<p>One more thing, don’t assume that a safety school will give merit $$. The safety/match that S fell in like with deferred him, later accepted, but no merit/FA. His gpa was 0.1 below their “average” and his ACT several points above the 25%-75%, he was OOS and a male applying to a female-heavy school, we visited, yada yada, so we were surprised. He received a $15,000/year grant at a comparable, more highly-rated school, so you just never know!</p>
<p>University of Iowa…compact, and I bet a safety. Great football venue, good business school. Fun to visit. That’s all I know!</p>
<p>readytoroll–I’m going to again suggest that you look at larger publics with the idea finding out how the school makes it “smaller.” Large publics deal with this question all the time. DD will attend Indiana(since you mentioned it specifically). The size was one of her biggest concerns. She didn’t want small, but was not sold on the idea of 30.000 plus. Once she was admitted to the Honors program, she knew she could make it work. She applied for Honors housing and is committed to taking advantage of what the program offers. The upside for her was the numerous clubs, intramurals, etc. available at larger schools. She feels she might have to work a bit harder, and make more of an effort, but learning to create your place in a big world is kind of a life skill isn’t it?</p>
<p>Thank rrah…I will look forward to hearing about your daughter’s experiences at Indiana.</p>
<p>I think we will know a lot more about his overall perceptions of bigger schools after the next two visits! Would you consider Indiana to be more spread out than other public school campuses? I’m at a disadvantage, not having seen it…</p>
<p>Truman State U in MO is a relatively small public with excellent academics.</p>
<p>^^^I was just contemplating suggesting the OP take a look at Truman State. It is considered a “public LAC”; i.e., focus on undergraduate education but a public school. I think about 6K students. Compact campus. </p>
<p>I think transportation may be a problem. I can’t think of an airport nearby.</p>
<p>If you are interested in public LACs, check out the COPLAC website. It has links to all the member colleges. </p>
<p>But it looks like OP’s s is looking at large (not just in acreage but population) universities. Another way to look at big vs small is whether or not he wants undergrad focused teaching professors or reasearch focused professors, more seminar style classes or larger, lecture style classes. Either can offer a valuable educational experience but should be factored into “bigger vs smaller school.”</p>
<p>I think it took a while for my s to understand “want he wants.” Looking at that College Board list of 3000+ schools can be overwhelming. His college expectations had been filtered through stories from his parents and friends. Once he visited Open House days at many colleges and sat in on the presentations on “what we are all about,” he was able to sort through want kind of college environment he was seeking. The trick was to keep my excitement under check and try to let him own the experience. </p>
<p>Also, I totally agree with previous posters who suggested you be very, very clear about the financial situation. So many of my s’s friends will be attending schools that are way down their preference list because of money issues. In some cases, the FA just wasn’t enough.</p>
<p>Did you look at the University of Delaware? It’s half the size (or smaller) of the Big 10 schools you’re looking at, has a high percentage of OOS students and some very good programs.</p>
<p>ReadyToRoll-
What did your son thing of Penn State? Although it is a huge university, it is pretty compact and doesn’t seem so big after a while.</p>
<p>You might want to look at McGill in Montreal. My D had it on her list for a while. The tuition price is relatively low although I’m not sure how they do merit aid. For us it was really far away and really cold so eventually it dropped off my D’s list. It looked like a fairly large school and in a really interesting location.</p>
<p>OK ReadytoRoll…you picked a great day to tour Penn State.
So, how many times did you hear “WE ARE…”</p>
<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>Unfortunately I wasn’t at Penn State with my son…(which bummed me out since I went to college there)…he went with his dad.</p>
<p>He liked it a lot better than Indiana because even though it’s large, the dorms were interdispersed with the classroom buildings. Also, as he put it, “Everyone was just so nice it was creepy”…lol. He was already trying to convince me that if he went there he was going to live in East Halls whether I liked it or not, because 75% of freshmen live there. (I didn’t live there.)</p>
<p>He has now also decided that he does, in fact, want a big school.</p>
<p>However, there’s still a matter of getting into these schools. </p>
<p>Maryland tomorrow. I tried to talk them into at least driving through the Delaware campus on the way home, but there are colleged out for the week.</p>
<p>A piece of advice: get those apps in early, early, early. Many state schools have rolling admissions. They may also have out of state quotas. Once they are full, they are done.</p>
<p>James Madison and Virginia Tech are reasonably priced. As is College of Charleston, USCarolina, UGa. Look at those southern schools. SUNYs too are a good deal for OOSers. As someone else here said, find those safeties first. Easy to fall in love with those big names.</p>
<p>Auburn and Alabama have some really good merit aid programs–if he likes a big school and a compact campus Alabama is nice.</p>
<p>Kansas and Mizzou are 2 nice, big schools that would be easier to get into than PS or UMD. They both have high quality academic programs and big time rah rah DivI sports. Rolling admissions with quick response times is a big plus and admissions are based on a numbers driven formula. He should be fine for admission at both and OOS tuition will not break the bank. Good luck.</p>