<p>DS has about a dozen schools on his list and it will likely stay close to that number. It is very very difficult to pare down his list for a number of reasons.</p>
<p>K2s list wont be long either.
There are about 10 right now yet I think it will be cut down somewhat.
With K2 we know a bit more than we did with K1 as we are doing it a second time.
Although K2s stats aren’t the same and so it could go very differently. Not sure how many OVs K2 will do as it takes a lot of time and K2 needs the time in the classroom etc with 2 heavy ECs</p>
<p>With K1 the list had maybe 10 total-- however K1 applied to the reach (HYP) and 1 private safety and 1 flagship financial safety. Got in all 3. Same heavy ECs though K1 had the balance down. </p>
<p>Any school reviews to tell?</p>
<p>You have us confused with another. High Point isn’t on our list. I’m a William & Mary alum and was giving Williamsburg restaurant advice to the poster making that trip.</p>
<p>Apologies…yes, I mixed you up with someone else. Anyone out there familiar with High Point?</p>
<p>DS’s goal is to keep the list under 10, but it is very difficult when one needs to compare FA. You only get to compare FA packages from the schools that accept you.</p>
<p>He will apply to some (3) EA - if he gets in any of them and gets a workable FA package. Done.</p>
<p>I am so in awe of the endurance you guys have with all these college visits… holy cow, y’all must be just exhausted. But I can also see how it would be a neat bonding experience. I’m kind of torn between wishing we had reason to go visit a bunch of different schools, and being oh-so-glad it’s not necessary for us. I think the latter wins out for me, especially because I would never have enough vacation time to go on a whole slew of visits! :-p</p>
<p>I am taking one vacation day tomorrow though – We have a 10am meeting with the head of the Marine Engineering program. My S and I each have some specific questions we are wanting to ask. I’ve been trying to set up this meeting for a month, so I’m happy I was finally able to. Then it’s finally application day a week from today, then a long year of waiting until he gets to be there, lol. He’s just ready to get there – keeps reading about and seeing pics of all the cool stuff they do on campus and all the traditions and stuff, and he just wants to be there yesterday. I keep telling him to relax and enjoy his Senior year… but in all honesty, I know exactly how he feels. The next year’ll go by quick, though.</p>
<p>That is so neat that some of y’all have gotten to meet in person! How cool!</p>
<p>This is my second time around with college admissions. Learned so much from CC after K1 (didn’t discover the site until after we were far into the process) and have been putting the knowledge to good use this time for K2. K2 has 15 schools on the list. We have visited all but two- did attend local sessions for the other too though. K2 and I have enjoyed all of the trips over the past year as we try to spend some time in each city or town taking in the local culture. It’s been a great bonding experience and we’ve had quite a few adventures and mishaps (i.e. following a smart phone’s gps directions and ending up parked in an Amish family’s yard behind their buggy- we were looking for a quilt shop…Got some really surprised looks from the family. I wondered why the two lane paved road suddenly became a single path!)</p>
<p>Okay - my 9 now doesn’t make me feel like a lunatic, though I’m sure the gc office will not be happy.</p>
<p>Blue and mom - cool you two got to meet irl. I met a mom on the parents of 2012 thread, and both our boys ended up going to the same school. We friended each other on fb, and chat several times a week. And of all crazy coincidences they boys ended up being two doors down from each other in their dorm and ended up being bff’s. I even took her son out to dinner one night when we were there visiting. We try and keep our friendship a little quiet, but now the year is over I think they can handle it. </p>
<p>So we’re pretty much good with our lists - it’s the essays that are going to be a killer! I have my handy spreadsheet, and I’m making sure to write down all the different usernames and passwords. Seems each school has different criteria so we’re ending up with a lot of different combos.</p>
<p>For the first time, we made our visits with no mishaps…</p>
<p>We visited U of Pittsburgh, Princeton, Richmond, and U of Virginia with side visits to Philadelphia and Washington. DC. I tried to sell a side visit to Swathmore but no luck. We did drive through Georgetown while in DC.</p>
