<p>Thanks MD. A full ride would be great but I understand how competitive these things are so I will not hold my breath. If we can get $12,000 -$15,000 that would take the edge off and make it doable.</p>
<p>Re. General student population versus Honors College, for a point of comparison, at Ole Miss the average ACT of first years in 2013 was 24 but over 31 for the Honors College.</p>
<p>Yes I notice there are big discrepancies at these schools between regular and honors colleges. Can you tell that I walk around my house all day with my ipad ?</p>
<p>I’m popping in and there’s no way I can catch up with you people!</p>
<p>One thing/caveat I wanted to share about Miami of Ohio - it has a VERY strong Greek presence. It’s not very diverse, and it’s pretty preppy. I just wanted to make sure people were aware of that.</p>
<p>That being said, it’s definitely on my D’s list because it’s close (but not too close), it offers good merit aid, and we just found out that a friend has a close connection to the head of the French department, and will set up a meeting for her. The quality of the French Department may influence D. Honestly, if I had to pick schools for her this would not be it, but it’s up to her.</p>
<p>Thanks Suzy for the info. How does the school compare to Ohio State?</p>
<p>So how do you approach a trip to a school you really hope your kid will like? I’m afraid she may feel I’m pushing it on her because I went there myself and it’s just a half hour away from us so I’ve been very cautious not to seem too enthusiastic about it.</p>
<p>We were planning to go to PA this weekend to look at Lafayette, Lehigh and Muhlenberg but H has been quite sick and I hate highway driving on my own–not so much the length of the trip but the bridges, tunnels, on and off ramps especially in an area I don’t really know. </p>
<p>So tomorrow I’m taking D close by to an area I know, on our only college visit for the fall, to Fordham Rose Hill. SHe’s seen the campus and I really hope the tour and info sessions are good since she has a chance at merit aid there and they have a good Honors college. It’s a special Fall preview day for Juniors and they offer free pastries in the morning, free lunch and hot dogs throughout the afternoon–which actually would be more of a draw with my always hungry S18. </p>
<p>I sent her a link to this article about it, written by a girl who considered it her safety but fell in love with it when she ended up attending.
[Falling</a> In Love With My Safety School](<a href=“http://www.thecollegiateblog.org/2013/07/24/student-stories/]Falling”>Loading...)</p>
<p>Crepes I think you just need to keep talking about how amazing the schools is ( which campus is Rose Hill?). Bring to her attention everything there is to do, how amazing the food is, how great the classes are, it’s in ( or close to) the city, etc. </p>
<p>I also hate driving alone in unfamiliar areas.</p>
<p>For those of you who have taken the SAT and have gotten back your scores: Did you take any practice tests, and if you did, was your real score similar to the score on the practice tests? </p>
<p>The only good thing about my daughter sitting at the kitchen table working all the time for 10 + hours is that she is practicing the stamina necessary for these tests.</p>
<p>crepes—I took my son down to Fordham last month on a gorgeous fall day. The campus is beautiful, but the drive in from the highway is well, less than a selling point. I do not know if there is a less urban approach, and you do not want to be misleading, but I would by lying if I said that didn’t cause him pause. (We have driven into NYC many times, but our only surface road driving is within Manhattan, so he wasn’t used to the miles of car parts, auto body repair, hub cab, transmission stores, etc, etc.)</p>
<p>The info session was held in a large auditorium and people continued to file in up to 30 min after the start of the session. Every entry resulted in this loud clanging of the heavy door. I was amazed at how many wandered in late.</p>
<p>One other comment, and I don’t know if you will be able to avoid this. They clearly have given thought to how to ensure even tour group sizes. Students are given a number (like an auction paddle) upon check-in. Students are assigned tour groups at the end of the info session, based on the # given at check-in. This ensured that each group had an equal number of attendees, but did not allow selection of tour guide in intended major. I find this very frustrating as my son, an intended business major, wants to tour with a business major, not just someone who may have a friend in business. There was no polite way to switch tour guides as they employed a very organized system to allocate guides. Perhaps the Jr Day will have major-specific tours?</p>
<p>Re: Driving in PA. We toured six schools in PA in three days and there was no easy way to get from one to the next, although I think the Lehigh-Lafayette drive was fine. We were on and off highways that were under construction, so yes, do leave that trip for when everyone is ready for it–and avoid night driving, if you can. </p>
<p>Good luck tomorrow.</p>
<p>We are rude visitors. We never pay attention to the way they break up the visitors for tour groups, always follow the tour guide with the closest major or best persona match. Although we never had to wave a paddle to prove we were assigned to a group. Did you have to show it? You should have buried it in your bag and acted like it was a struggle to dig it out. Or said you forgot it under your seat.</p>
<p>Crepes - I advise not doing a hard sell. Go there the same way you approach any college visit. Try to come away with some ideas about pros and cons. After several visits, some schools will rose to the top. There are subtle things you can do to promote the school of you think it’s a great fit, but being a salesman for it may back fire.</p>
<p>Twogirls. Miami and Ohio State are very different. I went to Miami and Dh went to OSU. It used to be harder to get into Miami but now it is the opposite. Miami is a college town and OSU is very urban. Miami has a strong business school as does OSU. In state kids with high stats are getting better merit right now from Miami but OSU tuition is lower to begin with. Not many kids consider both schools because they are so physically different. I would not say that Greek life is very strong ah Miami like another poster said. Sorority’s don’t have houses so it cuts down on too much cliques.</p>
