@mtrosemom I’d love it if he’d consider Santa Cruz. At the moment Arcata is as far south as he will consider and the only CA school. However if we tour we will have to go thru San Francisco anyway to get there and I may force him to look at Bay Area options as there are several that would work, including Santa Cruz, since we will be there already. That said, the Humboldt price tag is quite attractive 
@eandesmom , I know. I will be very happy if she goes to UW! The only reason she doesn’t want to go there is that so many people at her school apply and go there. But you are right. It has everything - vibrant U-district, downtown Seattle nearby, all the academic programs she can choose from, 40,000 student body. It’s just too close. She is focusing on the colleges with no greek life and no huge sports culture.
Your S has a clear direction what he wants to study and where he wants to be. That’s great! You can really narrow down the choice from the get go. I envy you.
Hahaha, my D shares the same feeling toward SoCal. She likes Bay Area, but no thank you to SoCal. I think she watches too many plastic surgery shows based on Hollywood. I’m guilty on that…
@SincererLove We visited Case Western over Prez Day, and they still provide the beverages and an $8 meal voucher for everyone in your party. And free parking. I guess I didn’t know how special we had it! I thought I could expect that everywhere!? My D wore her Case Western shirt to school today. She really liked it…
I remember flying to look at UW back in the 80s. By myself. Parents were not too involved in my school search, probably not unusual. I was going into engineering, and there was no direct-admit, so it was a no-go. I probably should have figured that out before flying out there from Chicago.
@CT1417 Thanks for the Tulane info. I have been over to the Tulane threads to absorb everything I can. Still hope for a visit. Love NOLA.
@HiToWaMom if she doesn’t want sports culture and greek life, the UW can be a pretty lonely place. Great if all you want is a degree or have a separate local network, but not great if you want college to provide that. My DS is almost too narrow. If we want a school that has an Environmental Studies/Science BS or BA as well as Environmental Engineering so that he has options…and it meets is very specific type/size/location requirements we are really down to 2 schools. If we drop the Engineering, or drop the ENVS BA/BS then it’s a bigger list. I wish he would expand the geography just a tad, if only to look so that he had options. There are a lot of great Bay Area schools, has she looked into Cal State Monterey Bay? It is WUE so might be something to consider. UC Santa Cruz and UC Santa Barbara are both great for the kind of environment it sounds like she might like if the right kind of merit were offered.
While I came up with a list of schools at a driving distance from Boston for spring visit, including RPI, I keep coming up with schools far in between.
We will certainly do a summer visit to Cleveland to CWRU and CMU. I wonder if we should include a visit to Cedar Point to get DS excited? :-j I don’t know whether I will be able to ride those thrillers. Do they still have Sea World or were they shut down? Perhaps we could attend a concert at Blossom music center if we time it right.
And we will make another short visit to UT Austin & TAMU. Proabably we should avoid summer (not to write them off due to hot weather) but then when to go?
Now, I am beginning to like Carleton/Macalaster but probably no time/$ to visit before application.
And how about U of Rochester and Hamilton/Colgate. Probably too far to get to from west.
@mtrosemom - That is too bad about Whitman. I thought they were better about merit aid. We did their Net Price Calculator for our S16, the results were pretty decent. S16 applied but had to withdraw due getting an acceptance and good package from his #1 school.
@eandesmom - I don’t know if your S17 had Whitman on your list, and it came off at some point, but they are ranked well in the Princeton Review for their sciences and have a good theater program as well. The students also rank as one of the happiest in the country. Our S16 met with an admission rep for over an hour, when he was visiting here in MN last year. Great guy - and former Pomona College grad. We didn’t get to visit, but he definitely represented the school well! If he is interested, since Whitman is on the Common App, it might not hurt to go ahead and apply RD and see what they offer. It sounds like your S is a strong student. Anyway…that’s my 2 cents!
My S17 is also interested in science, music, theater and an outdoorsy campus, near nature. He is looking at UBC - University of British Columbia. At least at the current exchange rate, the cost is not too back, and HE’d be the “International.” How exotic! Now that S16 is on his way, filling out the residents hall application for his school, we can focus on S17.
