My S25 is still deciding between his top two favorites, but on the way for an admitted student visit for S25, since S27 was along, we started talking about his school decision process. I am excited to get started with him…I think he is getting excited to think about it too, but is feeling super clueless about what he prefers at all. I think his process will be more like D22’s - for her I started by making a spreadsheet with about a dozen schools that had her major and were within the driving distance she requested because she was feeling stuck even getting started with research. She needed a lot of encouragement to do further research and think about her preferences. S25 has been in the driver’s seat the whole time with his decision making process!
I doubt it’ll help, but here’s a college professor to say that there is no discernable difference in educational quality amongst the top 200 of the USNWR or any other list, and the only meaningful difference between those and the rest of the top 500 is that when you get further down the institutions tend to be lower-resourced, but the educational quality is still just as good.
Now, that says nothing about social fit, or the LAC vs university question, or anything like that, but from the point of view of the educational mission, unless there’s a less frequently taught major at issue here (which—and I say this from repeated experience—jumbles things quite a bit), I’ve seen the potential options and there is no “wrong” choice from that angle.
This makes me feel better 
@dfbdfb Are you willing to weigh in on my DS25’s dilemma from that perspective? –
It’s so stressful. Every member of our family has had stress dreams about the process in the last couple of weeks.
Unrelated to college choice, but related to stress. Federal Employees can participate in a 401(k) like account called the TSP. Every quarter you get an email tell you your quarterly statement is available, or you can just log in and see how your account is doing today… Those emails came out over the weekend. I knew what I was going to see, generally speaking, upon logging in. But still. That’s a whole lotta retirement planning $$ gone since the start of the year. I know I just need to ride it out and time will help, but right now I’m particularly grateful that both my boys 529’s had already converted into “we’ll just hold this here” kind of accounts, rather than ones that have any propensity to grow. They are dropping, but not too badly.
Yes. I feel absolutely ill about our 401K this week, but I am reminding myself that (thankfully) we aren’t retiring for 15 years or so. But it still stings.
On a better note, S25 heard back from a scholarship that he applied to through the foundation attached to my husband’s company. He’ll get $4000 a year for 4 years. Every dollar is so, so helpful!
With those three? You can’t go wrong, seriously.
And so my advice remains the same as usual:
Thank you!
So would it be inappropriate persuasion to see if we can stream Jerry Maguire on our long haul flight later this week?
UMD all the way. Great school and much more affordable, plus the program he wants
3 years ago stock markets were a lot lower than they are now. They rebounded just fine. Try not to panic. Give it a few weeks and it will be back up.
We just got back from our spring break trip to DC. We walked so much. I was pleasantly surprised at how clean safe it was. We rode the Metra a lot and it was very clean, much different than NYC last time we were there. There was a lot of construction going on so some of the museums were a little disappointing but that just gives us an excuse to go back. D25 really wanted to see a lot of the exhibit at the Air and Space museum that were close due to construction.
D25 has had her decision made for a few weeks now so we’re just in waiting mode. She’ll find out her roommate in June or early July. We did do some dorm shopping over the weekend so that was fun.
It was 2023. Kid is a sophomore and LOVES it. It was just a let down when they were trying to decide where to go. It really didn’t help. It seems CAS and SEAS do not do much for either Quaker days or parents weekend. I am sure nursing will do a lot more.
Depends. That’s the case for some downturns, but not so much for true bear markets, which we are or are just barely not in, depending on your preferred index. It took almost 6 years for the market to fully recover (measured by the S&P 500) after the 2008 recession, for example.
I do so admire your tact.
We are going to Dickinson next week for final visit. It has been the top pick for a little bit now, but the most expensive option still on the table. Skidmore never got a fair shot, because on our tour there, they closed due to snow and it was the only college on that 8 college tour we didn’t see (we drove through campus).
When my D25 visited, there was enough snow/ice that they canceled the tour and just gave us a map. That might have affected D’s opinion.
I posted two weeks ago awaiting final grades for 3rd marking period..and transcript to be final.
I have a Valedictorian in my house. #1 out of 402!
congrats!