@SincererLove Thanks for sharing her Vandy experience! Sounds like she was sold and hopefully she keeps an open mind - can’t wait to hear how she likes MIT!
@SincererLove --great review of Vandy! Your daughter has some great choices and it sounds like she looks at things very objectively.
@SincererLove - Thanks for Vandy report. My DS got CV but they don’t have any overnight program planned. We are planning to visit in 3 weeks. He will shadow a current CV scholar for a day besides participating in Anchor Days.
Thanks @Mom2aphysicsgeek, I had not heard of Banner, but hope to learn more in the coming days. UW is really not high on my D’s list, but I appreciate knowing about it.
@NolaCAR Congrats on a decision for your D! Cannot wait to buy the umbrella!
@SincererLove Great report on Vandy and best wishes on making a tough decision!
@MotherOfDragons I have friend who’s son just graduated from Bama and loved it! Congrats to your D!
@twoforone99 The concern about off campus housing is really school location dependent. In a high COL area, Imwould be very concerned about not having 4 yrs of guaranteed housing. (I don’t know if was associated with the scholarship Dd received or if it is the norm at Fordham, but her offer came with guaranteed on campus housing. In NYC, yes, that would be vital.) At Bama, otoh, off campus housing in Tuscaloosa is super easy to find. My ds prefers to live off campus bc it is so much cheaper. He has a car, but his roommates don’t. Lots of kids live off campus without cars. 2 of our other older kids (not our Aspie) also lived off campus, preferred it, was cheaper, and had no problems. Spend some time finding out the specifics of the area.
@NolaCAR USC is where Dd is where Dd has already made her deposit. She loves their campus and their program. It was the campus that kept comparing all other schools to after she started to shift gears toward IB. It is where I am pretty positive she will be attending.
@LoveTheBard Hope Dd is home safe and sound!
@SincererLove - Thanks for the Vandy report…I’m sure that my D will get it straight from the source, but I’m happy that your D thought so highly of it. Right now, we are in the same position as @srk2017 – D will try to cobble together a visit, hopefully with a CV scholar…too bad there are no other overnight programs. The MOSAIC visit would have been fun (and maybe they would have gotten her to the airport on time afterwards?!?) Oh well. Besides that, D’s overall impression of Davidson and the Belk Scholars weekend was pretty positive. Were she to get the Belk, she would have some very, very tough choices to make.
Next up - Vandy visits, WashU scholarship weekend, and then some east cost visits (Yale, Swat, whatever shakes of the Ivy Day tree, and then UChicago). Gonna be an interesting coupla weeks.
@twoforone99 — @Mom2aphysicsgeek summed it up well. My older son’s school guarantees housing through soph year but not that many spots for Jr year. It is possible, but most students want to live off-campus after two years in the dorm.
His walk to classes is closer from his apt than it was from freshman housing. He does not have a car but manages ride with apt-mate who has one for the big grocery shop. Probably spends a little on more on groceries than he would if he had a car, but nowhere near as much as the cost of having a car on campus. (Paying for parking plus increased insurance rates.)
I agree that the topic is glossed over and it is not always possible to find a current upperclassman so that you can learn the inside scoop. Having said that, I am OK as long as housing is guaranteed through soph year.
Thanks for the advice- I knew you would have encountered something like this before- Your posts are so inspiring/comforting/informative. When I read your comments it feels like you are living my parallel life, just on fast forward a few years. It is comforting to know these kids will come out the other side! I hve 5 more to go… I think that the certification request is coming from a OOS- NFW school, so it may become a non issue. DS is just waiting on one more school- Worcester Poly Tech- his top pick and most likely a NFW school, but stranger things have happened.
If you don’t mind my asking- any tips on Aspies in dorm life? WPI has many first year triples and some quads- I worry about that dynamic. He keeps telling me not to worry- its a geek school and they all are like me LOL. His best financial option so far is a commuter school, he has a full tuition and fees scholarship, and he could live at home- so we are trying to play the balancing game, commuting cost vs. room and board at a more “desirable” school. But the whole “Aspie in a Dorm” dorm thing worries me…
If any one has experience in this any tips are welcome
thanks
Very dumb question @vandyeyes , Yield: I don’t really understand it. Can you kindly explain? Thank you.
@twoforone99 Housing after the first year has been an important item for us too and a couple of otherwise very good schools our son was accepted to stayed low on the list because only 1 year was guaranteed. At some schools, kids start lining up apartments in Jan-Feb for the next year, after only having been in school for a quarter/semester. That’s one reason we strongly preferred schools that guaranteed at least 2 years - we’re fortunate he has options with 3-4 years guaranteed. It might surprise some people that some public schools such as UCSB and UCLA have 4 & 3 year guarantees, respectively. UCSB’s is a 2+2 guarantee - if you live in the dorms for 2 years you’re guaranteed housing in university owned apartments for the last 2 years.
As for triples, all the schools we’ve looked at in CA are pretty upfront that the majority of freshmen (like 85%) will end up in triples. Is it ideal? No, but it works out. I think lounges may get more use because of the lack of open space in the rooms.