@morningside95 Whitman is on the outlier list as he’s not as sure about Walla Walla but that is exactly what we are thinking. Since he will do the Common App anyway, it is kind of a why not to me but I’m not pushing it now. He’s never been to Walla Walla but I’m pretty sure he will love it. East of the mountains scares him a bit I think lol. It’s on the reach side of things but not completely out of the realm of possibility. Without merit though, it’s not an option and I doubt he’s strong enough for much merit there if he did get in but you really never know. We’ve seen some crazy things with the older ones and their friends. UBC is an outstanding school, very well known locally for architecture and progressive building. Not sure what your S17 is interested in but it’s a great school and the exchange rate right now is certainly lovely.
@2muchquan , we got shirts from Case too. Yes, that is the best!! At U Chicago, we got sunglasses and Popsicle. At your backyard, Northwestern, I didn’t go, but I believe the hot hockey player tour guide might be the only attraction. 
Only water at Duke, which was more a safety measure considering summer weather there
@payn4ward , Rock Roll museum is there. You can also go to water parks. There are a bunch indoor ones too! All Case students get museum pass in Cleveland too. DD will apply there for sure.
@eandesmom , Really? With 40,000 sudents at UW, I thought she can easily find her people outside of sports and greek system. Hmmmm.
Is the UW you are all referencing Univ of Washington in Seattle?
My son was really interested in it until we learned of their two year visual/performing arts requirement. We did not learn this until we were at the info session, but at least it was only an afternoon of our Seattle vacation. The state of CT does not have this requirement so when I inquired, the AdCom said they might accept a student conditional on his taking CC courses in visual/performing arts before enrolling. (Not the answer I was hoping to hear.)
My concern, and this is perhaps the same at any state school, is that 2/3 of the students are local–more or less. They conduct orientation sessions during summer months only, assuming everyone is within driving distance.
And, I can’t believe I understood the tour guide correctly when he say that students rush in August and then move directly into fraternity houses instead of dorms–as freshmen. Is this correct? (I am not anti-Greek; women from my sorority are my closest friends to this day.)
Fun stories about free food & drink. I spent $8 at one school and I think, $12 at another to park last week. Not even a bottle of water offered.
@HiToWaMom I can only speak from experience and what people have told me. My sister commuted and it wasn’t until grad school, also at the UW that she really found a network through the school. She loved loved loved her grad school program (Jackson School of International Studies) and formed a very strong career network there. For undergrad though, the dorms are huge. If you connect with someone in your dorm then it can be great (and lucky) but the classes are so large, especially the first couple years, that the chances of connecting with someone in class is really hard. DS has a lot of friends that attend, as does DSD. If the kid gets involved with a club…DSD’s friends play club soccer for UW for example, or one of DS’s friends is in the Marching Band and then you find a network there. But a few of DS’s friends are not loving it as they are in the dorms or commute and basically never meet anyone or even sit next to the same person. Mind you, they aren’t miserable or wanting to transfer, they just aren’t “loving” it, they do know other kids from HS that are there but because it is so very big…they never see each other. It depends on what you want out of school though. Those kids were not necessarily looking for college to be their social life so it is meeting their needs.
I was the only person in my sorority in my major (at least in my year and can’t think of another one) and can honestly say, I didn’t make a single friend through my major classes, or any of my classes just by virtue of being in that class. I would know people from the Greek system that I had classes with but that is a totally different thing and way of knowing people. Smaller schools and majors though could change that I am sure. If she does go there she will want to get involved with something if possible. It is a great school, don’t get me wrong, I can’t imagine going anywhere else. I have a dinner group with my college friends, I see them every other week. But that’s not the experience any of our kids have wanted so far and I respect that.
@CT1417 yes, University of Washington, Seattle. Interesting, I guess I didn’t really think about the FA requirement. Our HS requires 1 and my kids will have 8 or more at graduation, as did I, so it never even occurred to me. Locally though they do beat in the UW requirements so kids make sure they are covered as they are always a bit more than the HS requires.
