<p>Rdad, I just made some space in my inbox.</p>
<p>RDad, I am not going to be online today but if you want to shoot me a question about Lehigh, I can try to answer. It was my D's safety school last year. She got in (even got a "likely letter" type thing in January) and was offered various Honors things there (forget the titles at the moment) and a $15,000 merit award too. She got into most of her reaches and all her matches and safeties so it never came to going to Lehigh but that school is a very good school and one that is not a safety for every kid but would be for a kid like yours.</p>
<p>One word of caution about Lehigh - if they view you as treating them as a safety, they will not accept you. Two of my son's classmates applied there and were waitlisted. These were kids who got accepted and with mega scholarships (full ride, paid summer in Europe, etc.) from more prestigious schools. The likely problem with Lehigh was that they never bothered to visit, hence were treating Lehigh as a safety and they were treated accordingly.</p>
<p>fundingfather ~ Love that name! We will definitly visit Lehigh (especially after your comments). It may be that the full process hasn't impacted here yet, but when S sees a college he likes, it either goes on the list or off. I think I'm the only one worrying about "reach, match, or safety." S was looking at the papers published by Lehigh faculty in CS, trying to figure out which research was "cool." Sad as it is to say, he is much more affected by research, and by restaurants on campus, than by other issues like the classroom environment. This is something we are working on now. So he won't think of Lehiigh as a safety, but I will feel better with another high probability school on the list.</p>
<p>I have to agree with others about UIUC. Not only is it ranked very, very highly in CS, it also has great facilities, a strong honors program and we were very surprised and pleased with the campus, students and faculty we met. They also have good merit money. Worth a look. Drawbacks: location and it's BIG. other pluses: great sports, particularly basketball!!</p>