@Camasite congrats to your D for getting those apps in. @ucbalumnus yes, well aware of the challenge getting direct admit to CS at WA. S pulled a pretty good ACT so we will swing for the fences knowing how tough it is. He is genuinely interested in bio too, so will need to figure it all out in the spring.
My S has applied to UVic and will apply to UBC, but with Covid, Iâm not sure if those are the best choices. I think it might be too iffy getting across the border. UVic looks like itâs in a beautiful area and it would be something different from what heâs used to.
Within the past week, the Seattle Times newspaper published an article about a small American town which is landlocked US territory in the respect that its only land border is with a Canadian town in British Columbia.
Point Roberts, WA. Itâs a little tiny finger of suburban Vancouver BC that extends down below the 49th parallel and, therefore, is part of the US. There are no colleges there though. Itâs mostly retirees and a few Americans who commute to jobs in Canada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Roberts,_Washington The quarantine and border closure is making their lives difficult.
Point Roberts is surrounded by water other than the 49th parallel international border. Getting to the rest of the US without going through Canada does require crossing water (e.g. with a boat, or by swimming).
Other parts of the US that are inaccessible by land without going through Canada include: Alaska and the Northwest Angle (Lake of the Woods). Some cities in Alaska have no road access to other places in Alaska without going through Canada.
I did most of these same tours with my twin daughters over the past two years, with them starting this year one at the UW and and at Whitman. The one who ended up at the UW wanted the big city, big campus experience, while the other wanted something smaller. The one who ended up at Whitman also applied to WWU and L&C. Your daughter should think about the honors program at WWU. Mine got good merit at both L&C and Whitman, making her costs at Whitman less than my other OOS daughterâs costs at UW. The one at Whitman is also in Biology, so feel free to message me if you want to compare notes.
Thanks. She has applied for the honors colleges at all the public schools that she has applied to (WWU, UW, WSU, and UO). I think UO charges an additional $4,000 or so for Clark Honors college but the others are free (or no additional cost) as far as I know.
Iâm personally rooting for her final decision to come down to UW or Whitman but honestly, Iâm fine with any of her options. UW would be a lot more fun for us because more football games and such to go watch. But itâs her life not ours.
If she ends up picking either UW or Whitman Iâll pm you for advice and info. Itâs mostly just a waiting game now. But I have hope she can go back and visit these schools in the spring with students on campus before making a final decision.
At this point all her applications are in and if I bring up anything to do with college selection or try to introduce her to any students or alum at any school she will scream at me! Hah.
OSU is extremely strong for the sciences in the PNW (after UW.) Itâs one of 4 schools to be a land, space, sea, and sun grant institution (Cornell, UHawaii, and Penn State are the other 3.) The school does offer scholarships to OOS, based on a SAT/ACT + GPA matrix, though the websiteâs wording is unclear.
UOregon is stronger for Humanities/Social Sciences than STEM.
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Every few years the TV network news divisions discover the oddity of Point Roberts, WA. COVID has highlighted the issue again. This year the state added ferry service across the harbor (to Blaine, WA I believe) to ease the pain of the border restriction with British Columbia. Every now and then some Americans say âgive it to Canada.â This will NEVER happen because the few consumer retail businesses on Point Roberts are a relative gold mine because of the shoppers FROM Canada.
Thread update.
She ended up applying to UW, WWU, WSU and UO for public schools and Whitman, Lewis & Clark, University of Puget Sound, Gonzaga, and Occidental for private schools.
None of them ED. Whitman was the only one she considered it for, but isnât sure it is her first choice over UW.
So far she has gotten acceptance letters from WSU, WWU, and UO, all of them offering merit aid ($4,000 from WSU as an in-state student, $10,000/yr from UO as an out of state student, and so far undefined from WWU).
Iâm not expecting any more letters until Feb/March I guess WSU, WWU, and UO do rolling admissions but I donât think any of the other schools do that.
She is tired of me bringing up the subject. But if I had to guess her top choices will be UW and Whitman. Iâm crossing my fingers that both will be an option. But if not, she has plenty of other good choices. WWU and Lewis & Clark are probably the next choices if UW or Whitman donât work out. I think she hasnât entirely decided whether she wants a big or small school experience. The wild card will be if one of the private schools comes up with a merit aid package that is markedly better than all the others. I donât expect that to happen because they all seem pretty tuned in to what the others are doing. But you never know.
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A nephew of mine attended Whitman and got a great education. He met a wonderful girlfriend there and they were together for a long time, we hoped theyâd get married, but sadly they broke up, oh well. He got a wonderful job at EPIC in Madison, WI. He had a great time at Whitman and still talks about it fondly. Walla Walla is small there, but his parents enjoyed visiting him there.
My S was very close to attending WWU. I secretly wish he had chosen to go there, but itâs his choice! D was interested but didnât apply. She did apply to Linfield, Willamette and University of Portland and was accepted to all. She almost chose Linfield and for a while she was going between Linfield and Whittier College (in California and another good LAC to consider on the west coast), but she went elsewhere. University of Portland didnât offer enough FA to make it affordable, probably because it was a bit of a reach for her and Willamette didnât provide enough FA either. D applied to UO and got in, but wasnât super interested. Neither one of my kids applied to UW or WSU.
