<p>Well, that’s kind of her plan to - get out of dodge. She wants out of PA and really seems to like the Pacific Northwest so I don’t know what to think. </p>
<p>I have just signed her up for another shot at the SAT hoping she might be able to raise it a little to be competitive for some merit scholarships. She had not taken Algebra II the first time she took it so I am hoping that the math score will go up a little now. </p>
<p>Oh, yeah, Ek. I meant to tell you that we also went to Archie McPhee’s ( did I remember that correctly ) . My daughter said that if we had taken her there as a child her head would have exploded because there was sooooo much cool stuff to look at. LOL She did get a cute dead rubber duck.</p>
<p>If any one has specifc UBC or UVic or WWU questions, we have many friends and/or family members who either attend one, will be attending, have attended, etc., so could answer specifics, feel free to PM</p>
<p>Wow-Archie McPhee’s too! Way to go. My youngest absolutely loves that place, but it’s a bit of a haul to get to Ballard from our place.</p>
<p>I confess to being a long ago UW grad, so my input is meaningless. It’s big. REALLY big, and back in the day, all of my classes were, too. Not a good fit for me, but my only choice, so there you go. So far my children have chosen the path I wish I could have taken, but I digress. Oldest S has many friends, local kids, at UW and they are fine there; he visits when he is home on break and is amazed at how different their college world is from his. He also has a friend in UW honors with a music slant, his college life is much different from the main stream UW students.</p>
<p>Now for WWU - it really is up and coming. Bellingham has its own off beat style and charm and what a view! Not as exciting as Seattle, but that’s not so bad. Seattle and Vancouver aren’t that far away. The university is academically strong and getting stronger. We know kids there as well, and they love it; seem to appreciate the smaller community. The only in state school on my kids lists, (we thought they should include one!)</p>
<p>Great info Dogwood. We are still trying to put together a list for her to apply- I am glad we started early. I had really read a lot of good things about WWU- I was hoping it would be a good fit, butyou can’t force these things I guess. </p>
<p>I mentioned to sunsea in a PM that for any future visitors , I would recommend trying to set up a meeting with the department or activities you were interested in. Our tour just wasn’t very informative. We saw the outside of buildings with a very brief mention of what they were and a lot of the rec center. Great if you are into that, but my d isn’t. Not sure if it was our specific tour guide or the tours in general. Considering that the school is not that large , I think they could give a little bit more info.
Sadly, my d would love a large , somewhat anonymous college experience LOL Large classes, no interaction with professors. LOL</p>
<p>PA Mom–dislikes about UW range from large classes, through difficulty getting into a major, high costs for nearby apartments, and trouble getting the classes needed for graduation.</p>
<p>Pa mom- your comments that your daughter wants an anon college, did remind me of a friend of my mothers, who reportedly only showed for exams( at UW)
for some of his classes, apparently without much consequence to his GPA ( this was in the 50’s)</p>
<p>I would ask your D if she likes the UW for the UW or Seattle. The UW is as big as a lot of cities in our state. Class sizes are pretty large and if you ever wanted to be anonomous, that could be the place. Still alot of people want to go there and enjoy their experiences. I just wonder if your D may be confusing getting away to another city that she has to attend the U. </p>
<p>Seattle also has smaller colleges that would or could give her a great educational opportunity as well as the Seattle scene. Or even the schools in Tacoma, both of which are very good. As an OOS student, you’ll end up paying pretty much the same price to attend one of the local privates schools compared to the UW. The only difference is how many students do you want to be in class with for that price? 15-20 or 75-100? Which gives you the better educational opportunity for the buck?</p>
<p>Opie - I agree totally. I tried to make that point with my daughter as well. If you are in a big city with lots to do and other universities nearby, who cares how big your school is. It didn’t fly with her - she’s stubborn. She only wanted to look at the large schools. I think that’s part of the Art School resistance as well- most of those are rather small.
