I have Tuition Exchange and FACHEX benefit, D25 chose a school that is not in either of those programs. You are correct in the supposed benefit not always able to be used in a way that would actually be beneficial.
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I will add that the UCs are clearly prioritizing 1st Gen college students.
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And we’re on the road, heading home. I’ll give the trip solid marks, despite the drive. (I may change this opinion when it’s after midnight and I’m not home yet.)
General impressions - there were no students anywhere today, which was kind of weird, but maybe they were staying out of the way of the admitted students? Maybe because it was Saturday? I was glad that we had visited before on a week day and had a chance to see what campus feels like with students, because this was not that.
It was gray and overcast and still campus was lovely. It’s just really pretty with lots of old growth trees and green spaces and some nice looking buildings. It feels like what college should feel like.
Our admission program included passes to one of the all you can eat cafeterias. Food was better than fine, I’d even move it to good, and we were eating from the thing that had the shortest line (which generally doesn’t bode well). The ice cream, was killer. (I had strawberry shortcake, which I picked because I thought it was peppermint when I scooped it. I generally dislike strawberry ice cream but this was awesome. S25 had banana pudding ice cream, also awesome.)
But a big fat flop on the diversity. I had high hopes during the opening - the student body President is female and the VP is an African American male. That may have been the last person of color I saw all day. Seriously a super white crowd of admitted students. We say some kids who appeared to be Asian, but not very many. I don’t feel like Clemson’s stats are as lopsided as that crowd looked, so I’m not sure what was up with that.
In terms of the sessions we attended, first was the general opening. Some good basic info about the school was presented, some general info about the class of admitted students, the band played and it was a good general opening.
After that we hoofed it across campus to the session for students admitted to the College of Art, Architecture, and Construction Management (CAACM). This session is really why I wanted to go on this trip and it was SUCH a letdown. We had a good amount of time set aside - 75 minutes. First their presenter (the person from the CAACM who liaises with admissions) did a general presentation then there was a student panel. I’d guess at least 75-80% of the presentation was general and not specific to the college. Even down to repeating the same stupid fact about most common names for admitted students (Ava, Ella, William, Olivia). I wanted to hear about the Construction Management program - something about the vibe of that program, not the general Clemson vibe. Or something about unique experiences, or their specific career services or something.
Compounding the problem, this was not, of course, just about construction management. Most of the students were architecture students and it’s a much bigger program. And since both are very specific pre professional programs they have more specific major requirements and what not than other majors. I would’ve liked to hear more, or literally anything, other than “we have a program”. I had high hopes for the student panel, but they were both architecture students, so just took questions from the crowd about architecture.
I had one basic question and no one was able to answer it. (They talked a lot about all the busses on campus, the busses that go to local apartments, even the busses back and forth to Greenville. I know that some of the CM courses are off campus on a different site. Not only was it never even mentioned, but when I asked if there was a bus to get there no one knew.). I also had some more nuanced questions that no one could answer (a good portion of the CM courses are in the business school. How does that integration go? What is the vibe of the program in general? Do they participate in any competitions and, if so, does the school support the travel and builds for those or do the kids have to cover the costs?)
Honestly the best thing about the session was how much they talked about the need to plan your time well and to not wait until the last minute to do things. Here’s hoping my kid was listening!
So that session really disappointed me. But! Then we had lunch, which was really good. After lunch we went to a session on housing and dining plans which was informative. Nothing that wasn’t findable online, but it was well presented. And after hearing that we talked about housing as we walked around and it gave S25 a good chance to think about where he might want to live and to have some solid ideas about that.
We went to the student activities session which was a waste of time. They didn’t have very many table set up. It was like two table of ROTC, a table from campus police, one about study abroad, and one from the office of accessibility services. We stopped at that last one to talk about ADHD supports but it was a pretty short convo because they were people in line. It did sound like there might be some kind of academic coaching. Maybe? The schedule had blocked 45 minutes for this, we were done in 5 so we went to the bookstore to buy some merch.
We skipped the student panel - we couldn’t think of anything a general student panel would tell us new. So instead we hiked back to where we had started the day and moved the car to be closer to our last session - which was on athletics. S25 wanted to hear about how to get football tickets. I didn’t think this session would be anything much, but the four students on this panel were great. It was the first real big pop of energy and excitement and all that stuff that I think Clemson is known for really came through. They talked a lot about football and club sports and intramural, but they also talked about women’s gymnastics. Which I thought was odd at first - but it was a good story. The program is only in its second year at Clemson and their meets had the second highest attendance of any gymnastics meet nationwide. They used it as a vehicle to talk about community engagement, school spirit, and the Clemson “family”. It was a nice positive way to end our day.
Overall this was an interesting trip. I don’t think Clemson hit it out of the park. But it didn’t really fail either. It is a beautiful campus, it does feel more like the look that he wants. It does have the big school sports and community vibe that he wants. I’ve been saying all along that the program in his major isn’t as strong and they did nothing to disabuse me of that.
