My daughter is a International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma candidate and will start looking at colleges next year. We live in Dallas/Fort Worth and the University of Nebraska actively recruits IB students from our area. The guidance counselor from my daughter’s school has said there have been a number of her students in recent years who have attended UNL. We do not know any of these students personally, so I thought I would get some input from this forum.
It appears UNL offers the George Beadle IB scholarship of $15,000/year for four years. UNL is also very generous with awarding university credit for those students who graduate with the IB diploma. This makes the cost of attendance extremely affordable.
Does anyone outside of the Midwest have experience with having a child or being a student who is/was OOS at Nebraska?
Is it easy to fly in and out of Omaha from Lincoln?
Are the winters too brutal for someone coming from warmer climates?
Do OOS students “fit in”?
Do a lot of the in-state students go home frequently on the weekends?
Although it is a Big Ten school, it appears to be ranked at the bottom of the Big Ten academically. What is your opinion of UNL’s academic experience and reputation?
Any thoughts on the Honor’s College?
My daughter will most likely be a liberal arts major with either law school or graduate school on the horizon. We told her if she goes that far from home we would prefer that she rush a sorority to build some instant community.
Omaha and Lincoln are about 40-50 minutes apart via car, so you would fly into either Omaha and take a quick drive (best) or fly into Lincoln (fewer options and much smaller airport.) No one flies from Lincoln to Omaha or vice versa.
I appreciate the information on the accessibility to Omaha from Lincoln. As we all know, mileage and actual drive time can vary greatly depending on the area and traffic. Some campuses are hard to get to and from for a quick weekend trip home. Flights from DFW to Omaha are relatively cheap on American with three of four direct flights a day, so that would be the best option. I assumed nobody flies the 60 miles from Lincoln to Omaha!
@RealityCheck13
I’ll give you the perspective of a parent and my son is a HS Senior this year and we are considering UNL for next fall.
Last summer my son got invited to the Ultimate Husker Weekend. They flew us from Chicago to Omaha and then bused us 45 minutes to campus. It was a great weekend and we learned a lot about Nebraska. That same weekend they had flown a group up from the Dallas area. If you have the opportunity to do this I would recommend it. I know that United also flys direct from O’Hare to Lincoln. So something to look into.
Definitely generous with the scholarships. They are trying to attract out of state students. Important if you are heading to grad school or law school.
Winters: Its cold, snowy at times and gray skies. If you don’t like cold weather you wont be happy for Jan/Feb/Mar.
Fitting in. I’ll try to say this nicely and politically correctly. We have been there a few times now. I would not say that the school is not very diverse. It’s not a judgement, but just based on observation. If you are looking for diversity this might not be the best place. Everyone is super nice at Nebraska though.
Academically they seem ok. My son was interested in engineering and wasn’t overly impressed with it compared with Purdue, Iowa State, Michigan State, IL.
My son was admitted to the honors college. And we are waiting to hear back on a specific program he has an interest in (Raikes School). Not sure what his final decision is yet. Its probably down his list a little bit.
It is hard decision for us too. My son was accepted to Texas A&M engineering with only scholarship 7000 per year. However, UNL give my son scholarship for 4 years OOS tuition. TAMU engineering is def higher ranked than UNL but 40,000 per year for OOS? We are still waiting for other in state school( CA) and Purdue.
I can’t say that I have direct information. We do have a good friend that is sending his son there next year (from TX). He is a recruited football player though. There were numerous teachers at my kid’s private school that were from Nebraska and several graduated from there. They were extremely nice and had nothing but good things to say about the education there. I will use my son who is in Kansas as an example because several things are similar between the schools in that part of the country.
Will they fit in? Yes! S from Houston area has absolutely loved his school and fit in immediately. He was president of his fraternity and is staying in KS for another four years for vet school. Diversity - well not so much. But even though there isn’t a lot everyone gets along very well. He has diverse individuals in his fraternity and in some open forums said they really didn’t feel they were treated any different than anyone else there. Academics. Depends. Out school is not the best rated BUT is very well regarded in his major. All the STEM classes are high quality, particularly the pre-med and pre-vet courses. Nebraska also has areas that they are well-regarded in. Honors colleges are good. Scholarships are good.
Winters - no problem for my south TX child. He just bought a nice warm jacket, good insulated shoes and had fun. One thing I will say that I feel holds for Nebraska as well as our school. He really feels having his car there is important. That way he can drive into the bigger towns when he wants to. He is very comfortable driving and when he wants to come home he drives. Since Freshman year he has only flown home once. Staying on campus at Nebraska is very common and there is a lot going on during the weekends.
Take her there and get her feelings. My son felt at home at his school within the first 30 minutes and even though he considered other schools this one felt like home to him. It is a different school but hopefully this helps a little.