high "suitcase" % at state directionals?

Parents Forum
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<p>Any input on whether the state directionals in the Northeast are more likely to be “suitcase” colleges, than the small-to-midsize private colleges that accept kids at the 2.8 HS gpa level.</p>

<p>The underlying assumption is that the directionals and a targeted slice of the private colleges are what’s available to those kids, after community college options are exhausted in the first two years of a four-year program. The state flagships are almost universally looking for stronger HS performance. And the private schools that are more academically exclusive may have a different social character, particularly as to weekend atmosphere. Hence the question.</p>

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<p>Sorry, no info about what schools are possibilities for students with a 2.8 Gpa.
You might inquire on this thread.
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1333518-less-than-3-0-gpa-there-thread-hope.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1333518-less-than-3-0-gpa-there-thread-hope.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I’m afraid you misunderstand the question. There absolutely are such schools, and they tend to be state directionals or smaller privates, and the question is – of those two categories of schools, in the Northeast – which would be more likely to be suitcase colleges.</p>

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<p>I live in the NE too. I believe I understand your question, but I think it really depends on the specific school. Some smaller private schools have a higher % of OOS students than the state directionals. </p>

<p>I asked this question of a few students at some of the schools we visited. I wanted DS to have the residential college experience, and would be disappointed if the majority of students left on the weekends.</p>

<p>If you have a specific school you are concerned about, maybe I could help.</p>

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<p>familyof3, thanks. We are not at the stage with specifics yet, but I’ll keep your kind offer in mind. I can see the weekend life at this type of school working a few different ways, all hard to discern on paper.</p>

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<p>Huh? Wouldn’t many colleges disregard or significantly reduce the influence of the high school records of transfer applicants who would transfer at the junior level (i.e. have two or three semesters’ of college course work to report on their applications)? So a 2.8 GPA high school student who goes to a community college for two years with a 3.7 GPA there would likely have more options of four year universities to transfer to than s/he could have gotten into as a freshman.</p>

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<p>A number of those “directional” schools have been working on programs to increase weekend life, with varying success. Others have tried shifting the culture so that they more closely resemble LACs in culture and (to a lesser degree) selectiveness, along with focusing on the social picture. </p>

<p>Others have not, being apparently content with a population that leaves campus on the weekends for work/family/social life. This is one of those questions where the specifics actually do count for something…</p>

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<p>S2 just graduated from a directional state university last weekend. It It is in no way a suitcase college.
With 28,000 students, there was always something going on. We are instate and S2 has not come home this semester since Christmas…just more fun to stay at school. Over his four years there, he rarely came home for just a regular weekend visit…mostly came on school breaks/holidays.</p>

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<p>It depends, and probably on the size of the state. In my state, CT, not only the directionals but also the flagship, UCONN at Storrs, have a large suitcase contingent since nobody is much more than an hour from home. But Storrs is probably less suitcase than the directionals since there are a greater number of OOS students. </p>

<p>Even at a school like Michigan, which I attended for a year, many of the students were close to Detroit Metro, and might go home on the weekend. </p>

<p>State schools tend to be huge, so it’s probably not about how many leave for the weekend, but does a critical mass stay on the weekend to maintain a lively campus life.</p>

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<p>Many, not all, directional state schools are going to be commuter/suitcase schools. Yes, a number will have stuff going on during the weekends, but for an OOS student, it can be an issue when all the local/state kids go home for long weekends and other times. </p>

<p>The purpose of many directionals is to provide a college education for those who live within the metropolitan area.</p>

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<p>The directional schools in my state, aren’t located in commuting distance to large populations.
Even some of the community colleges have dorms.
Sounds like higher density on east coast?</p>

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<p>

Yes, this would be an oxymoron in the Northeast.</p>

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<p>I don’t understand, you mean " community" really stands for commuter"?</p>

<p>Over the past few decades, community colleges also have a relationship with the states four year schools, allowing students to finish a limited number of degrees on the CC campus.</p>

<p>The CC i was attending, also attracts a high number of international students, who makeup the majority of the dorm residents.
[Edmonds</a> Community College had record number of foreign students in 2007-08 | HeraldNet.com - Local news](<a href=“Edmonds Community College had record number of foreign students in 2007-08 | HeraldNet.com”>Edmonds Community College had record number of foreign students in 2007-08 | HeraldNet.com)
The president of the Cc just spoke at the White House!
[The</a> Weekly Herald](<a href=“http://heraldnet.com/article/20120509/TWH06/705099911/-1/news01]The”>EdCC president talks about STEM at White House | HeraldNet.com)</p>

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<p>I don’t understand, you mean " community" really stands for commuter"?</p>

<p>Usually, community colleges are serving the community that surrounds them. Generally, the students are commuters.</p>

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<p>In our densely-populated slice of the Northeast, the “community colleges” are two-year county colleges, and they do not have dorms. Nor do they have de facto dorms in the form of apartments that are largely rented by students. The counties are geographically small, and people commute from home. Within any one county, it is an inherently easy commute. They confer associates’ degrees and various certificates. Our home county has a great school, so that’s the obvious initial prospect. </p>

<p>If one should proceed to finish a Bachelor’s, it will involve a transfer. While a leopard may change its spots, as UCB notes, and access to more four-year schools may open up, it’s responsible to assume that the leopard will not change its spots, and begin to investigate the likely options.</p>

