We’re in northern NJ. Our naviance for BC shows a 22% acceptance rate with avg scores 4.09/1448.
We live within an easy drive to downtown Boston.
It’s good you showed her the different types of schools in the area. They can figure it out if they think they’ll fit in or not at any of them. I thought my son19 would like BU but he really didn’t, thought NEU was OK, and no interest in BC.He probably won’t apply to any of them.
To keep things in perspective, our high school just sent out a counseling newsletter that announced, among other things, a “Common App 101” workshop for seniors, not held until Sept 24. I was presuming that was an evening program with parents, maybe an hour or 90 minutes. Nope…it’s during their homeroom during the day, which is 20 minutes, so with walking time to the meeting room, they’re getting maybe 15 minutes of discussion about the Common App on 9/24. This made me feel relatively on the ball on the one hand, but it also was a bit disconcerting that it could be a challenge to get all D19’s materials, LoR, counselor report, etc rounded up by her Oct 1 goal. We want her first EA in by then in the hope of a turnaround in time to make a decision about how to act or not act upon an 11/30 deadline. I sent an email yesterday requesting a meeting with the GC, who may or may not even be in the office yet (school starts 8/22, and a new principal was just announced last Thursday so I’m sure the place is chaotic right now). I can tell I’m kind of approaching this with hackles up and ready for challenges, which isn’t the best attitude. Breathe, breathe…
My mother-in-law wants to take D19 (and me and little sis tagging along and paying our way) on a graduation trip next summer. She’s very generous and loves to travel and needs travel companions, so it’s a win-win. DH and S21 will go on their own mancation with some other fathers and sons. Mother-in-law is looking at a return date of 8/8, and I was a bit worried about when we would be needing to move in D19 to her first-year dorm – would that be cutting it too close? My children’s cousin left already for her move-in yesterday at UA, so I thought maybe 8/8 was cutting it a bit close. I was pleasantly surprised to find that 8 of her 10 schools already have published their academic calendars for 2019-2020, so I already have a list of possible first-year orientation start dates. 9 out of 10 are before the end of August – they’re basically all clustered in the last half of August.
The story about this little cousin and how she is traveling with 8 suitcases also got me to thinking…hmm…yeah how do kids who travel by plane to college get their stuff there? Eight suitcases sounds so unwieldy, and they encountered trouble with their rental car since of course most vehicles wouldn’t fit so much luggage. I realize I’m thinking about these things because they’re more comfortable and fluffy than the dense project of getting the applications in…!! We’ll have time to think about that next spring and summer (but I don’t think I’ve figured out what we would do…maybe take a road trip…?) Looking at the teeny weeny closets in every dorm room we’ve viewed so far, I’m thinking this dear girl is going to have a challenge fitting her vast wardrobe into her room…so one answer is just to not take so much stuff.
D19 is returning today after two weeks away. Tomorrow we’re having guests over so that will be busy. So she’s down to Monday-Thursday of next week to make essay progress. My expectations are low. I think part of the problem is she feels like she has all the time in the world. So I tried to illustrate to her that it’s already almost mid-August, and we have that 10/1 goal for the first two apps. So really the CA essay needs to be run through many revisions and done in 6 weeks. I think that still feels like a long time to her frankly, but with the way time goes, that doesn’t feel like a lot. It’s going to be a big 6 weeks…
@SDCounty3Mom My S15 flew with one suitcase to campus at the start of his freshman year. I ordered all of his dorm necessities, including a small fridge, on Amazon and had it shipped to him on campus. He rents a cheap storage space on campus each summer, and then flies back home with just the suitcase.
@SDCounty3Mom My D16 flew to college with 8 suitcases (Actually 2 or 3 belonged to the rest of the family since we all went and made a vacation out of it and one was a snowboard bag). The rental car situation was, in fact, very interesting! Her stuff wasn’t all clothes and it all fit somehow in her tiny dorm room. We decided it was cheaper to just send her winter clothes by luggage on Southwest (free) vs. shipping boxes later.
S19 is not looking at schools that are more than 6 to 7 hours away. He may need two trips though because his instrument takes up half of an SUV.
