<p>Jami,</p>
<p>You know that Williams was my personal fav, but I am becoming a loyal Dartmoth parent. I even think my sister has finally forgiven my daughter for not applying ot Columbia as she recently put the Dartmouth sticker D gave her on her car.</p>
<p>kirmum, USC is the same, 50% from California. Private universities in California adore California students and alumni. They must have their reason$$$.</p>
<p>jmom; just curious. Why would Wesleyen be your perfect fit? (This could be a great new thread. …)</p>
<p>sybbie719 - I think he was asking up his high school which his sister still attends HERE!! He still seems to still have an interest in all of the nonsense that goes on there. It never occurred to me that he would skip class in sunny California in sympathy 
I also had a laugh when I read that idea!</p>
<p>It never occurred to me that he would skip class in sunny California in sympathy </p>
<p>Mom,</p>
<p>You know we have been parents long enough not to let anything they say (or do) suprise us. As he is basking in the sun doing the dance of joy not to be here in the snow, some where in the back of his mind as he is getting ready for his next class he may think, wow if I were home I won’t have to go to class today.</p>
<p>Daughter has a friend from H.S. who is a freshman at Stanford who left NYC to commune with the californian in his soul is probably also doing the dance of joy to be away from this weather</p>
<p>LAC, the right size, the quirkiness. I like to think of myself as an Amherst, Williams, Dartmouth type, but I look at my friends, my life, the situations I’ve been in, and I know it’s definitely Wesleyan. I visited for the first time about 5 years ago and felt like I’d come home.</p>
<p>So apart from the interesting side issues on this thread, am I right in thinking that some who have taken the free ride are very happy with their choices and some wish they had chosen to pay for a school thery wanted more? And that if your child has clear reasons for a favourite school, paying for it is almost always a good choice? </p>
<p>In D’s case, needing serious financial aid to attend in the U.S. and the fact that any school there would bring new cultural experiences and exposure to differences and diversity, is the only reason to pay more the prestige and job at the end of it unless she has a clear favourite for some reason? </p>
<p>The concept of “fit” sounds great, but with visits not possible and so many stories of mistakes or choices that didn’t work out after visits and fit were considered, I am beginning to think maybe it doesn’t matter as much as I thought it did. D has read lots on CC and seems to have become increasingly confused about what she wants in a school as the systems of choosing universities in her two countries are so very different. My D knows alumni who never visited before they arrived to attend schools in different parts of the U.S. from their homes. Would it really be so terrifying to head for a college you hadn’t seen if D didn’t mind terribly not having seen it?</p>
<p>If she wants America and there is an offer of financial aid that makes it possible, even though she could attend a place with more prestige by paying more money (big loans)
would you be afraid to let her go? She’s already sorry that she can’t attend almost every school she’s ever visited as she can find good points about almost all of them and no place appears perfect.</p>
<p>usmominuk -I think many kids like lots of schools, luckily for them. My S is one of them. I think/hope that means they will adapt to any one of a number of possibilities that look good to them.</p>
<p>Is it on this thread that many of us “reminisced” about how we went off to college never having seen more than the photo on front of the college brochure? And it worked for many.</p>
<p>I agree that,despite exhaustive, exhausting and obsessive research, sometimes the school just doesn’t work out. I know a number of kids who have successfully transferred in that case (eg, Wake Forest to Brown; small midwestern LAC to UC Santa Cruz, Tufts to G’town…). My personal advice (demand?) to my S if he were to face that would be not to abandon ship but to continue at “misfit” school (unless extreme circumstances), apply for transfer and make the move when all ducks in a row.</p>
<p>On CC boards, much as I love them and “can’t live without them”, you are seeing the thoroughest of the thorough. So don’t worry if you can’t do everything some others do.</p>
<p>usmominuk, it would be easier for your kid if there were other kids from the same country or ethnic background at the school. It would probably be better if there were kids with the same political thoughts at the school. For example, if you were liberal, going to Bob Jones (A very conservative school) would not be a good choice.</p>
<p>I have a friend who lived in the Middle East and ended up at the Univ of Tennessee. It was not a good choice.</p>
