@mommdc They have shuttles around campus and buses to beaches, towns, cities.
@lexluthor5 part of campus is under construction. The new enormous Engineering complex. Then the historical building on the quad to be renovated. Really there seems to always be something in progress.
@mommdc yes, the guide did mention what sounded like a pretty good shuttle system.
@geary86 yes, we saw the work going on floor the new engineering building. Looks like it should be very impressive. Always is good to see major construction going on at a college campus.
We are looking forward to our trip next week so that we have some comparisons to make.
@lexluthor5 Was wondering how your visits at Delaware and Towson were. We are headed to Delaware on Monday morning.
More visits, very helpful to compare schools.
Our daughter really liked Towson. The campus has what appeared to be a relatively new section and is well maintained. The classrooms we saw were fairly modern and the buildings all looked good. We didn’t get to see a dorm room, but sounds like there are lots of different dorm options there. There appeared to be lots of different dining options as well, which is nice. It looked like there was some off campus shopping just off campus, plus the huge mall that’s a 15 minute walk is good to have. The location is good, it would be easy for her to get back and forth. We did learn that Speech Pathology is a “screened major” so there’s a chance she could go to the school and not be able to major in that. That’s definitely a concern we’ll have to learn more about there. Would be nice to have the option of the honors college, but with her stats, maybe it’s 50/50? Hoping to get at least some decent merit though. All in all, Towson is very high on the list.
University of Delware was a very different campus from what we’ve seen. It’s really much more integrated with the town. The buildings appeared to almost all be very hold and the decor was quite dated. The main area of the campus was nice and the campus would be satisfactory, but it’s really nothing great. The town was nice to have with lot of options to do stuff off campus. Campus life seemed very vibrant there. There were people out and about everywhere. Delaware is probably a bit better academically than most of the schools on the list. Also, an excellent location to get too and from. I played with their NPC the other day and I think $7K merit is very likely. That puts it a bit out of budget, but if things didn’t fall right elsewhere, it could still be in the hunt.
We also stopped at The College of New Jersey on the way back and did a quick walk-through. She’s not really so interested in a school that size and we were all pretty tired, but it was good to see another school. Much smaller campus. Buildings a bit newer than Delaware, but in the same style (brick). All of the buildings pretty much looked the same. Admissions building was nice as was the library and the dining hall. That’s about all we saw. It’s kind of in the middle of nowhere, but they build a little town at the edge of the campus that has some housing and shopping, which is nice.
After the additional visits, i think our daughter has lessened a bit on Rhode Island. The campus did need some work, though it’s nice to see major construction going on (unlike Delaware) and there’s really not much just around the campus. Unfortunately, we didn’t drive to that nearby town to see what was there, though having to drive there is a bit of a negative. If URI offers decent merit, it will certainly warrant another visit, perhaps on accepted students day.
We are going to SUNY New Paltz in a few weeks. It’s smaller too, but good to see another school. That’s probably just as much of a fun spring Saturday trip as much as it is to look at the campus.
At some point we may still have to get up to SUNY University at Buffalo, but the split campus (bus between) seems like that could be an issue and it may not be the prettiest school, but we’ll have to see. Buffalo is probably a good fit from a school size/sports/general people fit, qualify of the school, their solid speech pathology program and cost, but campus distance, campus quality and weather are potentially large negatives. We need to learn more.
Don’t really think there are too many other visits coming up.
Think George Mason, UMBC and West Chester are probably off the list at this point. James Madison, Ohio U, Miami (OH), Alabama, Maine, West Virginia all may yet get apps. Maine, Alabama and WVU both have merit based on stats that would make all of those priced almost like a SUNY, but none seem like great fits at the moment. James Madison and Miami (OH) could surprise with slightly more merit than expected, which could bring both of those into budget and wind up needing a visit. SUNY Binghamton and maybe even Geneseo will probably get apps too.
That’s pretty much the list, I think.
Any suggestions on schools we may have missed or suggestions on anything else are still more than welcome.
@lexluthor5 Was wondering if you got the sense that Towson is a “suitcase school”? It has a reputation of being fairly quiet on the weekends but hoping that has maybe changed recently. Also, wondering how much greek life there is there. We are visiting their open house on 5/4. Let me know if you have any remaining questions - happy to follow up for you.
We visited West Chester and Delaware over the holiday break. West Chester was our own self guided tour but it is a very nice campus from the outside and the surrounding are is very nice and well maintained and appears to be safe. Close to the rail line which makes it easy to get to downtown Philly.I think we will likely go back for an official tour so we can get a look at the inside of some buildings.
Our daughter really liked Delaware and how walkable it was for a larger school. The students all seemed happy (especially since it was their first day back from break) and everyone we encountered was friendly. I agree that some of the buildings did seem a bit older and dated but that didn’t seem to matter to D. The dorm rooms were fairly average. Probably the front runner for us right now as it seemed to be the right size school both in campus size and enrollment.