<p>I guess my real question is, when you visit a college, how do you discern the weekend character? Asking the tour guide, and other students you can strike up conversation with, is one way, of course. Looking at the school newspaper and asking to see the list of official activities might help. But I’d like to hear about people’s experiences. I also think it might matter what year the student is in. A sophomore tour guide may enjoy a vibrant weekend life from his perspective, whereas juniors or seniors may feel differently. I had the personal experience of staying every weekend at a school that became a suitcase school by junior year, and it’s not fun.</p>

<p>If directionals (or their private academic counterparts) do tend to be suitcase schools, particularly at the upper level, then it might be important to hedge one’s bets by staying within personal suitcase distance.</p>

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<p>The state directionals around here are suitcase colleges. While there are still some things to do for kids that don’t go home every weekend, the campuses are pretty quite. You can research on various websites (Collegeboards is one) the percent of kids that live on campus and what the mix of in-state/out of state schools are. Typically schools that have a high percentage of kids living on campus, 90% or better, are less likely to be suitcase colleges.</p>

<p>Our oldest ran into that problem at his school and was one of only a handful of kids in his dorm every weekend. It wasn’t a good situation. When you visit, make sure you ask many FRESHMAN on campus what the weekends are like. We made the mistake of asking our senior tour guide that question. Sure, most seniors stuck around on weekends but very few freshmen or sophomores did.</p>

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<p>I guess the distinction can be what the directional school offers…does it have any big sports to watch, does it offer a strong performing arts dept that draws loyal spectators, does it have a developed Greek system to keep kids on campus…</p>

<p>Non-flagships are far more likely to be suitcase/commuter schools simply because those who can afford to go away, usually go elsewhere to a private or to a flagship. (I’m not just defining Flagship as the U of State school of the state. Some states have 2-3 big colleges with Flagship-like status…like IU and Purdue, Cal and UCLA, or UGa and GT, USCarolina and Clemson, etc)</p>

<p>As much as people may not like it, it often is the presence of some big team sports that catapults a non-flagship into being less of a suitcase school.</p>

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<p>You are probably right. It would be interesting to know how this works in the SUNY system, which is a very good system academically, but configured without a real flagship, and without the Penn State-type D1 high profile sports. That element in NY State is left to private schools – Syracuse, St. John’s for basketball, etc. (And St. John’s, ironically, is really a commuter school; I would put it in the category of Northeastern urban commuter schools with lots of D1 sports spirit, but that’s another conversation.)</p>

<p>NY State is big enough, geographically, that if kids are criss-crossing the state to enroll at a directional that offers what they want academically, they will be too far from home to go home on the weekends. SUNY Purchase, for example, is unique within the system for its heavy focus on the performing arts. Fashion Institute of Technology is a SUNY with a clearly unique focus, and all of Manhattan for weekend diversion. </p>

<p>But most enrollees at any typical directional are going to take the more common majors – elementary ed, phys ed, business, psychology, criminal justice, etc. – and in the densely-populated Northeast, there is usually no need to travel a long way from home to find those majors at the directional level.</p>

<p>I guess that residential numbers alone can be misleading. In NJ, for example, a directional might have 10,000 undergrads enrolled – 8,000 commuters and 2,000 on campus. A selective LAC with 2,000 kids living on campus, kids who have come from other states, will probably stay busy on the weekends. But at the directional – 1,500 of the 2,000 might routinely go home.</p>

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<p>There’s a community college local to me that has on-campus housing.</p>

<p>All of the Pennsylvania state schools in this tier - [Welcome</a> to the PA State System of Higher Education](<a href=“http://www.passhe.edu/Pages/default.aspx]Welcome”>Home | PA State System of Higher Education) will have a good size suitcase contingent if only because 90% of the students are in-state residents and a good percentage of those live within an hour of the school they are attending. However, I think that freshman are NOT allowed to have cars, so if they are getting rides home, it’s going to take some effort.</p>

<p>What tends to happen, in my experience, is the kids that go to close-by schools go home more often, period. That was the case with my kids private LAC’s too, but because the majority didn’t live close, there were more students on campus on weekends. 90% of the students at my daughters college were from OOS and it was a residential campus so it made sense that there was a lot of activity going on every weekend and that many students stayed there to participate. </p>

<p>What you want to find out is where the majority of the students are from.</p>

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<p>S2 was a good four hours from home at his directional college. Most of his friends there were a least a couple of hours from home. His school and all others in our state accept up to 18% from oos. S2’s school always fills it’s 18% quota. </p>

<p>At his school there is an exodus from the dorms after freshman year. But there is a large neighborhood with big old houses built in the 1940’s directly across from the university that is almost all student rentals. S2 and three roommates spent three years there in an old house two blocks from campus. The whole neighborhood is a big student community…always furniture out in the yards,kids out playing bball, walking in groups to class or to other houses to hang out and yes,party on the weekends. Everybody wants to live there,despite the rundown appearances of most of the houses. There are also lots of student apt. complexes nearby. Just because they’re not in the dorms doesn’t mean there’s no student life. </p>

<p>S2’s school is crazy for football weekends. No one would think of going home in the fall on game day.</p>