Happy Birthday to your D, @snoozn! DS misses out on being able to vote in November by about a month and a half. He’s a little bummed about that.
Wow, 18 already! Happy b-day. Eek. S misses out by about a month for voting.
Happy birthday to your D, @snoozn! 18 is the big one! My D won’t reach it until a few months into college.
The henna tattoo seems pretty exciting, and I hope it turns out well. I grew up in Pakistan, so I am always so confused when people use the word henna. We always called it mehndi, but the two words are completely interchangeable.
@2muchquan : I only had a brief window to get online yesterday and CC was down 
@Mom2aphysicsgeek: up thread you had mentioned that your very gifted son has found a home at a state university and is challenged and thriving. I’m so happy to hear that. But I think some of his good fortune may be due to the fact that disciplines within STEM tend to weed out ferociously, leaving the truly gifted and persistent. Also many of the top STEM students are choosing their state flagships that have the STEM programs due to cost.
I’m not so sure if kids will be as challenged in the other fields humanities. But I’m sure this depends on the state as well.
@snoozn I think my perspective is skewed by the poor economy. My ds graduated with multiple job offers. A friend’s ds who went to Rochester, did not co-op, and graduated the same yr took quite a while to get his engineering job. Of the co-op students with ds at his coop job, ds and only 1 other of the 4 was offered a job with that company. (Ds did not take that offer, but it was a hard choice for him. He did like the company.) I know at least one of those students still didn’t have an engineering job after a yr. ( though that might have been more due to personality and references than GPA.)
Today’s market is rough! They really have to make themselves marketable.
@agentninetynine There may be some truth to the natural filter by subject, but kids in CBH cross majors. There are plenty of CBHers who are not STEM focused.
Our current jr is facing the exact same scenario. Our budget is about 1/3 of our EFC. Way too many schools are eliminated based on their NPCs. We are having to focus on high merit schools. Finding schools which will work directly with her where she enters is what we are facing.
So far, UKY seems to be the best option in many ways. They have a fabulous study abroad program. She could use their full-ride NM scholarship toward study abroad for 2 full yrs. Since she wants to double in French and Russian (on top of whatever field she decides to pursue–econ, IR, IS, etc), a yr abroad in each would actually work with her skill levels. They will also offer 500 level Russian classes even if she is the only student enrolled in the class. (They have a sr doing that right now. She has been emailing him about his experience there.)
She has been emailing different depts. She heard back from USouthCarolina and they told her they would work with her. Their response was great, but their study abroad program does not seem to be anywhere as strong as UK.
So where does that her? The honors college at USC is better. But, study abroad would probably meet her needs the best for those 2 yrs, anyway.
Finding affordable options that can meet their minimum needs is basically our strategy. 
Unfortunately, our kids minimum needs are very atypical. (She is already beyond the college graduation proficiency level requirements in French for some universities and after next yr, she will be at or beyond a 300 level in Russian as well.)
Guess beggars can’t be choosers! 
They all seem to land on their feet, so I am not overly concerned. It is just taking a lot of energy filtering through colleges. (She could never do this on her own!! Thank goodness she is our 5th and not our 1st!)
It is sad that college tuition went up so much over last 20 yrs while job prospects (other than CS) went down and salaries for parents didn’t go up that much. No wonder people are voting for Trump and Sanders
@srk2017 …what gets me is that for a lot of us, our income today looks great on paper. Two professionals nicely employed.
Flash back 8 years ago with one of us in grad school and not working and then two years later dealing with about 2 years of layoffs and the numbers would not look the same at all. I’m not quite sure how they can look at one year of income and assume it has been that way for years??!
@carachel2 I agree. Stock market and housing market turmoils hit most people hard and add wage stagflation in most sectors, most can’t afford full college tuition unless going to state or community schools. College inflation is 3 or more times than CPI. For mortgage and credit cards they look @ 2 years of financial history. I am not sure why they look at 1 yr for college aid. (un)fortunately we don’t qualify for any aid, so I have no clue on that.
@snoozn Overall we liked CWR quite a bit. Great engineering school. D15 visited once in summer and again in winter. It’s nicer in the summer!!