We had to reschedule our trip to JMU. We are headed there on 4/21. We are off to UMBC this weekend.
We also did quick tours on our own of Temple and Drexel, which D quickly crossed off her list. The urban style campus is definitely not for her.
We also stopped at the following schools on our way: McDaniel College, Gettysburg College, York College and Millersville. Surprisingly, D has decided she would like to do an official tour of McDaniel, so we are headed there on 4/22. Didn’t think she would like it given the size (under 3,000).
@DCNatFan No, didn’t get the idea that Towson was a suitcase school at all. I think that reputation has lessened much of late. There’s no way to really know for sure with a single visit. Will definitely have to get a better idea of what’s going on on the weekends yet. Think it’s about 15% greek and there are no greek houses there (baltimore county law, I think). I figure that must make greek life a little different there. Most of the tour guides indicated they were part of greek life though. Will be interested to hearing about your visit.
West Chester still interesting, I guess. I’ve heard it’s a very nice campus. Not sure if that will climb up our list, but it’s not been kicked off yet.
Yes, the Delaware campus layout/town is very good. In the end, the old buildings probably don’t really matter that much. There are enough open grass spaces to enjoy outdoors. I know it’s a good school, so that stuff wouldn’t scare me. If we saw those buildings as a smaller/lesser known school, maybe. We saw an interesting dorm room that was like an S shape, so pretty much was 2 different sections for the 2 students, which is nice.
JMU sounds like it should be a great campus. Please share your visit there.
I didn’t get the impression that the split campus at Buffalo would effect most of the students. My d wouldn’t have any classes on south campus, and unless she puts in very late for housing, shouldn’t be living there either unless she wanted to do so. There are some majors that do have classes at south campus though. Some of the medical and maybe architecture IIRC?
@Mom2girls She’s currently looking at possibly Communication Disorders and Sciences. Do you know if that’s on the south campus? So people want to stay in the north campus and spend 90% of their time on the north campus, excepting a few majors?
@mom2girls I took a look and her CDS classes would indeed mostly be on the south campus, so travel between the campuses could be an issue with Buffalo.
I had forgotten which major your d was interested in and hadn’t looked at all of which classes are at which locations.
I will say that from what I’ve read on reddit for U Buffalo, most students don’t seem to find it a real issue. Some actually seem to like South Campus because there is more access to shopping and restaurants. From what I’ve read, the bus system works really well for students going between campuses.
I think if it were my d, it would be something to consider but not a make or break issue. If all things were even between 2 schools, maybe she would choose one where everything she’d need was on one campus, but if U Buffalo otherwise checked all boxes (and for my d, finances would be a bigger box) then I don’t think the 2 campuses would keep her from choosing it.
Also, have you looked to see if there is a flowsheet showing which classes are typically each semester and which campus they would be at?
@mom2twogirls yes, there was a good courselog that I found somewhere. At some point that might be helpful in looing at trying to minimize travel between the 2 schools.
@lexluthor5 Hi! My Daughter just graduated from Towson in May 2017. She loved it. Her 2 roommates freshman year were from MD and did go home every weekend but she NEVER came home (we are from NJ) unless there was a break from school in the 4 years she was there. I even called her one time freshman year and offered to come and get her for the weekend if she wanted to come home and she said Why?? Made me a little sad but I was actually very happy that she was happy there. She found a group of friends that also stayed on the weekends, none of them participated in Greek life. I don’t think it’s considered a suitcase school. There is so much to do around there besides just Towson… Baltimore, Washington DC. I will say that you do have to be careful around some areas of Towson but my daughter never had a problem, just have to be smart and aware of your surroundings!
My daughter’s boyfriend and my niece both went to UDel and loved it. They have a nice town there with a great social scene.
My other daughter is currently attending URI and loves it. They do have good access to public transportation but she didn’t use it much. She had some friends who had cars on campus. She moved off campus this year (junior year) and is loving it. Lives right down the street from the ocean. She has taken the train into Boston a few times and also taken the train home when needed. A lot of RI students do go home on weekends but same as my other daughter she found friends who also stayed at school on the weekends and has a good time.
If you have any specific questions about those schools, let me know and I’ll see if I can answer.
@dkluchin excellent info on all 3 schools that we have visited. It is a bit of concern at Towson and URI about there being people around on weekends. Why are students who live in dorms going home on weekends, even if they are close by? Doesn’t sound like the experience I’d want for my child, but to each their own. I guess lots of the state schools have people who commute or go home on weekends. Delaware was quick to note in their info session that they are definitely not a suitcase school. With a pool of 20K students, it shouldn’t really be a problem though.
