We have very regular conversations on the financial realities of colleges we are looking at. My d19 is mostly amazed at how so many other people she knows are clueless about those type of financial realities. We were just talking yesterday about why it is that so many of her friends are just in general so much more naive than she is about money.
Been lurking on this thread for a while and finding it very helpful. My oldest was hs class 16. Different kid than this one. Current ds fits gpa for this thread. Has taken both sat and act with ok scores. Donāt think he wants to try again and frankly Iām not sure itās worth the effort.
Have visited several colleges this spring and summer. So far Udel, Quinnipiac, UConn, St. Joeās, Providence and Penn State. Wants to study business and wants a school with good school spirit and maybe greek life. I can give a run down of tours if anyone is interested.
Starting to feel the pressure. He is in middle for most of the schools on his list, but none are really a safety if considering fit.
Anyway, glad to have this thread as a source of information and people who are going through same issues.
@nanny1 Would love to hear your thoughts on Del, Quinnipiac and Providence as they are of interest to D19. We have only visited Delaware.
We went to Delaware on a beautiful spring day and the campus was full of friendly students. Our tour guide was excellent and had a lot of school pride. As we walked around students yelled and waved to us. Campus seemed lively and full of school spirit. He loved the campus only draw back was that some of the initial classes can be very large and they did not take us to the business school. We did go on our own, and it was newly renovated, but didnāt get a great feel for it. Loved the little town adjacent to the school. We do have a relative there that just graduated and had an excellent experience. I think this is ds number one right now.
We went to Quinnipiac on a cool, rainy day. There were lots of kids hanging out in the cafeteria area selling goods for their clubs. Campus had a bustling feel.Everyone was very friendly. Our tour guide was nice, knew everyone and was a commuter student. The campus seemed a little small to me, but was well kept. Business school was nice. It was our first tour, son left impressed.
Providence was in a very seedy area. I did not expect that at all. Our tour guide was nice but a little flaky. Said she picked the school because it was the only tour she went on that it didnāt rain! Said it was a sign! LOL The buildings were very well kept, business school look brand new. Had the school spirit my son is looking for. Seemed a little small for me. A lot of kids from the private school in my area go, and it seems like a great fit for them. My ds goes to a large public school so Iām not sure about a school this size for him. I also worry that it may be cliquey with the private school kids going in together knowing each other. But he liked it and is staying on his list.
We send lots of kids to Quinnipiac from my Long Island high school; Iāve never heard of anyone unhappy thereā¦ the impression I have is that they love it! And there must be a decent number of kids who board there if my school is any indication.
Just wanted to pop in and say hi. My D19 has been touring small LACs in the Midwest, primarily Iowa and Wisconsin, and Michigan. She has found 3 she would be very happy with: Coe in Des Moines, IA, Carthage in Kenosha, WI and Hope (my favorite!) in Holland, MI. I think Coe is her top pick but Iām trying not to badger too much with questions because she shuts down quickly! Carthage seems to be the best with merit and the campus is right on Lake Michigan. Hope admissions has been the most aggressive, though, sending her great personalized messages. I love the campus which is right in downtown Holland, 5 minutes from Lake Michigan, very lively. One cool thing about Hope and Holland is the heated sidewalks - nice feature in heavy lake effect snow country! She may apply to some bigger schools, Iowa, Michigan State, Indiana but only for my sake. This has been a crazy but very interesting experience!! Now she has to get going on applying.
We donāt live far from Providence. Itās reputation is a decent school but very expensive. There is no merit for kids in this range. Itās thought of as a school for wealthy kids that couldnāt get into BC.
I think most kids board at Quinnipiac. I just mentioned the tour guide was a commuter because he still knew everyone on campus, thought that was a good indication of friendliness. My friendās son graduated a few years ago and had a great experience, and is currently working in his field (computer science I think).
@nanny1 Thank you. Iād love to hear details off St. Joās
St. Joeās in Philly is on my Sās list. We will be visiting in a few weeks. Iāll write my impressions then.
