My son is actually really excited about all that Loyola Nola has to offer - loves the idea of a diverse close knit campus and is especially excited they have CompSci with a game programming focus as well as the opportunity to be creative and dabble in music.
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As an Alabama alum, born and raised AL resident and parent who just toured with our S23 last spring, just a bit of advice ⊠in addition to the campus tour, be certain to sign up for the Honors College information session when you come down and get a tour of your studentâs perspective school (for my S23 who is CompSci major it was the College of Engineering). Also if your student is academically minded and both excited and wary of the big SEC experience have them consider the Blount Scholars Program. Itâs a fabulous cohort that makes a fairly large student body seem a little more like a SLAC.
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As does your son-so accomplished! Praying that they weather this application season well and are accepted to their best fit schools (and that we parents can afford them!)
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Worth considering: Nearly any state flagship, no matter the level of academic âprestigeâ, will attract supraregional and even national recruitment for internships and jobs.
That might be an issue when weighing, say, Troyâs very generous financial aid packages, but Alabama or Auburn? Nah.
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I would also say that for many CA kids, a UC education is hard to beat even relative to a cheap/free OOS school primarily based on the location and access to the right employers. Recruiting tends to be a very regional activity and even marquee employers in non-prime locations tend to hire for less important/lucrative jobs and there is a huge compounding impact of these differences over the length of a career. Still, as a parent I can see why some of the OOS schools offering big merit might be so much more appealing.
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Worth considering: Nearly any state flagship, no matter the level of academic âprestigeâ, will attract supraregional and even national recruitment for internships and jobs.
@dfbdfb agreed - and to further your point, I can tell you that with the advent of indeed and linkedin, even the Troy kids have a chance. My son interviewed with 20 or so companies first semester. Maybe one or two came from the school job fair. The rest were from shotgunning apps to companies of interest - that he found by having an indeed feed sent to him. Iâm not talking about small companies either - Iâm talking Fortune 500 companies and large privates. Heâs at Bama in engineering. My wife said on the parent facebook page that parents report this is how kids land jobs.
My daughterâs BF at Denver got 3 internship offers for the summer, all on his own via an indeed search. And his friend is in CS at UTK and got his internship the same way.
Even companies coming to campus are doing so via a virtual day and are doing multiple schools at a time. So theyâre not really there.
Proximity to companies doesât matter nearly as much as before- except if youâre getting a during the semester opportunity.
At least this is my opinion after watching the market the last 3+ years.
This is good and bad.
The bad is - of the 5 job offers my son secured, not a single one brought him in. So he didnât get to meet folks in person, see the area and facilities. One company did fly him (to Wisconsin) - and he enjoyed the visit - but didnât land that job.
So my son will start in June and while heâs excited, Iâm sure before he starts, the panic will set in, because while heâll be at a Fortune 500 aerospace company, he knows nothing about the people, facilities or environmentâŠheâll be walking in the first day blind. He just saw a few on the zoom call.
But I would necessarily assume better prospects at a school in one location vs. another. I would assume better prospects if the student ensures they are working on their own - in addition to working with the school - to seek employment. But Iâd venture to say working on your own will yield more results than going via the school (talking about non-elite schools).
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Definitely reached out about the huge discrepancyâŠthey said they will look into it so fingers crossed for now.
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If it is merit-based chances are she will have to maintain a GPA. The high merits generally come with high GPAs, and if the schools grading system is +/-, it can be even more difficult. for example if a engineering major must maintain a 3.6 to keep full merit on +/-, it is just under a A average. A-(92) usually = 3.75. It the schools grading system is A,B,C etc. a 3.6 GPA is closer to 87 average. my one DD has a +/- grading system at her college, and her GPA is .3 lower, that it would be on a A/B 10 point grading scale. Need aid is reaccessed every year
I disagree with the proximity of businesses doesnât matter. If it is an opportunity near where you can secure student housing over the summer, there is a lot of money that can be saved. Studnets who rent apartments are on a 12 month lease, there is a bunch of opportunities to sublease over the summer at a discount. My DD college also offers summer housing at $125 week, for those odd weeks in between.
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Thank you @sllemon Yes it is merit based scholarship for her.
What is a +/- system? Can you please elaborate on it more?
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Let me show you links, University of Utah is a +/- scale, here is how grades translate to GPA
https://registrar.utah.edu/transcripts/transcript-key.php
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University of Arizona is a 10 point scale, where a 90 average in class will equal a 4.0 GPA, compared to a 3.7 GPA at university of Utah
https://catalog.arizona.edu/policy/grade-point-average-gpa-calculation-or-averaging-grades
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I totally agree. The devotees of the Silicon Valley-adjacent schools donât want to hear it but excellent job opportunities are offered every month to good students at good programs in the middle of the country, especially in this era of remote interviewing/ hybrid workplaces, etc.
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For kids looking for entry level jobs, stay active on Handshake if your University has a Handshake connection. Lot of good contract and FTE opportunities get posted by companies there. I know since we are always looking to fill entry level Electrical Engg roles.
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For merit funding, I was worried about maintaining the GPA for my DD17. Another CC mom and I chatted about it on here that spring after they chose the scholarship winners, so I contacted the director of the program to ask very specific questions about how probation from the scholarship worked with GPA, how many students had lost the scholarship in the past decade, etc. The resulting information made both of us moms on CC feel better because it was clear they wanted to help students stay on top merit scholarships and there were several semesters of possible probation/improvement built it. Of course, that will vary by institution, but in my experience, they were very helpful when asked directly. This was for a full ride program with about 25 students per grade at a large public flagship. In the end, my child did fine, but we didnât want to make the decision to commit without all the information. So you can ask to talk to the director of the merit scholarships about it and may have a better feeling after.
As a funny aside on the +/- grading system, I am a very apolitical person publicly. (I guess privately as well as in I donât talk about politics much. I do vote.) Anyway, it has become family lore in my family that the ONLY protest I have ever participated in was when my large public flagship wanted to change to a +/- system at the end of my junior year and announced it would start the next fall. I was out on the Quad chanting âHey, hey, ho, ho Plus/minus has to go!â and was quoted in a publication as partly having chosen the University OOS on full merit BECAUSE it was not +/-. (My ultra-competitive public high school in Texas had a 100 point grade system for GPA, as in, I was valedictorian by 0.03 points on a 100 point scale. So yes, that one quiz DID actually matter. I never wanted to face that again!)
Anyway, we did succeed in getting the current students grandfathered in to the old system, and my protesting days were over at 21. The new students were stuck with the +/- penalty for A-. (There is no A+ to offset)
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As an employer who posts jobs on Handshake, it has changed over the years. The onus used to be on students to search for and find job listings. Now Handshake asks the employer to reach out and email students with specific qualifications in their profile. Many employers wonât do that and many wonât pay the extra fees that Handshake is now charging to access their database.
Students shouldnât wait for jobs to appear in their in box but should actively look for new postings regularly.
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was the NPC that was off by so much at Baylor by chance? Their NPC is more of a marketing tool; not really legit as there is no way to share income over 100K; and our NPC showed 19K as well with lots of grant aid based on their top income of 99K. 
I feel your pain!
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weâve seen that same advice (dont start in calc 2) for years here, and in the FB groups from our kidsâ schools. Itâs probably good advice . . . but yet we are finding thatâs what our daughter will be taking when she starts college against all that advice. Calc 2, here she comes.
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Thank you @sllemon
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Thank you @sursumcorda for your inputs. You have a lot of experience dealing with +/-âs 
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