Totally with you on this. D26 is not excited about the politics of the area, and the school isn’t diverse at all.
BUT, their specific program she’s interested in is fantastic – she’s going up for a week-long camp on their campus in a couple weeks, and I’m hoping she gets more of a vibe then – and yes, the potential for big merit aid is really good. Honors college dorms are also nice. Plus a big chill non-competitive marching band is a huge plus.
Oh man, now I want to take D26 to see Pitt, lol. That DNID major sounds really good. I think it might be a little too big for her, and I know their band doesn’t notify of a spot until July, so it’s possible she wouldn’t get in. She’s a pretty competent player and marcher, though, so she would probably be okay – but I also read that they have too many freshmen clarinets, so they often have to share a drill spot and don’t get to march pre-game, etc.
She does like the idea of Pittsburgh in general – we were looking seriously at Carnegie Mellon for awhile before she decided that a) she doesn’t really have the art background to get into the design school, b) the human-computer interaction major sounds appealing but is too tech heavy without enough design, and c) she doesn’t want to work that hard in college, LOL. (Big sis is at a school that is a grind, and this one has no interest in keeping that pace!)
Hey - I saw your post on the Colleges Crossed Off list and wanted to pop in here to let you know that my older guy is currently a senior at WPI and I’m happy to answer any questions you/your D might have. It’s been a really good fit for him for a lot of reasons and I’m a big proponent of the school. I will say that the no-AC thing is not great. But it’s really only rough the first couple weeks of school. And it’s nothing like at home (I saw you mention you’re from the South, we’re in VA. It’s not like it is here. At all.) Fans will be fine. If she marches, then she’s outside when it’s horrifically hot training for football season. She’ll notice it’s uncomfortably warm, then laugh at the people who think it’s horrifically hot because nothing compares to August marching practice in the South… Anyhoo, I don’t want to hijack this thread anymore than I already have, but I’m happy to answer any questions if they come up. (And if I’ve said that before elsewhere, sorry to be a broken record!)
I visited for a conference -and the faculty I spoke to are VERY focused in teaching and learning (and also worried about politics). The students I talked to were VERY happy (about 10 different students). These were not tour guide students -but random students at Starbucks and the Biology and Health Sciences departments. (Disclaimer -mostly women -and one man who identified as LGBTQ -he was our driver for the event).
I love that the CC > UC/CSU schools is such a great option for CA residents. Truly does make things so much more affordable.
@Mike_Ba we also will not receive financial aid from privates. That said, we know a number of people who have gotten enough merit aid from privates with higher admissions rates to make them good alternatives to UCs/CSUs if they are a better fit for the kid, so I wouldn’t write off all privates with a broad brush of too expensive without taking a look at the specifics for ones you might be interested in. For example, though it won’t apply for your son, we are looking at Agnes Scott in Atlanta for our daughter which gives out $25k “merit” to all admitted students and another $3k to out of state students. Even without any additional merit our daughter may get above that, it would be very comparable to a UC for us, possible even less expensive. I believe there are other privates that do the same or similar (Whitman is one folks mention a lot).
CTCL colleges tend to have really good pre-health options with small class sizes and good merit scholarships that are not household income-dependent.
Thank you for this! I definitely might be picking your brain if D26 applies and gets in – I can see her agonizing about making a decision, lol.
D26’s current list is hovering at about 3-4 colleges. Texas Tech is likely going off the list because of weather & football culture, but we’re still going to do a drive-by when D26 & I drive back home in late August after depositing her big sister at college for the fall at Austin College.
Off the list/ruled out:
Also am going to suggest that D26 consider Austin College because they have a “gateway to grad school” agreement with Carnegie Mellon in 3 IS areas:
But I think that D26 wants to go to college from anywhere that’s different than where her sister attends. 
So interesting to see everyone going through their college lists now! We just did the same and D26 has narrowed it down to 10. 3 of those are ones that I’ve suggested she apply to so it’s really just 7 on her list. But my three were: one for the early rolling admit, one because she might like the LAC life enough to want one if she doesn’t get her reaches, and one reach that looks really good both on paper and would give some nice aid per the NPC. She has one safety that she really likes (and that I really like) and one that’s acceptable, two targets that she loves (and may choose over her reaches, tbh), a couple of targets that are there as options, and a few reaches to see what might happen.
