Some posting on our local facebook page about U of SC. Apparently, they announced they’re opening for fall but when a local kid checked his schedule yesterday, all his classes are online. Parent not happy about paying off campus rent, but it is what it is. I’m expecting a lot of online classes, which I hate, but expecting it.
@NJWrestlingmom I don’t think anyone should be surprised when classes are remote. I think most schools are flat out saying that’s the deal. They are “opening” campus to get kids back in dorms because they need the money and parents and students have said they want the on-campus experience but it’s going to be very different. If parents or students don’t like that option, they can maybe take a gap year. So far, Bowdoin has said half of each student’s classes will be online and half in person. Since they haven’t registered yet, I guess they can make that happen but we will know the details soon. I have heard that, at some other big public schools, almost all freshmen type classes will be remote. Maybe there’s a chance there will be discussion sections for some of those and those could be in-person?
S17 lives off campus, so I think he’ll go back regardless. He’s at a state U, but never has more than 30 in a class. I’m hoping he can get at least some in person classes! Being a senior, hoping more of the upper level classes have a shot at this since the numbers should be smaller. His school hasn’t announced any plans, which I think is wise because our state is just starting to open up.
@NJWrestlingmom from some of the other threads here, it sounds like colleges aren’t announcing which classes are in person yet because they haven’t even worked that out with faculty. Some (many?) professors might be excused from teaching in person if they are older, have underlying conditions, or have family at home with underlying issues. It’s a giant puzzle. Seems like it might be luck of the draw if any one student has professors willing to be in class. I’ve heard noise that labs will try to be in person at many schools. Dance and theater too. A lot of other types of classes will be deemed “possible to teach remotely” and I think that’s what’s going to happen.
Thx for sharing that info. Xavier is on my son’s list at the moment so that is something I’ll have to check out, to see if something similar is offered to students in our area.
Does anyone know anything about Xavier? Vibe, academic rigor, religious feel, etc? You know, the usuals 
Oh gosh, now that someone mentioned Rose-Hulman, I’m pretty sure THAT was the school people were saying may have a difficult vibe for some female students, not Mines. So forget what I said…I probably shouldn’t be saying anything (about either school) if I don’t have more reliable information.
Before our teachers are officially off for the summer I urged my D to contact her first-choice teachers to ask if they’d be references. She swallowed her discomfort (I had to remind her it won’t get any easier), sent off the emails and got very prompt “yesses”! Whew! So the first college app hurdle over with, and she’s off! I know some high school juniors deal with this much earlier but I have a feeling she’s one of the first to make a request here, and it’s a relief.
Hello all. I’m relatively new here. Been reading most of the thread here and have had a few comments. We live in CT and I have a D21 and an S23. I have found a lot of what is talked about here very helpful. As like many here, we were not able to take any tours that we had planned for April vacation and it does not appear that colleges will be open for any in person visits before September. My D is planing on going into nursing. She does not want any schools in New England, wants a mid to big school, prefers college town or city, wants that “real college atmosphere”. If anyone has any feedback/info on the below schools that would be great!
Clemson
West Virginia University
University of Tennessee
University of Pittsburgh
Penn State
Temple
Thank you for any inside info you can share.
Hi @srwcmw! Welcome.
I can only give a bit of a visitor’s perspective on U of Pitt, which we visited two years ago. My D23 really liked it, my D21 didn’t…but only because urban campuses aren’t her thing.
Our impressions were that the study body was friendly, the buildings interesting (loved the Cathedral of Learning!), and the area of the city had a comfortable feel to it. D23 looks forward to visiting again, hopefully next year some time.
@Momof3B Good for him for sticking it out! That’s sounds quite intense and dull. At the very least he will be able to say that he did, in fact, attend and wasn’t just a nominee. I’d be very proud for his sticking it out! My D has a 3 full day virtual HOSA conference coming up the end of the month and I’m curious how it’s all going to play out.
Report cards and class rank came out today. D was SO nervous, but even though gpa went up, rank stayed exactly the same. She worked so hard and did everything she could to bump herself up, which is all she had control over. I’m thankful overall rank didn’t drop, she would have been an emotional mess.
@Rue4 I feel bad for all kids in schools that rank. That is so stressful!! Our high school did away with ranking maybe six or seven years ago. The counselors will say whether a student is in top 10% or top 20% or top 50% and that’s it. Our school profile shows the GPA needed for top 10% and top 20% for unweighted and then weighted so that AOs can see where a student fits but they’ll really never know the rank. Top 10% is about 70 kids. I think the cut off for that decile for UW is usually around 3.85. That tells the AOs a bit I think. Not that many kids at all have a 4.0 with any kind of schedule and, if a student has above a 3.9 with all honors on their transcript then they are clearly very highly ranked - but no exact rank on transcript!
@burghdad I agree about Lafayette. I would also add in Union College as another option similar to Lafayette. Well-respected small engineering program with a lot of history.
@homerdog That system makes so much mores sense than rank. Our county says '21 will likely be the last year they rank. There is even a possibility they won’t rank at graduation next year, but it’s on the transcript going along with applications for '21 kids. My D was still top 1%, but literally nearly killed herself all year to get all A+ to try to break into the top 3. My younger daughter '22 is not nearly as competitive and was top 19% at her HS and thrilled. She could care less if rank stays or goes.
Last staycation info session completed today. Bryn Mawr was barely 30 minutes, didn’t talk about admission process at all and seriously turned my kid off. Too bad because she’d have a chance at merit there and it meets several other criteria of hers. But at least we get one step closer to getting her list.
Report cards are out but we still don’t know her rank. Our school doesn’t give rank out until end of junior year. Texas schools have auto admit for certain ranks and UT is most competitive with auto admit for top 6%. She might squeak into top 6 but we still have no idea. Hopefully soon!