<p>Pittsburgh was a bigger hit than expected. We attended the Ready, Set, Pitt program. It was well organized and had a definite sales mode to it. The director of admissions (Chief Enrollment Officer) was hilarious and knew how to work the room. For attending, we were given an application fee waver. The cathedral of learning is awesome. We stayed nearby and loved the city too. We attended this hoping for some chance of merit aid to make this affordable and wound up loving the city. We had ice cream at Dave and Andy’s, excellent.</p>
<p>Princeton was excellent as expected. We had high expectations and it lived up to them. It is clear why this is one of best universities in the world. The town is really nice too. We had lunch at Olive’s and ice cream at the Bent Spoon. I had an absolutely awesome Lemon-Avocado ice cream.</p>
<p>Next on the visit list was University of Richmond. If was very nice. It is routinely listed as one of the most beautiful campuses and you can certainly see why. Also, the main dining hall is just awesome. Everyone was very nice and there is a small liberal arts feel to the academics but with resources to back it up. If there was any downside, it was that it seemed very preppy. (Perhaps due to the prospective students in our group.) We were given another application fee waiver. Of all the schools that we visited, this is the only school we seen with virtually no campus town. It really is kind of a bubble. We ate at a Vietnamese restaurant called Mekong that has one of the best beer lists I have ever seen. </p>
<p>Our final visit was to University of Virginia. Another school that we expected to be awesome and it was. What stood out was that everyone we encountered was so friendly. It was a little preppy (maybe that is the southern thing; we are from the midwest), but not as preppy as Richmond. We had lunch at Bodo’s Bagels, very nice.</p>
<p>After all of the previous problems, we were relieved to have a great trip.</p>
<p>Also the 2nd time around for us. We created folders for each college for DD’12 - I’ve been putting it off for DS’12 applications, but I guess it is about that time - sigh.</p>
<p>We live in the SW, so I brought DS’14 along to visit East Coast colleges with DD’12 2 years ago. This year we visited a few others and revisited 2. I am out-of-gas on the college tours. There are a couple of reach schools we have not visited on DS’s list - I told him if he gets in, we’ll make the trip in the spring.</p>
<p>Just checking in - I made a decision to really back off S2 this summer. He is very stubborn and everything is “his decision.” So the college search is almost no where. That being said he went through this with S1 and he saw a lot of colleges then. So I think currently there are 4 schools on his list - all state schools - but we live in a great state VA! I have no problem with this but I have tried to encourage him to put some others on the list even if he never applies - just so he is ready if he wants to apply to a couple more. It is very hard to sit back.</p>
<p>It’s not the time as much as it is the cost! My regular job leaves me off in the summer, so no issue with vacation, but I had to take a second, temporary job to cover the gas, food, and occasional hotel. These visits are killing my bottom line.</p>
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<p>Hi - We will be visiting High Point in a couple of weeks as we work our way south through Virginia and North Carolina towards Florida and vacation. I will post the highlights from the road and the details later when we are back home unless I find extra online time while on the road.</p>
<p>Hi everyone. So glad to join this forum. I have been stalking CC for a couple of months. Since many of you have seen Vanderbilt, I have a question. My daughter is very interested in Vandy, and we will make a trip early Fall to see if she wants to apply ED. She has high GPA, good EC’s, but so-so SAT (is studying to take again this Fall, and is considering ACT as well). Vandy will be a reach. We live in N. Cal, so want to see a few other schools as well if we are to make the trip. I’m thinking Clemson and U. of Alabama - maybe Tulane. Is this the driving trip from hell, and can it be done in 4 days?!?</p>
<p>She loves mid/large D1 schools with lots of school spirit. Any other suggestions you have would be great.</p>
<p>FYI - she did not want to tour schools this summer, as we visited 3 Texas schools last summer, and found we didn’t get a good sense of the school with few kids around. What are your thoughts on that?</p>
