＠mommdc thanks for the link! This is very helpful. Hope I can adjust it properly once it is done processing.
@socalmom007 --uh oh. Vagueness about the budget usually means they think school still costs $8,000 per year like it did back in the 80s OR they don’t have it. Either way is not good!
@carachel2 exactly! I’ve pushed some financial safeties so if they’re a no go he has a few choices where he could get by with a small loan and summer work. His choices are very involved with my daughter’s choices, so I’m nervous about where they’re going to end up. His parents didn’t even want him to apply to Cal Poly slo because it wasn’t prestigious enough for them. I had him print out a pay scale article showing CP’s ranking for computer science by mid career earnings. I “think” that won them over, and if they get in it’s an affordable choice.
QOTD Not anticipating a 5th year. She will come in with 4 AP credits (her college only gives 4 of them and AP exam must be a 5 to get them). That should give her the wiggle room she needs if scheduling is more of a problem than she thinks it will be. Both kids went/will attend LACs in part to avoid getting shut out of classes.
@LoveTheBard Hmmm interesting quote to the press! Wonder if that represents a true decision or an easy answer.
@Momofsenior2017 I’ll look at the list. Dickinson fan here! Family history with a professor/dean and sibling student. And my own kid came close to attending. Ok ones that were on our lists…Allegheny, Muhlenberg, Ithaca, Sewanee, St. Lawrence, College of Wooster, and Siena. Pretty much all but Ithaca somewhat isolated. None really for a kid who wants an urban setting.
QOTD: I’m pretty sure son117 would like to go to law school or pursue an MBA, so I’m sure we’ll be forking over more cash after the 4 years.
@rerunagain — amused to read that you would define Ithaca as not being isolated. I used to say that it was centrally isolated! Wonderful college city though, but not exactly along the way to anywhere.
@RightCoaster Law school may be a better option in 4 years. Its a tough option right now (and has been for several years). Some view it as something of a contrarian play at this point. One good thing is there are pretty much no pre-reqs (at least in terms of majors) so if its still a tough route in 4 years, you haven’t necessarily wasted time with something you won’t use.
@CT1417 Yeah. I guess I was thinking of a friend who went from working at Earhlam to Ithaca and found the area a lot more cosmopolitan. But then another friend went from U Minn to Cornell and says she has to go to Syracuse for a lot of medical and food specialties!
QOTD: 5th year: D17 already knows a fifth year won’t be funded, and so part of her choosing will include (1) whether she can double major in her fields of interest and still complete everything in four, and (2) whether both of her majors of interest have enough of what she wants that she could still get what she’s after if she has to downstep to a major+minor in order to finish in four. (Changing majors may well happen, but she’s been laser-focused on her fields since early middle school, so I figure it’s more unlikely with her than with many others.)
5th year, part 2: The university I work at has mostly 3-credit classes, and requires a minimum of 120 credits to graduate (so 30 credits, or 10 classes, per year for a 4-year completion). We also have an abysmal 4-year graduation rate. (An abysmal 6-year graduation rate, too, but that’s a different dynamic at play than what I’m talking about here.) One of the things we’ve discovered is that gobs and bunches of our really, really focused students, even those who come in with serious AP credits and such, are taking 4½ or 5 years to accumulate the 120 needed to graduate, which causes issues in curriculum planning and such—and this is happening because students need only 12 credits to be full time for federal financial aid purposes, and 12 credits (4 classes) is a lot easier to handle than 15 (5 classes). Starting last year, then, there’s been a big “Finish in four!” push, and one of the things that appears on some of the messaging is “15 credits—the real full time”.
Are there people who finish college in 4 years??? 8-} I’m on the 30 year plan…
We aren’t using spreadsheets, Naviance is about all I can obsess over, well, and you guys. The business cards from any interviews or meetings are kept in the kitchen junk drawer for easy access. DD17 has all communication on her email account and that’s that. She is applying to lots of reaches (at a certain point they are all reaches) and a couple of safeties, and a couple of “what the hell why nots”. She has no idea what she wants to major in but has narrowed it down to “something sciencey.” That’s fine with us - DD14 has all ready changed her major and added a minor out of left field. My BIL who is an Army officer used to say, “plan early and plan twice” so that has become our mantra.
DD14 just met with her advisor about possibly red shirting and taking 5 years but they came up with a four year plan that allowed her to add a minor. So I have THAT going for me. Starting to look at grad schools for her - thinking Pitt.
No spreadsheet here.
The 5 yr question…it is something we have been talking about. UOk’s NMF scholarship covers not only 5 yrs, but summer tuition as well. All of their scholarship $$ can be used for study abroad. I am pretty sure that that is not the option she will end up choosing, but it is perk that we want to make sure she acknowledges so that she is making a fully informed decision since study abroad is so important to her and 5 yrs would allow for a lot of flexibility.
BUT, our older kids have all graduated on-time and could have graduated early. Even our chemE ds graduated in 4 yrs + a summer session including 12 straight months of co-oping. She will be carrying in quite a few credit hours, so that helps.
Caching up… ** Various past QQTD’s**
DS17 has only heard from 2/7 schools. He’s waiting to hear from all his schools and most of the rest he won’t hear about till at least mid-March. Will make the end of April fun… But did say that UofO which he has been admitted is one of the schools he’s most interested.
