Can’t speak to all of these.
UF–Weather will be sunny and very hot during the summer. Usually great but winter can get overcast during but nothing compared to the rest of the country.
Prestige–Best university in FL. Consider yourself lucky if you got in.
Cost–can’t beat it obviously.
Frats are not part of UF culture. But if that’s your thing then they’re available.
Student faculty ratio shrinks drastically once past the undergraduate classes. Once you’re in your major it’ll be small classes.
Student culture–There’s a reason it’s called the “Gator Nation”. Far reaching network of alumni.
Something isn’t adding up on the financial aid. First of all, both of your parents’ income should have been taken into account (or is your father’s recent divorce from a stepmother?) What are your mother’s finances, and were they reported to the colleges? If/when they are, you may find that your fin aid offer from Bowdoin may change drastically, and not for the better. Second, the ability of your father to send a large sum of money to his parents in a 3rd world country, when he has a relatively low income, implies to a college that there is money coming in that is not showing up on the financial declarations or on the tax returns. This may explain the wide disparity in offers.
Do you really want to dig into all this? Something sounds irregular in the finances. Do you want to be at risk of losing your fin aid at Bowdoin, and not being able to go back? Better to choose to go to the excellent in-state option that you have, and not have to rely on your father for financing. If he pay for you when you need it, great. If he doesn’t, apply for a federal loan. In fact, unless you can get scholarship money to reduce the cost of attendance for subsequent yrs at UF, you might be well-advised to take the (likely subsidized) Stafford loan that you can get, right from the beginning, as much as you qualify for, so that you will have money in the bank to pay for subsequent years, too, at UF.
Not saying a student can’t do well in different environments. The whole point of fit is about which environment you prefer. Hard to fathom someone preferring polar opposites equally.
I typically don’t comment or factor the economics in to my comments as we never know what a families circumstances are. Rather then go down that rabbit hole, I’ll assume a family will make a good decision based on their specific financial situation, considering everything including caring for other relatives, additional children coming through the system later, etc.
Not for me to make a judgement on someone else’s financial decisions especially not doing the details.
Bowdoin does have football, although they seem to win at most one game a year in the NESCAC, so perhaps that does mean “not having football” after all.
Ha! True. No big time sports at Bowdoin BUT our son does go to all kinds of sporting events to cheer on his friends. He’s gone to lots of women’s volleyball and basketball games and they are packed and fun.
This is fair but you’d be amazed at how many say we’ll just take it one year at a time and screw themselves up.
No one has to listen to anyone on here. But finances are in many ways the biggest aspect of fit. Once you go and love a place you are staying even if it becomes obvious in year two you made the wrong move.
The colleges are under zero obligation to provide appropriate counseling. It’s why you read stories on here about kids taking on debt that frankly should never even be offered.
But there’s always someone in business to loan money and this profit over appropriateness. So if one family is saved it’s worth it. IMHO
Sounds to me like you’re from FL. Go to UF. The weather (your number 1 listed factor) will kill you in Maine. Nothing worse than being depressed by the weather, regardless of how good the school is. Focus on getting exceptional grades in undergrad, and map out your graduate path now. You’ll do great!
I would spend zero time worrying about UF being too much like high school because ‘so many’ from your hs are going to UF.
My kids went to a Florida hs with 435 kids in their graduating class. Probably 200 went to 4 year colleges (many to military, community colleges, vocational training, or just got jobs), and maybe 50 to UF. One of my kids knew about 5 kids going to UF, the other only 1 or 2. The Val went to UF but my kids didn’t really know him.
50 kids out of 6000+ freshmen. A drop in the bucket. You can easily avoid 50 kids at a school with 30,000.
And don’t underestimate the value of seeing a friendly face on campus. My daughter went to a school 2000 miles away, but with 2 kids she’d gone to kindergarten with. She wasn’t friends with them, but enjoyed seeing them occasionally on campus.
@Moon1 - do you have more info on the merit scholarship from USC, that you’re willing to share (amount, conditions of renewal)? I didn’t see any info on it after your OP and it looks like that’s one of the reasons USC could be affordable after UF.
ok got it, you put $10K-20K per year for USC, if the $10K is really assuming everything goes right with the FA package and costs (travel, living in socal) at USC, that might be too risky as others are saying. $40k vs 38K for UF is close but $80K is definitely not, especially since you want to attend grad school.
having so many second thoughts as commitment time approaches… I know i am doing this for my dad and for myself but I feel like I will really miss out with Bowdoin…
Your finances are so messed up that - what happens if next year it’s $60K or $80K. The fact that you have so much variability between Bowdoin and Swarthmore - something isn’t right. Hence why I keep pushing UF.
This is the worry.
Plus, weather is your top thing - by that, did you mean being frozen??
If you go all in at Florida and have a great experience, you won’t miss anything. Yes, Bowdoin is incredible - but so is Florida.
We know why this happened. OP’s dad wired a sizable sum overseas to support family. Swat didn’t allow this factor to change the FA (because dad chose to use that money to support family instead of using to fund college), while Bowdoin did grant professional judgement and offered FA as if dad doesn’t have that money. I did ask above if sending money overseas is something dad routinely does, because that is germane…I don’t think OP answered that.
Yes my dad sends monthly living fees overseas to his parents. But it’s always like 2k/month and sometimes he sends in a little over 10k. The 60k this year is due to my grandfather funeral/medical fees