Parents of the HS Class of 2017 (Part 1)

Parents Forum Class of 20xx Community
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@DMV301 thanks, that’s usually a great idea, but I think the trouble with our situation is that most verizon phones don’t have a sim card, unlike most other carriers, so that’s not an option for us.

@RightCoaster there are limits with the 40 verizon plan, I think you only get 100 minutes per month and get unlimited incoming texts but only 100 outgoing, or something like that and the data is very limited. Of course, if they mostly use wifi and snapchat, etc. it might be fine. But, T-Mobile has an intl. special right now so I was considering making the switch. Of course, I have a slightly longer time frame to consider… We have admitted students day in a couple of weeks, I’m going to see what they recommend before I actually do anything.

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@Fishnlines29 – You might want to double-check. D’s Verizon iPhone 6s has a SIM card and was unlocked.

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@Fishnlines29 I think 100 minutes will be enough, he never calls anyone and if we talk to him for 100 minutes in a month it would be mind blowing, He’ll probably FaceTime us and text more often.
Son17 needs a phone upgrade soon, might be a grad/birthday gift

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Yeah, it’s my understanding the Verizon iPhone 6/6s are unlocked and work on any carrier. The iPhone 7 is different though. Assuming @Fishnlines29’s kid has an iPhone.

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We switched to t-mobile about a year ago specifically for the international plan (we spent 6 weeks in a Europe last summer). Our phones worked everywhere, the unlimited text and data were great. The only downside was the small per-minut charge for voice calls, but since we usually only used voice for calling our Airbnb hosts a few times, the bill was under $10 extra when we got home.

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@Fishnlines29 - I didn’t see any details on the number of credits for UPenn. I did read that you can prepay the tuition for the 4 years to lock in today’s price. I can’t say that sounds appealing. Wow, 80k by year 4. I have an S22 and that number is larger than what I was planning for.

The good news about New Haven is that kids don’t stick around after they graduate. Sounds like a positive to me because it increases the chances of them coming home after college. I would love for my kids to move back home after college!

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@rightcoaster - My recollection is that @nw2this and @SincererLove both have DD that have been accepted to MIT.

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@DMV301 @youcee Ok, thank you, that’s good to know. I will definitely check with them - D has an iphone through verizon - I think it’s a 6s. Do you think I can get a different plans for each of our phones?

@Amkngk Good to know that option works well.

@Testingearly Yes, the numbers are staggering. I’ve told all my siblings and in-laws (for my very young nieces and nephews), I can’t imagine the costs they will be facing. If I had more than one kid, I probably would not have allowed my D to apply to any school this expensive. But even our in-state COA was 33K. One of my brothers has 5 kids under the age of 10. So they start 8 years from now and overlap every 2 years or so, yikes.

I wouldn’t be comfortable with a “pre-pay” option. Too many variables. What if it doesn’t work out for some reason, they want to transfer, or they have a breakdown and need to take some time away or change course, who knows. I plan to pre-pay each semester though so I don’t need to physically see a painful monthly bill!!

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@RightCoaster

We are also at MIT this weekend for CPW. Not 100% committed yet, but we’re enamored, so very close. PM if you have questions.

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@Testingearly - I think that ultimately it will come down to a choice between one of two or three discounted options on the one hand (specifically, Wash U with a full tuition scholarship, Chicago with 30K in need/merit-based aid, or, less likely, Rice with $32K in merit) and one of her full-pay options (specifically, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Stanford). A good spot to be in, I suppose. And, yes, she did put a lot of work into her scholarship apps, but, thankfully, many of her essays were able to be tweaked, edited, and re-purposed so she didn’t have to re-invent the wheel each and every time.

She, too, is visiting Stanford this week and I will tag along. What days will you be there? We seem to be polar opposites in terms of what we are hoping will happen host-wise with respect to Stanford v. other options.

@Mom2aphysicsgeek - I find the concept of raising and schooling eight children over the course of a quarter century far more amazing than having a large budget for college. There’s definitely a correlation and almost certainly a causal relationship between having more kids to educate and having a smaller budget with which to do so. Kudos to your kids for their resourcefulness and to you for your patience and energy!

@itsgettingreal17 - I have to say I didn’t see many positives in New Haven either. I was born and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and attended public schools in the 60s the 70s, so it’s not like I’ve lived in a bubble. I still thought New Haven was a dump. That said, I liked St. Louis way more than I anticipated, would have liked to have spent more time in Charlotte, NC, regretted not accompanying D to Chicago, went to a surprisingly nice museum in Hartford, Conn. – and a superb one in St. Louis. I even found Nashville kind of amusing (where else can you find a full scale recreation of the Parthenon and a 42-foot tall precise copy of the statue of Athena a stone’s throw away from country music and honky tonk?).

As for cell phone plans, T-Mobile’s international service has been great. I spent 6 weeks both last summer and the summer before in France and Italy with zero problems. We had unlimited WIFI service and free WIFI calling. Non-WIFI calls were twenty cents/minute.

