@homerdog Newark is a straight shot down Route 78 from Lafayette (and Lehigh about 20 min further). Just don’t plan to drive from Newark at rush hour on a weekday! Traffic is heinous.
Allentown also has a small airport, maybe 10-20 min from both schools depending on traffic. Lehigh Valley International, I believe.
Philadelphia airport is probably a little over an hour again depending on traffic.
@eb23282 You beat me to the punch. I live in Manhattan and looked up the directions on Google after I read that post. It’s 75 miles from my apartment and right now it would take 90 minutes, which is with light traffic (almost unheard of when you have to take the Lincoln Tunnel and I-78 or I-80).
@DOTexe We toured Duquesne and it was lovely…great direct entry programs for PT,OT,SLP and maybe PA. At around 6000 students, it was a nice size. Chatham is in a great Pittsburgh neighborhood and had a very cool, funky cobblestone vibe, smaller around 1200 students with sustainability initiatives and a farm outside the city. They both have some generous merit opportunities. Pittsburgh is a great city, plenty to do!
@yearstogo – hey I didn’t know you had a kid at Science & Math! My D18 did NCSSM Online. She considered residential but she wasn’t ready to leave her HS and friends. She enjoyed her online courses and the experience set her on her current path of using math to understand bio systems/structures.
Fingers crossed indeed for a successful year. I was thinking about those kids the other day – when a school is only 2 years, COVID is esp. impactful!
My whole family is from Easton- my grandfather installed the first TV at Lafayette! DH’s Aunt has worked there for years. I’ve never seen it! Moved away from Easton when I was young. Perhaps I should put it on D21’s list and we can come full circle.
@eb23282 lol…Okay more like an hour and a half. @homerdog looks like united does have a couple of direct flights a day from ORD to ABE or Lehigh Valley International as it is now called. Of course I am bad with estimating travel time but ABE is about 20-30 minutes Lafayette. If you wanted to look at Lehigh it is about 10-15 minutes from the airport.
We didn’t even think of the rural advantage!
What about moving for instate tuition? I could move to NC (since our jobs are remote) and save a lot.
I would think counselor LOR might be bad though…
These college apps are so expensive, TAMU is $75!
I told S21 he can cut down his list or pay the fees with his own money. I am not spending hundreds of dollars on app fees.
S21 finally started his CA. Finally! He only has three colleges added so far that he’ll definitely apply to and he hasn’t started his personal statement yet, but at least he’s started. Baby steps! I’m jealous of all of you who have kids that are done or almost done. His high school starts in 2.5 weeks (hybrid) and he has two ECs that are fairly time intensive at the start of the school year so he’ll have even less time for college apps. I know he’ll get everything done in time, but this kid is giving me gray hair.
@flyawayx2 same here, S21 finally created an account for CA but hasn’t penned down anything for essay. He has started school already (online) and has soccer on 2, 3 days a week and job on 2 other days so not much time left for his college apps. I can’t ask/talk anything abt college and this thread makes me jealous 
but I’m sure he’ll also get it done before due, fingers crossed ?
This cleared up some doubts I had. Thank you very much! I was so confused about the interview things before.
Thank you! I was so worried about her not having any weighted GPA. I thought it won’t look good when they compare her GPA with other students’ weighted GPA, say, 4.4. Now I get it that they will compare with her school grades only.
We have a finalized list (I think) with a few surprise removals and additions at the last minute. D21 has said that this week her goal is to complete the common app and all the supplemental Qs like it’s a full time job. We shall see how that goes. Then the following week she’ll do Apply Texas (with wisdom teeth removal in the middle of that week).
Here’s the list:
UT Austin, UT Dallas, Univ Houston, Trinity U (TX)
USC, University of San Francisco
University of Arizona
University of Central Florida, University of South Florida
Pitt
BU, UMASS Amherst, Mount Holyoke
Many of them don’t require much more than the common app and we didn’t get to visit AZ, CA, FL or PA schools beforehand, so her list is long. Also several are on there due to likely national merit.
