<p>as someone said, Mt Holyoke has a program, and they have 30 stalls for students to bring their horses - and the that part of the state is very nice</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/equest/%5B/url%5D">http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/equest/</a></p>
<p>thanks a ton everyone!</p>
<p>I think someone asked: My daughter is an eventer, however we are looking at schools that do just about any type of riding. We figured as long as there are horses in the area, we can find a barn to keep her horse. Horse does not require any type of training/show stable, just general field and access to a stall. She wants to stay in the PA/MD/VA/NC area (we live in PA) as this is the major "eventing area" and it will be easier to bring the horse home to a local farm for long vacations/summer.</p>
<p>She has been online all afternoon researching schools that have a riding team/club and allow freshman to drive cars. I also tried to narrow the search to schools within our budget ;)</p>
<p>As I mentioned above, trying to budget a horse plus college (and her brother is a freshman this year!) is going to be difficult, so we really cant afford the more expensive schools. So all the schools listed are under $30,000</p>
<p>This is what we have come up with:
Let me know what you all think...</p>
<p>James Madison
Elon
Radford
U of Mary Washington
VA Tech
U of Virginia
George Mason
Washington College
Penn State (father's choice, he is an alum)
UNC @ Chapel Hill (does not allow freshman cars, but she loves the campus)
UNC @ Wilmington</p>
<p>I think she will also apply to Brown (went on campus visit and loved) thought it will really depend on the financial aid offered (and if she gets in!) whether she can go.</p>
<p>Just a cautionary note: At the start of senior year, my daughter also thought she wanted to bring her horse to school. By April, however, she'd decided that it simply was not going to work, and that perhaps she didn't want to be tied down to her horse while in college. She's now a freshman, and very glad she did not bring her horse - she is way too busy keeping up with coursework and her new college social life. </p>
<p>We did look at many "horse friendly" schools along the way, but she never limited herself to only "horse friendly" schools. It was a good move on her part because when it came time to make a final choice, taking her horse was no longer the priority she had thought it was in the fall.</p>
<p>However, two schools that your daughter doesn't have on her list that she might consider: Goucher College in Maryland, which has a very active equestrian program and an oncampus facility (and there are boarding facilities close to campus as well), and Sweet Briar College in Virginia. Both can be quite generous with merit money, bringing the price well within your budget.</p>
<p>Good luck to your daughter.</p>
<p>Oh! I forgot to mention that when we visited Washington College we were told that their "equestrian team" is very new, and very small. Washington is also quite isolated, so make sure to visit and talk to members of the team.</p>
<p>Alfred University is in NY, but near PA. Has an Equestrian Team and Studies Program. Freshman are allowed to have cars on campus. BTW, happened to see Mt. Holyoke's facilities this past weekend and they are impressive.</p>
<p>At a Duke University function for accepted students one of the Staff from Student Services told me she had once helped a student find a stable at which to board her horse.</p>
<p>You should contact the equilvalent of Student Services at the schools that your daughter is truly interested in. Odds are they have heard this before and will be happy to help.</p>
<p>Personally I once had a conversation with a young lady who attended a foreign study program in Scotland while in college. She found various stables and just started "hanging out" and helping as needed. She eventually ended up with riding privileges for a fabulous horse belonging to a local who didn't have the time to exercise the horse regularly. She said it was a great experience as she got to know individuals outside the college, some wonderful horses and of course, there was no way she could have taken her own horse to Scotland!</p>
<p>The poor guy asks a simple, desperate question, and 13 people come up with answers for him.</p>
<p>You people are amazing. :)</p>
<p>Antioch has a Riding Centre (their spelling) just a short walk from campus. It is located on ground owned by the college. I don't know if they board horses at the riding center, but would certainly know who would in the area. Here's the web address: <a href="http://www.ridingcentre.org/index.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.ridingcentre.org/index.htm</a>.</p>
<p>Elon does have an equestrian team, but I think the facilities are a good 20-25 minute drive from campus.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think she will also apply to Brown (went on campus visit and loved) thought it will really depend on the financial aid offered (and if she gets in!) whether she can go.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I find it very hard to imagine that a financial aid officer is going to be sympathetic to providing signficant "need-based" aid to a student budget that includes bringing her own horse to college (as well as a car to drive back and forth to the horse.)</p>
<p>I don't know about horses, but I would check out-St. Andrews Presbyterian College b/c they have a "therapeutic Horsemanship" program.
