Yes, it is a separate campus. A lot of kids do go back and forth though. There’s the CTA train (and kids get a transit card included with their tuition) and also the Vinnie Van which shuttles students between campuses (but maybe only in the evening, I’m not sure). But the Loop Campus is still a campus–there are lots of students about, there’s a dining hall, lounge areas, etc. My D has never taken a class at the Loop Campus, but her roommate is a film major and takes many classes there. But I get it, it’s not ideal. The Loop Campus is very urban, in a few tall buildings downtown, whereas the Lincoln Park campus is slightly less urban (but still pretty urban!), mostly old brownstones, and large leafy trees, with the CTA station essentially right on campus.
I wish you were going sooner, LOL. I can’t get my D26 interested in Tulsa, not for lack of trying – it’s just seems too far outside the realm of schools she’s heard of/would consider – especially since it’s a 2-hour flight from us – but dude, their full ride for national merit is really hard to ignore.
you and me both! It was supposed to be last weekend that we were going there but D26’s request for the weekend off of work got denied. It’s all for the best, though, because D24 said today that last week and this week have been really busy with lots of exams (Tulsa is 3 hr drive from D24’s college, so touring Univ of Tulsa was going to include visiting D24).
@sbinaz I know UAH was mentioned by you in the past. I don’t know if it’s still on your daughter’s list or not, but this came across my FB feed today: UAH | News | The University of Alabama in Huntsville
I know you were responding to @sbinaz – but we had a UAH tour on our schedule during spring break but decided to do something crazy and visit RIT that weekend instead.
I still want to tour UAH because I think it could be a good fit for D26 – but since it’s an easy drive for us, she’s put it on the back burner for now as something we’ll get to eventually.
But I worry that the fall will be here before we know it. Gotta get on that!
My daughter is really enjoying UAH! I hope you do get there for a visit. It’s really been a good fit for her.
You might mention Khan Academy test prep - which is free and PrepScholars SAT prep (one version of which is just under $500). PrepScholars does a student assessment/analysis followed by a ‘student study plan’ that lays out prescribed study sessions/periods on specific topics to try to meet the students test date deadlines.
My D26 had used the Khan Academy prep prior to her SAT/ACT in early March and found it useful. Her scores for both tests were great and exceed the 75% of admitted students for almost all of her target schools and several that she’s considered ‘reach’. I thought surely we were one and done for standardized testing.
However what is it they say “Comparison is the Thief of Joy” when she got her scores she was feeling very good for maybe 2-3 days, but then…her closest friend whom she studies with / ‘competes with’ in all of their AP/IB classes told her she’d hit a 1590 and 36.
So now for want of minor improvement to try to compete with her friends scores (which are insane) my daughter signed up for the PrepScholars test prep to retake both in June…and when she told her friend now she also wants to retake the SAT with my daughter to see if she can get a perfect. (Crazy!) I think she’s (D26) also gunning to try to beat her older brother (+two years) as they ‘tied’ on ACT and like the equivalent of a question less (10 points) on the SAT so she can have eternal bragging rights I guess. Now sibling rivalry I can understand.
We’ve discussed how there’s no guarantee her scores will improve on a retake, and in fact with higher scores initially there’s more room to be on the downside than one the improvement side. I will give her this though, her response was “well if they are lower, we just won’t report those and the results won’t be back until summer break anyway so I’ll have a couple months to decide if I want to try again”. Personally, I would rather she accept her scores as is and spend that time starting to cone down on her reach and target schools to develop some key focus areas for each school to see how she can work them into the application essays when they come out.
Oh that’s interesting news! Thanks for sharing it!!
Her 25 ACT brings the tuition, room, and board there to $22,836/yr. A student in D24’s graduating class is attending there right now.
Okay, I’m back.
I realize in my last post that I totally missed the part where you had shared the budget. 
That might move Skidmore into the reach category rather than hard target/reach, but I don’t think that it will overly impact the categories on any of the other schools.
Union has had a reputation of being more Greek-heavy, but apparently that has been changing over just the past few years. But it’s definitely something I would make sure your D looks into. W&L also has that reputation, but also that the Greek life there is different than Greek life is often stereotyped as in the media.
The one thing that gives me pause about your list is the likely/safety section. All the schools in the target/reach sections are small liberal arts colleges, and all the likely/safety schools are…not. Has she looked into Drew, Wheaton (MA), or Gustavus Adolphus? Those seem as though they could be fits for the likely section.
Question I should know by now but don’t - what is the difference between a “hard target” and a target? Hard target is more at the reachy end? (Collegvine, which I know people here trust, put a school I would definitely have considered a reach for C26 as a “hard target”.)
It took me a while to figure this out, too, which is why I usually don’t use that language! But my interpretation is exactly what you’ve described…a hard target is at the reachy end of the target category. (Of course, how people describe what a “target” is is also not uniform, but that wasn’t your question! 
)
To me, hard target = you’re in the game but it’s a crapshoot 
I have also seen/heard of “lottery schools” as a category…. which, I assume, similarly means your stats are in range but with so many applicants it’s a crapshoot
I’ve heard that too. Maybe since your odds are better in craps than the lottery, a hard target is a crapshoot and a reach is a lottery? 
