At SLU Madrid, would you have both the 2+2 option (two years in Madrid and two in STL) and the 4-year option in Madrid? If you’re particularly interested in international relations vis-a-vis Spanish-speaking countries, I wouldn’t rule SLU out too quickly. The concerns expressed about overseas schools and recruiting wouldn’t be such a concern here, as you’d be getting a degree from a US institution and would have access to their career center, recruiting, etc. And if you wanted both the experience abroad, and a more traditional US campus experience with sports, etc, the 2+2 plan could be best-of-both-worlds.
You mention being accepted into “a guided academic program for people with lower academics” - have you looked more closely at what these programs entail? Some are likely more helpful than others; some could be more limiting than others in terms of feeding into your desired major(s), etc. Is Lowell one of the schools where you’d be in a guided program? It does seem to be the most obvious school in terms of hitting the sweet spot re: academic strength vs. cost.
Personally, I think the PSU 2+2 plan isn’t attractive enough for that price, but that’s just my opinion.
I just visited Merrimack College yesterday. Definitely not for me.
I want to visit Lowell soon as well, as it has started to appeal to me for many reasons. I also have decided to keep SLU Madrid on the list thanks to the many appealing factors aquapt posted above.
I want to include a list of colleges I applied to and didn’t get back from yet.
Gettysburg College (I know, rural, but I really liked parts about it.) - Deferred to RD, still waiting
UW-La Crosse (I was thinking of doing this similarly to the Penn State 2+2, transferring in junior year to UW Madison.)
Ohio University
I really am wondering if it is worth the OOS tuition to go to Penn State Altoona and transfer to UP, but what I liked about it is that it would be a smoother transition than transferring from ex. Lowell to Amherst as there are many people in the 2+2 Program.
Again, thank you all for your help!
P.S. Should I also write a letter of continued interest to Gettysburg? Would that be worth it at all?
Absolutely yes, just a short and sweet note saying why you like Gettysburg. Include any new info since you sent in your app, including (hopefully) good first semester grades.
Depends what you mean by better. Personally, I liked the facilities at Lowell more (a lot of the halls and common areas of Dartmouth felt a bit dark, cold, cramped), but I preferred the Dartmouth campus generally. Neighborhood aside (it’s not exactly nice, but it could be much worse), my main issue with Lowell was the way it’s separated into three campuses, with the humanities/nursing area being a hike from everything else. And honestly, people like to hate on the Dartmouth architecture but IMO some of the Lowell buildings look way more depressing and prison-like (the main dorm especially- looks like a jail from the outside).
I would caution you that UW Madison is not easy to get into. You can see in other forums related to UW Madison that so many students with excellent pedigree end up getting deferred or rejected.
There is no guarantee that you will be able to transfer in the future so I wouldn’t plan on something solely based on probability that you will be able to transfer in the future.
Also La Crosse is 159 miles from Minneapolis and 210 miles from Milwaukee. You said you didn’t want to be in extremely rural area. I think you can do further research regarding the location.
Yeah, I think I misunderstood based off this link.
It has a part where it says “guaranteed transfer” from any UW system institution as long as you meet a set of requirements. I read it wrong most likely.
As for Dartmouth, I am still waiting for a response from them! They are definitely taking more time than UMass Lowell, lol.
I finally narrowed my choices to 3 schools, (more like 4 technically.)
UMass Lowell/Dartmouth (either one, I just got accepted to Dartmouth which I slightly prefer.)
KU (Really like everything I’ve read up about on this school, easy flight in, better for international relations.)
SLU Madrid (Very good experience for IR, speak Spanish, new horizons, traveling and academics at the same time.)
I’m going to visit Kansas and SLU Madrid in April, visiting UMass Lowell at the end of the month, already visited UMass Dartmouth which I really liked.
Again, thank you all for your help in narrowing this down, I really appreciate it!
Do you know anyone who has done this? My D23 was just accepted to Lowell. Wondering if transfer would be an option. We missed the Amherst deadline - added Lowell late as a safety school.
There is a transfer pathway through the “UMass Interchange“ but I have not actually heard of anyone using it. It sounds like it is not a guaranteed transfer, but perhaps a preferential consideration?
i got accepted to a few more schools, such as the university of new england, western new england university, and new england college. (the last two were through collegevine and niche without warning respectively.)
on the other hand, i have been waitlisted from two schools: gettysburg and sewanee. I don’t know which to prioritize for the waitlist, which is why I have been holding off on accepting my waitlist positions to ask you all. i am trying to research how many people have gotten off the waitlist at these schools.
You can even accept one college’s offer of admission AND be on multiple waitlists. If you get off the waitlist someplace you like better than where you committed, then you withdraw your commitment to the school you accepted and accept the one from the waitlist school. (You may lose your deposit for the first school.)
You can keep doing this, as long as you don’t accept more than one college at a time. Thus if you commit to school A and then get off the waitlist at school B, you can withdraw from A and commit to B. If you then a week later (or month later) get off the waitlist at school C, you can withdraw from B and accept C.
Sometimes waitlist offers don’t come in until late summer, so be sure to accept your best choice by May 1 and then see what happens.
I am not familiar with Sewanee, but i wouldn’t count on Gettysburg. Gettysburg will not be affordable for you. They do not match full FA need. How do I know? DD got Eisenhower scholarship from them, and their FA not even close to EFC from FAFSA. You can stay on waitlist but do not expect much money there.
Hi everyone, more updates as I near May 1st: Creighton gave me 14,000 per year, which does bring it down to around 46,000, which is still a lot but considerably better. I got into Drake University but no news of scholarship on that.
I am currently having on my list UMass Lowell and MCLA for sure. I might add an out of state one as a third.