So my husband and I have been tossing this idea around, and I wanted to get more input. Right now we have a senior daughter who will be going off to college in the fall, and a junior daughter who is strongly interested in colleges in Florida.
We currently live in Georgia, and junior daughter would qualify for the HOPE but has no interest in staying in the state, and has a pretty specific goal in mind regarding what she wants to major in (marketing and theme park management).
We could move to Florida over the summer and have her spend her senior year there, and it looks like she’d qualify as an in-state student for enrollment the next year at UCF or U Tampa. We are not sure about bright scholars or any of the other stuff.
We can live anywhere in FL, so were looking at some highly rated high schools like Plant City in Tampa.
Is this a good idea? Terrible idea? Help! We don’t want to screw things up for her…
I know many people in Plant. They all love it there, it’s a close knit community and the kids seem to do well at that local high school. My son transferred senior year, but for different reasons. He did well being the knew guy and I think it helped build his confidence about going into a new environment and being fine for college.
I can’t help you on the college questions, but I recently moved to S. Tampa (in the Plant HS district) and am really loving it here. Plant has a great reputation and it isn’t unusual to find kids who went to private school through 8th grade and then switched to Plant for high school. Plant City is about 30 minutes east of Tampa.
Other than both being in Florida, UCF and U of Tampa couldn’t be more different (as are Plant HS and Plant City ). Has she visited both schools? Is your only reason for moving to FL to get in state tuition? Don’t know many kids who would relish transferring high schools senior year.
@audiophile she and my husband are going to go visit FL colleges on spring break. On paper both UCF and Utampa have what she’s looking for, and we spend a lot of time in Florida (and H and I used to live in Miami and palm beach county so we’re familiar with florida weirdness). She’ll also look at USF, and maybe Flagler, although she says she doesn’t think Flagler is big enough or buzzy enough for her.
In state tuition is a small factor-we could get it by moving after she starts and her second year could be in-state. Part of it is that she is worried about the percentage of OOS kids that get in to those schools-she’s worried she might not have the GPA as an OOS kid.
We haven’t broached the idea of moving for her senior year unless we think there are good reasons for doing so, and we wouldn’t do it if she didn’t want to. It’s more of a gather information, present facts to her if it seems like it might be a good idea, and see what she says about it kind of thing.
That’s another thing-we don’t know how bad it is academically to transfer senior year. Socially she should be ok, she’s smart, pretty, social, confident, and extroverted, and if she wanted to make the move, she’d find a way to fit in without a problem. But if it hurt her academically then it’d be a no go, and we don’t really know how georgia grades, classes, ap classes, etc, slot into Florida requirements.
We moved when D2 was a junior. Her new school had a different way of calculating GPA and how they weighted honors. Before you move, show your D’s transcript to the new school, ask them how they would convert her grades, and how she would be ranked. It took a lot of meetings and negotiation on our part to convert D2’s transcript.
One thing to keep in mind is your D would most likely not get any leadership role at her new school. Not sure if it would be important for your D’s application. Agreed with another poster, I would get LORs from her current school.
University of Tampa is a private university. Your state of residence won’t factor into your cost of attendance there at all. It will be as high if you live in FL as if you live in GA.
Average cost for full-time undergraduate students for 2016-2017 academic year (fall and spring).
Tuition
(12-18 credit hours per semester) $25,858
Mandatory Fees (required) $1,882
Room and Board (double room, 15 meals per week) $10,196
@MotherOfDragons Understood. I was just thinking about the size of UCF (>60,000 students) vs U of T (~8,000). I’ll admit ignorance to the importance of a theme park management major to an actual job in that field. I do love living in Tampa, though. Ironically, my own FL native kids relinquished their bright futures scholarships to attend colleges and ultimately settle in the northeast.
Except that if she graduates from a Florida high school she might qualify for Bright Futures ($2500-3000 per year) and as a Florida resident would get a $3000 FRAG (grant to use at a private school). That can be $6000 that she wouldn’t get as an OOS student. There also might be local scholarships that can only be used at a Florida school. There really are quite a few of those. If she’s interested in BF, she needs to make sure she meets all the requirements including 2 years of a foreign language, community service, test scores in the required range. It is not just gpa, and not everyone earns BF.
I love Flagler (and St. Augustine) but it is a very small school, so not for everyone. It is very affordable (I think tuition is about $18k) and you can use both the FRAG and BF, so it might be cheaper than some public schools. The school is right in the middle of the historic district so there is always a lot of tourist traffic.
My daughter plays in the same conference as U Tampa and thinks it is a beautiful school; she doesn’t usually comment on things like that so I’m guessing it is pretty great for her to mention it. I also love Rollins College for it’s cute town. Florida Southern often wins awards for the most beautiful campus because Frank Lloyd Wright designed 7 structures there, and it is pretty, but the town is awful.
My kids did graduate from a high school in St. Johns District. Three high schools, Creekside, Bartram Trail, and Ponte Vedra, are a step above the other three in academics. Nease has an IB program. My nephew graduated from Spring Hill high school, north of Tampa, and it was a very nice school.
What does your younger D say and want? Our D was strongly opposed to switching to a new HS for her SR year–she decided instead to take and pass the GED after JR year and begin CC instead. After a term at CC, she applied to transfer to an out of state private U, where she was accepted and started after 3 terms of CC.
If your D wants it, it sounds like it could be an exciting option, giving her more affordable in-state college options. Good luck and keep us posted. Sorry–don’t know much about FL.
I made a spreadsheet (because that’s usually what I do) and factoring in trying to sell our current house, move, me graduating from college in May (adult learner), get older d settled at college, and find a new place by August just feels like more than we can manage, especially when you add in the components of trying to transfer the hs requirements for younger D and not missing anything (because I am notorious for missing stuff).
Sometimes it’s good to throw stuff out at the wall and see what sticks. I think moving after younger D graduates next spring, hoping she gets accepted as an OOS student, taking the OOS tuition hit for one year, and not doing things in a hurry makes more sense.
If she doesn’t get in, I think there is a system in FL where you go to CC for two years and then you are guaranteed admittance to a 4 year school, but I need to do more research on that because I am not a fan of CC (I’ve been to three, graduated from 1).
Well then…if your daughter doesn’t graduate from a FL HS, she will not get the Florida aid noted by @twoinanddone .
I’m going to paraphrase advice given often by another poster. Don’t do ANYTHING for financial aid purposes that you wouldn’t do anyway. In other words…if you wouldn’t move to Florida anyway…don’t do it now for,the financial,aid gain.
@MotherOfDragons you say you are graduating in May also. Are you positive about where you will be for your next job?
I would think that the costs associated with moving would at least equal the financial benefits described by twoinanddone. Far surpass them if it involves buying and selling houses.
@thumper1 nope, I have no idea re: jobs for me. We’ve always lived on one income, so my income will be an addition, not a necessity, so I have flexibility.
We are planning on moving (back) to Florida. The question was, when?
Several kids that I know have gone to colleges near the theme parks, and had internships there. Never heard a complaint. I like living in SEnfl, so I am biased.
). Has she visited both schools? Is your only reason for moving to FL to get in state tuition? Don’t know many kids who would relish transferring high schools senior year.
We’ve always lived on one income, so my income will be an addition, not a necessity, so I have flexibility.