I’ve seen your name on other treads @NUwildcat92 , glad you joined us here! 
I really love your D’s college journey story. I think Tulsa was on a list at some point for my D. Looking at your numbers and all the pluses for the school, I wish it had stayed on the list. Big cheer for our future women engineers!
Glad your D found a home, @NUwildcat92! Ditto what @CAMidwestMom said–I too have a friend whose D is loving her time at Tulsa. Had my D not instantly ruled out all southern schools, I would’ve have pushed her to take a look herself.
@NUwildcat92 You are exactly right about BME not being a deal breaker at UG level. She can take some extra bio and anatomy courses during UG, get her mech or chem E and go right into BME in grad school. Excellent choice, really nice school and no loans, awesome!! Congrats!
Just checking in on the road for D to go to Scholar’s Weekend. We got in after a long day of flying then driving so we’re in for the night. Tomorrow we explore Nashville!
@NUwildcat92 your story sounds like ours. S did not want UCLA but when the money came in and it meant graduating with no debt it quickly moved to the front. Even though they don’t have an undergrad business major they do have other programs and he can get an MBA later on. No debt is great. Like someone on here once told us, “Love the school that loves you back.”
@NUwildcat92 You did a nice job summarizing options, costs, tough decision process, etc. S16 also wants engineering at a not-to-big school and Tulsa fits that criteria. We visited for the first time about 6 weeks ago, and S really likes them. They are very generous with their merit aid!
It must be hard giving up a dream school, but I would imagine once she is at Tulsa for a week or two, she will be happy and settling in, and won’t be able to imagine herself anywhere else! Congratulations to your D…it sounds like a great choice for her!
Welcome @NUwildcat92 ! and congrats on Tulsa!
Glad to hear it has all worked out @NUwildcat92. I am sure the tears were hard but you have made a responsible choice. We have been told more than once that broader for UG engineering is better.
@NUwildcat92 I should have also mentioned that once S spent some time on campus he feel in love with UCLA. He even called me and said he “was home.” I am sure the same will happen for your D
Welcome @NUwildcat92
Welcome @NUwildcat92
@NUwildcat92 - Just signing in long enough to say our nephew is finishing up his junior year at Tulsa and is in engineering (but switched the type of engineering too). Tulsa wasn’t his first choice either, but the $$$ were so good and he liked it when he visited. He has really enjoyed his time there, says the people are great, engineering is top-notch, and he will graduate debt-free as well. Good luck to you and your D!
Congrats @NUwildcat92 ! Thank you for sharing! My spouse and I were BME majors way back (met in college). We have worked with MEs as well as other BMEs in the medical device industry so it’s not a deal breaker. She might want to keep up with what’s current in biomedical engineering research and innovation on her own.
My daughter was looking at class options last night and starting to imagine a schedule. Happy she’s doing the legwork, but I wish she had been working on her actual homework. LOL
D16 joined her admitted students facebook page last night and joined the group message thingy. She texted me last night and said she found her people. She is also messaging with another girl that will be attending and said they are “friends”. I’m glad she is coming out of her shell.
My D is also getting more and more excited about her choice. She has been made lots of friends on the accepted students Facebook page and tells me she has already had several people asking her about being roommates. I’ve tried to caution her about picking someone based on just what they present on social media. There is one girl who lives only about 30 miles away and I’ve encouraged her to try to meet her. She might be good for a traveling companion even if she doesn’t work out as a roommate.
So, D16 went on a really nice visit to one of her three remaining schools. Before the trip I would have put the odds very solidly at School A - 70% chance, School B - 25% chance, School C - 5% chance. School C, Tulane, is the one she visited. It had the lowest odds despite being an exciting proposition because it was the most expensive, longest travel and didn’t quite have the major she wanted, though they had some interesting alternatives.
The trip, her first solo, went really well logistically, she loved New Orleans, liked the school and even found the major she would have chosen, but very quickly and instinctively got the feeling that these were not her people. Nothing anyone did wrong, just compared to the comfort level she felt with students at schools A and B, that feeling of belonging to that tribe and group was not there at all. In some ways it made her more confident about liking the schools that she did, she now knows what it means to find or not find her people. She scouted out the area extensively and though it is now off the list for UG, it is a very interesting thought for down the road for med or grad school.
Okay, so I am no math major, but I expected that trip to only effect her view of that school, which was a 1 in 20 shot of her liking it enough to want to take loans, but something about the trip now has her thoughts on her two remaining schools much more even, very close to 50/50. Costs are the same for both options, so that is not an issue.
