Also, homecoming dance tonight! Football game sounded like a lot of fun last night. We had a close win. C26 wasn’t initially sure if they’d stay for the game but, like last year, they did and enjoyed it. Choir don’t need tickets so they didn’t have to decide in advance.
Apart from the wait for admissions decisions, it feels like this year is hurtling along from one school milestone to the next ….
Oh yay! Another opportunity to link this fun thread. 
What did you do (unintentionally) that embarrassed your child on school tours?
Ha! D26’s good friend is out there touring USC this weekend – and we’re from Georgia. 
Most kids going to an in-state public school here get free tuition, so yeah, going to a UC is quite a difference in cost!
His other top choices are UT Austin and U Washington.
Good info, thank you! I went to UF, and the stadium was 86K back then, and they’ve added seating since then.
But D26 has never experienced anything like that – and her tiny high school band is 44 members including color guard, so she will either be completely overwhelmed by Pitt – or think it’s just awesome.
One of the guidance counselors at our HS said that UT Austin was a very popular pick this year.
We’ve never had that many people here in CT interested in Texas but it seems to be gaining momentum as a top choice for OOS students.
OOS UT Austin FYI - we have spent between 75-72k a year all in with one semester to go. I track all in as just about everything - airfare, ubers, dorm swag (2 years), Apartment (2 years, one of the numerous college student complexes just west of campus) misc academic add ons etc. The UT Tuition has gone up around 1.5k+ a year since LHD2026 started - but has been offset by her academic awards each semester (They have grown each semester to keep her tuition more or less the same).
Purdue OOS was around 55K all in (Not engineering) for our son as first year last year. He’s at UNC-CH in state now, so that improved our household cash flow some… but have our last child starting (somewhere) next fall (26) and have fingers crossed it will also be at UNC-CH - will likely have one in Grad School and two in undergrad for the next 2-3 years. 
None of our three are impulsive buyers / spend thrifts, and they have grown up using budgets for allowance and had their own personal accounts while becoming self sufficient (laundry, groceries, cooking etc) so they aren’t blowing tons on fast food or personal services like having an apartment cleaner (not kidding, both LHD26 and UNC-S28 are in apartment complexes that have established services you can opt in to for apartment cleaning and supply restocking that is added to your monthly statement of fees…)
Virginia and North Carolina consider themselves to be “Old South”… but perhaps not as “The South” as South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana.
That’s annoying. I have seen some colleges both public and private (eg Boulder and NYU) list different COAs according to either specific school or which “tier” your school is in. Maybe another question to ask admissions (presentations not student guide) if the college only lists one COA for the college as a whole.
It’s eye-opening how expensive some OOS publics can be. And there was a discussion on the class of 2025 thread a couple months ago about all the added fees.
My D26 is not looking at UT Austin – that was her friend – but she has Pitt, Miami Ohio and UT Dallas on her list of OOS publics.
Pitt looks like $68K COA for OOS – plus flights and perhaps more for housing based on what we choose and personal expenses, etc. We’re crossing our fingers for some merit – looks like students are getting $10K to $20K per year. (But only a small percentage get merit.)
Miami Ohio is quite a bit cheaper with automatic merit – looks like $39K plus flights, etc.
And UT Dallas would be free for her to attend with the National Merit full ride.
I’ve heard people mention how expensive Georgia Tech is OOS – but in-state for us, it would be about $23K (or cheaper based on type of housing) after the Hope/Zell state scholarships that nearly every student going to GT gets. And no flights!
ETA – our D22 is in her last year at Rice, which is up to like $85K a year. And our S25 is at an in-state public (UWG), and we’re only paying $15K a year after the Hope scholarship. So I guess they average out to a reasonable amount combined? 
We’ll see where D26 lands. But yes, same story here – D22 is now applying to grad schools, so we will also have one in grad school and two in undergrad for the next 3-4 years.
We got D19 a credit card when she went to college, which she used to buy all college related stuff she needed. Anything that was “personal” she marked off the bill and I transferred funds for the rest into her account to pay it, but she’s pretty frugal so there was never a worry about her going wild. This had benefits of (1) us being able to track and keep records of all her college spending (also made reconciliation for the things that qualified for 529 spending a lot easier) and(2) she had a good credit score by the time she graduated, all with (3) not having to constantly ask us for money for stuff. There wasn’t a huge amount of points/cashback but we let her keep that for fun spending.
