<p>I agree- it sounds like you need to get a summer job to help your family with your college expenses rather than focus on taking another trip.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t go on another trip if it costed money. So, I still have to find out more about this program. I emailed the company, but I understand where you guys are coming from. It probably won’t work out anyways.</p>
<p>EC,The point is that even if the program doesn’t cost money,it would prevent you from MAKING money to contribute to college. My sons both worked during summers leading up to college and throughout college. Most kids do. If money is as tight as you say for your family, you need to be doing everything you can to contribute to your own college expenses. Going on another summer program is a luxury that it does not sound like you can afford.</p>
<p>It’s the holidays. Time to stop thinking about this summer or next year. You’ve been living in the future for four years. Put all this “stuff” aside until after the New Year. Go visit friends. Spend time for your family. Enjoy the now.</p>
<p>ec, I agree with the other posters. I think that you are really going to need money for college expenses.</p>
<p>momofthreeboys, I could not agree more! EC, take some time to enjoy your family, friends and the holiday season.</p>
<p>Will do :)</p>
<p>What sevmom said.
You need to be (A) focused now on gettign all the necessary information for FA submission. Then you need to be focused on getting a job after graduation. YOu have described very tenuous financial resources. If you want to attend college you need to help contribute to the cost of attendance by earning income. NOTHING is “free”. Even if a program paid for all your transportation , lodging and meals, there are still lots of incidentals that will add up. From what you describe, if you are struggling to pay the cost of CSS profile submissions, you do NOT have any disposable income to throw away elsewhere.</p>
<p>Glad to hear it! You deserve to relax a bit and live in the moment. Enjoy the holidays and your acceptances!</p>
<p>I have a friend whose daughter is on the Kennedy-Lugar YES program in India for the year this year. Those programs are extremely selective (I think pretty much all the free summer programs are) but they’re not looking for SAT scores – they’re looking for amazing ambassadors. I don’t know what the application timeline is.</p>
<p>I do have to agree with those who say you probably really should get a job this summer and not go on a summer program, though if it is really a passion, you could consider doing a gap year to earn money. (If it’s not really a passion, you almost certainly wouldn’t get into any of those programs anyhow.)</p>
<p>We have a 40+ pages thread about a kid? EC needs some real friends of his age. This is like a never ending saga.</p>
<p>I got the Allegheny Acceptance Letter, but no mention of merit aid. I did read others got a letter 10 days later about merit, so maybe that is the case. Well, I hope lol! The envelope was very small. I also got my Clark acceptance packet which was one of the nicest so far. Allegheny had a personal message in my acceptance letter though:</p>
<p>As were reviewing your admission credentials, EC, we noted your involvement in theatre productions. No doubt you realize that such participation, while requiring a commitment of time and energy, provides you with satisfaction and enjoyment. Likewise, it appears to have had a positive affect on both your personal and academic sucesses in high school. College life will offer you similar opportunities and we are sure you will take advantage of them. </p>
<p>So nice and sweet and personalized lol, but no merit. They did give me a bumper sticker though.</p>
<p>What a nice personalized acceptance letter. 
I really hope you end up with a good financial and merit aid package to a school you really like come March/April. </p>
<p>I do agree that you need to seriously consider travel costs if picking a far away and/or hard to get to school, though.</p>
<p>As a single parent who relied extensively on financial aid, I have to say that travel costs - in my case, west to east coast, were really negligible as compared to everything else over the years. The kids just don’t come home very often. There were always discount airfares available, even the time when my son decided to surprise me with a last-minute booking over one spring break. I’d note that my kid’s colleges also included a travel allowance in computing COA for financial aid, and the travel allowance was well above the real cost of discount airfares.</p>
<p>On the other hand, one big extra for the west → east coast transition was purchase of warm winter clothing – so anyone going from a temperate climate to a cold winter climate will have to factor in those costs as well.</p>
<p>ec, Congrutulations on your lastest acceptances!</p>
<p>I can tell you that my son heard about merit aid about 10 days after he received his acceptance letter.</p>
<p>RE: travel costs: Flying in and out of the NYC area is far different in cost than flying in and out of many regional airports. Look up fairs btn. Atlanta and xyz reg. airport and another major city. That is how you can compare some airfares. I can tell you that airfare for Thanksgiving from a regional airport that was about 8 hours from our home was going to cost at least $500 RT! For our family, that is a lot of money and we factored that plus a couple of other flights during the year as part of our costs.</p>
<p>When it comes to Allegheny, the last I checked there was a student shuttle (for a fee) btn. the school and airports. Major airports are not close to this school. Weather can get quite bad in the winter. If you miss your flight or they cannot land due to poor weather, consider the costs of getting onto campus on your own! For me, this was the only negative about Allegheny (and their FA package made the school too pricey for us, even after merit aid).</p>
<p>That’s a good point, though I’d note that discount airfares are readily available from the west coast to the DC & Boston airports as well as NYC. But I don’t know what the bus/shuttle service would entail between Boston & Worcestershire, if ec ends up at Clark.</p>
<p>calmom, when I talk about regional airports, I am not talking about Boston or Wash DC. As a specific example, when I looked at flights btn. the NYC area and Roanoke Regional Airport at the time we were considering schools (in this case RC), that is where I saw flights for $500 RT for son’s Thanksgiving flight. Other flights between that airport and NYC at that time ran over $300 RT. This was something for us to consider. We thought that flights would be over $1000 if our son decided to fly home three times per year (in additon to costs of moving in and out/parent weekend, which we would have from any school), and we factored this into our costs when picking schools.</p>
<p>I understand that – I just was thinking that a student attending Clark would probably fly in and out of Logan. Worcestershire is about an hour away, but I assume there must be fairly regular bus service for students – but that is something he’d have to look into.</p>
<p>Of course we are talking about different schools, as ec has been accepted to many, and travel costs are one thing for him to factor in when comparing financial aid awards. But money-strapped students often use cost-saving approaches, like ride sharing – so the actual cost of travel back & forth from some colleges may still end up less than what you would expect if you were attempting to fly into the nearest airport.</p>
<p>BTW, as a side note, I just priced out a flight between NYC and Roanoke Regional. Today I can get a flight for $229. I can tell you that I could not find those prices when I looked 2 years ago. This is another thing to keep in mind.</p>
<p>I was told that there is a train from Boston to Worcester. Worcester also has a regional airport. Maybe Southwest coming to Atlanta will be a good thing. Transportation at Hobart may also be a problem. </p>
<p>I really liked how Allegheny personalized their acceptance letter, no one else did lol. I really think my admission interviews helped me a ton. I’m a really good talker. Each admission officer seemed very impressed with me. </p>
<p>The Earlham rep emailed me back stating, “I wanted to take a moment to let you know that it was a pleasure for me to interview you. As far as I can see, you are a very mature, determined and hardworking student who will be successful at any college you attend. I hope that you choose Earlham! We would DEFINITELY benefit from your presence!”</p>
<p>I also plan on bringing my car, but I won’t be driving it back and forth.</p>