We went to the open house at St. Joeās and it was mobbed. Held the info session in the basketball arena and stands were full with seating on floor as well. So at first it was a little overwhelming. My son was not in the mood for it and he had a face on for the first half of it. They broke us into groups and we went to the business school. Building was in good shape with modern classrooms. The dean who gave the presentation was excellent. They have a lot of majors and many opportunities to get involved through service learning. They have a coop program that I think they just started because our tour guide didnāt know much about it, but the dean said they find you the coops and the students involved are very successful in landing jobs upon graduation. I left impressed with the business school. Gave out a lot of pamphlets with individual rankings on accounting, marketing, etc departments. We ate in the cafeteria and for cafeteria food it wasnāt bad. We then went on the tour. Thankfully my son connected with the tour guide who was super laid back and friendly. He gave us a good feeling for the school. He said it was the small classroom and community feel that he liked. Tour guide told us he joined a lot of clubs and thatās how he met people. He also said that intermural sports were big. He even gave my son his phone number if he wanted to talk about anything later. We did not get a chance to see dorm rooms because we had to leave early. The grounds were kept well and it did have a nice feel.
@nanny1 my sonās friend just finished her freshman year at St Joeās as a business major. She had a much higher GPA than this thread is geared to, but I know she got a lot of merit. She was very active on campus this year, joined a sorority and the dorm rooms look awesome from her Instagram pics! I love Philly too.
@NJWrestlingmom I think the school is totally underrated. It has a lot going for it and I think that students who leave their have a good education. Itās small enough so that they care about the students but with over 5,000 undergraduates big enough that there are always new people to meet. I think their business school in particular is impressive.
My friendās daughter LOVES St. Joeās in Philly!!! She just finished her sophomore year, and got a summerās paid internship.
How is St, Joeās with merit aid? It is an expensive school otherwise.
For my S the NPC at St. Joes showed enough merit to put it into range for us.
That is us too. I donāt know how the girlsā friends are affording college but I refuse to have mine borrow a lot of money. DDā17 is at community college in a 5 semester program (no transfer) and will have $0 debt and her savings fully intact. I am limiting DDā19 to $15K COA which makes it difficult but we are in the Midwest and the smaller publics come in that range with her stats so she has a few to choose from. For a while she was set on a private but we talked about how college is about 32 months of actually away-at-school time and not worth crippling the next several years of her life. We canāt afford to foot the bill and DH is still in the work-your-own-way-through-school mindset so Iām trying to keep our contribution reasonably low. Not to mention DD is not looking at any high paying majors so it would be crazy to spend a lot on college even if the money was here.
My problem now is since I like to do a lot of online research and I ventured into Rate My Professors. And I see some bad reviews for some of the professors she might encounter and I start second guessing but I think you will find those everywhere.
Rate My Professors isā¦problematic (says this professor). The narrative comments are worth scanning through to see if there are things that come up frequently, but the numerical ratings are both unrepresentative and unnormed.
I think the most fun thing to do with the siteāthough again, completely unrepresentative and unnormedāis to read through the narrative comments to come up with interesting anecdotal but intriguing ideas about the student bodies at different colleges. So, fārex, a lot of low ratings given faculty at the place I work seem to center around inflexibility in due dates (and I admit, I am quite inflexible on due dates). I didnāt get similar complaints at the places I worked previously, though my policies were identical. This suggestsāagain, only suggestsāsomething intriguing about the attitudes of students here.
Iām a huge fan of having the money talk with kids the entire way through the search processā¦over and over. Both my kids understand that the very last cut is based on $$$. The debt negatively impacts kids for years if not decades. My oldest still applied to a couple schools that were expensive and he likedā¦and he agreed we had to say no. Fortunately his top choice was academically rigorous and a good fit in every wayā¦and the least expensive.
Rate My Professor: I agree with @dfbdfb - use it to understand a bit about the profs but understand that few kids go there to say āshe was a good profā they go there to say āOMG his exams have nothing to do with what he teaches in classā.
As far as Rate My Professor goes:
In my experience, people are far, far more likely to give a negative review on anything than a positive one. People who have a good experience chalk it up to their own wisdom in making the choices they did, or to their own native intelligence or to something along those lines. People who had a bad experience are seldom going to take the blame themselves, so they rush to warn others against a perceived issue.
For what itās worth, my only negative review on Rate My Teacher was from a kid who mixed up my name with that of the dean. He or she described an issue that I had no part of.
So take them with a HUGE grain of salt.