I would also look into Cook College, which is part of Rutgers University.</p>
<p>Davidson allows first-year students to have cars; there are probably horse-boarding facilities somewhere within weekend visiting distance. If your daughter is intersted in a very good LAC it might be worth looking into in any case, and if she is a really strong student she might get some merit aid to offset the cost of keeping the horse.</p>
<p>Carolyn,
What I want to know is what happened to your daughter's horse? I have a feeling I will be inheriting my daughters and I get saddle sore just thinking about it...mine definitely will not bring horse, I want her to have time to explore other activities and the horse is just too time consuming for a college freshman who is not going to major in an equine discipline. (IMHO, of course).</p>
<p>I have absolutely no information to help here, but are there any other Lewis Black fans who, when they read the thread title, hear his immortal riff on trying to figure out what a young woman behind him in a restaurant could possibly mean when she says, 'If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college' ?</p>
<p>My d's friend started out like Carolyn's thinking she wanted to bring her horse to college. By the end of Dec senior year she took a trip to visit a friend at her college. She fell in love with this school. Applied and was accepted.
While this school wasn't on her list as horse friendly she was pleasantly surprised to find it did have a riding team. I am not clear on exactly how it works except I know that in the competition you don't ride your own horse.
Back in the day I had two friends who brought horses to college. Both found that the demands of classes left little time for exercising a horse.</p>
<p>Horses are really my wife's passion but I do remember she took horseback riding at Miami Univ. in Oxford, OH. Miami is a good school academically for many fields of study. It is about 45 minutes north of Cincinnati. I did a quick search and here is the webpage for the Equestrian Team. You will have to check with them about if you can board your own horse. Good Luck.
<a href="http://www2.miamiriding.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www2.miamiriding.com/</a></p>
<p>The Intercollegiate Equestrian Teams are lots of fun ... but very different from the sort of riding your daughter does. While essentially 'hunt seat equitation", when showing, the mounts are drawn by lot from a pool provided by the host school. Thus, an experienced rider who never showed traditional equitation may do very well. It's a LOT of fun -- and you don't have your horse ownership and transportation issues.</p>
<p>I would suggest, as an eventer, that your daughter look for colleges that are near <em>Pony Clubs</em>. And I know as an eventer, you'll understand the connection! You might find a great set up with a local family or stable.</p>
<p>I think this is a good time for you all to have a discussion about finances and priorities and how everything fits together for your family. I know nothing about horses.... but I know lots of families who set off on a quest to find a school which had X +Y + Z only to discover in April a severe disconnect between the kid and the parental units.</p>
<p>There are kids who want to be close to surfing; there are kids who like to ski; there are kids who want to spend junior year roaming around Europe and get college credit for it. All of this is great and admirable... but you should know your limitations and your priorities ahead of time so you don't end up having the wrong options next year.</p>
<p>I know people working two jobs to pay tuition who decline work study for their kids 'cause "the kids are too busy with their activities". If that works for your family, great.... but make sure you're all shouldering a financial burden which fits your circumstances-- and if your daughter has a horse at school, her ability to maintain a paying job as well may be very limited.</p>
<p>I am definitely an advocate of a kid working in the summers to pay an amount of the COA. I think it's important that the kid contributes to the COA/books or whatever the parents decide.</p>
<p>However, if the kid is getting federal w/s as opposed to a selective job in a lab or whatever, the kid is probably only going to get minimum wage whereas the parents may be able to draw a higher wage from both jobs.</p>
<p>Gee, I was congering up a hitching post and trough in the student parking lot!!!</p>