Having been to the mothership outside of Rochester, I completely understand this now.
9 Likes
We have “distance to a climbing gym” on our spreadsheet!
11 Likes
Rambling reminiscing alert. I’m a little envious as I read about other people’s spreadsheets and decision factors. Y’all have put a lot of thought into these processes! I mean, even the “name and cost” simple spreadsheet, which is AWESOME, is one step further along than I got.
And I love reading about what values are in play. I am in such a different place than I ever expected I would be with my one and only college-bound kid. And it is giving me a lot of food for self-reflection.
I started on CC with what felt like a long-shot request for a Goldilocks school for my son. At the time, I wasn’t sure he was set on the engineering route, so I wanted to look at all the schools, from the small liberals arts (like I attended) to the “big name prestige” to the small (like where my DH started and transferred out of) and medium engineering specialties . And maybe throw in the large state schools (like my husband graduated from), just for kicks.
And here we are, 14 engineering school tours later. Only two of those tours were even in our home state! We flew, we drove, I bought a college tour reflection book, I took notes, I encouraged discussion and writing down what mattered and what impressed. I POURED over engineering department websites, and study abroad websites, and summer session websites.
And S25 is now leaning heavily on the large state engineering school in the city he grew up in.
But I’m coming around to the appeal by looking at it from his point of view. He went through upper elementary and middle school and the first year of high school not finding kids like him. He was never a big joiner, never going to be the kid picked for any sport, in what seemed like cohort after cohort of big runners and basketball and soccer and tennis boys. My heart would break for him, year after year, not finding his crowd.
And in his senior year, he finally has it. He has his crew. Funny kids, smart kids, having fun with pickup volleyball or frisbee golf at the local parks. Kids that study together at the local library, and get on a Discord call to talk through a web assign before playing a video game.
And most of that crew is going to one of the two big state schools within a 30 minute drive. So I see that S25 doesn’t want to be the one to remove himself from that, when he has two equally good engineering programs and one allows him to be closer to his high school crew. I think he knows he won’t be just relying on these friends, that he’ll meet new people and make new friends and have new experiences. At the same time, he won’t be starting from scratch like he did in high school. He’s got a base where he’s starting from.
I don’t know exactly what I’m trying to say. I love reading everyone’s stories here. And I’m happy with my own story for my kid. And I hope everyone else here gets to be in a similar place for their college-bound kiddos. We are all going to take different paths. My path is far different than I expected. But it’s good to be on it.
27 Likes
I think this is super common and a great decision on your S25’s part, especially when you’re talking about engineering programs - there are so many great ones.
In my D23’s class there were tons of kids who were “getting out the PNW” and when the time came to commit, they decided to stay closer to home. As someone who went very far away (a different country!) for college and didn’t love it for a year or even two, I think this is a valid and sensible choice. I am concerned about my S25 who is stuck on leaving the region and may find it much more challenging than he guessed.
Best of luck to your son, it sounds like he’s got his head screwed on straight 
7 Likes
I wish I was kidding but being able to walk to a Tropical Smoothie Cafe was a part of her decision making. She committed to a place that it is, 1.3 miles away from her dorm to be exact.
13 Likes
We had the same experience at University of South Carolina. My son couldn’t stop smiling the whole time we were there. I knew that nothing else would compare so we committed even before knowing about merit.
9 Likes
I need to look into getting my Italian citizenship as well. I know there is a ton of leg work. It’s wonderful that you have someone doing it for you.
3 Likes
Do share if you find a way to get it done. I would love to do the same!
1 Like
You have a smart kid!
3 Likes
There is lots of nuance - I have relative (by marriage) who is one of 5 kids to an Italian-born parent – and the oldest 2 got their citizenship and the younger 3 can’t!! or at least that was the case 5-6 years ago.. (Had to do with when their italian-born parent became a US citizen)
4 Likes
I know someone who had a metric as “ease of access to boba tea”. I mean, all else being equal, you gotta go with what’s important to you. And maybe Chick-fil-a or Tropical Smoothie Cafe or Boba are that last thing that tips the scales somehow. It’s just as reasonable as “I like these school colors more”. (I was not sad when my child didn’t get the merit aid to get into his top school - whose colors were poo brown and sick person poo brown.)
13 Likes
Years ago I was deciding between 2 schools ED, and an alum I knew asked if I wanted to wear one of the school’s colors forever. Wasnt a deciding factor, I don’t think, but gave me pause!
5 Likes
@Mdowns123 and @tjd0829 - I lucked out and my cousin was interested and willing to do all the legwork. Basically, there are all kinds of rules about when your family came over, how old they were at the time, if they renounced their citizenship upon getting here. It doesn’t seem to need to be particularly recent - in my case, it’s my great grandparents and it’s good enough for me and my boys. Then once you’ve got the basics figured out, and birth certificates of everyone through the chain, you can either apply through a consulate or go through the court system. The court system is longer and is for more complicated family trees (which is apparently us) but it’s also seems a little more certain - largely, I think, because you have to hire an attorney to represent you, and they do the work to make sure your case is as robust as possible. In our case, the attorney is also handling tracking down all the original Italian documents and getting the US docs translated. If you’re interested, DM me and I can give you the name of the attorney (we did some research on that too) and more weeds about it all.
4 Likes
This is VERY interesting. Cornell has something similar: https://ccs.career.cornell.edu/dash/dashboard_employment
Perhaps most schools have career data like this, but I’ve not really been able to readily find it.
3 Likes
Having grown up in Durham, I envied the crew of merry nerds from my high school class that all headed to NC State together and stayed connected while I and others from our high school gang flew farther away. Many of them still live in NC, while most of us who left for college never found our way back. Consider your potential grandkids and thank your lucky stars that he got in and wants to stay? 
2 Likes
Welcome! The group is wonderful and incredibly supportive.
8 Likes
I found this for NC State, which should be interesting, given your alma mater and GO PACK use name 
: Undergraduate and Graduate Future Plans Survey | Institutional Strategy and Analysis
2 Likes
I absolutely do thank my lucky stars he got in!!! No doubt!!!
(I’ll put a pause on those grandkids just yet …. I kinda want to enjoy the empty nest for a while!!)
2 Likes
I think most schools have something but I have not found that level of detail publicly at most schools, and not sure any I have seen go back as far as WPI (not sure that is exactly helpful, but I find it cool:)
Also, I think some I have seen had info by “school” not by major - so like grads of the business school (which covers many majors) etc. I didn’t look hard for our whole list though.
WPI Actually emailed that link to us after 25 got in.
3 Likes
D25 is not necessarily rude about it, but she is quite unrelenting in her position in not attending.
2 Likes