@SDCounty3Mom as for showing your D that time is ticking, why don’t you show her a paper calendar? Especially after schools starts, and she can physically see how the weeks will be filled with school and homework and any ECs, she will be able to “see” where there are open spots to write. And there probably won’t be many. For S19, it is only Sunday afternoons and, even then, he may have soccer games to ref if he wants to make any money this fall!
We sent to our son to Europe on a plane with one suitcase and his laptop backpack. We told him to buy whatever else he needed when he got there. Done.
8 suitcases??? What???
@SDCounty3Mom, my S18 is flying to college next week. He and hubby are taking 2 suitcases and 2 carryons. They’ll buy in town and his grandmother will be shipping a fridge and coffee maker.
My oldest attended college in another state and she had like 6 suitcases and 6 boxes, plus the rest of the family’s suitcases. We rented a pickup truck just to make sure we could get it all from the airport, through a few mountain passes, to her dorm. And of course it rained. The rest of the stuff, printer/fridge/coffee maker/incidentals we purchased online from Walmart after making arrangements with the manager to store the items. Surprisingly, even though it sounds like alot, it was easiy to setup & organize. And her side of the room looked like a showroom in teen vogue :). My S will choose a school much closer to home and will get all of his sister’s dorm stuff that is gender neutral. Makes things so much easier!
When my sister sent her oldest to school, she didn’t have time to drive him down to Ohio (from Boston) and back. So she sent 14 boxes UPS. Well she is there on move in day and gets on the elevator…with the UPS guy. He’s got three boxes with her son’s name on them. He said “some crazy mom sent 14 boxes to her kid…thank God these are the last of them. She’s nuts!” My sister says “definitely” and pushes the button for the floor above her son’s so the guy doesn’t figure out she’s the crazy mom. 10 plus years later it is still a family legend story!
D17 and I made the 15-hour road trip to her college last August and packed the car and the roof (I do think most of the stuff was used). I flew there in May to help her move stuff to a house for storage a couple of blocks from campus and she flew home with two suitcases. When she returns in a couple of weeks, she’ll go solo and hopefully get some friends to help her move her things back to campus. I’m nervous about her doing it herself this year but I think it will be fine and a good learning experience for her.
Now that is funny @SwimmingDad !!!
For those of you who sent kids with multiple suitcases, what did your kid do with all the luggage after unpacking?
@Sue22 My daughter had a set of 3 rolling duffles that fit inside the largest bag. The dorm had limited extra storage for each student - I think she might have stowed them away there with her snowboard.
With 3 kids already in college, S2 should be our last go-round of this particular process. Despite not being particularly communicative or enthusiastic, he has a highly specific criteria: (i) 4-hour radius around NYC; (ii) mid-size school (say 6,000+), (iii) urban campus (preferably with at least some carved out green space); (iv) Engineering and Computer Science (but would be nice if school has fine arts and theater), and (v) decent male/female ratio.
On top of this, S2 will graduate top 10-15% in his class and has a super-scored 34 on the ACT (32 single-test score). This narrows the above even more, targeting say top 40 schools. We don’t think most Ivies are realistic, and certainly not MIT. We also think elite schools such as JHU are unrealistic. Of these, Penn is the only one of interest, but S2 is not inclined toward ED and we think this will drastically cut, if not wipe out, any chance at Penn.
So this leaves us with NYU, BU, NEU, and RPI, as primary targets. NYU poses major issue: Engineering campus is in Brooklyn rather than on the main Washington Square campus. Re RPI, not sure S2 is buying Troy-Albany as a “major” city, and 30/70 (they push 40/60) female/male student body is a bit scary. So we are left with the Boston rivals. Found these schools very different, each with pluses and minuses. We are guessing that S2’s take on the COOP at NEU is critical as, why would one go to a a school most known for this program if he is not interested.
Any insights into the schools mentioned, others we may have missed or should reconsider, or other advice, always appreciated. Thanks!
@BrooklynRye you might want to look at WPI too. Good hands on engineering school here in MA. The engineering program at Northeastern is pretty hard to get into I think. I have a son in the business school there.
