<p>S2’s school is crazy for football weekends. No one would think of going home in the fall on game day.</p>
<p>There you go. That’s one thing that can create an exceptional situation…big time sports. Most directionals do not have that or similar drawing cards. Those that do, can keep kids around on weekends. Since it has football, it may also have a Greek system.</p>
<p>What is “directional”? I’m in NJ. we have community colleges here and the name usually includes the word “county”. As in XYZ County Community College. Actually the closest one to me doesn’t use the word community anymore. NJ has 19 County Colleges and 21 counties. They do not have dorms. </p>
<p>I know that JUNIOR colleges exist and they are 2 year schools that may have dorms. I don’t think they would be called community colleges.</p>
<p>Many kids in NJ choose the County college system for either price, or because they didn’t get into the 4 year of their choice. Assuming they do well I don’t see where their GPA has an effect on where they could transfer. Many stay close to home because they aren’t interested in the dorm experience or moving into an apartment with strangers their junior year. They probably also have a job. I don’t know what a “directional” school is, but I don’t see why going to community college would limit a student to that choice. I know many schools do not ask for HS credentials once 30 college credits are completed.</p>
<p>Transferring in junior year seems to me a little late to start the college “experience” of living on campus, as many students move off campus by then. I assume the larger the school, the more there will be to do.</p>
<p>“I think it really depends on the specific school.”</p>
<p>I agree; there are exceptions among directional schools, even in the NE.</p>
<p>What is “directional”?</p>
<p>good question. Some non-flagships probably shouldn’t have the “directional” label. I don’t think directional schools are big…like 15k+ students. I don’t know what school Packmom’s S2 attends, but it doesn’t sound like he attends what we think of a directional state school. It sounds like he attends a big state school with big sports that isn’t a flagship.</p>
<p>“it doesn’t sound like he attends what we think of a directional state school. It sounds like he attends a big state school with big sports that isn’t a flagship.”</p>
<p>There are some large directionals with big sports programs – Western Michigan, Southern Miss, South Florida, etc. When I see “directional” on CC, I usually take it to mean a public university that is not among the state’s flagships and is not well known outside the state. The schools are commonly former teacher’s colleges/normal schools. I’d consider both West Georgia and Valdosta State to be directional schools in the CC sense, even though only one has an actual direction in the name.</p>
<p>If you look at the % of freshmen who live on campus, that will give you somewhat of an idea as to the make up of the school. The overall % is not as helpful because there are schools where a lot of kids go off campus after freshman year. </p>
<p>The other thing that matter is the absolute number. If the school has 20,000 students even if 80% tend to live near enough to go home regularly, you are still talking about 4000 students hanging around which makes for a sizeable core. A school 10% of that size has numbers that can really affect getting any kind of student life going.</p>
<p>My S2’s school is East Carolina University. It is second only to NC State in number of undergrads…more undergrads than UNC Chapel Hill… in North Carolina. ECU, a member of Conference USA is D1 in all sports. With a football stadium that seats 50,000 and sells out every game,it’s been recognized as having one of the best game day atmospheres in the country. The ECU Student Pirate Club is the largest student club in the nation.</p>