My daughter has finalized her semi-final decision and I just wanted some input on her choice. She has been accepted to Salem College in Winston-Salem, NC. It is a not so selective private women’s college but she got a full tuition scholarship with a net cost to us about $11,500/year. It doesn’t offer a wide range of majors, but the tipping point in our allowing her to attend the school is the fact that Salem College has a cross registration agreement with Wake Forest where she can take up to 8 credit hours/semester. She will probably use that opportunity to take Chinese language and Digital Media courses which are not offered at Salem. She is looking at doing an Integrative Studies major (probably Psychology with the above pseudo-minors). She wants to either be a school psychologist (which will require a MEd at another college) or work for a non-profit or other agency with disadvantaged children. She really likes the school and all the personal attention she got on her visits. She was accepted to the following other schools:
Centre College - too far away and too remote - $20K net cost due to merit aid
Virginia Tech - too big - no financial aid
JMU - too big - no financial aid
Hollins University - too “horsey” and too focused on Creative Writing which she isn’t interested in - another full tuition ss with $15K net cost
Simmons College - just not interested - $30K net cost
Bryn Mawr - would LOVE to attend - but we are assuming the financial aid is not going to be anywhere close to the other schools and my husband is not too keen to pay three or more times the cost of Salem College for a psychology degree (we haven’t received the FA package yet)
And we are proud she got waitlisted at Washington and Lee, but she’s decided that would not be the best fit for her in the unlikely case she was taken off the waitlist.
We’re thinking this is a pretty good decision for her and like the fact that she will be receiving a lot of personalized attention. I was leaning towards either VA Tech or JMU just because of the bigger variety of majors and faculty (in case she changes her plans) , but she insists that she wants to attend a small school. So I’d rather have her accept the scholarship and go for a couple of years and then if she starts to get claustrophobic she can transfer to a larger school and we will be ahead financially. Which wouldn’t be the case if I advised her to go to say, VTech (twice the cost) and she hated the large school environment and wanted to transfer to a smaller school - by then, the scholar “ships” would haved already sailed.
Like I said - I’d just like some input on this approach, since as you can see, she does have some other good options.
Thanks! (I know I have posted a similar question a few weeks ago, but we didn’t have all the info at that time, so I didn’t want to share the specifics).
I think your original plan sounds better. The price is right, and it’s very easy, by the sound of it, to take courses at Wake. I don’t see a downside. I think it’s important to respect her wish to go to a small school.
She can also go to the many wonderful arts presentations at University of NC School of the Arts. Excellent plays, music, dance…great for that sort of thing. Wondering if they offer a student rate for the Salem College women?
@thumper1 Yes! She is pretty “arty” herself (she is in Choir, is a good artist - the Digital Media minor is to give her an artistic outlet) and I think she would LOVE the close proximity to UNC Arts school. Definitely a plus for her!
@happy1 Yes, we are going to wait to hear from Bryn Mawr before making the final commitment, but I’ve been on the Bryn Mawr thread and I didn’t see students getting awarded much financial aid. For some reason, ours is still pending. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.
@Consolation I guess that would be 2-3 classes per semester. And yes the logistics seems to be realistic - it is only 4 miles away and Salem provides a shuttle bus to and fro. Since it is a very small school the course offerings will not be many with probably not a lot of flexibility in scheduling, but she probably won’t take the whole 8 hours at Wake each semester - she won’t need to take that many to take the courses that she wants. I’m thinking maybe around 10 total. And yes, we are going to do all we can to try to get her into Bryn Mawr, but we’ve had a discussion with her and told her that we’re not willing to pay above a certain amount. And she’s OK with that. We fall into that “income too high to get financial aid, but too low to pay the cost of the more selective colleges” category. We are older parents with one more to graduate from high school in two more years so we have to keep that in mind. If our oldest was going into a STEM field with the possibility of a good income after she graduates, I’d be insisting she go to Bryn Mawr as she could take out loans, but she’s just not interested in science or math careers - she’s a people person.
