<p>I’ve enjoyed the comments about Susquehanna–my D was also accepted with a good merit package. In my mind the big negative is the location. It will be very difficult for her to come home for a weekend. She will not have a car and the nearest big city is Harrisburg, which is from my understanding about 45 minutes away. The school is about 3 hours from home and the thought of driving 6 hours round trip twice in a weekend to bring her home if she wants to get away is not appealing. The other schools in the mix are near large cities. It’s probably not a dealbreaker but it is a big negative.</p>
<p>eastcoast, depending on where you live, you may find that there are other students that she can hitch a ride with, or she may be able to get transportation that brings her close.
There’s usually a ride board.</p>
<p>My D will also be fairly rural, small town far from home. I’m a little concerned as well, but I think she’ll have enough to keep busy.
But it can be an issue for some kids, especially at certain schools. One of my bff’s has a ds who went from nyc to a rural NH school and he complained that there was nothing to do but drink. I think an OV is important to try and gauge that.</p>
<p>Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using CC</p>
<p>eastcoastcrazy, I think your daughter will find that Susquehanna is not a suitcase school and kids pretty much have to stay on campus because most freshman probably don’t have cars and not that many people live within an hour or two of campus. When we visited (first child, years ago) they said that it was common for the kids to go over to PSU main campus and hang out or over to Lewisburg and visit with Bucknell students. I know that my kids would have known students at both those colleges had they attended Susquehanna.</p>
<p>I have to say that I was a bit uneasy when my kids looked at colleges that were within an hour or so drive because I didn’t think they would experience enough of a change to make college life interesting. No worries, 7 hours was the minimum and all three chose a different part of the US to boot.</p>
<p>I do think that city to isolated rural is probably the hardest change, but as long as there are enough kids that stick around and there are alternate activities then it should work.</p>
<p>ELY- congrats on the acceptance to JMU! My D was accepted there as well. :)</p>
<p>Eastcoast - You may find your child has less interest in coming home on weekends than you expect. My d has friends who are only an hour away at school this year and didn’t come home til fall break! I agree that Susquehanna is not a suitcase school - they had one of the busiest, most active campuses we visited (keep in mind though, we looked mostly at small schools) and although “downtown” Selinsgrove doesn’t offer much, if a student has a friend with a car, the mall, movie theater, bowling alley, restaurants and tons of big box stores are 5 minutes away. And they offer a bus trip to a city every weekend. But no question, this type of campus will be an adjustment for a city kid! (I think maybe Susquehanna should offer me a job. My kid’s not even going there!)</p>
<p>Congrats for Ely and Vandy on the J M U acceptances! Vandy, if I remember, this means that your D is in at bot her #1 and #2, and both are affordable? Great news!</p>
<p>Lots of great news on here! I haven’t been keeping up in the last few days. Congratulations to everyone!</p>
<p>My kids grew up in a small town and all wanted a change from that. The first 2 ended up in schools in cities, and DS13 has applied mostly to schools in cities as well. I agree that as long as a majority of students stay on campus on weekend the small town won’t be a problem. ALso it is a good idea to stay in campus housing the first few years so that it is easy to get involved in campus life</p>
<p>We are still waiting on one more EA decision and then will sit down and try to narrow the options</p>
<p>Sorry to be Winnie the Pooh Bear, but what is JMU?</p>
<p>Congrats to all!</p>
<p><em>sigh</em> we are waiting 'til 2/1 to find out from S’s 1st choice…</p>
<p>JMU = James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA</p>
<p>Thank you so much for spelling out that abbreviation. I am sometimes lost with these school acronyms because a lot of them are from the east coast and I am not familiar.</p>
<p>Vandygrad, that’s great! I hear such good things about JMU, really looking forward to visiting. My H is not too happy about the distance, but S knows two local kids who are Freshmen at JMU, so that would help. I see you are from MD, did your D apply to UMD or Salisbury? My oldest S is at UMD, College Park studying engineering and loves it.</p>
<p>Thanks Annie and ELY!<br>
J M U was high on my D’s list for a long time and is still VERY high on mine. She didn’t like it as much on our second visit, for reasons that apply only to 17 year old people who woke up on the wrong side of the bed!</p>
<p>If she were to choose to go to J M U, I would be very pleased. I think it has a great vibe and the students seem genuinely happy and proud of their school. Every kid that I know of that goes there loves it. :)</p>
<p>I need to read this whole board. I’ve had three other kids in the high achieving zone (high stress zone too) so I need to find schools for my laid back 3.0 kid- although it is in honors classes for the most part. He says he wants engineering, I see him as business and he wants sports at Div 1 level. I think he needs smaller, he thinks he wants bigger and we’ve got a year to figure this one out!</p>
<p>@ fourkidsmom - If you have no aversion to cold weather, you might look at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology). My D was accepted, and is attending. They excel at both business and engineering, and have some “engineering technology” majors, which are sort of engineering lite as far as I can tell. There are also lots of other technical programs, such as Packaging Science. There are about 14000 students, and the required paid co-op is top notch. The scores for each program vary, and they publish the 25-75% test scores for each one.</p>
<p>I would caution a laid back kid to think twice about RIT. I know a student there who has struggled the whole time (in his fourth year) due to the intense class schedule. I admit it could be just him, but it was enough to make my hard working #3 child decide not to attend, even with good merit aid offered.</p>
<p>From what I understand about RIT (my son also applied there for Mech Eng), only the hockey teams (men and women’s) are Div I, the rest of the schools teams are Div 3.</p>
<p>We have also looked into the whole “Eng vs Eng Tech” thing. this is my understanding:</p>
<p>Engineering is more theory based, less hands on, more thinking up things that don’t exist yet and has tougher math.</p>
<p>Eng Tech is more hands on, easier math and they make real life models of the ideas that the engineers dream up.</p>
<p>I could be way off base but that’s what I think.</p>
<p>IMHO, Engineering would be difficult at any school for someone who’s laid back!</p>
<p>I do think RIT’s change from quarters to semesters may alleviate some intensity imposed by time limits. My D works best with a deadline, and rather wishes they’d stay with the quarters. That said, she is an artsy major, not engineering. In addition to great computer/engineering programs, they have a well regarded College of Imaging Arts and Science. If I could be the one going to school, I’d be looking at the Biomedical Photography or Photographic Technology majors!</p>
<p>:D 
Two big envelopes in the mail today! Ithaca College and Wooster–WOOT WOOT!!</p>
<p>MyLB - Yay!! I lived in Ithaca for 3 years in my 20’s. Loved it! am secretly hoping that my D15 goes to Cornell.</p>