Thanks for the review @crazym0m, I’ve wanted to check URichmond…it sounds interesting.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I like that category: “We offer merit…but not telling you any details”-schools. UChicago can fall in this category. And, honestly, UChicago has NEVER come up on my radar as a school even offering ANY merit (had to visit the site again). And, it’s in our backyard. I think I misunderstood the messages above re: UChicago merit…and that it is reported to be used to bring costs down to the EFC in some cases. I get it now.
So, you’re right, maybe UChicago should be treated differently than the URichmonds et. all.
And, with the numbers we are talking for COA these days, I forget that a $100 dollar lottery ticket costs $100 dollars. It is real money, but I guess I’m looking at it as the cost to play. I’m certainly not going to have D apply to 15 of these types of schools, but maybe 5. Hopefully it will be a decent investment. We’ll play the game.
Welcome @OHToCollege and @canypava ! We can slide over and make room for you on the “shock and awe” financial bus. We’ve all been where you are. The sad reality is that there are so many amazing kids and too few slots at the higher tier schools. The good news is that there are hundreds of fabulous colleges where our kids will be successful.
@DOTexe, I’m with you on OOS tuition. I’m a native Californian and therefore paid taxes for years before moving north, so I’m especially disgruntled about CA OOS tuition. I made it very clear that we’re not paying $55K for a UC. Or any other OOS school. No undergrad degree is worth that kind of cash, not even an Ivy. And the spy kids are big fish little pond kind of students so it really doesn’t make sense, financial or otherwise.
Absolutely!!! @Midwest67. And we’re the consumers, regardless of how much they want the student to be in the driver’s seat. The parents are paying the bill.
This time next year when the acceptances are in and you’re looking over the fine print be sure and ask yourself these questions:
Is the scholarship or merit aid offered for 4 years? Is it dependent on my child staying on the team or maintaining a high gpa?
My bestie’s h.s. senior has been given a half sports scholarship/half academic. The sports scholarship is only guaranteed for freshman year. This is a high stat kid who is an elite athlete. She was recruited as a h.s. freshman and is nationally ranked in her sport. One torn ACL or injury could cost them dearly. Four years of heavy recruiting and they just find out now about the scholarship.
Our d easily maintained a 3.89 at a rigorous prep high school. Her gpa now? 3.2. She’s a physics major. There are only a handful of kids in her major who have higher gpas. Thankfully her merit is not based on maintained gpa.
Is the work study job doable for your child? And is it revokable? If your financial status changes for the better, work study jobs can and will be revoked, unless it’s a protected job that’s not based on income.
Can you reasonably afford the inevitable increases in tuition and housing? We’re paying more each year for dd14.
Ha ha, @Agentninetynine, shock and awe indeed! I already know we are full pay. It’s ok–my husband and I had humble beginnings, but we’ve worked hard and live beneath our means. I’m hoping this mindset is rubbing off on our kids. We still live like graduate students (kind of) and there is a running joke my husband won’t buy anything without a coupon or discount of some sort. My daughter has good stats (ACT 34, 4.0 UW so far), but won’t make NMSF in CA (she’s just above commended cut-off). So it looks like she won’t need to take SAT I at all, yay. If she can get into a UC that she likes (SD, LA, Irvine, maybe SB), she will be happy. We visited SDSU and she liked that a lot too. She does not want to stay in the Bay Area for college. What I’m trying to decide, is if there is any reason to do FAFSA at all, considering we won’t
@canypava Your D’s stats are great! You certainly don’t HAVE to be full pay if you don’t wish to be, with stats like that. Just depends on your D’s flexibility (prestige, geography, etc.).
Someone upthread mentioned daughters and stem, maybe @momofdragons? I don’t want to add to your burden of worrying about college apps, merit aid and acceptance but I recommend you and your daughters do due diligence when it comes to choosing a STEM school.
One of the best things Spygirl did was talk to women who recently graduated or are currently majoring in her field. And what she discovered is that while the admins may brag about the increasing number of women choosing their STEM programs, what they don’t tell you is how many of those women stay in that major and how those women are treated by professors and if they receive the same level of support as the men.
Spygirl’s experience at her college has been mostly positive in terms of the faculty. Many of her male colleagues, however, were not so welcoming. She endured misogynist comments and rude remarks. But she’s not a shrinking violet and a few of the worst feared her by the end of the first semester and just now at the end of sophomore year have a grudging respect and are reaching out to be “friends.” I realize this isn’t the case everywhere and YMMV.
