<p>nightchef, I do not think that Bucknell will struggle to find students. Some remote campuses I do wonder about. If a taxi, bus, or school shuttle/van were available to get to some stores, movies, and a few restaurants, a train station, airport etc., our son would probably have gone to Susquehanna. </p>
<p>Our younger son also does not want to feel “trapped” on a campus without a car.</p>
<p>It is not just the cost of gas, but for us the cost of auto insurance is high and we’d need to pay for a used car. This is too much for us.</p>
<p>My son liked the campus of Elmira. Small school and good education. His only concern is the city of Elmira. Is there anything for the students to do off campus?</p>
<p>He loved Marist - but it might be a reach for him.</p>
<p>MaryAnn, I don’t know about the area. I believe that I saw a grocery store within walking distance, but I do not recall for sure. The campus beautiful and I hope that your son enjoys purple! We really did like the campus. You might want to visit the little Mark Twain room/museum while on campus. </p>
<p>We all liked Marist as well. I have not been on that campus in 4 years, but I still remember the beautiful view from their library.</p>
<p>Merit Aid-I tend to agree with Northeastmom, one of mine had Mono in Freshman Year & had a severe flu (with meningitis-like symptoms) her Senior Year. In both instances she had to get extra time, extensions etc to finish those semesters. To say nothing of tests like spinal taps etc. right before Christmas Break! At those particular times I was extremely glad that all her need was need-based, not merit-based. It could have been disasterous if merit aid were lost due to illness. With talk about this Swine Flu going around, it sort of makes one think about a college student staying healthy for 4 years!</p>
<p>northeastmom, what you said about the views from Marist struck a chord with me, as we spent the last week driving around NY state looking at colleges, seeing the Adirondacks, the Catskills, the Hudson valley, the upper Delaware and Susquehanna valleys, and the Finger Lakes along the way. I had forgotten how beautiful upstate New York is. There was lots of oohing and aahing, even from my son, who is normally blas</p>
<p>Night chef, yes, lots of beautiful scenery. The view from Marist’s library was just so beautiful. I remember it as nearly a wall of windows. I found Marist’s campus to be beautiful, but I have found other campuses to also be very pretty. </p>
<p>Besides nature, I have admired some amazing stained glass, and history of the some of the buildings that some of these schools have too (not referring to the ones in NY necessarily, but just at some schools that we toured). If anyone is going to visit Elmira, you might want to stop in and look at the little library/archives relating to Mark Twain. Heck, in their library (think it was the library) you can sit on a bench right next to a life sized statue of Twain and pose for a picture. We asked to see the Twain library. I don’t think that they normally show it to prospies. Someone from admissions can unlock it and give you a tour if you ask. If you want to see it, I’d suggest making an appt. for that in advance if it is possible to do so.</p>
<p>Oh, I have heard that the Finger Lake area is great for a drive in early autumn.</p>
<p>You won’t believe what I did!!! I checked my son’s ACT scores for June whenever the scores originally came out. I cosuldn’t believe how badly he had done, so I told him that he had to go to an ACT tutor. He went yesterday and the tutor said that his math skills were rusty and he should wait and take the Oct test. ( I know - long story) Anyway, i went online to see if he could take the ACT in Oct and get it to his early action schools in time…
So I accidentally clicked on his June test scores and they were really good. I had somehow looked at June 2008 by mistake. He has a 32 overall, a 35 in Science, 34 in reading, 30 in English and 28 in math…A 99%!!!. So now I wasted a few hundred $$$ when the 32 is definitely a good score for his schools. </p>
<p>Of course, I always have to worry!!! So now I wonder how schools will look at his 3.13. His GC had originally told me that some schools want to raise their test scores and if he could get a 30 or above that would really help!!! I hope so…</p>
<p>My son has heard the news. He was psyched, especially because now he won’t have to take it again. I don’t think he’ll even bother with the SAT unless he needs it for UCONN.</p>
<p>Nightchef, I think there was a thread on here recently re: NYT article and what private schools might end up in trouble & two factors I do remember: a small endowment with a student population of under 1,000. So several come to my mind: Bennington College (VT) Marlboro College (VT) & Wells College (NY). I am sure there are others! </p>
<p>After this high school Class of 2010, the number of kids heading for college goes down!
In our area there is even talk of consolidating the elementary schools because of the population decrease.</p>
<p>SLUMOM, I had a meeting at our HS today, and I commented that the 2011 class had dropped 110 students from last year. Teacher agreed and didn’t tell me what attributed to that decline. But, she did say that the 2013 class is a bumper crop - huge! I’ve heard that one of the elementary grades is also huge (but I forget which age).</p>
<p>I saw an interesting thread a few days ago - - to what schools was your kid with 3.3-3.6 gpa admitted. Has anyone seen anything similar for students with 3.0-3.3 gpa?</p>
<p>I am interested in people’s thoughts about SAT-optional schools. My suspicion is that they will assume the applicant’s scores were not above___ or else they would submit the scores. What do people think is that magic number? And do you think they have a lower assumption if the paper submitted is a B or B+ rather than an A?</p>