WPI has closer to a 50/50 ratio, nice campus and the urban area around the campus is decent, I think it’s a little nicer that Troy. Easy access to shopping and dining options. With a 34 ACT he might get some merit there too. WPI is more hands on and group poject based then RPI. RPI is known for pretty rigorous academics.
Both RPI and WPI are very Stem focused so you are going to find a lot of the same type of kids there. If you go to a little bit bigger school that has engineering you’ll find better female/male ratios and your kid will meet all types of students.
My son19 looked into NYU as he wants to study engineering and be in or near a city, but he just couldn’t get used to Tandon being separated from the main campus and took it off his list. I don’t think it’s a bad option though, it’s probably a fun place for a kid to go to school.
I think you’d have to visit BU and Northeastern to see if they actually appeal to your son. There is hardly any green space at BU, and while Northeastern does have a nice little green quad zone it is still smack dab in an urban zone. Your son’s test scores are competitive though so those are 2 good options for him. Both schools are not know for generous financial aid/merit.
For a safety school maybe have him look at UVM, it’s in a great small safe city, should get merit, brand new engineering building, all types of students, access to city life and outdoor life. I know its at the distance limit, and isn’t just an “engineering” school but it meets some of his criteria. Pretty happy students there too, certainly less stressful academics than RPI.
@brooklynrye Have you looked into Carnegie Mellon? Medium size, urban setting (Pittsburgh), there’s a river near it (green space? 
). Most popular major is engineering. I haven’t looked into it, but my neighbor is a senior engineer who works for Lockheed and is sending his daughter who wants to be an engineer. They really liked it.
oh…woops - it looks like its 5-6 hours from NYC, so that puts it an hour out of the radius.
S19 came home from golfing with friends yesterday (eeking out every second left of summer here bc school starting in three days!) and sounds like they were talking college costs. He has two friends whose parents told them that, if they go to the most expensive schools on their lists, they will take out parent loans and then the kids will be responsible for them after college. Now, that sounds pretty messy to me but it got S19 thinking about how much school costs. His friends are bright kids and were talking about how they started investigating other options so they won’t have crazy debt.
S19 was feeling guilty when he came home. The discussion really made his think about the cost of school. He knows we have the resources but has a new appreciation for being in that situation and made a comment about how he’s ok not choosing the most expensive schools. He gets that it’s a lot of money and we shouldn’t spend that much if he has other options on his list. He’s not adding any schools to his list but half of his schools might come through with merit. There were a few seconds of “maybe I should add ASU or USCarolina and see if I can get a big discount” but we came around pretty quickly that those don’t really give him the experience he’s hoping for.
I’m glad he’s thinking about it a little more. It’s hard for these kids to understand the value of money, especially with such big numbers in play.
@RightCoaster - Thank you for the quick, great response. We visited WPI and were pretty unimpressed. It’s a bit remote, and the campus felt like a glorified parking lot (apologies if you have some connection to the school). Definitely less remote than Troy in the sense that one would have access to Boston, as opposed to Albany, but it’s pretty far outside of Boston.
Good insights into RPI. Yes, one of S2’s fears is that he will pigeon-hole himself as a STEM ‘geek’. More mainstream student bodies at BU and NEU, give him more options.
Seems we are on the same page re NYU. To complicated to segregate oneself, especially freshman year, when everyone is making friends and taking advantage of a cool city campus.
We visited both NEU and BU, and S2 did a precollege Electrical Engineering program at BU. You are spot on as far as the campuses. BU has pretty much nothing…apologies to “BU Beach”…NEU has some carved out campus (much more than meets the eye via a quick drive-through, but is right in the middle of the city. While neither school is known for generous aid, if you can land a decent level at NEU, it locks in an aid floor for 4 years regardless of financial circumstances. Despite their relative stinginess, 3 kids in school at the same time (with 1 in grad school, which NEU said they will consider), is usually a big financial load to ignore from an aid perspective.
UVM is a nice option. It’s a bit outside the geography. Honestly (and will address this more with the subsequent poster), if S2 would consider expanding the zone, Carnegie Mellon would be a prime target.
This is great stuff. Thank you so much!