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NY - Gov. Cuomo - has just approved free tuition to SUNY and CUNY for families making $100K or less - starting this fall. It will, over a 3-Year phase in period, rise to families making $125k. But students then must work in NY a few years or the grants turns into loans. More info to come but should help many families. Hope it spreads to other states too! Learn more at insidehighered.com.

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Wow, there are so many years of college apps and tuition payments well into the future for so many of you. This has been a fun, exciting and exhausting process. I’m happy to be one and done.

@LoveTheBard I am with your daughter on loving the culture and intellectual vibe at Yale. My husband is with your daughter on not being a fan of New Haven and being a bit more urban than he envisioned. My son didn’t find New Haven to be a fit for him. Congrats on your daughter’s other opportunities.

@Fishnlines29 Nice to know I wasn’t the only one surprised there is a separate fee for orientation. :slight_smile: I think it will be $300. Three days and the student can stay on campus for the final night if they would like. Parents are not permitted in the dorms so we need to get a hotel room. This is new to me and has changed a lot. What happened to dropping kids off on move in day and then they do orientation for about a week and then start classes?

@Testingearly Yes, I have noticed the COA is low $70s and will be $80K by the 4th year. I have not seen $6K just for fees. That’s crazy! Is it purely fees or are other things lumped in there? What I’ve seen is the COA at 71K with only $1200 - $1400 in fees then $3,000 books and items that fall into the “other” category. This is why I am surprised the is a fee for a mandatory orientation. Just add it all in there so I don’t have to keep feeling the hits.

@CA1543 That is interesting. Is the requirement just that the student has to work in NY or is it work for the state? There used to be a program where if you went to school for education and then spent 3 or 4 years working for the NYC board of ed, you got a partial or full scholarship. I guess it’s structure similar to that. It gives people options.

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@paveyourpath – I THINK requirement is to work in NY or the new Excelsior scholarship for SUNY/CUNY will become a loan. I have seen the actual legislation yet. Could really affect some families’ decisions currently.

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Orientation: Both of DS’s choices have a 1-week freshman orientation before classes start. I don’t see anything about a fee for CMU’s freshman orientation, though I suppose they could surprise us. Caltech has a $500 orientation fee, but they bus all the freshmen to a beach hotel (near us, ironically) where they stay for the first ~3 days of the orientation.

Grad school: No matter whether he goes into physics or CS, any grad school should be funded by the college (and CS could have lucrative internships). So, after this round of college apps, he’s on his own for summer research proposals, etc.

It feels odd that after thinking all this time that he’d go into physics as a primary major and CS as a secondary thing (to support the computation often needed in physics research), because of the CMU admission he’s now considering a CS major that might not even require a PhD.

@Mom2aphysicsgeek I hope the physics GRE goes/went well for him! A quick question for you: Caltech has “SURFs” for summer research and UCSB calls them that also. REU is the more common term I’ve seen. Have you see the term “SURF” for summer research? I’m wondering if SURF is common to quarter-based colleges and REUs to semester-based, since the summer is up to a month off depending on the academic calendar.

International calling: When DH is in Europe, he waits until he has hotel wi-fi and calls using Facebook Messenger video chat. Seems to work pretty well.

Other: @itsgettingreal17 Wow, those are some large dorm rooms!

Congrats to those with recent decisions! <:-P I’m not expecting a decision until after April 25, but there is a definite lean.

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@Ynotgo, I think that the name of the summer program is related to the source of the money. As far as I know, REU is money from the NSF. SURF is institutional money targeted mainly for current students. Amgen Scholars is money from Amgen. WAVES is institutional money aimed at provided research for underrepresented groups.

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@LoveTheBard, @Testingearly and any other Stanford folks, would love to hear your trip reports or highlights since we can’t make it. Thanks.

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Excited to announce a submit button has been pushed and the hoodie ordered.

UVM for the win.

GO CATAMOUNTS!

They have a June orientation which really chaps my hide (and wallet), flights were cheaper 2 weeks ago. BOO!

lol. Glad he didn’t wait any longer than this.

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Still no decision about a college at our house, but we did decide on a (very expensive) prom dress today. Priorities, right? =))

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Thanks @lovethebard.

@ynotgo Ds called with pure joy in his voice after the exam. He says he thinks he nailed it. Yay, bc now I can block it from my mind! :wink: (eta: yes, I think the name is associated with funding.)

I gave a college application talk this morning. It was a mixture of homeschoolers and public and private school parents. It seemed to to go well, but it was really quite appalling how little info these parents had. There were parents of jrs who had never heard of the PSAT and parents of sophomores who were super glad to have the info. None of the parents understood institutional grants and all assumed that private schools were automatically more expensive than publics. It feels really good to have been able to guide them toward informative resources…

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@Mom2aphysicsgeek Re: Physics GRE: Yay!!! :D/