. I also don't care for their LONG list of rules.</p>
<p>Make sure you consider North Carolina Central University. Free ride with computer laptop for top incoming freshmen. Also, cross-registration with Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill.</p>
<p>Thanks LakeWashington. I did some research on NCCU and it seems like a good school. Plus their tuition is cheap even for out of state. I'll of course have to find time to visit at some point though. Maybe during fall break. I'd like to EA to my top choices that way hopefully I can have my final decision about which school by January.</p>
<p>bump.......</p>
<p>I meant to recommend NC A&T University in Greensboro also.</p>
<p>It's very early in your planning, but for whatever it's worth, I wouldn't go into $80,000 worth of debt for any undergrad school, especially if you are planning on law school, double-especially if your "close second" is virtually free.</p>
<p>What is it that you like about Atlanta that you don't think you would find in DC?</p>
<p>Hanna: I don't like the weather in D.C. one bit. I love the weather in Atlanta. I also don't like the area of D.C. I've visited in the fall and spring and didn't care for the district either time. Then when I visited Spelman I loved the campus and the area was better. The sisterhood was amazing and the bond with Morehouse was uncomparable. I felt at home at Spelman and I'm not even a student, but I just felt Howard was another school. It's hard to explain. I felt Howard was a great school just not the school for me.</p>
<p>Lady T:</p>
<p>Actually, the area around Howard University (from U Street up to Columbia Heights) is undergoing a transformation that is breathtaking on a day to day basis. My daughter and three college friends just rented a townhouse about a half mile from Howard. It just stunning the dozens of restaurants that have opened within the last year anchored by massive commercial develpment at the three or four subway stations up and down the line from Howard. Over the next four or five years, you would be living one of the most breathtaking transformations of an urban neighborhood imaginable. </p>
<p>This place just opened a half mile from Howard a couple months ago on a street that has had places still boarded up from the '68 riots. Target's second biggest grand opening in history:</p>
<p>..::</a> DC USA ::..</p>
<p>These neighborhoods are crawling with young people, just out of college, renting townhouses with three or four people. It will be a vibrant time at Howard.</p>
<p>I love Atlanta and personally prefer it to Washington, so I don't have a favorite here, but I would probably give the nod to DC for a college student without a car based on better overall subway service -- if you like city stuff. Atlanta's subway is good for some things, but it's just not that great for college kid stuff. You could enjoy the heck out of DC with $80,000 in walkin' around money! If you have a car, then Atlanta's probably a nicer city than DC.</p>
<p>On the flip side, Spellman would have to get the nod as far as the school itself.</p>
<p>That link/video was quite hopeful. I attended Howard University undergrad
and med school and lived in DC for seven years(77-84) , and as much as that experience meant to me, I often likened the tourist parts of DC to a Club Med in Haiti or something.</p>
<p>interesteddad: thank you for the information. I knew they were making some changes but I didn't realize how many. That is true about the car thing. I won't have a car freshman year because I won't be allowed to bring my car down until the second year. Unless I don't mind parking it on some random street which is not going to happen. But then again it is just one year without a car. I got a new car for my sweet 16 that I'd be able to bring after freshman year because I can park on campus. Hmm...this is such a hard decision.</p>
<p>Shrinkrap,</p>
<p>Actually, that video is a little old. Everything they talked about is now done and open and doing gangbuster business.</p>
<p>I've been reading some history of the neighborhoods. As I understand it, by the 1980s, that entire neighborhood was about as bad as anywhere in the country, overrun by crack and devastating to what had been prosperous stable middle-class African American neighborhoods.</p>
<p>I've been tracking down some of the local blogs and passing along restaurant tips from the neighborhoods to my daughter. As I dug back into the blogs, I realized that all of the two dozen or so restaurant and bar tips I had sent her had opened in the last 12 months. It's just breathtaking.</p>
<p>U Street is just chock full of trendy shops and restaurants. 14th Street from Irving up to the Tivoli theater at Park is completely redeveloped. Georgia Ave from Howard up to New Hampshire is just begining to be redeveloped with a 6 story condo/retail development on top of the subway station at Georgia and New Hampshire. The next piece of the puzzle is massive development of the Old Solidier Home with retail six times the size of what you saw in the video plus mixed use housing.</p>
<p>You might enjoy this guy's writing and photography of the neighborhood:</p>
<p>Intangible</a> Arts: Search results for columbia heights</p>
<p>He's a magazine designer, great writer, and superb photographer. He lived a block from the Tivoli Theater in the 1980s when he would literally watch gun battles in the streets at night. He moved away, spent 20 year in NY and Arizona, and moved back 2 years ago, buying a row house on Kenyon Street just east of Georgia Ave, four blocks due north of Howard. His blog entries and photography of the evolving neighborhood are wonderful, including going to Target on opening day to buy.... chicken corn dogs and photographing them with halo-like backlighting as if they were sent down to Moses from heaven. Funny stuff. You can click on any of his photos for full-size versions.</p>
<p>Lady T:</p>
<p>You would NOT want a car at Howard. My daughter gave her old beater back to us to drive home last month. It's not worth the aggravation of having one in the city. She's got two subway stations, one about a 7 minute walk, one about 15. Howard and the surrounding neighborhoods are city city.</p>
<p>Interesteddad; I'm checking it out....</p>
<p>With regard to cars...it's been a long time, but I got my car broken into seems like every day, in spite of the vagrant guy with ?leprosy I chatted up on a regular basis to protect it. I left the windows and the glove compartment open so they could see nothing was there and they STILL broke my windshield....Seems like the subway has become really useful. That's so good. BTW, I absolutely LOVED my time at Howard.</p>
<p>Shrinkrap:</p>
<p>The subway is fueling all the development. The Target mall is built on top of the subway station at 14th and Irving. It has 1000 parking places in an underground lot that are sitting empty. Meanwhile, subway ridership from that station has tripled since the mall opened.</p>
<p>I'm really enjoying picking up some of the historical tidbits. For example, there's a bar on 11th Street called Wonderland that is the hippest place in Washington for the mid-20s post college hipster crowd. Just jam packed on Friday and Saturday nights. Turns out that, years ago, the building housed Washington's most prominent African American gay bar.</p>
<p>I just read a couple chapters of the book some Washington Post reporters wrote on the 1968 riots, a chapter on Stokely Charmichael inadvertantly touching off the riots and then watching in dismay as the fires consumed everything from U street to the Tivoli Theater up 14th Street. Just heartbreaking to read about a neighborhood being destroyed for what ended up being three or four decades.</p>
<p>That's great the way it's working out. I remember it being really lovely ( compared to New York subways at least), but it was never going where I needed to go! I've got to get back there. I WAS going to go for the AKA boule ( this week), but I'll be saving that money to go to Durham instead! I hear the boule will be pouring a lot of money into the economy.</p>