Yes, you move directly in to the Greek system. You find out your match and move in that day. It is unusual in the sense that there is enough housing to do that and most sororities actually require it for at least 2 years although that has changed a bit from what I understand. There is no dorm greek housing at the UW as far as I know, even now. In my day, “townies” were rare but upperclassmen could live in Annexes or Senior Year, off campus.
From what I have been told is that now there is a spring rush as well for the sororities. Fraternities historically rush all summer /year and can pledge/move in at any time (or at least that is how it used to be) and they seemed to have a few more townies than the sororities.
You are correct in the mostly local, although there is a strong group from Hawaii…which while Seattle may be as local mainland as you can get, still not easy for things like orientation!
Unrelated…but in another thread (PSAT scores, I think) everyone was trying to guess if college mailings resulted from specific test scores, old PSAT, new PSAT, SAT or AP scores, etc.
Well…son received one yesterday and right in the opening paragraph, it reads:
“Using information obtained from college testing services, the admissions office has identified you…”
I appreciate the candor!
@eandesmom – thanks for the info! My son never took music or art, instead choosing CS and independent science research for electives.
The UCs have a one year requirement but the rep at the Berkeley info session said that lacking it will not be held against non-California residents. So many variables…beyond just how to get to all these campuses! Not enough time…
@CT1417 I don’t think it is specific test scores, just the fact you took the test and they got an address for you. I’ve heard that from more than one reliable source. The paper waste alone kills me. I would think that the UW would be really looking to up their out of state numbers and think they would work with him on a waiver. CC is UGH. We had a similar situation with my DSS who didn’t have enough language for his LAC though it was more than enough for graduation. I can’t see it being held against but required for graduation. Which is super annoying.
And reminds me that we need to check all that against the shorter list. I think he will be ok but…I don’t want to be conned into a summer immersion program in Spain for a Music major again because he didn’t take enough of something in HS. LOL.
No, not enough time, that’s hitting me hard all of a sudden. We will likely start this a bit earlier with the last one as I think he will require a fair amount of travel.
@CT1417 , UW only requires a half credit (one high school semester) of “Fine, Visual, or Performing Arts.”
Totally off topic, but S17 got into his first (and hopefully last) car accident last weekend while he was buying supplies for his FRC team. Two other kids were in the car. Luckily, it was on a quiet street where fast is maybe 30 mph. All people involved were fine. He handled it very well. Afterwards he did say that maybe he didn’t want to dive for at least a week. Maybe two. Lol, he won’t be driving until the car he uses is fixed because I have a fairly new car and H has a manual transmission. He is perfectly content to be chauffeured!
@mtrosemom sorry to hear about that but glad it wasn’t serious and no one was injured. Always scary when our kids drive off…the worrying never ends
@CT1417 It’s funny you mention the mail. It’s really starting to pile up. I think without question most schools target their mailings to certain ranges of test scores. Some maybe don’t. I can’t believe every kid taking the test is getting a mailing from, say, Yale…or Reed.
We don’t read all the stuff, but it is kind of fun to receive it. I would hate to be a mailman this time of year…
@mtrosemom That’s a bummer about the accident. It’s a Catch-22. I’m making my D drive as much as I can in order to get experience, but at the same time that just means a great chance of an accident. I always take a sigh of relief when I hear her return safely.
@UWfromCA – just based on your screen name, I should trust you, but I swore I heard two years while at an info session on campus in August. It did seem extreme, but since the UCs require one year, I figured each state was entitled to impose its own requirements.
@eandesmom – I think the targeting varies by school. I recall my older son receiving a mailing from Columbia, where I knew he would never be admitted, and on the bottom of the letter in tiny letters, it read something like NMSQT–and it was right after the cutoff scores were announced.
And yes the language requirement can be a challenge also. I ask my boys to complete year 4, just to be safe.
The current letter only says T31 P1 above his name, so much more cryptic!
Younger son has higher SAT and PSAT scores than older son did, but I recall much more mail from Chicago (specifically) for older son, so perhaps Chicago has curtailed their direct marketing. Who knows, and not worth contemplating as I read nothing into the letters. Just amusing.
@mtrosemom – glad no one was hurt. Son’s driving has deteriorated since he got his license as he has no time to drive and only Seniors can drive to school. I am paying an awful lot for insurance that is hardly being used.