School A - Closer (2 hour drive), more highly ranked overall (though about the same ranking for her intended major), she was heads over heels about it after a scholarship weekend and joined all of the Facebook pages for students going there, but something has not cinched it for her. I think she really liked a lot of the people she met at the scholarship weekend, but since this school’s top scholarship winners are often applying to Ivies and other top 20-30 schools, she hasn’t seen a lot of the people she really clicked with decide to attend there. Great Honors program, but not an Honors College.
School B - A plane ride away, though a direct flight and some very good discount airline prices, out of this world dorms and weather, people overall are more laid back and a great Honor’s college with tons of Honors courses in her major, and she is provisionally admitted to their medical school, basically a med school safety net in a way.
Both schools have minors that really interest her, school B offers more flexibility with her living arrangements as the scholarship structure allows her to live on or off campus and still receive money for board.
I think she is wondering whether she really found her people at School A, or more truly, did her people decide to go there, while going solo on the long trip to School C has given her much more confidence about handling the distance and the weather being so much nice at the southern schools and coming back to a miserably and unusually cold April, have moved School B up several notches. She does have some issues medically with cold weather, benign, but bothersome issues with her hands and feet that she is finally thinking she might want to consider as part of her decision process. I also think D’s concern about the school ranking differences dissipated a little when she realizes she didn’t want to attend the mot highly ranked school on her list in School C.
School A gets another visit this Saturday (Forecast is for chilly weather and possible freaking snow or ice, gah, must drive in that) and we have offered another visit to School B later in the month if she needs it.
LOL, somehow a trip that brought clarity in one way, going from three schools to two, has muddied the waters in another way. It will be an interesting ride these last few weeks. DW and I are very comfortable with both remaining schools and see pretty much the same pros, cons and things that are different and similar at the two schools.
@Skates76 - enjoyed reading that summation.
I am currently contemplating the fact that EVERY admissions person we have come in contact with at D16’s school has made it a point to mention the value of warm waterproof boots.
@NUwildcat92 Congrats on loving the school that loves you back! Tulsa sounds like an amazing opportunity! A gift!
Our D also had to let go of an acceptance to a dream school because we were priced out. My quick and dirty run of the NPC her junior year had it above budget, but not completely out of reach. Painful, not impossible.
When the acceptance came in in December, I was very surprised. We celebrated. I caught the fever for about a week and found myself doing mental gymnastics of how we were going to make this work for our snowflake. Yes! Schedule a campus overnight! Woo! You got in! You got in!
When the fever broke, I took a more serious & detailed look at the NPC. The junior year calculations I had done were far too optimistic. We were looking at a probable income increase in 2016. I re-ran it. Uff. Forgot about H’s bonus. Re-ran it. Uff. Then, duh, thanks to CC, I re-ran it again, taking our oldest out of college for sophomore through senior years. What?! Then, duh, again thanks to CC, I re-worked my spreadsheet and added in % cost increases for each year. O.O
We also had a wake up call re: out of pocket medical expenses that I had (again, optimistically) assumed were going to be temporary but were shifting into no-end-in-sight. And, H & I agreed that the new projects that were increasing my income in 2016, could just as easily disappear as quickly as they had landed in my lap and should not be counted on to fund college or college loans.
The numbers the NPC + spreadsheet spit out DESTROYED any hope we had of making it work. In a way, I’m grateful it was not ambigious. I did have to tell D to cancel the overnight. It was a dark and stormy period in our household.
I should have done my homework better and stayed away from the Kool-Aid. On the other hand, she’ll always know she was accepted. I’m not sure I could’ve prevented her from applying. She insisted on putting in an application. I’m also very grateful we’ve had some months to adjust to the band-aid being ripped off, instead of this being new info to us in April.
Our D will be loving the school that loves her back, and accepting the Patterson Scholarship (full tuition plus room and board stipend) at U of Kentucky in Lexington. She had a good experience at UK’s Merit Weekend in March, and that helped take some of the sting out.
I see a lot of opportunity for her at UK, and fingers crossed, it will prove to be a great experience that opens doors.
Good luck to you and yours, and thank you for sharing your story!
Having visited your D’s chosen campus, I can see the need for warm waterproof boots. Crossing urban streets that are slushy can be quite difficult if trying to
keep your footwear dry. Insulated duck boots work well and are quite fashionable right now. They would be a great grad gift.