@BingeWatcher I am not @vandyeyes but I can answer the question. Yield is the % of student that are accepted that end up attending a given school. Colleges and universities want to maximize yield because it is one of the statistical indicators that feeds into their national rank per USNWP. Yield “protection” happens when schools waitlist or deny admission to students they think are unlikely to attend. So a highly qualified applicant might be denied because Admissions believes the applicant applied to the school as a safety. This is why demonstrated interest in the form of a visit, a meeting with a regional admissions representative, or signing up for mailing lists, can be important for schools that track interest.
Some advice from a 2016 parent, if your student will end up flying to and from school, I highly recommend enrolling them in the TSA Pre-check program. My DH has used if for travel for a while, and insisted that our DD and I get it. It was a bit of a hassle, and I grumbled at the price, but after using it the first time, I was sold. No long wait at the TSA security checks, and we get to keep our shoes on. 
To @Fishnlines29 Our DD loves UChicago. Two quarters in, and she has taken classes that she swears have changed her life and one or two that have have taken a few years off that same life. She is thriving and happy, and appreciative to be attending the school. As for her internship, she works for a state Senator. She will continue on with the position through the summer (although unpaid then, but with a stipend), and then in the fall it will revert back to a paid position. As a PoliSci major, the work has been substantive, and she has already made a good impression with people who will be good contacts for her future goals.
@NorthLeftCoast thanks for the update, that’s just terrific! Sounds like it turned out to be a great fit for her. Congrats on her internship!
I second the TSA Pre-Check - I use it all the time as I travel for work and don’t have to take out my liquids, my laptop, nor do I need to take off my shoes. It really is a nice perk and makes travel a lot simpler.
D and I actually got the “Global Entry” which includes Pre-Check and is only about $15 more, so if you plan any overseas travel, it’s also nice to have upon return into the US (doesn’t necessarily work overseas). Also, if you have AmEx, I think they reimburse the fee.
We signed up for Global Entry but they have long waiting period for appointments.
Hello from a former lurker. I have been following this thread for over a year now and have just recently officially signed up now that my dd has made her decision. These forums are an amazing wealth of information and support and I felt that as I have questions it would be good to have an account.
Now that I am here, I have to say you all have some amazing children! Reading this thread has helped to keep our college search and selection grounded. From you I now use big MAC in my conversations with friends and it certainly helped my dd to keep her list reasonable. When friends were encouraging my dd to reach higher, she knew the type of competition that is out there in the broader world from reading about your children. She kept her list firmly in the safety, low match range by choice because she is tired of the high pressure rat race of her high school and she was looking for a great fit and big Mac.
We are a family of 5 (class of 20, and 23 following behind this one) from the western suburbs of Philadelphia. We told her we would pay as much as our state schools (Pitt/Penn State) and anything above that was on her. She liked the idea of bigMAC and saving some money for graduate school or life. We do not qualify for need base financial aid and did not apply. My dd will be attending Alabama on the Presidential Scholarship!
Just for future readers reference she turned down: Auburn, Villanova, University of Scranton, Pitt, and Miami University of Ohio. She only applied EA and rolling admissions and had all her decisions before Christmas. She was direct admit to the business programs/schools at all of her schools and honors colleges where they had them. She received excellent merit money from all except Pitt and Villanova (she did not apply for their big merit since there were so many others from her school who had Villanova as their first choice and she did not want to take $ that would be helpful to them). She really loved all of these schools for different reasons and would have been happy to attend any of them. She narrowed her list down to Miami Ohio, Auburn, and Alabama and Bama won out hands down. Roll Tide.
Looking forward to a final list of where everyone actually decides to attend. I must admit that I have found it tough to keep track of the final decisions for everyone.
For those of us (over)analyzing our child’s choices - what axes would you use to rate each college? Or alternatively, this is a way to categorize pros and cons.
I was thinking:
- Academic fit. How likely is your child to thrive academically? Which at a high level can probably be summarized as "gets A's and B's". But more specifically, it should be somewhere where they find the classes interesting and challenging, and yet still come out of it with confidence. Also, they should be able to discover if they want to go to grad school or not, and if so, they should be prepared for it.
- Social fit. Can they find their tribe? Do they have fun on weekends? Is their stuff to do on campus and/or in the surrounding area?
- Financial fit. For many schools, this is black and white - NFW or good-to-go. Obviously NFW are eliminated from this list. Any schools in the gray area probably makes things more complicated.
- Other. How good is the food? What is the housing situation like? Is the weather bad? Is it easy/hard to travel home?
Any thoughts / comments?
Welcome @bamamom2021!
Great story. Congratulations!
Love the Pre TSA idea @NorthLeftCoast
Thanks for posting.
@thshadow, i found a list like that recently and wrote it down. I will post it once I’m at home. We are having a really hard time deciding as well.
@SincererLove, Thanks for the very detailed report. I shared it with my S. He wants to join greek life, so now he needs to find out more about what is going on there. Your D is lucky that she made some friends going in.
We spoke by phone to a recent grad on the phone today. He is working in Banking in New York. He also said the career office is just average. But he reassured my son you can get job offers with a Vandy degree. Made me feel a bit better…
We visited during Junior year. Thinking my S should go spend a few days there getting a proper indoctrination. We will see. Anyway, thanks for taking the time.