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<p>Would it help if you pointed out that Madison is only about 2 hours from O’Hare, the airport that a lot of OOS students at UW Madison use? Seriously, it can take almost that long to get from O’Hare to Northwestern by public transit; even by cab it can sometimes take an hour, depending on traffic. I guess the bus from the Wisconsin campus is more like 3 hours, but still, it’s not as if Madison is on the outer fringes of human civilization.</p>
<p>You should visit Wisconsin. I don’t know how the costs compare to Purdue but the campus is beautiful. And, an excellent engineering school.</p>
<p>If possible you should visit UIUC and Purdue as they have quite different feels. I’m a Purdue eng alum and have a daughter at UIUC. Both great schools. UIUC is harder to get into although your son would easily be a match.</p>
<p>I have visited UIUC, Wisconsin, and Purdue (of course UMich too) this Summer. They are all very different. Purdue is very compact particularly after all the new buildings for engineering within the last 6-7 years. The engineering campus of UIUC is really great. Too bad that I did not take the Engineering tour as Chemical engineering is not directly under the engineering school and we went to the LAS session. Wisconsin is the biggest among the three and the campus environment is great. The engineering has a new building and there is some construction going on right next to it. The campus over all is great, but the engineering campus is not as attractive as the UIUC one. Among the three engineering campus, we like UIUC the most. If you like large campus, you will like Wisconsin more. The lake view is definitely a plus. Purdue is a kind of small and it is in the middle of corn fields. We almost got lost on the way there as some of the roads are not even on the map or GPS.</p>
<p>With a 35, 3.95 and legacy status your son is a Michigan lock. Notre Dame or Cornell reach? Yes, but only due to such a small class size and uncertainty in admissions.</p>
<p>Are you expecting OSU or Case to offer him aid to attend?</p>
<p>Billc, thanks for your rundown on the campuses. He likes Purdue because of its compact feel. ryancooper, yes he has Cornell as a reach. Not interested in ND. Hoping for some OSU aid but they don’t give much to in-state kids, maybe 6 grand. Case would offer him big bucks, like $30 grand according to the NPC, but he has crossed it off his list (too small, too close to home). Glad to hear you think UofM is a lock. I just hope I don’t have to tell him it’s a no-go because of money. Ugh.</p>
<p>What is NPC? How are you predicting the offers, e.g. $6K from OSU, $30k from Case? Is Carnegie Mellon on his list? </p>
<p>If he really wants to go to Michigan, just tell him to get a part-time job on campus, engineering summer jobs pay pretty big money, and loans for the rest.</p>
<p>For oos, you need 60k per year. It sounds a lot easier when it is not coming from your pocket.</p>