Son got a big packet from Columbia Engineering. Seriously? They must be working very hard and spending a lot of money to get that acceptance rate down. No thanks.
@2muchquan ha ha ha!
@STEM2017 S17 got the Columbia packet, too. He also said no thanks.
Got the Columbia thing as well…completely a waste.
My S got the same packet from Columbia. I was wondering what was going on. @STEM2017 …Please do tell us why they are recruiting so hard?
@Gator88NE …thank you for all that information. We are just looking for a good State Engineering University in Texas that isn’t a commuter college. Texas A&M and Texas Tech seem to be out of the running because of the GPA required to keep the merit scholarships. My S is #1 in his class and would really like to take advantage of the valedictorian scholarship if possible. I year of tuition is nothing to sneeze at. Any suggestions?
We just got a Columbia waiver. Not a fee waiver, they just said D17 doesn’t have to attend.
Good news: So we got back from our trip to the lower 48 despite Delta’s best efforts, and went through our held mail yesterday—and found that our daughter got accepted to the University of Kansas honors program! She quite likes their honors program—and it moved Kansas instantly from pure safety to serious contender, pending finding out the details of their financial offer.
Alabama: She’s still back and forth on Alabama—interestingly, it felt big (not a good thing) to her in a way that Kansas didn’t. This morning is the annual informal meet-with-the-principal meeting for her school, though, and she did remind me yesterday to make sure to have them send Alabama her transcript while I was there, so maybe she’s being swayed by the financial side a bit?
Sending ACT scores: Speaking of sending stuff to Alabama (and elsewhere), could the ACT please make their site harder to log in to? I don’t think I have enough things to click on (and, at times, get wrong) before I can actually do what I want.
Parental schools attended: I have five listed: The one I did dual enrollment with back in high school, the one I flunked out of, the one I got my associates from, the one I got my baccalaureate from (which, fortunately, was the one I’d gone to for a for-credit summer program in high school, or else I’d’ve had yet one more), and my grad school. My wife, who got a degree from every school she attended, has three on her list. Really, though, I don’t think there’s any issue with listing every school you’ve attended, even if it’s a series of part-time schools progressing toward a degree, or even just for personal enrichment. (I’m at an institution where we get a lot of military spouses finishing up after having taken courses slowly along the way at four, five, ten, twelve institutions previously—it’s not actually all that uncommon of a thing, and colleges know that. Many might actually applaud it, as it shows an admirably high value being placed on education.)
Buying stuff for next fall: From a bargain-hunting perspective, if you want to get things well in advance, wouldn’t it make the most sense to maybe look for them in late September or so, once the demand for dorm room stuff goes down and the clearance sales happen?
JOTD: A geneticist walks into a bar, asks for a beer. The bartender brings it over, says “That’ll be $3.50.” The geneticist pulls out four dollar bills, pauses, hands over three of them and says “Hold on a minute—I think I have some change in my jeans.”
Somewhat more opaque JOTD: Sodium sodium sodium sodium sodium sodium sodium sodium Batman!
Buying stuff for next fall: Guilty!!!lets just say I am a super organized person when it comes to shopping and I want what I want. D17 thought I was crazy, but she loves everything that I have bought. I run everything by her before I buy.
@Tgirlfriend Look at UT-Dallas, UT Arlington
- Alabama vs. Kansas - I looked at Kansas a while back (boy, their website needed a re-boot!) and thought their $$ would be comparable to Bama. No?
- Dorm stuff - I just suggesting adding a wishlist of items mentioned in Amazon, not going and buying. Plus, Amazon probably beats anyone's prices if you can find what you want, and it's a Prime item.
- ACT login - I know, right? I had the same issue trying to friggin' log in! And, believe me, it's better. Just keep clicking around and you'll eventually come to the login screen! :)
- JOTD - Nice!
- JOTD 2 - Na na na na na na na na Batman!
No sign of the Columbia packet yet. Would’t be too surprised to see one since S17 is legacy. But Columbia meets almost none of S17’s requirements in a college (location totally wrong), including the fact that it would be impossible reach for him even with legacy in his pocket. (His SAT’s might say otherwise. 
)
@NCComputerNerd
UT Arlington is making progress, but they are a huge commuter school. I will force D to apply so she has it in her back pocket for emergency but it has a heavy commuter population. I’m afraid some people also say the same thing about UT Dallas although I cannot vouch because I have never visited.
With that said, they have some fantastic programs (UTA) and your kid would get a solid education.
Buying stuff ahead of time. I guess I can see buying sheets & such on deep discount a year ahead. But I’d wait on the bulky stuff unless you know your teen with be attending college locally. D12 went to the opposite side of the country. To save shipping costs, we pre-selected but bought a pile of stuff when we got there. And most of those bulky things we just donated & got rid of before we came home. I was NOT paying to ship home the $10 shower caddy. I don’t have a big house, so I don’t like to buy stuff just to store it a year.
My experience is that many kids bring a crazy amount of stuff. D12 took 4 suitcases, plus as much as we could carry on and shipped two boxes. (One with huge oversized stuff in it.) And we bought a pile of bulky stuff when we got there. And she had 1/3 the stuff the rest of her roommates had. (She ended up in an unusual quad room.) And honestly she had lots of stuff. Other freshman had their parents SUV stuffed to the gills. There wasn’t room to put it all. And then that first year my daughter came home 3 times.
The stuff she stored each summer fit inside the back of a mini.
@dfbdfb Congratulation to your DD on UK Honors! Well done.
@Tgirlfriend I’m not sure why Columbia feels the need to mass mail these kids. Their acceptance rate is already a very low 6%. Maybe they are trying to catch up with Harvard (5.2%) and Stanford (4.9%). Silly waste of money and paper.
Texas State schools with engineering: Here is a website that lists all the engineering programs in Texas. Some are public, some private. Its a good place to start. I would second the suggestion of UT Dallas. Also, Texas State has some very desirable merit aid (but less engineering major choices).
@dfbdfb congrats on honors acceptance, that is great news. Having an acceptance that is desirable must be a great relief.
@NCComputerNerd …I would love for him to go to UTA or UTD however those are both commuter colleges. I know UTA is because my daughter got her nursing degree from there and is now attending for NP. He really wants to go to a college that is not commuter. He wants to live on campus and possibly be in the band. Band is his release and biggest challenge. Any other suggestions? We even visited UNT…loved the campus however the Engineering building is 5 miles from the main campus. Who does that? Oh but they have a shuttle bus that runs every 30 minutes. Still you are NOT part for the main campus and you don’t get that college atmosphere. He wants that!!
@2muchquan Alabama vs. Kansas-- Unless I misread their website, I thought Kansas’s largest scholarship was less than 1/2 tuition??
buying early Heavy duty winter clothing will be ordered during early spring sales if it is looking like heading north is likely. You can’t even buy appropriate clothing locally.
No Columbia mailings here, although my son got is weekly UChicago letter of the week in the mail yesterday.
Current stalkers Tulane, UChicago, Hamilton, Pitt, Colby. Wake Forest is a newcomer, but sending stuff frequently and then we have our normal contact from a bunch of no name schools.