At Towson, many kids are indeed going to Baltimore and Washington occasionally? How are they getting there? Just walkable from campus, we saw a couple of streets with some restaurants and shops. Do the students frequent those places? Do they go to the mall that’s there occasionally too?
The URI tour guide did say that some upperclassmen do move to the beach area. Being away from the school and larger groups of students didn’t sound optimal to us, but maybe it is a nice change of pace by then. I’m not sure our daughter will ever have a car on campus. The lack of a walkable “town” seemed less that ideal as well. Not sure that the little village at the edge of the campus really qualifies as a town. Or do enough students have cars, that they easily go to the nearby towns that are a 5-10 minute drive when they want a break from the campus? We didn’t get to see what’s there.
None of this is really a deal-breaker, just things to consider.
At this point, there’s not much going on here. She’ll work on her applications this summer with the hopes of having everything in by 10/1 and we’ll probably try to get up to University at Buffalo in the late summer. We may visit SUNY New Paltz in a few weeks, but she doesn’t think that’s good fit.
At the moment, applications will certainly go to Towson, URI and Buffalo, which all are likely to be good fits for her and have a good possibility of being financial fits for us. Delaware, James Madison and Miami (OH) may all gets apps as well, but are only outside chances of getting enough merit for serious consideration, but maybe one will surprise. I think it’s worth an app to find that out. Miami (OH) is also a bit further than ideal, but it’s a good school and if she got in the upper portion of the posted merit for her stats, it may be worth a visit. She may yet apply to Alabama, West Virginia, SUNY Bingamton, SUNY New Paltz and Maine all as backups that we are almost certain all will meet the financial target. At this point, we are not sure if any of those are good fits. Not sure if Ohio U, West Chester and TCNJ will get applications at all, we probably have enough backups already. I don’t think she’s got much chance at all at enough merit at Pitt, Vermont, UNH and UMass Amherst so we aren’t really looking at any of those.
That’s pretty much the list and there’s not much else to do at this point.
@lexluthor5 I think there are a lot of kids who go to state schools and do go home on the weekends. I don’t know why either, I loved being away at college and I want the same for my kids. I found that a lot of kids do stay on the weekends though and that’s how they find their group of friends.
When my daughter was at Towson they went to Baltimore more than they did DC. There are some cute neighborhoods in Baltimore with shops, restaurants and coffee shops. They do stay around Towson most of the time and go to the mall a lot, once they are 21 there are fun bars in town too. The kids use Uber or Lyft to get around if they don’t want to walk, they also have good old fashioned taxis as well. The mall is walkable but I don’t think I would want my daughter walking home from there at night. They also have a shuttle system called the Collegetown Shuttle that picks up kids from all the nearby colleges, Goucher, Johns Hopkins, Stevenson, Loyola, Morgan and a bunch of others. It’s free to the kids they just show their college IDs. It stops at the schools, the mall, a few other shopping centers and the train station in Baltimore. It’s very convenient, my daughter used it occasionally. Most juniors move off campus and there are some apartments right across the street from the campus so a car wouldn’t be needed. There are all students living there.
At URI there is definitely not as much to walk to. The Emporium at the top of campus is pretty much it, they have places to eat there and a CVS, a few other little stores. There are some neighborhoods in Narragansett where a lot of students move so they are still around a lot of students. My daughter’s house this year is not by other students but she doesn’t mind it. You would definitely need a car if you are going to move off campus to the beach area. There are a lot of restaurants, stores, coffee shops, bars in Narragansett…think beach town. Some stores close in the winter but many are open. I think a lot of kids bring their cars, that’s why they are all going home on the weekends!! Haha! My daughter never had an issue about getting anywhere and as I said before they have the public buses (RIPTA) and also Uber. They go to Wakefield for shopping and the mall in Providence too.
And just some info that I have heard about TCNJ (I’m from NJ don’t know where you are from) is that it is a suitcase school. My daughter’s friend goes there and one weekend we drove her down there on a Friday, you should have seen all the parents there picking up their kids!! My daughter’s friend said you have to be in a fraternity or sorority in order to have a social life there. Just thought I would let you know!
Also I have a friend whose daughter is at UNH and she loves it. I have another friend whose daughter went to West Chester and she had a very hard time at first, a lot of the kids were from the same local PA high schools and were very cliquey. She eventually joined a sorority to make friends and liked it but it took her a while. Just throwing out any info I have on the schools you mentioned! Haha!
Also in regards to merit aid, my daughter got $6,000/year from Towson which I was told was good at the time, she started in 2013. She was good student, took some honors classes, a great GPA, normal amount of activities, good ACT score. My other daughter got $10,000/year in 2015 at URI. She was a good student, no honors classes, good GPA, “OK” ACT score, normal amount of activities. Plus they also gave us a $2,000 grant because we had 2 kids in college at the same time.