I don’t know if anyone saw this post a few weeks ago (by @TonyGrace I think) in the class of 2025 thread – but they developed a prompt to be typed into ChatGPT to help compare two schools. The results are fascinating! I’ve used it so far to make all sorts of comparisons.
Plug in the names of any two colleges you want to compare, paste it into ChatGPT, and see what happens –
Using a comprehensive and nuanced fit framework, compare College Name 1 and College Name 2 across the following dimensions:
• Academic Environment
• Social and Emotional Culture
• Personal Growth & Identity
• Support Systems
• Long-term Fit
• Cultural & Regional Fit
• Values Alignment
• Lifestyle Preferences
• Career & Network Alignment
• Community Size & Feel
Highlight subtle but meaningful differences between the two institutions, carefully noting areas of concern or potential downsides that might not be immediately apparent. Clearly articulate how each dimension might uniquely influence a student’s daily life, sense of belonging, and long-term personal development. Present this analysis in a detailed side-by-side comparison chart, concluding with a concise yet insightful TL;DR summary that specifically addresses how a student might determine the best personal fit rather than simply identifying the “better” school.
SAI is $28K and that is pretty accurate on what we could pay. Numbers come back with both merit and need based aid – percent varies by school obviously because they all have different tuition. Typically it’s about 25K in need based aid.
I hear you on the impact of having to obtain need based aid. I think it will shift Macalester from ‘has a chance’ to ‘well MAYBE MAYBE has a chance if we are looking for a research girl from Kansas’ because I know for a fact they are not need blind. It’s one of the reasons this list is fairly large. 
She already has a strike against her. (I’m sorry kid.)
But I’m hoping that Union, Dickinson, and Mount Holyoke are still good targets because she’s well within their GPA range and she has some interesting extracurriculars. And we have a very strong letter from an alumni for Union (which may not make a difference-who knows). If she can land an interview, it will help her chances. (Okay I’m her mom and bias -but she’s charming (but not overly smooth charming) and she’s done a lot of public speaking/interviews.
It’s one of the reasons we have W&L on the list. The Johnson would be a gift --and they give a LARGE percentage of those (as a portion of their class) . I just don’t know if they are looking for “a research girl from Kansas”. So you know, she will throw her hat in the ring for it.
That being said – finances are one of the reasons I’m thinking I need to add Brandeis (automatic scholarship based on our income level) and St Olaf (super generous with aid).
The international schools are a good shot for us (assuming the US dollar doesn’t tank) -because their prices are nearly within range. University of Limerick gives a fair number of small scholarships out which would bring that in range.
She already knows she plans to get at least a Masters if she wants to work in biotech (research). A grad degree if she goes pre-health of any variant. We’ve had a long talk about how a Biology undergrad is not useful by itself.
Given her interest in a grad degree, she talked about trying to get a really BIG scholarship at a less prestigious school. But I looked and looked -and those are all kind of a crap shoot. But we have a few on the list that might be possible: University of Rhode Island and LI University. One of those (LIU) gives a half-tuition scholarship to a student from EACH state – and how many Kansas kids are going to apply to Long Island University? A few for sure (we can’t be the only ones with that idea) but I figured her chances were increased. Plus she WANTS to go to the coast, and LI U is actually a pretty decent school. I’m hoping geographic diversity and a strong GPA will help with scholarship options at URI. But again - we are hunting for money -and money is scarce.
Thank you - Puget Sound seems like a good match. She’s turned off by the religious schools: DePaul and Loyola --but I know that religious one location is not the same as religious in another!
ETA: Puget Sound comes up as $50K with net price calculator. I suppose she could win a full-ride scholarship --but I question whether she has a real chance at that?
Fyi College Vine definitions. I personally would not have 15% as the dividing line between reach and target!
What is a Reach School?
Reach schools are colleges where you have less than a 15% chance of admission (this is your personal chance of acceptance, not the school’s acceptance rate). Keep in mind that schools with less than a 10% acceptance rate are reaches for everyone. These schools are extremely competitive and even students with profiles that align or exceed those of accepted students cannot be confident they’ll gain admission. A school may also be a reach if your grades and test scores are below the averages of accepted students.
What is a Target School?
A target school is a college where you have a 15-70% chance of admission. Within target schools, we split them up into hard targets (15-45% chance) and regular targets (45-70%) in our [chancing engine]
Unless the school is very selective, how your SAT/ACT score compares to its middle 50% test scores is a decent indicator of whether a school is a target (the middle 50% is the range of scores between the 25th percentile and the 75th percentile of accepted students). There are no guarantees of getting into a target school, but you should feel good about your chances of admission into a target school, though hard targets are definitely a bit iffier.
What is a Safety School?
Safety schools are colleges where you have a greater than 70% chance of acceptance. Having test scores better than the 75th percentile of students is a good indicator that a college is a safety school. Having a strong chance of getting into a college is a major factor when choosing a safety school, but you should also feel excited about it, and want to attend if you’re accepted.
I actually went to a conference at Miami U --and I can tell you that the faculty is VERY invested in their students. They were also concerned about the politics of Ohio and it’s potential impact. The students I met seemed REALLY happy (almost cult-like --haha). One weird thing I did notice – out of state students tend to stick together -but there are a lot of out of state students.
But yes -that area still gives me pause. I have such mixed feelings. It remains on the list because honestly they give really robust scholarships. I figure, her weird high school approach might stand out in the applicant pool and make her eligible for some of those.