It’s been pretty fascinating to see how she thinks through this and where she wants to try. I thought one reach would come off the list because of the location (she’d have to fly), but she liked it enough to keep it. And one reach came off the list because she just didn’t like it enough even though we all thought the college was a good fit. I guess not!
She also said she absolutely did NOT want to visit any more schools. We were supposed to have one more visit, but we cancelled to avoid this northeast heat wave and now it’s just not going to get visited at all. And we’re traveling to visit family in August and her big thing was that she didn’t want any college visits on that trip. Fair enough!
But she went from a list of 3 to a list of 14 down to a list of 10. I guess that’s about right.
D26 has food options really high on her list of things to look for in a school!! lol
Colorado school of Mines has a terrible on campus food hall- but the town (which is walkable) has really good options- so it stayed on her list 
Speaking of campus food, my D and I had an interesting conversation about that.
It came up because for the program she’s doing this summer on the Stanford campus, each day they have to get lunch. The program gave them a little map of all the places to eat on campus. She’s now tried most of them and she says “the food is okay, but the choices are so limited!”
Then on one of her days off, she spent the day studying on the Cal campus with a friend, and for lunch they went to get a poke bowl. “Mom, that poke bowl was better than anything Stanford has to offer. I can’t imagine going to a college where I couldn’t just walk downtown and have my choice of restaurants!” (Note that my D goes to the HS in downtown Berkeley and they can leave campus for lunch, so she’s already used to grabbing lunch at popular student spots.)
However, if you look at something like Niche, UCB has a C+ ranking for food, because its dining hall food isn’t great.
So my D decided that instead of going from college ratings of “great food,” she’s going to do her own food rating for the colleges on her list by going to Google Maps and looking at all the food options that exist both on-campus and off-campus.
Golden is soooo cute and CSOM looked great from what we saw of it. I wish they had a major that suited C26!
C26 doesn’t really care about food. They are a “picky” eater in the sense that there is a lot they don’t eat (some sensory issues coming into this), but also not picky in the sense that the things they do eat are basically always available in some form.
It is so funny that right after I posted this, D talked to me about her list and now she has Georgia Tech on it. 
The problem is that many/most schools that require students to live on campus for at least the first year or two also have a mandatory meal plan that can be ridiculously expensive if kids are forgoing already-paid-for meal swipes to go eat off campus!
My D22’s on-campus meal plan (Rice) is crazy – she had more than 100 swipes left at the end of each semester she lived on campus. Thankfully the dining dollars carry over, but the swipes don’t. She was buying all of her friends coffee and boba because even the dining dollars were accumulating. And now she’s moving back to campus to a single in a suite for her senior year (after junior year in an off-campus apartment where we didn’t have to purchase the full meal plan) – so I guess the same thing is going to happen. Oy.
I don’t know if south of the 37th is more cultural/political or weather-based. If the former, you don’t have to worry about Georgia Tech – it’s a fairly liberal pocket and very diverse!
Weather, well, can’t help you there. It is Atlanta. 
This is campus by campus, but on some of them you can use the meal swipes at other providers on or near campus as well. But for sure, when D19 finished freshman year with its compulsory meal plan, there was a lot left on there. You couldn’t save it for the next year, but they did have a program of some sort where you could donate the swipes to other students who needed meals.
Does she still have to stick to meal plan? At NYU it was only the freshman dorms that had to have them iirc. All the upperclassmen dorms are suite style with kitchens so the meal plan was optional for them.
Yes, unfortunately. All undergrads living on campus are forced to buy the full meal plan, which is $3K a semester for 375 swipes and $100 in dining dollars. She does donate at the end of the semester, but they limit how much you can donate.
(Her roommate freshman and sophomore years was an extremely picky eater and never ate in the dining halls, or serveries as they call them. She moved off campus junior year, but she’s not moving back senior year as is tradition because the mandatory meal plan is a total waste of money for her.)
Because Rice has residential colleges, each college houses all the students, freshman through senior, in that college. There are no separate upperclassman dorms. The suites in my D22’s dorm are easier to get for seniors, but it’s just individual rooms with shared bathrooms and common space – no kitchen.