<p>“D2 is interested in English and French, not engineering!”</p>
<p>Ok…well the same scholarships apply from Alabama no matter what the major, except for the extra 2500 per year.</p>
<p>so, with the 1400 Math + CR SAT and a 3.5+ gpa, she’d still get free tuition, no matter what your income is.
and if she makes NMF, she gets a whole lot more. Bama has an excellent English dept and although my kids took Spanish and Italian at Bama, I do know two College Confidential students who took French at Bama. The FL profs are very devoted to their students and take groups abroad in the summer. Most, if not all, are native speakers.</p>
<p>Hi M2CK. I was thinking of mentioning Bama before you showed up, but I somehow got the idea OP’s kids want to stay in NY or at least the NE.</p>
<p>I think Buffalo is good for English(?) Not from NY so don’t know anything really. They give 25 full ride scholarships every year. It’s a very small percentage of incoming freshmen, but if your D2 interviews well, she probably will have the stats to get into the applicant pool and it might be worth a shot…</p>
<p>Stonybrook had some cool events for accepted students, though D didn’t go. I threw all the brochures out but I recall one was a tour of the facilities at Brookhaven with opportunities to observe students doing research there and chat with them about their experience.</p>
<p>Stonybrook has very active forum here on CC and an adcom who posts often. Last year they were completely full in summer when some kids were hoping to change enrollment deposits from some other schools to Stonybrook. So no hope of sneaking in with a summer application. No sure if it’s like that every year, but you could post over there and ask.</p>
<p>Celeste, you are saying stony brook is full for fall and she will have to wait till spring, yes? </p>
<p>My dilemma is whether to take parent plus loans which scare me as being MY loans or private student loans.</p>
<p>Stoney brook and new paltz both have women’s rugby thank god.</p>
<p>it pains me to wait to lay out the facts for her until the semester is over and she is home. It does feel so heartbreaking. Do you agree it is better to wait till June to introduce the new reality?</p>
<p>So how are parent plus loans better?</p>
<p>It is only you (the parents) carrying the debt, not your children. If you have more than 90 days outstanding on any of your debt, it could be a challenge getting a PLUS Loan</p>
<p>What I was saying is that looking back through old posts on that CC forum by the rep and students, last year in early summer Stonybrook was full. I don’t know their current status, though their transfer page says they are still accepting applications but acceptance depends on space available. Can’t tell how often that page is updated. But if they were full last summer, it is possible they will also be full this summer. In case you are thinking of bringing her home, talking over things with her and trying to get an app in quickly for this fall. You might want to call the schools you are looking at and try to find out what the prospects are.</p>
<p>My stress is that I don’t want to break the news to her until she is finished with exams and is home, away from the romantic Union environment. but Union runs so late, into June. the SUNY apps would be so late for fall. I will call the school this am…</p>
<p>June? Oh my. My D is done in a bit over 2 weeks. I forgot, the trimester schools have a different calendar. </p>
<p>Seems like there ought to be a way to finesse things to soften the blow but still get apps in. Somehow give the impression that it’s just in case so you have all your bases covered as you evaluate the situation and wait for the Union FA package to come. I don’t advocate lying, but it would be too bad if the stress caused her grades to tank. OTOH it would be too bad for her to miss the entire year of school, especially if job opportunities are scarce around you. Being at school somewhere and moving on seems better psychologically, more uplifting, than finding herself just at home and scrounging up a low wage job. </p>
<p>If it seems like there is no way to smoothly segue, should brainstorm and try to think of an interesting year-long opportunity, something to fill that time that would be inspiring and useful. You know, working on some mission in Haiti rebuiilding sort of thing. Though that might not raise needed cash, but could be there is something in that vein that would pay.</p>
<p><<<<
was thinking of mentioning Bama before you showed up, but I somehow got the idea OP’s kids want to stay in NY or at least the NE.