Virginia Tech next Saturday. We’ll see how that goes.
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It is pretty clear that is the “loophole” schools are using to ensure diversity in accepted classes.
We now have been to 3 admitted students days now, and this has been (or close to it) all of them. It is really more like “offices that do things for students” rather than what I would consider a student activities fair (which is like a club fair).
We were at RIT today, a very well run day IMO. My kid has already said that is where they want to go. (We are waiting for 1 more admitted students day to commit officially as they haven’t seen second school in almost 2 years and slim chance something may sway them).
One thing that was amazing was RITs intro video- it was corny, but fun and so very professional. They had a wizard of oz storyline with the college president and his wife.. (The president was Dorothy, complete with blue plaid checked blazer and sparkly ORANGE converse at the end - lol). The whole thing was rapped (!) about joining the community and making RIT home. The special effects and video production were really something. Clearly a TON of time and care was taken to produce and write it. I think it was actually made for freshman orientation last year, but glad they could reuse it for this. It was fun, quirky and joyful IMO. Their “student life” video montage was also top tier. I liked they gave shout-outs to the sign-language interpreters and the live captioner too. (Deaf culture is a big thing there, but still nice).
It was also a very well organized day. They had students/families sit by school, so dismissal from main presentation to departments was pretty quick AND they had interesting talking points while you had to wait in stead of dead time. AND, in our case at least, the department chair held the sign up an walked us all to the department across campus. He sat in during demo lectures and parts he really didn’t need to. The professors all seemed, friendly, engaged with students and like they really wanted to be there. The department intro had a big student panel, an academic advisor and multi profs - all questions had someone able to answer.
The optional housing and campus tours went as needed, quickly, and were small enough to ask questions.
Had perfectly fine lunch (went to a subway-like sandwich bar) and a very good cookie and homemade potato chips:) They had a local Pakistani restaurant cooking a meal as a special, too. (This wasn’t the main dining hall, but a smaller one in student center).
I liked that despite the main campus being surrounded by parking lots and, farther out, strip malls, ON campus you don’t see cars and it feels very contained. It also didn’t feel all that big, considering how many students they have.
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I’m a little sad that my daughter ruled RIT out, I really liked their vibe. But it’s not me attending, so I’ll get over it.
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Drive home update - bad accident with fatalities on the road. We were able to pivot to a different route, and stop for dinner (Waffle House!)
The only problem is that there are a few choices for ways to get home from here - the one the phone is saying is fastest my husband just doesn’t want to take for some reason. He’s convinced the way he knows will be better. We’ll see….
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My daughter’s school choice still gave her a multicultural advancement scholarship for fall.
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I’m staying! You all have been very kind to this single dad who’s trying to figure things out on his own.
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Past Co20xx parents groups have done a mix of things: Staying here, drifting over to Facebook or Slack or Discord, fading away…I’ll be around for whatever form it takes.
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Im here and dont even have a kid in the HS class of '25.
Class of '24 and '26 - we only have kids in even years.
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Hey all! We are done! Made a family appointment for tomorrow night for cupcakes and submitting an enrollment deposit to W&L. S25 just had a wonderful day yesterday at the accepted students event and he’s very happy.
I posted his full results to the results thread here:
I’m going to stick around through August at least, there’s still a lot to vent about!
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I will still be here. I am interested in hearing about how everyone navigates parenting long distance and how your kids adjust. And I will be sad and sort of a mess, no doubt.
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Same.
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Oh, and one large bonus I just realized that goes along with my C25 opting for Hofstra: Hofstra is not a CSS school.
Life is good.
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Isn’t CSS more generous?
Definitely staying here at least through the ‘do they really need a sewing kit’ discussions 
while packing.
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It depends 100% on the university—for some it’s more generous, for others it’s less. (And for families like ours where business ownership is involved, CSS schools are often much less generous.) However, the CSS is way more invasive than the FAFSA alone, and takes way more time.
And especially for a family like ours that isn’t likely to get need-based aid no matter what (high income, though not nearly so high on wealth measures), the time and effort saved by not having to fill out what amounts to very complicated pointless forms is a ray of welcome sunshine.
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I’m here. I love this stuff. Also, who would I talk to while driving up and down the East Coast? I mean, next year I could be heading 8 hrs north to MA and 9 hrs south to SC! HOW FUN!! (Said with all the sarcasm in the world.)
In all seriousness, we do need to buy a new car this summer. (Great timing! Tariffs + two in college!). So maybe whatever we buy is somehow magically more comfortable for long trips. It will NOT be self driving because that freaks me the heck out. (My boss just did this. He offered me a ride in the car and I said no, too much of a tech wimp.)
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Plus a thousand million zillion for not having to do the CSS. Sooo invasive, soooo useless. We had to fill it out when S22 was being recruited - they wanted to do a financial aid preread in addition to an academic preread. I told them not to bother, we wouldn’t qualify, but they were adamant. As soon as I got to the part asking how much I still owed on my home compared to its tax assessed value I knew we were done.
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