<p>OrdinaryLives - I agree! The travel costs add up! Back in the winter, I signed up for a credit card that accumulates points for free hotel stays, so that maybe at least the hotels could be cheaper/free! I also did PriceLine on some of the hotels over spring break. Made me a little nervous not knowing where we would end up, but everything worked out great. Airfare from my area is outrageous! It seems like nothing is under $400 a ticket x 2! WOW! So we end up driving, which I don’t mind. I love to drive and see the country!</p>
<p>Fogfog - I’m so sorry for your loss!</p>
<p>I have met another cc parent irl. We started e-mailing and realized our boys had so much in common! They were both at Boys State so we had lunch when we went to pick them up. Enjoyed meeting in person and still e-mail several times a week. The boys have not met, but they do know there’s another crazy mom out there!</p>
<p>So … so far DS has applied to two rolling admissions state schools. He’s also completed part 1 of a two part app at a private school. I know that he will probably fill out an app for the lottery school he’s interested in. Other than that, I don’t know! I feel like we’ve been researching for over a year and we are still as clueless as when we started! We’ve toured 9 schools, so he’s getting a feel for what he likes and what he doesn’t. Two top 20 schools that I thought we’d both like were kind of so-so for what he’s looking for. Two top ranked engineering state schools will probably be unaffordable since we’re OOS. What to do!?! Those of you that have engineering minded kids - where have you narrowed it down to?</p>
<p>Welcome, Gigem! We toured Vandy, Alabama and Auburn in three days. You could probably easily do Vandy, Alabama and one other - but Tulane & Clemson are in opposite directions! I just plugged in those 4 schools in google maps and they’re each around 5 hours apart, so it is doable, but lots of driving! You could tour by day and drive by evening! What is you D interested in studying? We loved Alabama! </p>
<p>For those that went to Pre-Vu day at Vandy, what are your kids interested in studying? That was one of the schools that didn’t hit it off for DS, but he’s looking more for mechanical engineering - automotive. We felt that Vandy was very medical centered - prosthetic limbs, robots to help with autism, etc.</p>
<p>@beadymom- we attended the Vandy PreVu on July 12 and found it outstanding. A previous poster in this thread did a great job in summing up the events of the day. Very, very impressed with the program and the talks by the administration and dept. chairs. Our K2 is interested in Bio-medical engineering.</p>
<p>Thanks beadymom! Yes, I think I will have my D pick ether Tulane or Clemson, and we will try to do these 3 schools over a long weekend. She is interested in political science or something in the government/non-profit area. I think she will love Alabama. I get the sense that Tulane is almost like an East Coast school in the South, so my guess it will not appeal as much to her.</p>
<p>We were going to try to fit Duke in, but I feel that has become beyond reach for my D. Although we would like to see Chapel Hill (also a reach) and Wake Forest at some point.</p>
<p>CinMom - I did read the other reviews. I think Vandy would be great for Bio-medical engineering!</p>
<p>It’s been awhile since I posted, but I’m still lurking around from time to time. My son’s list is ever changing (and seemingly growing) weekly. The goal was to be at 12 by the end of the summer, and try and limit apps to 10 when the time came. Now that the time is approaching, I’m just not sure how that is going to happen!</p>
<p>We are visiting Cali next week, and will see Berkley, Harvey Mudd, USC (the main interest, the others are really more for fun) and that is probably the last of our visits as with football season there is just too much going on for any fall visits. </p>
<p>My son is engineering, and current top choices are Northeastern, Rice (reach) uTexas (not an auto admit but close , he really liked an overnight honors seminar he attended last week but it is just down the road from us -a BIG negative) Georgia Tech and Michigan. He will also apply to Tx AM, Purdue, Wisconsin, maybe USC. </p>
<p>Al. I know is that I’m completely stressed by the whole process and he probably is too, not that he would ever express that:) Just writing the choices down makes it really sink in that there is a lot of work, worry, and hard decision making ahead!</p>