We discovered the Crimson Education Youtube series last night and had fun skipping forward to the 'what do you hate about your college" and “what do you do on the weekends” sections. Harvard’s was particularly funny for us. A lot of the students answered “drink in my room and cry”.
I guess that sounds mean, I really should feel sad for those kids. But, anyway, it was a nice glimpse into some high end schools.
@amandakayak that is hilarious and I thought my DD was picky!
So this weekend DD proposed a Geography major instead of Recreation & Parks Management, and a Communications minor instead of a Theatre minor. I think she would really enjoy this combo, and it changes the college options since Recreation that’s “more parks and less sports” is hard to find. She was also looking at where she could get merit with her 27 so she wouldn’t have to take ACT again 
She got a little excited about U of Arkansas at Monticello as it would be under $5000/year but they don’t have Geography or many majors at all so that’s a problem. U of Central Arkansas would be under $10,000 and their GEOG courses sound pretty interesting but I don’t know how good these schools are and they are 10 hours away. Nobody talks about them here, other than mentioning the UAM scholarships. SEMO would be full tuition award but again distance is an issue and it’s not as close to an airport as UCA. She would need a 29 for full tuition at UNK which is the best deal that’s also a reasonable drive. She’s not sure she can accomplish that.
NOW, this morning, my mom sent me an email that our church district is arranging a visit trip to our denomination’s school a few hours away, with free transportation and lodging next month. I told my mom we probably wouldn’t do it because it likely won’t be an affordable choice. Now I looked at their Geography major and it includes everything DD would want- including some outdoor and recreation courses, and a National Parks course where they even visit and camp in NPs. She would LOVE a Christian school and of course our own denomination would be ideal. The location is good, an easy drive. But the likely price after scholarships would be $20,000 or a little more. Do we even go look?
I’m dying a little inside because it sounds so perfect but I was really hoping to get around the $10,000 range and then split the cost in half with her, and there are some options in that range but they aren’t ideal. Or there is another local school for $14,000 which we could maybe swing. I don’t know how much more than $5000/year we can pay or DH will agree to…
I don’t know if I rolled my eyes or just started to tear up. She attached the more detailed list (almond croissants, avg 75 degrees…it does go on…) She takes after me in being a “frustrated optimist.” Life is a constant disappointment.
As far as when to see your best match school, I agree that first when you’re fresh is best. However, I remember being very affected by weather, so if you do have a choice, I would say try to see that school you want to like on a sunny day.
@ninakatarina good point on being burned out for interviews–will keep it in mind. D19 will go along at 150% and then crash.
“She attached the more detailed list (** almond croissants **, avg 75 degrees…it does go on…)” =))
Thank you for the morning laugh - I needed it! Almond Croissants I just can’t stop :))
@bjscheel Don’t take offense to this but, if your D has changed her mind already, there’s a high probability that her plan for her major will continue to change. Something like 70% of kids change their major once they get on campus!
@suzyQ7 The only thing on S19’s list that I thought could compete with almond croissants was his need to have a pizza place in the town where the owner knows his name. I took that to mean he wants a college small enough that people get to know each other. 
I love the @amandakayak “under the tree reference” as I just finished binge-watching Gilmore Girls! My S19 has really no desires it seems, although he found Quinnipiac very nice which is totally out of character for him.
Different topic…based on someone commenting on here somewhere, I signed up for informed delivery from the USPS and I can see actual pictures of mail destined for my house each day. Colleges must now have scores from the 2/10 ACT sitting as we have some very different levels of college mail today than we have in the past. Yikes, he’s never getting into these schools!
@amandakayak & @suzyQ7, in all seriousness, why roll eyes? It makes sense to pick as pleasant an environment as possible to spend years learning in, no? Seems as reasonable a set of environmental factors as any other list I’ve ever heard.
@homerdog True she may change her major again, so definitely want her somewhere with several of her likely options. I did just message a friend who had two children go to our church’s college, to see if in her experience there were other scholarship opportunities for her kids beyond the automatic merit. I know she has said before it was cheaper for the two that went to this private school than for her youngest who is at an in-state public. Just not sure whether to show DD their Geography program or dismiss it from my mind.
@dfbdfb I agree. Quality of life on campus is very important. I read somewhere that a student should choose a place where they think they will feel comfort when they are stressed. I assume that’s because all feel stressed at some point while they are away.
@ninakatarina I agree with your comment regarding Harvard. It does sound mean, very mean. Yes, you should feel sorry for them. I don’t find anxiety and depression humorous , but maybe that’s just me. And FYI, there are members of this group whose children attend Harvard. A little sensitivity would be refreshing .
So I need to take a little of my own advice. Don’t look at reaches. Just got an incredible look book from Williams and now I want to go. I may even hide this one from S19!
