<p>Momofwildchild…yes…the BU dorms (all of them) are FAR better than “THE DORM” which is truthfully the most dreadful housing I’ve ever seen at a college. AND the worst part is freshmen are required to live in it. Pitiful. I’m sure someone who has a child attending NEC could have posted this as “their” one thing wrong with their kid’s college. Or maybe there is someone out there who loves that dorm!!</p>
<p>Edad…we got to tour a dorm room…It was in The Towers. Everyone I know who toured BU saw a room in the Towers…don’t know why that would not have been included on your tour.</p>
<p>UCLA dad: that is so weird…why does each UC have such different policies and even different coverage. My D at Cal had the removal of her wisdom teeth covered whilst the UCI one had no dental coverage at all. You would think they could get a great group rate with ALL the campuses on the same plan. How looney is that to have to waive the insurance all quarters!! We don’t have a great plan personally, so the plan at the school is important, especially for an athlete!</p>
<p>Yes - I was surprised by the UCLA process since we were used to the UCSD process. I actually called the office to confirm it and stated my opinion (in a reasonably nice way) about what I thought about it. I’m convinced they’re making money off of the USHIP and are therefore making it as inconvenient as possible to waive out. I agree - it seems that it’d make a lot more sense for something as administrative as this to be common to the UCs or even the UC/CalState system.</p>
<p>Let me add to the subject of BU dorms. The elevators in Warren Towers, which house about 1700 freshman, break down regularly. Temperature in the dorm rooms can vary widely.</p>
<p>A plus for parents, but a negative for the kids, is BU’s guest policy. After certain hours, guests must have passes, sign in, etc. Puts a crimp in some kids’ love lives.</p>
<p>When I asked my daughter what she doesn’t like about Swarthmore, that’s the only thing she could come up with. Not that the food is bad, but that it gets boring.</p>
<p>She also says that Swarthmore would not be a good school for:</p>
<p>a) Someone who doesn’t care to routinely spend time getting the work done </p>
<p>b) Someone who, for whatever reason, believes that not getting an “A” will mean the end of the world as we know it.</p>
<hr>
<p>That’s from her perspective. From a parent’s perspective, my only serious complaint is that the students have not voted to abolish the last two remaining fraternities. They should have given them the boot at the same time they voted to abolish the sororities 65 years ago. IMO, the college administration does not come down hard enough on the antics of the few remaining frat boys (about 5% of the campus). </p>
<p>My daughter disagrees with me. She figures that there would be a few drunks with or without the frats, so the frats provide a service by keeping the drunks mostly contained and that, even among the frat boys, it’s only a small percentage that cause trouble.</p>
<p>Which reminds me of another area of disagreement. My daugher feels the local police are intrusive when they park a cruiser next to an all-campus party. She says it’s intimidating. I say “good”. I applaud that little bit of deterrance – as long as you can walk home from the party without acting like Otis the Town Drunk, the police won’t bother you. Kind of like the real world. My theory is that the visible police deterrence is quietly encouraged by the college administrators.</p>
<p>I hate that the tests cover material that is not discussed in class, so the percentage correct of even the class geniuses is low. Sure, we’ll cover the definition of the triangle inequality in class…and then we’ll be asked to <em>prove</em> a crazy variation of it on the midterm. I am frazzled at the moment, not knowing if I did well or not… My friend, who is taking another section of the class (same level), got a percentage correct that it much lower than mine – and received a very good grade. But I know the students in my class are working like mad, as am I (so my friend’s and my classes are not comparable), and I just feel like I did poorly. I wish I could just understand the questions on the test and know when I am doing well or not.</p>
<p>I’m glad that at USC, you can opt out of the health insurance before the semseter begins & have the waiver for the entire year. As I recall, you have quite a while to opt out–I waived as soon as I found the correct form posted on their website & had no problems.
It would be a pain to have to waive every quarter, especially if they made you buy the insurance if you missed the deadline.