@isitfridayyet I asked DS about online tutorials for learning Java, and it turns out that he wouldn’t recommend Codecademy. He says all it teaches is how to copy and paste code, but doesn’t convey understanding of what you are doing. He recommends https://learnjavathehardway.org/ because it explains the concepts and forces the student to type the code rather than pasting.
(He didn’t use it himself; this is from whatever other knowledge he has from forums or whatever. He took a Java class through AoPS a few years ago, but they only offer a couple Python classes now. BTW, he would probably suggest Python as the first programming language to learn, but I know that Java is the language used for AP CompSci.)
Thanks @Ynotgo, that’s a good suggestion. Although, even with merit, it might be back to what UC/CSUs would be anyway?! But I can mention it to her to look into.
Thanks, @Agentninetynine, for the heads-up. Curious if Spygirl is in an engineering major, or a STM major? I’ve noticed many faculty at the schools we look at are female, but this is in the S-majors (Bio/Psych).
Question for you (and I’ve got a million of 'em): D recently talked to an admission reps of a school she really liked during our spring break trip. She ran into this rep at a college fair following spring break. Never had contact with rep prior to this event. They talked about our visit to the rep’s school, and the rep told my D she should contact her so they can go out for coffee sometime soon to chat (she lives in the area). I assume this is something D should follow up on, but wondering how D should treat this get together. It’s not an interview…it seems like it is much more casual. Does D need to prepare beyond being able to ask a few intelligent questions about the school? It seems early to be doing this sort of thing.
@2muchuan and @carachel2 I would encourage your Ds to take the regional reps up on their offers. It’s not an interview, but its a great way to learn more about the schools and “show interest,” so to speak.
@payn4ward Ack, you’re killing me here! We still haven’t gotten our MC scores back yet let alone the writing portion. I’m beginning to despise act.org.
@srk2017 Umm… DS is not a writer… and he’s gotten 29 (out of 36) so I guess it’s good.
He has gotten 7 - 8 out 12 in the practice tests and old SAT, so it’s consistent or better.
His writing to the test is improving with all the AP classes (Lang, USH) he’s taking this year.
I think people are requesting re-scoring for $50 and receiving higher scores. I think it’s worth trying if the score is lower than expected.
I’m happy with DS’s writing score though :))
(Lowered expectation leads to happiness)
@DOTexe Sorry! I just wanted to prompt other folks to check. I wouldn’t have checked if I didn’t see other posts.
I hope your C’s come out next Wednesday!
@Agentninetynine wrote "One of the best things Spygirl did was talk to women who recently graduated or are currently majoring in her field. And what she discovered is that while the admins may brag about the increasing number of women choosing their STEM programs, what they don’t tell you is how many of those women stay in that major and how those women are treated by professors and if they receive the same level of support as the men.
Spygirl’s experience at her college has been mostly positive in terms of the faculty. Many of her male colleagues, however, were not so welcoming. She endured misogynist comments and rude remarks. But she’s not a shrinking violet and a few of the worst feared her by the end of the first semester and just now at the end of sophomore year have a grudging respect and are reaching out to be “friends.” I realize this isn’t the case everywhere and YMMV."
Yeah, this is currently something I’m worrying about (like I don’t have enough to do). Daughter Dragon is very much an in your face girl, plus she’s tall and uses that height to her advantage, but she’s already weary of the brogrammer attitude she runs into all the time at school and I asked her to do her due diligence when she does start looking at schools wrt women in her area, both in the faculty and peer sections.
Some of you may remember younger daughter getting punched in the face by one of the kids on her robotics team freshman year, so we’re unfortunately very familiar with dealing with the hazing and the exclusionary tactics. Younger D is almost completely out of STEM stuff, starting next year, except for doing animatronics. It makes me super sad because she’s talented in STEM, but she’s happy doing more theater/design/history stuff, and flourishes in a supportive atmosphere that she is finding in a non-STEM group.
Our school sent out an email saying that the kids schedules for next year would be handed out two days ago, and…nope. Still nothing. So aggravating. I may be less aggravated by everything once I get past my Spanish final on Monday…
I made it very clear that we’re not paying $55K for a UC. Or any other OOS school. No undergrad degree is worth that kind of cash, not even an Ivy. And the spy kids are big fish little pond kind of students so it really doesn’t make sense, financial or otherwise.