Interestingly, I logged onto Naviance because UT Dallas was an off and on again school and I wanted to see if anyone was going from this year’s class. And there is 2021 data on the application bar chart. This is the first time I’ve seen it updated like that, likely with some real time application data. Rice already had 10 applications!
In case you missed it, there was a College Board sponsored panel discussion about applying to college during the pandemic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w660P4iMJT8
I thought the AO from Pomona was very good. A question was asked about 2020 taking gap years and spots from 2121. His general speculation was that the spots going to last year’s gap seniors would basically come off the 2021 wait list since they build in some padding there to tap. So, movement off the waitlist this year might be harder than for the 2020 class at institutions that cannot afford to just swell the freshman class. During Q&A at the end, he also discussed applying early vs. regular given that some students are still trying to test.
I know right!!! The cheapest one on S21’s list is OSU at $40…the rest are $70-$75. 7 schools he’s applying too is almost $500 in app fees…I’m going to have him pick up the tab on some of them as well!!
I literally just shelled out over $1K in band fees for my 3 kids when we’re not even having a real marching season lol…I haven’t felt this broke in a long time ?
@AlwaysMoving I can say that the thought of moving to another state has crossed my mind with our S21. His NM SI is 219 which is at the “likely” score for the state of WA but I was wondering if we moved to another state like Wyoming he would have NMSF locked. Plus then he and S23 would get in person instruction instead of virtual. It’s only been flights of fancy though and not pursuing it in any serious way.
Wyoming doesn’t have income tax…
WA where we live doesn’t have state income tax either, but the cost of living here is so high that we could save a lot of money by selling our house here and moving to a state with a lower cost of living. We’re honestly thinking about moving to TX if S21 gets accepted at TAMU or UTD.
Hats off to those of you whose kids are really progressing through the application process! I like reading everyone’s school lists and you’re inspiring D21 to start her essay (hopefully this weekend).
She took another practice SAT yesterday under “test conditions” but only made it halfway with the mask on. She says she’ll be able to keep it on when she has to. I hope all this preparation she’s doing is going to be worth it, but it’s impossible to say whether she’ll ever get to take a real test. Her August test center is in the neighboring school district, and although our positive percentage has been at 1%, I am worried about the opening plans.
Our school district has held many virtual “meetings” which are just prerecorded presentations with no opportunity to ask questions. There is nothing in any of the presentations or plans about SARS-CoV-2 testing for students, teachers or staff. There’s tons of info about hygiene, cleaning, disinfection, health screening, temperature checks, attendance, lunch, school supplies, lockers, mental health, accommodations, bussing, food allergies etc. etc. But nothing about testing.
Here in metro-NYC, we already lived through the mistake of not testing for this virus. It was here and circulating by late January, but we didn’t know it because we couldn’t test. By the time we found the first positive (lawyer in Westchester on February 29th), the virus was widespread all over the city and in many outlying communities.
It could be four or five weeks from the time the virus walks into one of our schools until it finds someone vulnerable and lands them in the hospital. By that time, it’ll be too late to prevent a wave. Even if we close the schools, our community will already be back on the exponential growth curve.
I really want D21 and her brother to go to school at least part time. But we can’t be flying blind. The school district needs to partner with the local labs, a healthcare organization, the hospital conglomerate (Northwell), Quidel, BD, Saliva Direct or someone to provide testing. People will get their kids tested if it is emphasized that we must to keep schools open. I wish they could make it mandatory, but at least highly highly encouraged with lots of social pressure.
D21 played in a soccer tournament this past weekend. Not as far as they usually travel, but there were a couple of other teams there too that would not normally play locally so at least in the finals they hit solid competition. It was really nice to have a somewhat normal-ish experience for a change. She missed fall soccer last year because she was doing HS golf, then spring and summer for COVID. She hadn’t played an actual outdoor game since summer 2019.
When I was packing a bag Saturday morning (we stayed overnight at in-laws second home that has been mostly vacant for the last 6 months) it occurred to me that I hadn’t done an overnight trip for any reason since February. I don’t think in my entire life I have gone 6 months without an overnight trip somewhere. It’s probably been a long time since I have gone 6 weeks.