Good luck with your search!! Hope she finds a school she loves!!
@dkluchin this is invaluable info. TCNJ more or less off the list already, hadn’t looked too hard, but I didn’t know that yet. West Chester very much on the fringe. I think it’s highly likely other options that currently appear more attractive will wind up being available.
Still not sure about the well off campus housing at URI, but maybe it’s a really nice thing to have something totally different in a beach community for the last 2 years. I’m sure there must be options to stay on campus or nearby if wanted.
Towson and URI will definitely remain high on the list. Still need to find out more from Towson about having to apply into her particular major after the first year and what the odds of getting in are.
We still want to learn more about Buffalo and how the campus is and how much of a pain the bus between may or not be. If she finds the campus attractive enough and hears from people that the bus isn’t an issue, Buffalo sounds like a very good option otherwise. Think it would be a good fit as far as size, type of people, education, including her possible major and cost.
UNH almost surely will be out of budget so haven’t really looked.
Good info on merit aid. We will have 2 kids in college for 1 year so whatever extra we might get isn’t really a consideration since it’s only for 1 year. What your kids got is about what we are hoping for on the low end. I’m figuring Towson to be around $5k to $8k and URI to be $10k to $14k. The low end of each would get us to around budget.
A couple of notes regarding the visits from our recent search in common with yours. Note that our twin Ds both decided small schools were right for them, and they got good merit to bring our cost to the level you’re seeking. But I realize the smaller size isn’t what your D is seeking.
UDel is a large school but doesn’t feel that way. It isn’t particularly selective but has very strong acedemics, more so in some programs than others. It’s only an hour from where we live, so I’ve run into many graduates or others with connections - never heard anything but positive reviews. Certainly a lot of local kids attend, but plenty of other areas well represented (the state is tiny).
West Chester U is less than 10 minutes away, which is way too close for ours. Lots of local schools feed in many students with less competitive stats or modest budgets. The school has become more selective in recent years due to increased interest, though it is still not hard for kids with good stats. There is a very well regarded honors program, but it’s for those with leadership and community service inclinations, not just smart kids. The borough is charming, with plenty to do, and it’s close enough to Philly on days when a town doesn’t feel like enough.
TCNJ sounded really good to us from all the readings we did. Unfortunately a number of things turned us off a lot. First, it was our first college visit during an open house. Not being able to walk 10 feet without a smiling face asking how you’re doing just isn’t my Ds thing - it felt like Disney World. Maybe it was genuine, but for us it was a turnoff. Second, the campus felt more like a planned town center than a college. Yes it felt relatively contemporary, but it had no character to speak of. Third, we sat through the absolute worst art program presentation you could imagine. It was so bad that my artsy D refused to tour the facilities, and we ended our visit early.
SUNY New Paltz was on our list mostly because we were visiting the area and planned on seeing Marist the next day. We were really disappointed - the campus looks much better in pictures, the other visiting students seemed rather “dull”, and the place just lacked energy. Granted it was summer, but the asbestos removal under process didn’t help. Maybe we just caught the place during a bad day.
Marist, by the way, was beautiful. It might have been a good fit too, but the merit they offered for each D was really too small to consider, unless either of them had simply loved it more than anywhere else. I’m guessing that they just can’t justify a lot of merit for good students when there’s so many athletes to cover at a small division I school.
@RandyErika so where did your kids wind up?
I posted on the Buffalo reddit forum with some questions and am getting some valuable feedback there.
So we are booked for Buffalo. I saw an open tour on 4/28 that I don’t think was there before or missed it. Figured we should go sooner rather than later as we were going to have to go one way or the other. We will leave Long Island Friday afternoon, maybe stop at Binghamton and walk around a bit as it’s right on the way and then stay the night near campus. After our Saturday tour, we’ll stay in Niagara Falls for the night and then head home Sunday. Long trip, but at least it’s over 3 days and will be a nice mini-vacation, so shouldn’t be too bad. My wife and I probably haven’t been to the falls in at least 30 years and our daughter, never.
That will probably be it for the campus visits unless James Madison surprises with good merit or something else unexpected happens, which is very possible.
URI is a gem. And she sounds like a fully qualified applicant. So many options there. UMass Amherst is quite a bit more selective for OOS applicants. It’s getting pretty tough to get into these days.
A couple to consider would be Springfield College, AIC , in western Mass and Westfield state (MA) in the Berkshire’s and Washington and Jefferson in PA. Ther give out a lot of merit aid. It’s small but nice and fun. Roger Goddell the NFL commissioner went there.
@lexluthor5 My daughters recently deposited at Ursinus and Moravian College. Those schools and the rest of our final 5 or so were small LACs with enrollment of only 2k or so.