Our insurance is great & we told them we don’t want theirs. Everyone has to pay the Student Health Center fee, but at least we could waive easily out of the additional student health insurance.</p>
<p>The issue of student health insurance policies is intriguing – my daughter was offered a supplemental health plan (optional) that seemed too good to be true in terms of the cost, at least compared to what I was paying for premiums for her regular policy. So I opted to buy the student health plan and to increase the deductible for the regular policy, which gives her better combined coverage for far less, since the student policy will cover the amounts reached that are below the deductible. </p>
<p>That wasn’t the case at my son’s first college, where the costs for student health insurance were much higher. And at my son’s current college, after he looked at the student health policy, he decided that it was so poor that he opted to buy himself a separate individual policy from Blue Cross, which costs less and gives more coverage. He was concerned because language in the school policy seemed to exclude coverage for any illness or injury that was related to alcohol use – since my son is 23 that seemed like an untenable loophole, especially on a college campus. (He’s not a heavy drinker, but he figured that if he fell and injured himself after drinking only a couple of beers, the wording of the policy would give the insurance company an excuse not to pay). After reading the policy, I agreed.</p>
<p>So I guess it’s important for parents to read the policies offered by the schools carefully – in some cases it can be a good value, but obviously in other cases its a waste of money and students would be better off maintaining other coverage.</p>
<p>Yes, it IS a good idea to read & compare policy options carefully so there are no nasty surprises & no unnecessary double-coverage. In our case, it was pretty clear that our BC/BS family policy with its low deductible works well & allows our kids to see all the docs we want them to see (in HI, CA & wherever else we choose) with no hassles. The college insurance policy doesn’t look bad & we may opt to use it down the road, after comparing the other options available to him.</p>
<p>A friend who just took his 3rd kid to college (& now has all 3 at different colleges at the same time), found out the hard way that Kaiser insurance can be very limiting & unhelpful during emergency situations. His D was at TCU & needed emergency treatment–of course she ended up with all non-Kaiser providers. They ended up with a TON of medical bills that are taking a lot of time & resources to resolve. He bought the USC health insurance for the fall to supplement his Kaiser family policy, in the event that his S has a medical emergency & is taken to a non-Kaiser provider (tho there is supposed to be a Kaiser facility near USC). Our insurer covers the service our S received from the docs at the USC medical school.</p>
<p>That brings up one other thing to check – which doctors/hospitals your kid can see on their own policy. The one advantage of a college health plan is that you know the kid can get care from whatever hospitals the college typically works with – in an emergency, there may not be much of an opportunity to shop for doctors.</p>
<p>Also, make sure that your insurance company knows that the kid will be at college. My daughter has Blue Shield – they required her to provide a copy of her course schedule, certified by a school official, and made it clear that she can maintain the current policy only while she is in school full time. It is kind of unusual, because she has an individual policy – as a single parent, it was less expensive for me to have separate policies for myself and each child than a family policy. (I also had to get written permission from my daughter to make changes to the policy on her behalf, as soon as she turned 18)</p>
<p>It’s also important to check your child’s insurance if the child will be traveling for school or doing a term abroad. Some insurers are pretty good about covering wherever the individual is while others are a lot more restrictive. </p>
<p>Our BC/BS family policy says that children under 22 must be full-time students to retain coverage but no where in the policy does it state this. They said they get requests to have students submit proof of full-time enrollment from time to time, but to me it makes no sense that they are insisting this term exists as it does NOT state the requirement of being a full-time student ANYWHERE in the policy. Since my kids have always been full-time students, I have never bothered to challenge them…yet.</p>
<p>Yeah, I was impressed with him too – He had previously had insurance with his job, but when he went back to school he let that drop, and I had been telling him he could just buy insurance through the college. After he decided that wouldn’t do, he called me and went over all the different plans available from Blue Cross and maybe a couple of other companies. So we had a rather long arduous conversation going through all the different pricing plans/coverages until he settled on the best one for his needs.</p>
<p>Have any of your children complained that college is a little too easy, or that courses and their requirements are more juvenile and “high school” than what they would have expected?</p>
<p>TheGFG, my son has not complained about his courses being too easy. He did use AP credits to jump ahead with math and physics, so that may be part of it. My only complaint about Dartmouth is that I don’t really like the D Plan. For those who may not know, Dartmouth has a mandatory summer term for all sophomores. That’s fine, but it means that they take a different term off, either in sophomore or junior year. It is causing a little trouble for my son, because he insisted on taking this winter off. Ideally, he could get an internship, but as a sophomore, he is not as marketable as a junior.</p>
– Yes, my son, who has transferred to a CSU after a 3 year hiatus from school. His advanced level courses are interesting, but he has some introductory courses that he need to take for his major or for school core requirements that are driving him nuts with boredom. He went to one prof and begged to be allowed to do an independent research paper just to make the class more interesting, and the prof turned him down. I think this is a combination of my son ending up at a college that is far less selective than where he started out, and his age + work experience. He has signed up for a heavy course load (I think 5 classes) and is also working half-time… and still he is finding himself underchallenged. But he seems confident that things will be better once he gets these basic courses out of the way.</p>
<p>This is a problem of my son’s making, since he slacked off at his first college, leaving himself with a GPA too weak to transfer into a competitive school… . but as a parent I do feel frustrated to see him in that situation when his sister now has the advantage of a college with a high level of challenge and available courses and resources.</p>
– He had previously had insurance with his job, but when he went back to school he let that drop, and I had been telling him he could just buy insurance through the college. After he decided that wouldn’t do, he called me and went over all the different plans available from Blue Cross and maybe a couple of other companies. So we had a rather long arduous conversation going through all the different pricing plans/coverages until he settled on the best one for his needs.</p>