D sent me a text from a program she’s away at all this week, asking about a study abroad program she had just heard about. This is the girl who doesn’t want to deal with traveling far to college.
Meanwhile, H has been very obvious about wanting D to stay close to home without really saying it. I can’t imagine him being thrilled with the idea of her going abroad for a year, even though he and I both did it.
The Florida Benacquisto NMF scholarship is very particular about not allowing a gap year and have a lot of conditions that can cause you to lose it for good (ie, not taking enough hours, 3.0 gpa, dropping a class after drop/add, etc). It’s cool that other states and schools have more flexibility built in, but Florida ain’t one.
Hopeful tomorrow U of K will put up their scholarship info for the class of 2018. Will be the end of a long wait for us. If they keep the Patterson scholarship substantially intact, I have a feeling this whole process may get much simpler for him. Could imagine his list condensing to two schools, or maybe even just one. What will be will be. Good news? Bad news? They have tortured us long enough. At this point we just want to know!!!
I hadn’t really thought about D18’s first choice school changing their NMF scholarship for this cycle … but, boy, would there be plenty of tears if they did. She’s fixated on schools that “want” her there because they have merit scholarships.
Boy - I don’t check the thread for a couple of days and woosh - I’m 5 pages behind.
So, a few pages back someone mentioned a car. We are on board for that so long as the scholarship really saves a cars worth of money (beware the scholarship that ends up costing a ton more in the long run). He knows. But we also made it clear that doesn’t drive the decision. It’s just part of the college calculus
We flew home with S’18 this morning from up north on a 6:15 am flight in order to make it home in time for the 12-9 pm band leadership meetings. Now he’s out with friends. Band camp starts tomorrow at 2 pm. I’m guessing he’ll sleep until 1:55 tomorrow.
So, long couple of days. We spent the last two wandering around Boston and Cambridge. We rode buses and the T,and walked for miles!! My legs are so sore. Yesterday we wandered for 9 hours. Today we toured Northeastern and MIT.
So Northeastern was nice. I really liked the four pillars they have: co-op, abroad, service and research. You can meet the experiential learning with any of them. You can do one or all, the program they offer is quite flexible. They have a huge CS program, which unfortunately we didn’t get a specific presentation on. Today only offered the generic visit. The dorms are the stinky kind, bath on the floor, but not different than a lot of schools, so not a deal breaker. Campus was decent, the edges had a city feel and the interior had a more traditional vibe. It would be workable.
MIT: the quirky school of his dreams…and what I think DS has been waiting to see. They offer a pirate certificate, which of course he said he’d get if they accept him. They have all sorts of odd clubs…roadkill buffet anyone? They have hacking rules, which are practical jokes played, and the coolest CS building I’ve ever seen. Cool underground tunnels, to avoid the winter chill. The dorms apparently all have personalities…so one has a ball pit, yes the kind little kids play in. One builds roller coasters in their courtyard…all different. Not fond of my freshman living with upper class man though, which is the norm. It’s more about personality when choosing dorms, rather than age. Students can take glass blowing as a class, and have access to all sorts of labs, it’s really quite unbelievable.
After a day of two tours, we just landed in Troy. Tomorrow we start again with RPI.
@melvin123 he thinks he likes winter…and I keep reminding him, winter in TN. I do not like winter, grew up in Miami, the one in Florida, and love summer. So we’ll see how he handles it.
@chattachia did you not see? Northeastern also has underground tunnels. I wonder how common that is in Boston lol.
Edit: I think we only saw them on the Engineering specific tour, not the regular campus tour.
@ChattaChia Rochester gets, on average, 84 inches of snow per year. Yes eighty four.
Meh, Syracuse won the Battle of Snow every year I went - over 100 inches every year. No underground tunnels for us tough Orangemen 
We had a major college summit yesterday. We went through the fact sheet I had drawn up for each and figured out the apples to apples comparisons, and what we were missing. On her own, she ranked them into “tiers” rather than #1, #2, etc. The three schools in the top tier include a 20,000+ state university and two very small privates - they couldn’t be more different from one another. One of them is 40 minutes away!!! The two privates had a lot more in common with each other than the big state u :-/
We will look at the Common App today to see how its changed.
Still waiting for S18 to get back from away camp so I can see if he comes home with a Common App essay draft. In the meantime I am fantasizing about what car I would buy him if he took a full or near full ride somewhere. It has to be something that will last him for ten years, while he makes no money. I am thinking Honda Civic, maybe electric blue.
We offered the car incentive to D16 (2011 Toyota Corolla she drives when at home) for her almost-full ride choice. She turned it down. No regrets, she loves Pitt. She got huge $$ there too, so not like a huge financial drain for us, and you should not have a car their anyway.
@vistajay Also check out a Mazda 3. Very fun, practical car.
About incentives. I told D18 that if she went to GT (in-state for us) I’d buy a condo in Atlanta on the GT shuttle bus route for her. I figured that, going in-state with Hope and Zell, I would end up way ahead $$$-wise even if I took a bath on the condo when I sold it after she graduated (compared to going OOS or to an expensive private since we’re full pay). First class education and first class accommodations. She replied that “GT is too difficult”.
@droppedit Heck, I’ll go to GT if your daughter doesn’t!
@LOUKYDAD – I called the scholarship office at U of K yesterday and she said the scholarship info would be available anytime between Aug 1 and Aug 15. Ugh! I’ve been checking it everyday. At this point, it’s not a big consideration for us anymore, but I’m very curious about what they are going to do with their merit scholarships because it was the first school we really focused on when we realized our D was probably going to be a NM student.
With all the talk of several schools reducing their Automatic Merit Packages (OU, Alabama, etc) I wonder if there are any that offered IMPROVED packages this year.
@DavidPuddy, that’s an interesting thought. I imagine some of the NMF-seeking privates might have a bit more wiggle room in their budgets to try to pick up students who now find OU unaffordable or just less attractive. But on the other hand, I can see how the other big NMF schools might stay the course this year because they aren’t sure how much influx they’ll get from the OU cuts. I know UTD is currently in the mode of “buying talent” to increase the school’s reputation, but I don’t see the UTD package going up because it’s probably already become more attractive for some students who wanted OU for STEM. I would think Tulsa might try to take advantage of the situation though, if the budget has room. Tulsa’s Presidential scholarship is nearly full ride but competitive, and the school never explicitly states beforehand how many awards are available. Anecdotally it appears that it used to be about 50 per year and may have dropped recently to closer to 40, but the school has a very large endowment and could likely afford to offer 60 or more in order to grab up some of the OU excess.
Bought S’13 a lightly used Subaru Impreza wagon about a month ago. Safe, reliable, all-wheel drive and the wagon has plenty of storage space. I like the Mazda 3 also, but the Impreza was larger and we found a 2014 that was low miles and cheaper.
@DavidPuddy if you find any, let us know! I know these things change every year. Two years ago, Drexel suddenly cut their money, Temple picked up the slack, now Temple’s is competitive etc. Hard to stay on top of it all! For now, my S is sticking with OU for his auto scholarship school.
@crazy4info I know, I know. The way they have rolled this out, the lack of transparency, vague statements about their intentions and reasoning…UK is training me in patience and serenity!
DS can only “see blue” (their marketing slogan). Dad is seeing “green”. And also red (as in Louisville Cardinal red).