Quick update on my S21. We visited WPI last week (an in-person tour!) and while my future engineer likes their academics overall and their robotics program, the small physical size of the campus didn’t really float his boat.
He got into Case Western with $21k merit last week (can’t remember if I posted that?) so he’s going to give them another look. He did not get an admit to Rice.
Top contenders continue to be Va Tech and Wisconsin – he’s realizing the energy of a big campus and all its possibilities are exciting to him!
Few more decisions coming in today and tomorrow, but they were last minute additions over winter break (he had time on his hands!) so not expecting much there.
I’m excited to hear his choice and for you to be done! I feel like he had a great, balanced list.
Hoping mine gets a better idea of the size and type of campus he will like on this 5-6 school trip. Before Covid he had only seen one smaller school and they just went to SDSU which seemed too large. Not surprising since his high school has 250 kids.
It’s so weird to be figuring this out so late in the game. This is the plan we hatched in October. But at least they don’t have to bother looking at places he’s not admitted to. Just for fun they looked for a couple minutes at Harvard yesterday on the way to the hotel.
Where in NY are you flying? I generally take a red eye flying from California to NY. Why do you need uhaul? We’ve got target here & you can probably ground ship anything big.
Is that your vote for a kid who is deciding between VT, Penn State, and Delaware too? That is where we are in my house and my son is having a really hard time deciding. He would be non-STEM at VT, which seems to offer some positives (smaller department and class sizes), but also some potential cons (possibly fewer investments in the department or recruiting in his field or for law school).
@AlmostThere2018@NJMom18 My son is an accounting/finance student (junior) and I live in Blacksburg. It’s a great quality of life, good weather (okay, a bit cold and windy in the heart of winter), friendly campus, great food, happy students (according to various lists that measure that). Very outdoorsy, beautiful mountains, hogwarts-style campus (most buildings are clad in ‘Hokie stone’ which is sourced locally), reasonable cost of living compared to a lot of other college towns, and very safe. I would say a negative is no major airport, plus if your student is really into shopping or wants an urban setting, this is not the place
Hamilton recommends Syracuse (closest) or Albany. I’m also looking into other airports within a 2-3 hour drive, including Buffalo, Rochester and Hartford, CT.
We aren’t getting a U-Haul (not sure why you thought that), but will rent a minivan or SUV there. The college will accept Amazon packages for students sending things ahead, so we’ll do that and also shop there. Regular ground shipping is too expensive for us. There’s a Target and 2 Super Walmarts nearby. We’ll have 4 suitcases plus our carry-ons.
Ya’ll can probably tell that I’m stressing myself out. Already. Yup, that’s me. Worry is my middle name.
My daughter thought VT was the prettiest campus of those she visited (I wasn’t on that trip) and that includes Miami University, UDel, UNC and UMD which are all very pretty campuses.
@NJMom18 can’t go wrong with any of those choices but if he is interested in law school I would pick the one that is the cheapest of three. Law school can be very expensive with tuition alone being 50K+ a year at most schools.
Another thing we did for shipping was to use Amazon Prime choose-your-delivery-date (if they still have this?) and shipped certain items to the hotel that I wanted to wash (hotel had guest washer) but that I didn’t want to fly with. Comforter, mattress cover, that sort of thing. We didn’t have time to wash during dorm move-in - there was a short window and then parents were out the door.
(The sheets and towels flew with us. I washed them multiple times at home to get the new chemical smell out.)
Update on UT Dallas - we visited campus on Saturday. Place was dead, because very few kids are in person. It’s a small campus with very young buildings in general - I grew up in New England so these new-build schools are so disorienting for me! There’s not a lot around, it’s basically in the middle of a suburb. That being said, it’s a nice, compact, well kept campus. I feel like D21 will miss out on that true “college” experience going there though - it’s so tech/business focused and their biggest draw for spirit seems to be their highly ranked chess team and e-sports. They had mugs in the bookstore that said “Keep UT Dallas Nerdy” so there’s that too.
So we are still between UCF, UT Dallas and I’m encouraging her to take another look at UMASS Amherst. It’s harder for us to get there and obviously weather is quite different, but it’s such a good school and my family still lives in the neighboring towns. Significant $$ difference though - cost would be close to $0 for UCF, about $10K/year for UTD (including expense for a car which seems a necessity) and $34K for UMASS. She’s got it in her head to go as cheap as possible, but I don’t want her to trade the experience for cost, when we could swing all 3.
Decisions decisions decisions…
Anyone else’s kid completely checked out from school? Graduation is within sight, but assignments and homework are turning into an afterthought. I’m ready for the cap and gown already!!
My son is in the same position – one school would be free, the other $8k per year. He’s been trained to pick the lowest cost, but after tomorrow’s decisions (which we’re not expecting acceptances from), I plan to talk it all through with him to make sure he’s considering more factors than cost.
Is the concern that UCF will cut its NMF award $$? UCF is very large but has very good school spirit and is rising in stature with solid majors all around.
A friends son chose UTD honors business over A&M due to cost. It’s gone well for him. He lives at home and has two PT jobs of which one is in finance. Not much UTD spirit on his end but good result.
Loans seem appropriately priced because, unlike an asset like a house, it doesn’t have an asset as collateral. Should the government subsidize the interest rates and the losses?
I have a former employee who took out $150K in loans to support his lifestyle at a 200+ US News ranked university and a one year MS Finance at a solid, regional university. I suppose he’s one of the lucky ones. He earned a 3.9+ GPA in the MSF program and got his first CFA test paid. 28 years old when I hired him at $75K but less than two years later he’s making six figures. He has lots of chutzpah and I’d bet on this highly levered guy.
Other schools on the list are Purdue, University of Maryland and RPI. Majoring in engineering, maybe biomedical. I like that VT and Purdue both offer a general first year engineering experience. He wants a big school with school spirit, and the ability to study hard but also be able to explore lots of different things (clubs, etc). I don’t see him at RPI, and am not sure why its still on the list. He has visited VT (loved it) and Maryland but he doesn’t really remember the Maryland visit since it was a few years ago. He was also accepted to Syracuse, U Delaware, UCONN and Clemson.
I totally agree that should be a top consideration. We have been saving 529 money for both of our kids and have promised our son that we will give him the equivalent of our parent contribution for our daughter 's Ivy League school and he can use the excess of the college money for law school and after that he is on his own. He is already doing better by picking a state school and will do better if he picks either VT or PSU as UD would be the most expensive for us.
Before Covid he had only seen one smaller school and they just went to SDSU which seemed too large. Not surprising since his high school has 250 kids.
Go Hokies! Let me know if you need any more info.