I didn’t really track airfares but at various times I have had a lot of points to use as well.
Planning on doing the same with C26 - who is historically not as frugal as their sister but has been noticeably trying to improve this (calendar) year. In any case will start with a pretty low limit.
Depending on the size of the architecture program - small/mid size programs will mostly have a single section of a course that all the students from that year will take together. Larger programs might have a couple of sections to break up to a more reasonable size. Then the student can fill in around that schedule for their gen-ed’s & electives.
That’s Tulane’s registration portal. You need to be an actual student to register but the portal to search is open to the public. As someone else said, every school is different on what they publish. “Online Course” is a Course Type.
We have managed the expenses slightly differently – all three kids have had their own credit cards, but on our account – since high school, just for the convenience. We pay for most reasonable expenses. DH has the card flagged to notify him every time S25 spends more than $20.
But when D22 went to college, she got her own credit card in addition – and she uses that for personal expenses that we haven’t agreed to pay for, like her just-for-fun flights to LA and Houston this summer, plus her impromptu trip to NYC to see a friend over fall break and see Hadestown again – which these same two had seen during spring break last year (Christmas present) – but now OMG NOW JACK WOLFE IS IN IT, MOM.
Yeah, that was on her own dime.
We have yet to let S25 get his own card, although we need to because he will call me to ask if he can go to Chipotle. Daily. 
We were initially surprised by online classes as well. S22 is at Bama and hasn’t had any. They do offer them, but seem to only be for distance students, not students who are taking in person classes for their degree. I’ve read some parents wondering how to get into an online just for scheduling purposes.
D24 is at UAH and she has had 1 online. It was the CAD class, so was fine really. But, we missed that in the course listing, so were surprised it was only offered online.
Both kids have found that some classes are in the catalog, but never actually offered. Central Michigan lists Chinese 1-3 in their catalog, but they aren’t actual classes in the course schedule, for example.
Also be sure to consider if tuition goes up after a certain number of credits. Engineering at U of Michigan goes up by $5400/year after 55 credits. And if you hit those with AP credits, that could mean 3 years at the higher rate.
If you have that many AP credits aren’t you likely graduating with fewer semesters? Maybe not always but part of the selling point of AP.
It depends. My son came in with a lot and they covered all the general ed credits, which was great. But, he started in Calc 1 and engineering has some long sequences. He could have cut off a semester, but that would be it. I wouldn’t count on cutting off a year or more in engineering.
D24 used her APs to get rid of math and science pre-reqs but that was only about 9 hours. Most of her other APs were in humanities but since she’s double majoring in history (along with business) and doing a minor in creative writing, she cant really use those APs.
Also, some kids prefer taking classes (that wouldve been satisfied by APs) if they feel they can ace it and boost their GPA.
It all depends.
Not just that, but some feel they’ll get a better grounding at college. I know someone who used AP for calculus 1 and regretted it, saying those who had done it at the college were noticeably better prepared for calc 2.
Yes. I agree. That’s why D24 only used it for her STEM classes that weren’t part of her major.
Im not sure if some colleges will let you use APs to get out of certain classes if that’s a foundation for your major (or related major).
This is very specific to the student and the school.
At some schools, first-year math and science classes like Calc 1 and 2 are “weed out” classes that are graded harshly on purpose, and it can be advantageous to skip them with AP or other credits if possible.
One way for a student to evaluate their readiness to take the next class in the sequence is to take a look at the syllabus, reading list, and past exams for the class they are considering skipping with AP credit.
This is a great idea and one I had not thought of.
D26 plans to take Calc in college despite a good AP score that may give her credit at most of the places she is applying. Because hearing that skipping Calc 1 may leave her ill prepared for 2. But she will be in a major that requires Calc, so may not be able to skip it anyway.
Our goal for AP credits is/was that it’s great if she get a a few so that she can do an abroad semester or double major without it meaning she has to take an overload of credits in other semesters to still graduate on time. But all of the above points give me pause to maybe think more on this.