5 year question: We will see, it will depend on where he goes. We don’t plan on a 5 year plan. He will be attending a large state school (it’s all he applied) to and I know getting into classes is a very real thing. Although I know one thing than often makes it worse is poor planning, or bad counseling, and missing deadlines… As well as a bit of bad luck. He will go in with a few AP’s… and depending on school will give him a different amount of AP credit. I see this as more a situation of I’ll continue to pay for his education as long as he is in good standing & passing his class, and on track for graduating and making an effort to get into the classes he needs.
@rerunagain I’m amused that you think small LAC’s student’s don’t get shut out of classes. Yes not as often as in large state schools. But they still have the problem. If you have a class that handled 20 kids, have only one teacher and twenty seats. The student who registers late still gets shut out. But they often have better counseling. My older D’s LAC required a counseling appointment before you could register for classes. But despite being a LAC many of it’s class sized were fixed.
@rerunagain - Your guess is as good as mine. 
It was probably an of the cuff answer when the reporter asked the three interviewees their grades, their opinions re: Trump and, for the two seniors, what their college plans were. The other senior had gotten into her ED school, so she obviously had an answer…I guess D17 did too,
Also catching up… I’ve been distracted and fell far, far behind.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek Big Congrats on the Top Scholars weekend. <:-P <:-P How soon is it?
@itsgettingreal17, @whataboutcollege, and others: Congrats!! <:-P <:-P
QOTD 5th year: The less expensive colleges on his list (Calpoly or a UC) have a statistically higher chance of a 5th year. At other colleges a 5th year might happen due to internship/research that involves being paid. So, I’m hopeful that any 5th year might even out the cost. Once he starts on any PhD, that should be funded.
QOTD Do we know? Just don’t know. One deferral, no acceptances yet; probably none until March. 18 applications out. But, happy to see other kids finding out earlier and rooting for everyone!!
QOTD My college: I applied and was accepted to Berkeley, RPI, and MIT. UC was in state and the others looked good from the brochures they sent. 3 seemed like a huge number back then; most kids applied to only CSU and maybe UCs (which you just ranked your top 3). I remember the MIT application asked you to submit 2 poems you’d written. After we got the financial aid packages from those, my parents then got around to telling me there wasn’t any money for college. MIT was $15K/year COA and our financial aid was ~$8K as I recall. No one told me about loans, so even housing at Berkeley was out of reach despite cheap tuition. Luckily I got a letter from Texas A&M that said there was a free ride waiting for me if I filled out a 1-page form. I’d never heard of Texas A&M at that point, but it was free.
HintOTD: His Google Doc with all the essays arranged by college is 77 pages long. Google Docs get really slow when they are that long! But, it’s all there.
Grad gift: We got him a rolling duffel bag last summer. It worked well if anyone wants the Amazon link. Another thought was a small electronic keyboard, but he ended up inheriting that from my dad/mom. I asked whether he might want a new laptop, but he is very happy with his 2-year-old laptop. We paid for the basic model and he paid to soup it up with hacking winnings.
LOL on RPI extension. DS said he got 3 emails from them including 2 about the deadline extension in one day.
RE: Spreadsheets. We have one with many tabs - even one specifically for username/password/etc… for all the portals.
QOTD: I graduated in the mid-80’s. I applied to Miami (OH), Bennington, Macalester, and Wittenberg. I still recall getting an acceptance letter from Allegheny, even though I never applied! Hey-did that happen to anyone else back then? It’s common now, but everyone told me it was strange at the time; I wasn’t high-stats, NMSF or anything similar, so no idea how they found me.
I chose Mac largely due to being willful and insisting that I be more than a 7-hour drive from home. :-?? It turned out to be fabulous, but I’d never visited-just signed up based on my college counselor’s suggestion. MN was a great place to be 19! Tuition was a stretch, though, and I ended up signing on the dotted line for 3 loans (Dad said “sign these”, I said OK-not understanding anything about fin aid). My D and S are so much more savvy about the whole process, thank goodness!
QOTD: S’s College selection keeps changing, based on which acceptances have come in and when. So far, he’s in at 4 flagship states and 2 of those are Hon Cllgs. He’s also just finished the big scholarship push (over 20?), which required so much writing that I don’t know how our students can get it all done and still communicate their thoughts in any sort of cogent manner. S is pretty chill as a person, so he’s taking it all in stride, which has its benefits at times like these. Still waiting for the last 3 RD’s-Mines, MIT, and RPI. He’s accepted a trip and flies on Fri to find out more about their Engineering Physics program (new to me?), and if he likes it that school may move to the top. Of course tomorrow is Sr. Ditch day, so now he’s missing 2 days in 1 week. Not thrilled about this.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek what an exciting honor! I mentioned this to S, and he’s is cheering for your D. Physics power to the max!
@youcee love this! “We have a better idea of where we’re going for dinner tomorrow night than we do where he’s going to college.”. So true!
@rerunagain
@curiositycat333 said
So does my D14’s large state school, and she’s never been shut out of a class, even when she’s waited a day or so after her first available time to register. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, and she has had to take a different section of a few classes, but I also think it just depends, like so many other aspects of college. It’s not as simple as dividing into size of school, or public vs. private, or LAC vs. university. Just another data point for folks to consider.
@IABooks Indeed. I went to a small LAC and was never able to take a fine arts class as a non-fine arts major, and I tried every semester. The school just couldn’t handle the demand for those classes.