My son is headed to Iowa State in the fall! We are all thrilled with his decision (although I’ll have to get used to the 10-hour drive from Colorado)! He’s planning on majoring in engineering! Go Cyclones!
@iamgriffinsmom Congratulations!! That’s awesome news 
We enjoyed our visit for Experience Iowa State, although the weather was awful. Our son was waitlisted at Madison (very sadly), so Iowa State and Marquette are now his top two.
What helped your son make his final choice? Has he ranked his housing choices yet, and what are his top dorms?
Yay and congrats again - very happy for you!
@iamgriffinsmom - Congratulations! If you have any questions, please fire away. If I don’t know the answer, I’ll pretend that I do (safely 2000 miles away from Ames in Phoenix.)
My son loves Martin Hall and will be back there next year. Friley, Heaton, Martin, and Helser are in the Union District and very convenient for engineering students. There’s a nice dining hall there and the west intramural building is part of the complex. He really appreciated this after he broke his ankle over Thanksgiving Break and had to get around campus on one of those knee carts. (He did like the sympathy he got from all the girls.)
Friley is huge; basically they have been adding on to it for years, so parts are very new and parts are old, but well maintained. The other three dorms are smaller and newer. One thing that is different at ISU is that housing prices vary quite a bit from dorm to dorm. The newer air-conditioned dorms like Martin are more expensive.
My son really wanted an OOS experience, and he loved ISU! He was strongly considering the University of Denver, but it was too close to home, and once he decided on engineering, it was an easy decision (DU has engineering, but it’s a relatively small and not particularly well-known). He was also admitted to Colorado State, but he just didn’t feel at home there. I think a lot of it just came down to where he could see himself for the next four years. He has ranked his housing choices (we actually put in a deposit back in November for that purpose). Friley is his top choice (he didn’t want to be responsible for cleaning his own bathroom), but Martin and Eaton were also in the mix! Hoping for A/C!
Sorry to hear about Madison, but ISU and Marquette are great options! Good luck to you!
@Beaudreau Thanks! We actually ate at the dining hall and were so impressed with both the quality of the food and the number of options! Friley is large, but my son really liked the communal style of living (he’s hoping to get a section with A/C). I think it helped that a group of boys invited us into their room to look around (they mentioned that they had just cleaned up so we should take advantage), and they were all laughing and playing video games.
congrats! My son who is a junior is thinking of Iowa state too. I have a question my sons GPA is 3:0 and 29 act
will he get in? major engineering?
Thanks @Mamta22. I think I posted this for you on your other thread, but here’s the admissions information again:
If you score 245 or above on the Regent Admission Index, you are automatically admitted. Here is the link to calculate your score: http://www.iowaregents.edu/institutions/higher-education-links/regent-admission-index/
@Mamta22. To expand a bit on what @imagriffinsmom said, Iowa State’s application portal should open in July. It is formula based and they are fast. Your son should know if he’s admitted within a week. in 2015, merit scholarship awards went out in September.
This is real peace of mind for a high school senior, to know he has been admitted and what it will cost before he has even completed any other applications. My youngest son applied more or less on a whim to Iowa State in 2015. He was delighted to know that at least one good college engineering program wanted him. Then, the more he looked into it, the more he liked ISU. Ultimately, he was accepted to every school he applied to (also Arizona, Arizona State, Michigan State, and Alabama. He visited all five schools. His final two choices were MSU and ISU. He weighed the pros and cons of both and we paid deposits at both colleges. Finally, it came down to his gut feeling, and on April 29, 2016, he decided on Iowa State. So far, he loves it! My wife and i enjoyed our visits to ISU too.
Congratulations! We will be visiting for the Experience Iowa State session next week to see how my daughter like the school and campus. I think it will be a good fit for her. She’ll be studying Kinesiology, which is ISU’s second biggest major, and she’s very interested in joining a sorority. She’s been accepted elsewhere but it’s down to ISU and UW-Madison (where she is waitlisted) for her. We have already paid the ISU deposit and signed a housing contract. She wants to live on the south or east side of campus. I think her top choice is Buchanan, then Geoffory and then BLF (Barton-Lyon-Freeman).
She’s on a facebook group where she is meeting other kids who will be freshmen next year. She’s meeting one girl in person at the Greek Visit Day on 4/8.
BTW, it’s nice to see some action on the ISU board :).