The immediate area is urban but it seemed pretty clean and safe to me. The section between CWR and downtown Cleveland (a few miles away) was dicey. There is a light rail train that students can use to get around. Beautiful art museum and symphony hall nearby. Admissions was extremely professional and helpful. They arranged a meeting with a professor during the summer, and a student with similar interests to D in the winter (Engineer with a dance minor).
Gorgeous library with laptop loaners and a brand new student center. Many beautiful buildings - I think the business school was an architectural icon. Campus is configured oddly because it used to be 2 separate schools so it was spread out. They have a good bus system which must be essential in the winter! The freshmen housing was Very bad (old and dirty) but upperclass accommodations seemed better.
Very generous with merit $ and if your student is a musician, artist or dancer they are eligible to apply for audition- based scholarships even if they will not major or minor in that art. I like that they value students who bring more than academics to the table!
The student body has a geeky reputation but I think there is a good mix of kids. That said, I don’t think it’s much of a party school.
It was at the top of our list for a while but ultimately a warmer climate won out.
A friend of Ds is at UKY and is very happy there, @Mom2aphysicsgeek. Seems to be a great value as well. We’re also on the merit hunt. DS is focused on his majors of economics and poly sci, with minors in french, arabic and possibly political economy. He’d like to work for the state department as foreign service officer and then come back to the states and work in the economic field. Since I’m doing the research, my challenge is to find a school that offers all of these majors and minors at a bargain. :)) Any idea, hive mind?
We had a similar situation @carachel2. Things really slowed down in the spy business after the crash. It just happened that we were bouncing back when our d was applying to schools. They worked with us and increased her financial aid so it fit our budget.
@Agentninetynine Look at Ole Miss’s Croft Institute and possibly their CISS program. When we visited they said they were trying to get an Arabic Flagship (flagships are the best programs in their given languages. ole Miss already has a Chinese Flagship.) Dd loved their French dept. The Croft building is pre-Civil War and pretty worn down, but the classes are taught seminar style and the student we spoked to absolutely loves the program.
http://www.croft.olemiss.edu/home/
http://ciss.olemiss.edu
Ole Miss offers good scholarship $$ plus Croft has scholarships available as well.
Tuition at CWR is about $42K, about how much is the merit award? or what range? Thanks.
@snoozn a little late to the party but happy birthday to your D. My D16 is turning 18 tomorrow. We both will have adults in the house. I treated her like my baby today and told her she had to suck it up. It’s so sad this will be her last bday home. My D17 will turn 18 late August next year so she may already be gone for school. So this may also be her last bday home. I can’t take it!
@greeny8 You might be surprised what the future holds. We moved 10 hrs away from our oldest during the middle of his freshman yr in college., right after he turned 18. After college graduation, he took a job about 6 hrs from us. We then moved 14 hrs from where we had been living. He and his wife came for a visit, fell in love with where we had moved, found a job here, and now live 10 mins from us. It is wonderful bc all 4 of my grandkids are here. I love it! It is special bc our 6 yr old’s best friend is her almost 5 yr old niece. Back when he was 18 I bawled my eyes out bc we were moving so far from him. I never expected what we have now!
Thanks for the heads up on Ole Miss @Mom2aphysicsgeek. Looks like a solid program. Just need to convince my son he won’t melt in the south. Humidity scares him more than bitter cold. I think he’s part Inuit. He runs an a/c in his room even when it’s 10 degrees outside. And there’s not an inch of fat on him. He just runs hotter.
Happy Birthday to your daughter @snoozn! 18 is quite a milestone. Ds won’t be 18 until he’s well in college so I guess I’ll have to show up and surprise him, lol!
@nw2this 3 yrs ago our ds was awarded something like a $25-30000 scholarship from CWR. I can’t remember the exact details anymore. I do remember that heir scholarships are a fixed number, so if tuition increases 2-5%, the scholarship doesn’t. I know that they don’t publish their amts. I remember reading CC and seeing lower amts for lower stats.
Thanks. That makes the cost equal to most state U’s for a school that is ranked higher than most state U’s. So a deal imo. Good info!
@nw2this Please don’t get hung up on rank when looking at schools. There are so many more important things to evaluate.
@nw2this All in the eye of the beholder. We thought full-ride sounded like a lot better deal! It really fit our budget.