<p>Also, I am not a big fan of student loans. There is a cover story this week in Time magazine about Twixters. Twixters are people between 23 and their early thirties who aren’t self-supporting. Debt after college is a burden, and can limit what you do after college.</p>
<p>Are there any good public LACs to take a free ride on?</p>
<p>usmominuk-
I was recently reminded of the collegiate choice videos that can be ordered. While it can’t replace an actual tour, it can give you a decent feel for the campus and campus life of the schools you are considering.</p>
<p>And many schools now put these videos or similar campus walk-throughs on their websites for download.</p>
<p>Schools that have videos on their web sites include: Kenyon, Carleton, Harvard, Michigan, UCSB. Others?</p>
<p>Regarding dstark’s comment about student loans, my D is extremely happy she does not have any. She considered Brown very seriously and when we told her - as she debated applying - that she would come out with loans at the end, it did not seem to mean much to her, as a 17 year old HS senior looking for the best college fit. In the end she decided not to apply, and had a fabulous 4 years at Grinnell. </p>
<p>As she approached her senior year at Grin, she became very uneasy - she didn’t know what she wanted to do next and was very worried about how she would support herself. Of course we would provide a safety net, but none of us preferred that. In the end she was able to live frugally and work part-time as she figured out what to do next. But she watched many friends struggling to pay both rent and a loan payment. As she put it, it was like paying two rent payments!</p>
<p>The lack of loans really gave her some freedom to figure out what comes next, and as it turned out to be grad school two years after graduating Grin, she is once again glad that there were no college loans.</p>
<p>I often wonder at the posts that say a student will earn enough to pay back big loans - but what if their interests change, and they no longer want to find a high paying job?</p>
<p>It is easy to say I’ll be able to pay it back later, but it is not always so easy to do so…</p>
<p>wish<em>it</em>was_april, you said it better than I did.</p>
<p>A lot of the time the choice between a state school and a private school means a world of difference in quality. However, would you choose a highly prestigious school like UC Berkeley (w/ no loans at graduation)or a school like Columbia (obviously w/ tons of loans)?</p>
<p>Not living in the US for 20 years or so, I don’t feel able to rate state schools, other than the UC system which we probably cannot afford and appears to vary from campus to campus. I am skeptical about assigning too much weight to magazine rankings and most other charts rank research, which may or may not affect quality of undergraduate education. Anybody know of any other way to get information on state universities? Is it fair to say if they are in the top 100 of US News they should be ok? Should one look at how big they are? Are there areas of the country or specific states that are known to have inferior state schools? Another aspect that I find difficult is to tell if a particular school is moving up or down on the excellence scale. I know I can look at SAT scores, but I’m not sure how to apply that to just the engineering department of a school. I feel like I would know more if I had been living in America.</p>
<p>Asking questions on this board about specific schools is a good source of information.</p>
<p>Also USmom, flagship state unis are generally the most prestigious, best funded of all the state unis. Graduation rates, retention rates and %of students living on campus can also heelp to winnow down a list from the universe of state universities. I agree with Mother of Two, this board can help.</p>
<p>The big state schools you read about here tend to be 1) The UCs, because there are just so many kids in CA, 2) The “public Ivys”,which are quite competitive both in-state and out of state, and 3) the state unis outside the top 5 that have at least some notable program, maybe several, maybe an honors college or a science program. The #3 group is the one where you may need to dig for more info.</p>
<p>usmominuk - Have you tried the Ask The Dean link on this site?
<a href=“http://collegeconfidential.com/dean/index.html[/url]”>http://collegeconfidential.com/dean/index.html</a>
I had asked a question there and got a long and very considered private answer. I don’t know how many “deans” there are but the one I lucked into is fabulous and has continued to keep in touch re several admissions related matters. If you haven’t tried it, I highly recommend. If no luck, send me a private message and I’ll see if I can steer you this wonderful resource.</p>
<p>Jmmom, I am glad you got an answer. When I posted, I did not get an answer, just a canned message that I may not get an answer, when all they had to do was introduce me to the MT link. It took me a while to find that thread which was my introduction to CC. I lurked for a while, started to post, and now I am quite hooked. But I never did get a persona reply to my inquiry, not that I need it anymore.</p>