@em7609
Our son attended college in the US and the first time he saw the college was the 1st day of term. Even US students don’t always get to visit accepting colleges - especially when money is tight. Ours had to attend the college that offered him the most money.
Correctly @DadOfJerseyGirl says that the US visa department state that you have to prove for the entire duration. This can take a while to get together - it did in our case as money was tied up in investments/savings/pension and all the paperwork had to be gathered and if I remember correctly even though there was a scholarship involved we had to prove all the money - I think maybe because we were showing payment ability to the college at that point. (Sorry can’t quite remember all the details.)
Because we had applied in the December we had plenty of time to get all this together. I, like you, most probably wouldn’t like the ‘rush’ and I think I would be asking the college for a deferral.
I might be talking out of turn here too, but a college offering a ‘lovely’ scholarship at this very late stage in the game is most probably not in the ‘top’ tier. I don’t mean Ivy or even the Swarthmore’s etc but way down the list - if I were to give a British equivalent it would be Preston/Teeside/West of England. Would you be keen to pay all that money for your child to live in Middlesborough for four years?
Yes there is a lot to be said about the experience of studying in the US and it really suited my lad and while he had a very good scholarship it still costs, as it is not a 4 four car journey but a £2000 flights/accommodation trip and it is only once or twice a year if you are lucky and then it is his flights home.
They also can’t work except on campus and this is limited. (Especially if your son is in a sports team as there will be so much time required for training).
I haven’t read all the thread @Twoin18 paged me - so I might be repeating things.
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If he has got a good scholarship he most probably is a good candidate - so wait and do it in the proper scheme of things. The colleges come to London in September for an event where they all lay out there stalls. It is a great day and really worth a visit with lots of organisations there: Sutton Trust, Morehouse, US visa department.
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Ask the college for a deferral and see what they say. If they say no and do the hard sell - I’d most probably back away. If someone wants you to sign straight away usually it is a bad idea from buying a secondhand car to a college education.
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Tell your son not to rush - 4 years is a long time to be away from home when home is thousands of miles away. It will be a very expensive mistake if it all goes wrong. If he is worried about going at 19 and not 18 I wouldn’t worry about that. At the smaller colleges classes are very mixed as there is the opportunity to study all subjects and so you have first/second and even third years in classes together so my son made many friends of different ages. The hardest thing will be that for a year in the UK he will have been able to drink and he won’t be able to do that for another two years until he is 21 in the US.
Anyway hope that helps.