Mines was the top choice for S19 and he was admitted. According to their correspondence, Mines is the hardest CO public college to get into. However, Mines gave only a tiny amount of financial aid to him and they aren’t WUE participants, so for an OOS student, it just wasn’t financially possible. S19 was disappointed. He really wanted to go there.
D19 heard today that Emory will reopen in the fall with an earlier start date and ending at Thanksgiving. No Labor Day and no fall break. Hybrid class model. Students will have to re-register for classes because of scheduling challenges with social distancing and capacity. Students will also have to re-select housing.
No yearbooks here until August. The yearbook company’s printing plant had to shut down because of COVID-19.
@srwcmw I’m happy to talk about the schools on your list I know about. First let me talk about the general school vibe. Pitt and Temple are totally urban campuses and I mean in the middle of the city urban. WVU is kind of on the edge of the small city of Morgantown. PSU in in state college which is very rural as is Clemson. I have never been to UT Knoxville.
So let me tell you a bit more about each school that I know about and also relate to the nursing major. By being in urban locations both Pitt and Temple have great access to world class medical centers and all that has to offer a nursing student in terms of education and job opportunities.
WVU is generally considered a huge party school and in WV there are not much job opportunities besides the WVU medical center. However it is not far from Pittsurgh which provides lots of job opportunities and graduate school opportunities. Morgantown is in my opinion not really an attractive place to live or go to school.
PSU is a huge school (40,000 students) but a very good academic school with a huge alumni organization. They have a medical center in Hershey so there is a good teaching facility for nurses but you are not on campus for your last two years like your are at Pitt, Temple and WVU.
Clemson is a mid sized school (19,000) with lots of school spirit, and a very nice campus with a fairly rural campus. My D21 loves it there and they do give some merit money. So my PA resident daughter is going to school for that same price as Pitt, PSU and Temple. However similar to PSU the nursing student will spend most of the last two years in Greenville SC which is about 45 minutes away from Clemson.
One other school I would recommend to consider that it somewhat similar in size, location and expense to those you listed is UDel. They also have a very good nursing school. The campus is beautiful and I mean beautiful. They have about 17,000 students in a suburban campus about 35 minutes from Philly, close to the shore and only about an hour from DC and 1.5 hours from NYC. As you can imagine the proximity from those locations and their health care facilities is great for getting jobs.
I think all of the schools talked about above are direct nursing admits which tend to be more difficult to get into as the class sizes are so small. Another alternative is to go to school where you take prenursing classes for 2 years and then apply for admission into the nursing school for your last two years. I know that Bama, FSU and USC are all that way. That is also an options if you are not 100% sure that you want nursing.
I hope this helped and good luck.
@burghdad, Thank you for all your insight on the schools. Yes my D is positive she wants to go into nursing. We have been focused mostly on Direct Admit Nursing programs as she doesn’t want to have the added stress of trying to get into a program after two years in. Even those programs are very competitive. We will have a couple schools that are non direct to apply to as well. USC, FSU, UF, and maybe I will have her look into Bama.
D21 is my first to go off to college, so the whole process is an adventure for us. She is a strong student with a lot of EC’s and also has a part-time job. We are trying to figure out how many schools she should apply to because direct admit adds a whole new acceptance rate. University of Deleware is on her list too, as well as UV (which is her reach). ASU was on the list but the 3.5 GPA to stay in the program is daunting to her. She is capable of that for sure, but doesn’t want that much pressure. i
@JanieWalker Thanks for the info on UPitt. She has been to Pittsburgh and loved the area. Unfortunately at that time we did not tour the school.
Welcome @srwcmw ! I’m a PA resident with a son who just finished up his freshman year at Penn State’s main campus. Obviously, I also have an S21. 
@burghdad gave a great rundown on Pitt and Temple.
Penn State is an excellent school. Competitive to get into for nursing. Not sure how competitive it is for OOS vs. in-state. My son is in the College of Liberal Arts.
Unlike Pitt and Temple, the PSU main campus is truly “in the middle of nowhere.” That said, it is a world unto itself. Amazing college town. With 40k students and everyone and everything there to support it, there is a reason why people adore State College so much. My older son had not planned on applying until he finally went and visited. He fell for it completely.
S21 has been up there several times now and has decided that is way too big and way too in the middle of nowhere for him. Pitt and Temple are half the size student-wise and in cities. He likes them better. We all love Pitt’s location and campus. It’s an actual campus in the city.
Now for us, these three schools are in-state, in-budget options. So we need him to like at least one of them. I know that Penn State doesn’t offer much financially to OOS students. UDel does and offers a similar college town vibe closer to Philly.
Tks for all this Pitt info as it’s on my S’s list and we were supposed to visit in March.
@InfiniteWaves – you said “it’s a campus in the city.” My S is fine with urban but wants a traditional campus feel with a ‘real’ quad and some campus cohesion.
For example, he liked Case Western b/c it’s def. a campus. We visited NYU and Columbia w/ my D18 and he didn’t like the former but thought the feel of Columbia was fine, though a little cramped. (He’s not interested in either of them, for the record.)
Do folks feel like Pitt is more like Case and Columbia in terms of being urban but with a real campus, then? Does it it have some defined boundaries and campus feel?
@AlmostThere2018 Yes! That is exactly how I would describe Pitt. There are large grassy areas. The campus is in a lovely part of the city. Not quite as “defined” as Columbia. But defined. Campus feel with all the benefits of being in a city.
And here’s the thing. Pittsburgh is a much smaller city than NYC. Pitt is very much part of the city’s fabric. All Pitt students ride the city buses for free. When we went to the open house day back in the fall, a tour of Pittsburgh was part of it. There is a lot of pride not just from a school spirit sense, but from a “we’re a part of this city” sense.