A tad off topic, but both my kids got brochures from St. Martinâs University in Lacey, WA. And I have co workers whose kids are applying to schools this year and theyâve gotten brochures from St. Martinâs too. Anyone from that area know anything about it? I donât know anyone who has attended or applied, but I sure know plenty whoâve gotten brochures. Just curious
St. Martins is pretty far off the radar even for the Pacific Northwest. Itâs a small Benedictine LAC with a tiny endowment that always seems to be struggling. It has a reputation for being more conservative than the local Jesuit schools (Gonzaga and Seattle University). I donât have any inside information about St. Martins, but it would be on my list to follow in the footsteps of Marylhurst University and Concordia University, two other Pacific Northwest private religious schools in the Portland area that recently folded and closed:
Personally, if you are looking for Catholic education in the Pacific Northwest I would look to University of Portland, Seattle University, or Gongaga, which are all much more established and financially stable.
I teach HS two hours south and I donât know of any local students who have ever considered or attended St. Martins. The other 3 Catholic Universities are far far more popular. Especially Gonzaga.
The Olympia area is nice enough. Lacy WA is in the outer blue collar suburbs of Olympia. I think is the only private school in the area. It is kind of a nondescript suburban setting though.
My D reminded me that a friend of hers (well more of a friend of a friend) went to St. Martinâs but she transferred after her Freshman year. This girl went to a Catholic high school in our area. I wonder if St. Martinâs is more on the radar of Catholic high schools? Who knows?
Thatâs too bad that itâs struggling, but then again, with a puny endowment and the fact that itâs off the radar, even for locals, doesnât help matters. The fact that the one person I know (as of last night) who attended, left after her Freshman year, isnât a great sign either. But then again, I donât know why she transferred. There are tons of reasons why students transfer.
Both my kids got brochures from them and so did several friendâs kids. I have mentioned them on CC before, due to brochures we received and that fact that I thought I had heard of every University in the NW, since my kids were interested in that area. It looks like a nice school on the website, which of course I had to check out due to curiosity
I actually looked up Marylhurst out curiosity and it said that transcripts are available via St. Martinâs which is their custodian university. Interesting! I like doing this sort of snooping. I have actually heard of Marylhurst and Concordia, though I donât know anyone who actually attended either school.
Just finishing up my last post, I expect more small private colleges with small endowments to close. Covid certainly isnât helping!
St. Martins is in a pretty nondescript suburban sprawl area just south of the massive Joint Base Lewis-McCord, which is the largest military installation in the Pacific Northwest. Iâm not sure there is anything of interest for students within walking distance, for example.
I can think of a lot of other small PNW colleges that have nicer settings. St. Martins is basically right off a suburban freeway interchange. But honestly I donât really know that much about it except that it has a reputation of being the kind of place that a certain type of Catholic parent might send their kids because Seattle U or Gonzaga are âtoo liberalâ. I donât know if that is still the case. I donât think there is enough there to attract someone from out of state honestly.
Ah I see. We live in CA and my kids werenât at all interested in St. Martinâs after receiving their brochures. The girl D told me about last night is from CA as well and she left the school after her freshman year. Yeah doesnât seem like it would have much to attract students from far away, but they may be desperate for tuition money and more people to enroll.
Yeah, my kids looked at Gonzaga and Seattle. S has a friend who is attending GonzagaâŠ
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For anyone still interested in this saga, we have gotten early admission and aid awards and offers from 5 of the 9 schools she applied to. Still waiting for RD from UW, Oxy, and Whitman but Whitman did send a preliminary aid estimate. So I put together a spreadsheet of all the estimated costs working off each schoolâs 2020-2021 cost of attendance info. I included only tuition, fees, and room and board as the other stuff like travel and books is going to be variable and not that different between schools. I used the median room and board cost for each school if there was a range. She decided not to apply to Reed but I left it in for reference as we would likely be full pay there (45% of families at Reed are full pay). And she scratched Gonzaga off for personal reasons so I didnât include it even though she applied.
Here it is. I canât seen to embed the .jpeg in this forum but you can click through to see it: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50768401956_ce32abffc1_b.jpg
Here is an Excel copy and paste. Hope the formatting survives!
| School | Western Washington Univ. | Washingon State | Univ. of Washington | Univ. of Puget Sound | Lewis & Clark | Univ. of Oregon | Whitman | Occidental | Reed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 Tuition | $6,705 | $10,760 | $10,629 | $51,470 | $54,832 | $39,309 | $55,560 | $55,980 | $60,310 |
| Fees | $2,103 | $1,313 | $1,030 | $280 | $360 | $2,000 | $408 | $595 | $310 |
| Room & Board | $12,519 | $11,122 | $13,887 | $13,480 | $12,784 | $12,783 | $13,800 | $16,600 | $14,980 |
| Merit Awards | $(4,000) | $(4,000) | $- | $(30,000) | $(30,500) | $(10,000) | $(21,200) | $- | $- |
| Total | $17,327.00 | $19,195.00 | $25,546.00 | $35,230.00 | $37,476.00 | $44,092.00 | $48,568.00 | $73,175.00 | $75,600.00 |
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is she excited about any of those?
(and, as I donât have a 2021 kid, are any seniors excited about college in general? I donât think many 2020 kids are all that enthused by this year so far. 
SO HOPING ITS better for 2021 kids!)
She is excited about UW, loves the campus, wants to do marching band, and has a cohort of here friends from HS who are already there or hoping to go.
She also likes Whitman, UPS, Lewis & Clark, and WWU probably in that order. But hasnât had the opportunity to visit those schools with students on campus. It will probably come down to UW vs Whitman if she gets into both. With the others as backups if she doesnât. She still hasnât really decided whether she wants the big or small school experience. Pros and cons either way.
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