<p>Marny,
Can you give more info on WestChester or York. I am now in the process of suggesting schools for my daughter, a rising junior, to look at this coming school year. No specific interests yet. Her stats sound very similar to your d. I looked up York; does anyone know why it is so inexpensive?</p>
<p>Check out Loyola.</p>
<p>York has a nice endowment. We visited last fall with my junior son and a senior friend of his. The friends mother and I both liked it but the kids were not thrilled. They will have a new music business major in the fall, although it might be called something different. Fendergirl, who posts here pretty often, just graduated from here. It seems like a nice college for B students, lots of fresh, clean brick buildings, a big new library was being built while we visited. Dorms were a good size. The biggest negatives I saw was that it has a repuatation as a suitcase school and it's in York, which is not the most exciting small city. </p>
<p>West Chester, Kutztown and Millersville are all very similar. Pretty campuses. West Chester has a now cute down town, excellent marching band and is mostly known for it's education and especially music ed departments. Philadelphia and Wilmington are within an hours drive. We went to church in West Chester for 10 years.</p>
<p>Kutztown boasts that 70% of the art teachers in PA graduated from there. They have a shadowing offer through their science department where a prospective HS student can get a tour with a current student and then sit in on a couple of classes and have lunch with the student. My son may apply here as a safety. </p>
<p>Millersville, just like most of this tier state school, was started as a teachers college and still graduates a considerable amount of ed majors. Both M-ville and Kutztown are out in the middle of nowhere. I thought the computer science program looked really good here. </p>
<p>Jaybee-
My son's friend that just finished his first year at Towson is a History and Anthropology major. He chose Towson thinking that he might like to teach at the college level and said that it had a very deep history major. I would look into that aspect if that is your son's interest. When I was researching colleges for my kids to look at, I took one of the fat college books and just went through the states they were interestd in, threw out the ones that I knew they wouldn't get into and then looked at the majors. There are so many colleges here in the Northeast that if you want to stay in this area, you can easily find lots of choices for any kind of student.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Kutztown boasts that 70% of the art teachers in PA graduated from there.
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No kidding?? My aunt was an art teacher in PA before she retired, and she graduated from Kutztown around 1950. I had no idea...! Very cool to know, thanks!</p>
<p>You guys have been great! I'm going to have my son read this entire thread. The York-Millersville-West Chester group sounds very promising. I still wish someone knew something about Shepherd University. </p>
<p>Keep those ideas coming. I'm sure there are others than me with the same situation.</p>
<p>We visited Susquehanna in PA this year. It's two hours from Baltimore. We loved it. They have a beautiful campus, very wired for technology. Their music facilities have been recently updated, and they welcome non-music majors to participate. Don'tknow if they have a marching band, but they have a pep band that sits in the stands and has a blast, according too our guide. I think your son would fit their profile.</p>
<p>Jaybee, unfortunately all I know about Shepherd is that the Shepherdstown area is very scenic and laid back. Have you checked out studentsreview.com or review.com for student comments?</p>
<p>Susqhehanna is also SAT-optional; I haven't checked their website in awhile, so I can't remember if they require a school paper in lieu of the SATs.</p>
<p>Elizabethtown & Lebanon Valley would be too hard from what I hear from the local kids. Millersville might even be a reach. Millersville, Kutztown, & West Chester all have somewhat of a suitcase school reputation. Susquahanna seems like it would be perfect for your son. It's a beautiful school; very supportive; friend's DD had an internship with the Hershey Bears as a junior there, & will be spending next semester studying poly sci in DC. The 3 kids we know that attend love it.</p>
<p>Jaybee, You have gotten some good suggestions. Have you visited Towson (I am assuming it is not too far)? I guess you would get in-state tuition, and it is close to Baltimore. We looked at it. My son, H and I liked it very much. My only Q is why the low 4 year graduation rate of 30.8%? I do not have the Rowan stats in front of me, but believe the grad rate to be similar. We are from Jersey and visited, and it could also work well for your son, as it was founded as a teacher's college and is apparently student centered, rather than research based. I believe they have ave. sat scores of around 1200 (M and V), but you would need to check that. Your son might like University of Vermont, or Hofstra. I have heard that York's strength is its nursing program, but I know nothing about it, so that info may not be accurate. What about Suffolk U. in Boston? I happen to know of a student at Elizabethtown, which was suggested. She was a high achiever in HS, and went there bcs of the scholarship offered, as she intends to go to graduate school.</p>
<p>Sorry I just realized you want small LAC close to your home, but I still would then check out Towson.</p>
<p>I think Susquehanna might be a bit of a reach too. According to the ipeds website, the SAT for 75% of the students was 620 verbal, 630 math. I didn't realize they were SAT optional but it says 96% of the students did submit SAT scores. I visited it a few years ago with my daughter and thought the campus was lovely, tourguide was really nice and the facilites looked suberb. However, we then visited Elon in North Carolina and thought it was very, very similar for much less cost. </p>
<p>Check out any of these colleges with this site:
<a href="http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/admissions.asp%5B/url%5D">http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/admissions.asp</a> This is a great website to quickly get stats to eliminate or start a list</p>
<p>Jaybee, did you look down the delmarva peininsula at Salsibury University? How about Washington College, which is close to you in Chestertown? You could easily check out those two in a day.</p>
<p>Kathiep,
Thanks again for the information--you helped me with Towson awhile back. Towson has so much going for it, I can't believe it isn't more selective. It has small class sizes, a great location, and a beautiful, active campus. My son ultimately chose another school, but it was a hard choice.<br>
A note about Washington College which was suggested by another poster--it is extremely rural which we did not know before we visited it. We had a private tour which we could not back out of, otherwise son would not have even gotten out of the car! My fault, I should have done more research before scheduling the trip.</p>
<p>Chocolate,
I agree with you and Kathiep about Towson. We really liked it. I guess within Maryland it lives in the shadow of University of Maryland, but that is just a guess. The students we spoke with seemed happy.</p>
<p>kathiep--
Towson is in my backyard--30 kids from s's high school are going there.