<<<<</p>
<p>when money becomes an issue, and aid can come from another region of the country, sometimes people end up relaxing their geographical limits. There are many Bama students who never thought that they would go to college outside of the west or north or wherever they live, but when there are unaffordable EFCs or big gaps in aid, many students go where they can get the funds that they need. Thankfully, if that school is Bama, they are attending a beautiful school with strong academics and friendly people. :)</p>
<p>You might want to discuss a mid year transfer with your piano teacher’s husband…it looks like Union is on quarters while Stony Brook is on semesters. If transferring to a semester school, your daughter would have completed 1/3 of a year long course sequence by the end of the fall term. The kids at the semester school would have completed 1/2 of the sequence. Check to see how or if this will impact a mid year transfer in engineering.</p>
<p>Maybe Rower? Or her mom?</p>
<p>Old mom…maybe I’m dense…but what does your post mean? Maybe Rower? Or her mom?</p>
<p>I just wish I could get my S to look at Bama or similar schools. It seems like he’ll end up at our flagship because he doesn’t want to look at the schools in the south where they are throwing money at kids. Not that there is anything wrong with our flagship, but it would be nice to expand the boundaries and look around a bit. Since the no-merit-aid-top20 privates are out of our reach financially, that would be the way to do it. Bama would be free the first year and pretty cheap after that. Isn’t that worth a look? Ugh, he’s impossible. “No I won’t look at Kentucky. Their accent is awful.” And he even sees that D loves ASU after swearing it was bound to be a horrible place and why would she even look at a school like that? Anyway, not to hijack, just agree with M2CK that it’s not a bad idea to roam far chasing money.</p>
<p>Sorry, wrong place for that message above and too late to edit!</p>
<p>Celeste, that’s too bad that he won’t look at the southern schools. My D is at Alabama and is absolutely loving the change from northern Illinois. It’s great to expand your horizons. My D initially did not want to go more than a couple hours from home, but she’s now very glad that she did.</p>
<p>OP, as one who transferred from one college to another, I wouldadvise that you try very hard to have the transfer take place after freshman year rather than after sophomore year. Financially, you’ll be paying big bucks for another year to a school from which your D won’t graduate, a school that won’t appear on her diploma. But more important for your D, that will be one more year where she’ll be getting entrenched at Union, making friends at Union, and basically making it harder to leave Union. And it will be one more year where she WON’T be making friends and getting involved at her future school. I made a fairly seamless transition after freshman year, but it was easy to see that the transition would have been more difficult after sophomore year. </p>
<p>I would be looking closely at which of her classes transfer to Stony Brook. The Union courses come out to about $6,000 per three credit semester course, based on Union’s COA. You want all the Union credits you can get to count for something at Stony Brook. </p>
<p>Stony Brook has lots of schools listed on their transfer/course equivalencies webpage, but Union is not one of them. So they might not even be able to tell you ahead of time what counts for what. A lot of schools want potential transfer students to apply to their school before they will evaluate transfer credit.
<a href=“http://www.stonybrook.edu/advising/transfer/course_eqiv.shtml”>http://www.stonybrook.edu/advising/transfer/course_eqiv.shtml</a></p>
<p>CTclemmons, I don’t understand why YOU are nervous about taking loans, but feel it’s fine for your DD to take them or worse yet, take cosigned loans. Cosigned loans mean BOTH you and she are stuck. Exactly as though YOU took the loans AND she took the loans On BOTH credit reports. The thing is, when your DD starts looking at jobs and apartments and opportunities, for her to have big loans on her credit report can be a problem. Not to mention paying them back if the job market dips in her field. I still remember when certain engineering fields just dried up. There have been years when it was not so easy to find jobs even in the sure fire fields. The loans do not wait. You can get a dunned credit report in no time. You don’t want to do that to your DD. </p>
<p>I also don’t understand why you are hesitant to take out some loans yourself right now, when they are cheaper (less than 7% interest, tax deductible) than taking out retirement money which will be hit with federal, state taxes, plus then the school will hit with at 30% towards the EFC leaving you with far less than half of what you take out. If you want to use those funds towards school costs, you can use them to pay off the loans later when you are in a more favorable tax situation. You aren’t getting 30 cents to the dollar you withdraw from any retirement fund after all is said and done, even without the 10% penalty you paid in prior years. </p>
<p>Yes, because it is her money, her responsibility to pay back the loans, and $6500, plus $7500 (jr) plus $7500 (sr) is no small amount. </p>
<p>You know…your daughter can also still get a Direct Loan for THIS year, if she requests it, I believe.</p>
<p>You did the right thing. </p>
<p>You are very fortunate that this turned out the way it did.</p>
<p>ETA…there is still about $10,000 difference in cost. Where is that coming from?</p>