Student Needs Advice from College Parents

Chai_Kovsky
Fri, 21 Nov 2008 23:20:49 +0000

Derek–Thank you for the advice. I’m not very worried about acceptance to St. John’s; I wrote solid essays that clearly reflect my interest in the school and my numbers are fine. The question of whether students go to graduate school isn’t much of a concern, though when I talked to my mom today she thought the 81% that went was a pretty impressive stat. It’s more where the students go and what proportion go on to top schools. FinAid seems close to out of the question since our EFC will likely be high. The question in the family is not whether we can afford to pay, because we can pretty well, but whether it is prudent to do so given my free education here.

NSM–Although I know well the virtues of Deep Springs, it’s not quite as good a fit for a number of reasons: while my numbers are fine for St. John’s, if I recall Deep Springs is hypercompetitive in that regard. Also, the transfer required after the Deep Springs program would be a logistical nightmare. If I transfer, better just to do it once.

Ellemenope–There’s no functional difference between the NM and MD campuses. The MD campus is over three hundred years old, while the NM is maybe 40, but the curriculum is the same and many students transfer between campuses. There are some differences within the culture of each campus, but largely they’re the same.

Starbright–I looked into the tuition exchange, but it’s St John’s UNIVERSITY, not St. John’s College, that does tuition exchange. One is a basketball school in NY, the other is an LAC.