@thumper1 Yes, we have some financial need, but from what I’ve been reading on CC, a family’s real need is hardly ever met. We had some major changes in our financial situation during the past year which was noted on our CSS profile, and we’ve provided a special circumstances form to them. But we just have no clue what to expect. And they are taking their sweet time to let us know - I’m hoping that is a good thing as they may be waiting to see what their yield will be and may be able to give us a better package if we are patient. I told my daughter exactly that - that she must be patient - she has a good plan in place, but if Bryn Mawr comes through with a good offer, then it will be a very happy and wonderful surprise for her.
i’m surprised you haven’t received your FA package from Bryn Mawr. Has D navigated to the FA section in her ‘bionic’ portal? If you just can’t find it (and their site isn’t especially easy to use), she should call the school and ask for help because it really should be there. imho with FA-related questions it’s ok for the parents to call the school, especially since she’s already admitted.
Our aid there was almost exactly what the NPC estimated (within a few hundred $). If you had extenuating circumstances, just bring those up when calling their FA dept.
All that being said - your plan for Simmons is solid - just make sure you have the info from BMC before making the final decision.
@lz57c4 We’ve already contacted BMC and got the confirmation that because of the special circumstances, it will be a few more weeks (yeah - WEEKS) before she receives her package. I already sent the special financial circumstances documents to them several weeks prior to the RD decision day at their request. I thought they would have the info in plenty of time to make the award, but apparently they have to ponder on it a while - it’s a complicated situation. But yes, we plan to make sure we have the info in hand from BMC before we let her make the final decision. We’re hoping very much for a happy surprise.
You say that cross-registration is one of your tipping points in giving D the go-ahead for Salem. Info is not advertised very well on the Salem website. That’s curious. Look into the logistics/reality of the process; it might be more of a headache than students bargain for. How long does it take, how many steps? Is she guaranteed a spot early on or is she on a waitlist until the last days? Are the courses she wants (Chinese/Digital Media) offered regularly and not likely to conflict with Salem offerings?
Research how many cross-reg courses are do-able. You say up to 8 credit hours (2-3 courses), but when you factor in the logistics of registering, course availability, class space availability, the tedium of climbing on a shuttle, my guess is that your D can perhaps count on 1 cross-reg class per semester. Maybe at best. Research this by asking the administration for a couple of student contacts. If her college choice hinges on cross-registration, you probably want to assume a worst-case scenario because the ease/willingness to cross-reg is not something that can be known 100%.
Keep the positives alive with your choices. It’s only April 3. You said that Centre is too remote, Virginia Tech/JMU too big, Hollins/W&L are poor fits, Simmons bleh. It begs the question, why did D apply? You don’t actually feel that way about these schools or you wouldn’t have considered them. D’s head space might change in the next few weeks and you don’t want her saying all of her options suck!
@Dunboyne Very coincidentally, I just emailed the Salem admissions head to ask those very same questions about the cross registration issue. We will select another option if they don’t agree to make this a feasible opportunity. And no, the information is not on the Salem website, but it is discussed pretty well in the College Handbook. Thank you for the great summary of the issues she should be considering!
And no, I haven’t projected a negative attitude to her about the other schools to my daughter - I just gave the reasons for how she weeded out the others in making her tentative decision from the final five - I mean she had to find some kind of negative factor about the others in order to come to a final decision. There was certainly a reason she chose all of them, they were colleges that offered programs in psychology and Chinese language courses (or cross registration - even at Bryn Mawr the Chinese classes would be at Haverford). Both Salem and Bryn Mawr (her final two) have everything she wants: Major, Chinese courses, urban walkable setting, small school. Definitely there are trade-offs with the final two: Salem - big fish in small pond, honors program, study abroad opportunities, great academic offerings at WF, great price, BMC - great academics, prestige, probably no study abroad because they have to pay for resident tuition PLUS tuition of study abroad programs, small fish in big pond, probably not a great price.
@sybbie719 We’ve done some research and I believe that you can get a masters in School Psychology - I know JMU offers this program. It is a Ed.S. It is three years with GA and TA possibilities. See http://psyc.jmu.edu/school/curriculumguide.html
You can get a Master’s in anything. Make sure that the school districts she might want to work in someday will hire someone without a doctorate. Ours will not- you can get a job as a guidance counselor with a Master’s in a variety of fields (psychology, counseling, social work), but to work as a school psychologist you must have a doctorate.