I think she’d like to be anonymous in most classes, but have the attention she wants in her major ideally LOL Plus I think she believes that the larger the university, the more likely that she will be able to meet people that she considers “her people” . Who knows what a 17 year old really thinks…I’m just glad that she is getting excited about going to college at all. LOL</p>
<p>You really can’t force these things, you’ve sure got that right! Having walked onto a campus or two with my 2 oldest and have them immediate say UGGGGHH! for no reason I could figure (seriously, D’s nose was wrinkled the whole time we toured a school most kids would consider sacrificing an arm to get into, bagged out after 15 as it was clear it was a waste of time). And that’s also why it’s good to start early.</p>
<p>Looks like you’re in for an interesting time. For some kids, the big school, more “impersonal” set up, really is the best fit.</p>
<p>"It didn’t fly with her - she’s stubborn. "</p>
<p>So she’s deciding without knowing huh? I might be tempted to turn the tables a bit on her. “her people” ? Does she like it when people look at her or even just look at her interests and “decide” without knowing? Is she doing what she dislikes about how people judge other people, but doing it herself when it comes to schools? Being stubborn vs. being open? </p>
<p>I’ll say this when the UW wined and dined my son back then. We picked him up a couple days later and man he was sold…it was for him, they were his “people”…yada yada yada. We just said, write it down, save it and make your mind up AFTER we visit a few more places… </p>
<p>Turns out his “people” were at alot of places and he found a school with 15 people per class, rather than 100 worked best for him. He’s had the college life most kids wish for. the “little …”. Sorry, dad envy. </p>
<p>We did this with our D as well and after all her visits, she chose one of her first places after looking at about 15 schools.</p>
<p>My family is more tied in to universities on the other side of WA state, but I still have to say that UW really is a great school. It’s funny, some kids want to be anonymous in many of their classes, yet 2 weeks into school how many threads are there on CC about kids being bored, not making any friends, etc? Even at a large school you have to narrow things down a bit and find a niche somewhere (like a group of art friends I guess) to make the place more personal.</p>
<p>I know what your saying opie - To be fair she did look at some smaller schools when I made her go along on big sisters tours last year, so she has seen some smaller campuses and concluded that they weren’t for her. She also attends a fairly large high school ( over 2000 students) so a school of 5000 or so wouldn’t seem very big to her. </p>
<p>She’ll hopefully come up with a good list over the next few months that suits both her and us. I didn’t mean to make her sound like such a brat LOL. Though she is stubborn…</p>
<p>My first daughter did exactly the same thing as your son- each school ( well after the first one that she really didn’t like) - she’d say “I like it, I can see myself here, I’m going here…” Oy yeah , and will you buy me the shirt LOL</p>
<p>Tuitiondad - I see exactly what you mean. I would hope that the dorm or art studio would be good places to make friends, but I can see how some would think that a large school would be great and then feel a little lost.</p>
<p>"She also attends a fairly large high school ( over 2000 students) so a school of 5000 or so wouldn’t seem very big to her. "</p>
<p>Daughters are daughters. Mine usually communicates via complaint to me, but she is a dear heart and good kid. </p>
<p>My kids attended a 2700 student HS, both are in LAC with around 1500-1800 kids. The size wasn’t as important in some ways other than above 10,000 students seemed a bit too big. However, Oregon State (22,000) was or seemed to be a great place, a city of kids. We also like U of A (35,000). Both have a big campus, but not ASU or UW huge. That 50,000 students range just seems so large to me. </p>
<p>Wish you luck in the process and While we’re not, we hear it’s great to be a Huskie. (go cougs, wildcats & bearcats)</p>