^The big black one wrapped in plastic? It came last week but dd didn’t even open it. Maybe I should.
@evergreen5 that’s the one!
My D19 takes the ACT at school tomorrow along with all the other juniors. She’s done some practice math questions but nothing with the other subjects. She gets audio accommodations so we can’t really duplicate her actual testing conditions. I’m definitely curious to see how she does and how that compares to her November SAT score.
@evergreen5 – we tossed (recycled) it.
@dfbdfb I liken the environmental factors she has is like the prom dress search - like the girls on Say Yes to the Dress who have tried on 200 wedding dresses but haven’t found “the one” - she is in search of the impossible perfect storm of factors. Well maybe it’s out there but we haven’t found “the one.”
We got our first phone call last night from a college for D19. It was from St. Olaf’s, and for a variety of reasons we didn’t take the call. (The student calling left a message.) We suggested that D19 return the call, if only because St. Olaf does value interest and, well, because we think the school would be a good fit (D likes music and science, isn’t afraid of cold weather, among other reasons, and the school is probably a low match/high safety for her).
What I’m wondering is how common it is for schools to contact via phone. D is presumably getting the occasional e-mail (we get some of them for the schools we’ve visited, including St. Olaf’s), and she gets snail-mail, of course. It’s just that I feel like I read a lot on CC about schools sending stuff to students (both juniors and seniors), but I’ve not heard about phone calls. Maybe I just missed it. Just trying to figure out how much of this we can expect in the next 14 months…
We had our mid-winter break last week and I took S to California to look at some schools. The selection of schools was determined by the airport we flew in and out of (SFO) and where he was doing a training camp for one of his sports. Also he is interested in applying to Stanford (I have emphasized the impossible odds, but he is still interested), so we made sure to visit that. It’s also my alma mater and I hadn’t been back in 20+ years, so I was keen to visit again. If nothing else, it is a nice campus to see.
Here’s my fairly random impressions.
Stanford: What a beautiful campus! It’s worth a visit just to see the campus. We did not get to the new parts of campus, just the areas covered by the standard tour. The only building we went into was Memorial Church, which is lovely. I was surprised how much the central campus looks just like it did 30 years ago. It was a definite blast of nostalgia for me. Stanford seems to emphasize interdisciplinary studies much more now than when I was a student and the distribution requirements seem much more flexible. They now have ‘ways of thinking’ requirements rather than classes in specific disciplines. We did the admissions presentation in the morning followed by a tour. I wanted to stay and do some more tours in the afternoon, but S said he wanted to see Santa Clara since he didn’t know what kind of college he wanted. So off we left after lunch.
Santa Clara: I’d been on campus once before but really didn’t know the school at all. The # of undergrads (5,500) is similar to Stanford but it felt much smaller since the campus is smaller. It does have many fewer grad students (ca 3300 vs 9000). Freshman and sophomores live on campus (dorms) but juniors and seniors do not and it had, for me, a little of a commuter campus feel versus a residential campus feeling. This is match for S, but I didn’t get the sense that he was feeling a lot of ‘love’. It feels too much like it is right in the middle of an urban area.
UC Davis: I’d been on campus a couple times but didn’t remember it very well. It was a lovely cool but sunny day, and everything was green. So not really typical weather. The central part of the campus felt pretty manageable given how big the school is. So many bikes! The UCs are not really on the table since we are OOS, but also S is now fairly sure that he doesn’t want a school where you have to apply directly to engineering or sciences. He is not sure on size. Leaning toward bigger than smaller and like all the clubs available at the bigger schools.
University of Puget Sound: S was here for a soccer ID camp and at the end there was an mini-admissions presentation (by admissions director) and tour of campus (by the head coach). The campus is compact and very pretty. All the buildings are brick. The athletics facilities are very nice for the size of school. It is located in a nice residential part of Tacoma about 1.5 mi from the water. Freshman and sophomores are required to live on campus and about 50% of upperclassman live on campus, so it is mostly a residential campus. This was S’s first on-campus ID camp, but his teammate had gone to Williamette Univ and Western WA Univ ID camps too. He said the UPS one was much more personal. You got a lot of one-on-one time with the team and personal attention by the head coach. At the end, the coach invited interested juniors to contact him in fall and come for an overnight with one of the team players. According to S, one of the seniors at the camp was offered a roster spot at the camp.
So, S got to see a variety of colleges and now has a slightly better idea of what he wants. His favorite school was Stanford and I tried, not terribly successfully, to figure out what it was that he liked about it. Best I got out of him was 1) residential, 2) bigger but not too big, 3) beautiful campus, 4) you don’t apply to a major on entry, 5) club soccer and crew. No too much to go on, yet… We’ll do some more visits over spring break. He’s keen to look at schools out east while I am promoting a visit to Canadian schools (but no success yet).