<p>^ thanks. For some reason my daughter is fine with applying to OSU but not to Miami- Ohio. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to this as she has never seen either school. Kids from our school apply to OSU more than Miami, so that might be what’s going on here. I think I narrowed the list down to 15 apps, which means nothing because it’s her list. </p>
<p>I like the idea of an urban school for my daughter, but of course it has to come from her.</p>
<p>With my DD2011, we went to a Princeton tour where the tour guides told you their major and then you could choose which one you wanted to go with. We did the same thing at TCNJ with DD2015 even though they suggested doing it by area…we were slow to get up and just joined the group we wanted.</p>
<p>What we’re learning as we do more tours is to not overthink it. We’re upfront with our kids about what we as parents think about the school before and after the tour, but we often look at a school from a completely different angle than the kids do.</p>
<p>As parents we’re looking at quality of education, cost, safety, transportation and logistical issues, etc. and SOMETIMES the kids are looking at some of those issues as well. But after some of our tours we ask the kids what they thought and the first answer is “How cool is it that they have a Starbucks right there in the union?”. You just never know what things are going to influence them the most, and it can change from campus to campus.</p>
<p>We’ve found that by being open with our kids about what our opinions are but immediately reinforcing that they’re the ones that will be spending 4 years there and it’s their decision…we avoid the “I’m not going there because that’s my parents’ preference” reaction. We’re clear about the financial framework we can work in and we’ll recommend certain schools to visit, but I wouldn’t recommend forcing a visit.</p>
<p>Whenever we go on a tour my H and I keep our opinions to ourselves until we are back in the car. Once we are in the car we ask our D for her opinion before offering ours. In June we will sit down and create a list based on what we can afford and what merit we think she may get. I am sure there may be a school that I love but she refuses to apply to- such is life. </p>
<p>My older daughter got excited about schools based on Starbucks and gyms. My D15 is harder to read, but she always paid close attention to the major of the tour guide. Just the other day she declared that she will double major in chemistry and Spanish, just like the tour guide from UPitt ( back before school started). I did not realize she paid attention! She also loves to visit the library on these tours ( her second home). She gets upset when the library is not part of the tour. </p>
<p>I am very very stressed by this process. I keep reminding myself that it will all work out.</p>
<p>Our HS Naviance data says for kids from our HS accepted averages are: </p>
<p>University of South Carolina: 3.59GPA, 1220M/CR, 27ACT.</p>
<p>Our HS only has about 800 students so it’s surprising to me that there are enough data points for USC but i guess heading south is somewhat appealing for Ohioans :)</p>
<p>I think it is okay if they get excited about Starbucks or really anything…As we don’t even know DD2015’s psat scores yet, we can’t really lock down a list of schools. But given the “not too far way from home and wanting to be pre-med” input given, i am trying to pick a list that I think would work for her. She hasn’t really chosen any possibilities other than some that looked good to her at a college fair which was really more about their recruiting tools than the college. We looked at the avg SAT scores and I showed her that some are below what she will probably be scoring at so we will not include those now. But if the list you mutually come up with is one that you think s/he will be happy with, then if they pick it because of a little thing I think that is fine.</p>
<p>You never know if they will pick a college that you suggest…My DD2011 made her own list of colleges and I added SUNY Binghamton to her sublist of state colleges nearby as it was a “best value” in Kiplingers for out of state. She ended up choosing it (mostly because they were generous with IB Credits).</p>
<p>Re: tours & choosing your guide. We have now visited 19 schools (yes, overkill) and are usually quite adept at sliding over to the appropriate guide, but the set-up at Fordham did not allow that. I greatly prefer the schools where the guides describe themselves and then students are free to follow the guide most closely aligned to their own interests. Just offering a heads-up to Crepes that Fordham did not lend itself to this.</p>
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<p>I agree with the not-very-diverse and preppy assessment (though with 14K undergrads I think anyone can find their people) but actually only about 30% of Miami students go Greek (I just looked that up - our info session said 25% which surprised me). It’s nothing like, say, DePauw, where 80% of students belong. Sororities don’t have houses but they get wings/floors of dorms.</p>
<p>I did notice at Miami all the houses around campus with the funny-to-offensive-to-clever names. Apparently that’s a big draw for upperclassmen so living in a cool off campus house doesn’t necessarily mean Greek there.</p>
<p>That said, it may be that there is an outsize Greek influence on the social life there.</p>
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<p>Ohio State is about 5 times bigger, for one, and it’s in a large city so has a very different feel. S’12 has several classmates in the Honors College there and that makes the hugeness manageable for them. Honors dorm, honors classes, etc.</p>
<p>Only like 5% of OSU students go Greek, though the houses always seem to be hopping when we go by :)</p>
<p>Our high school sends probably equal numbers to OSU and Miami, with a healthy contingent to OU also. A lot of high-stats kids go for the great merit at Miami.</p>