It's a little too big for my son.</p>
<p>I get so worried about the housing situation--I went to a school where housing was guaranteed, and I can't imagine my son having to find an apartment after a couple of years. But most of the schools that he qualifies for would mean this. There don't seem to be any "less selective" colleges near me that guarantee housing.</p>
<p>Jaybee,
The students that I spoke with did not find housing at Towson a problem. Is it? There are apartments within walking distance, one even looks like it is on campus, but is not. That complex is shared by both Goucher and Towson students. I don't know if nonstudents reside there as well (it never occured to me until now). What do the kids and parents think of it? Do you have any information about it? Even though it is middle sized it seems to provide a personal touch. It seems like tutoring and advising is good and class size is smaller than most schools.</p>
<p>Jaybee, thanks for posting and I agree with others who said you are not alone on this board. S2 is also "not your average CC student" and it is helpful when those of us post and can share ideas and information on good schools that are not the usual CC prospects.</p>
<p>Congrats to your son for making Eagle Scout! It is difficult to achieve and an excellent EC which will be respected by college adcoms. There may be other things associated with that which could be highlighted; for instance, has he done a lot of community service during his scout years, or completed a particularly challenging hiking expedition? </p>
<p>I don't have much information on Baltimore area schools, but son may tour Loyola during a short Baltimore visit next month and would appreciate any information on the school.</p>
<p>jaybee, Just a thought but you MAY want to sniff around for schools farther afield... My D's geographic range really opened up over the senior year (<200 miles to >2000!.)</p>
<p>Sounds like you've got a great many excellent nearby choices-- but just in case, it might not hurt to throw in a few apps outside the area.</p>
<p>Jaybee,
I would not let guaranteed housing be as big on the priority list as finding a school that academically matches your student and one where he feels socially comfortable. Many colleges do not guarantee housing for four years but instead have nearby housing that students live in. What often happens is that only freshman and sophomores choose to live on campus but there is often room for juniors and seniors. I thought that Towson had some newly opened apartments for upperclassman. Because we have so many friends that have students that are upperclassman and live off campus, that never even crossed my mind as a big concern except when we looked at Drexel. City apartment shopping has got to be trickier.</p>
<p>There is nothing like just jumping in and starting to visit some colleges to get students in the college search frame of mind. We visited Muhlenberg's open house when my daughter was a junior just to see what a small private LAC was like. She had no intention of going there but we did learn that that was the type of school that she liked. </p>
<p>BTW, My son is a B student, just completed his Eagle project (awaiting the board of review), and in marching band. He's interested in perhaps a computer game design/computer science major and he's looked at 8 colleges so far. I think all are matches, slight reach. I'm not sure we would have even looked at Towson except for the fact that his friend goes there and while it is a bigger college, that's what makes it interesting for our friend. Sometimes the larger colleges have deeper majors and especially for an undecided student, there are more choices if the first major doesn't work out. My son thought he really liked Drexel because the technology was so up to date but after we visted some LAC's and colleges in rural, semi-rural areas, I think he realized that he just won't be that comfortable living in a city and that there are other considerations to think about.</p>
<p>kathie - the new music major is called Music Industry/ Recording Technology</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ycp.edu/academics/4740.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.ycp.edu/academics/4740.htm</a></p>
<p>I wish they had it when I enrolled.. I would of LOVED that major.</p>
<p>Selected music courses include Ethnomusicology, Music Performance, Music Theory, and Music History offerings. Music Industry and Business courses offerings include Copyright and Licensing, Entertainment and Promotion, Small Business Ventures, Marketing, Management, Public Relations, and Survey of Music Industry. A series of Audio Production courses covers the following topics: audio for broadcast, audio mixing and mastering, computer-based audio production, digital signal processing, Foley stage sound production, microphone theory and placement, MIDI sequencing, recording studio management, sound effect planning and creation, studio recording, and sound reinforcement.</p>