<p>PA Mom - My D was accepted to UW (from Ohio) and is trying to decide between UW and Indiana U -Bloomington. My brother lives in Seattle w/his family, and his wife is a WWU grad and Seattle native. D fell in love w/Seattle during our visits there, and all through HS wanted to apply to UW. We went out this past summer and toured and interviewed at Seattle U and toured UW. I am an IU grad, and I was overwhelmed by the size of UW. It was sooooo beautiful, but seemed impersonal to me even from the tour. But of course, she loved it. She didn’t apply to the honors program at UW, although I wished she would bc huge classes seem to be pretty much the norm there. At IU she got into Huttons Honor College (w/money) and a guarantee of at least a few small classes freshman year. But here we are almost to May 1st, and she cannot seem to decide. I feel ok about her being so far away since my brother is there. But it just seems so large, and we have heard so many tales of large classes and much difficulty w/registration and housing. Do any other posters know if pledging a sorority out there helps students (especially OOS kids) feel a little more sense of community? Is the Greek scene big? She is fairly undecided as to a major, leaning toward liberal arts, communications and political science type studies. I’m so afraid she’ll hate the anon feeling, although I’m certain she’ll love living in Seattle. IU is more managable size-wise, and they have done an outstanding job communicating with admitted students w/continued mailings. She just yesterday received the first mailing from UW since her acceptance/housing packet came in December. That didn’t help me much. I know how you feel PA Mom. It’s a hard school to get a good reading on. Any of you Pacific Northwest posters who care to share thoughts on UW or have any advice, I’d certainl appreciate it. Btw, she is a very outgoing kid, making friends comes easily to her, but I wonder if midwestern kids feel a little out of their element. Ugh!</p>
<p>Well, please keep us posted as that decision is coming very soon!
Our own state flagship u is quite large as well ( Penn State)and we know a lot of kids that love it there. In fact I’ve only met one that did not like it, and she transferred to an LAC and is now very happy. Unfortunately neither of my 2 kids is interested in Penn State (grrrr).</p>
<p>Mother of UW freshman here. . S always wanted a large school preferably in a city. He started taking classes at WSU his junior year, almost all of them were large, but it never seemed to faze S. On the other hand he decided to apply to the Honors program, and that’s where he ultimately found “his people” . Making the decision was hard, but in the end it was the right one.
PA Mom, we’ve lived in State College until S’s sophomore year in HS and absolutely loved the place. The great majority of S’s friends from middle school are at PSU now. :)</p>
<p>UW is certainly big enough that you can get lost there. I have a niece (from Hawaii!) who went there, lived in a dorm, and really had some trouble getting going on the social side a good portion of the first year. She said that quite often she was the only person left on her floor on a weekend because everybody else went home on weekends. A large portion of the student population is from the general Seattle area and they do head home quite often for weekends. She eventually did find her group to hang out with and graduated a couple years ago, but it wasn’t what she expected when she started out.</p>
<p>S decided to go for the Honors housing in the freshman dorm. It worked great for him. Some of the kids are from Seattle area, but there are lots from other places, so plenty of company on weekends.</p>
<p>I posted here yesterday, but didnt find my post today. Anyway, we went to see UW and WWU and decided to send our d and OOS money to WWU. We went on Friday, it was a sunny day. Students were out and about. Both campuses are beautiful, a lot of sculptures and fountains in the central area. But WWU seems to have much more open space since its not in the middle of a city, the classrooms were modern and much cleaner. Since we saw a UW first, our d said she could see herself there. Then we went to WWU and it was just a better fit. It feels like a college town, with 13K students its not too big or too small, and much smaller class sizes and access to professors instead of TA, D liked it better. We saw six dorms and ate at students union and the coffee shop and students seem to be very friendly. Many were actually studying. My concern was we were the only people on the tour from OOS but D says she doesnt care. She actually spoke to some students we saw in the dorms and asked questions, and she almost never speaks unless spoken to or she needs something. I think WWU is a quality school and a great deal for in state students.</p>
I might be tempted to turn the tables a bit on her. “her people” ? Does she like it when people look at her or even just look at her interests and “decide” without knowing? 
Is she doing what she dislikes about how people judge other people, but doing it herself when it comes to schools? Being stubborn vs. being open?