I meant to say that Columbia students can be found on Barnard campus facilities (as well as their side of the street).
The point is simply that the partner campuses are strongly integrated. I think the bigger differentiating factor is the different administration – when my daughter was at Barnard, there was a close & cordial relationship between the college President & students, and my daughter developed close relationships over time with various Deans, as well as with individual faculty members and her faculty advisers. Columbia students simply didn’t have anything closely resembling that.
I think that’s an important and typically overlooked consideration at any college, actually: the respective roles and relationships of school administration, faculty, & students.
Smith overnight scheduled for the end of November. I’m kind of hoping that she’ll come home from that wanting to ED to Smith, because conversation is pointing towards Smith being the best fit.
Love all the live commentary! With Wellesley and Agnes Scott off the list, and Barnard a solid maybe and Smith looking great (and I think Mount Holyoke still in the mix?), any chance she would reconsider Bryn Mawr? It ticks a lot of her boxes, if she can get around the course titles in the catalog…
My guess is that the close relationship with Haverford would be a bug, not a feature, in her eyes.
After a year of “I want to keep my options open,” she’s now doing a lot more “if this school isn’t the best place for me, I want to move on.” She’s someone for whom the process is as important as the decision, and I think the process is not currently at a “reassessing other options” point.
I’ll keep it in mind if she starts looking for more schools to add, though!
@allyphoe, I’m chiming in her only to say how much I appreciate you recording your process these last months. Can’t wait to see how it all pans out. Thanks again!
Kid has a random day off school next week. Smith had one overnight spot that same night. Parents could both get time off work. Fingers crossed that Smith is just as enjoyable on revisit!
People talk about the non-credit senior year class called College Applications. No one really talks about the one called Becoming a Person.
Brainstorming session resulted in a promising essay plan. Kid worried it was unacceptably unconventional. I showed her the Stanford #BlackLivesMatter guy. “Admissions wants to know who you are. Does this tell them who you are?” “Yes, better than anything else could.” There you go, kiddo.
FAFSA done, CSS Profile done, got the IDOC invite but haven’t set that up yet. Re-ran the Smith NPC with “official” numbers. That process went more smoothly than I’d anticipated.
In case anyone is interested in financial aid timelines (relevant to me because Smith has a published “if you don’t meet the financial aid deadlines, you have to go 2 years with no institutional aid; be sure and leave enough time for IDOC to go through, too” policy):
Fri 10/25: W-2s and tax returns processed by IDOC, Smith Aid Application submitted and processed by IDOC
Sat 10/26: all data available to school
Mon 10/28: Smith Aid Application processed by school (this gets processed by IDOC as "other," and a person appears to manually link the document to the request. The automated stuff can happen over a weekend or at night, but this step happens during business hours)
Note that you can’t access the Smith financial aid portal for applicants to check on any unmet requirements until the student submits their application. Before that, the IDOC dashboard is the only way to know if you’re done.
Soup dumplings at Oriental Taste in Northampton: not as good as Dumpling House in Cambridge, far better than the place near Barnard, an easy walk from the Smith campus. Everything else we had was also delicious!
Info session was the admissions person and us, so no generic advice to share. Kid is planning to drop a class (because she bit off more than she could chew this year) and they said to mention it in the interview and in the additional info section of the Common App, but that no one was going to hold it against her given the rigor of her remaining schedule.
I did the tour; last year kid did the tour and parents did not. Campus is beautiful! A cool breezy overcast fall day really suits it. Dorm portion of the tour was Cushing. The living room looked cozy and comfortable. Students were tucked into quiet corners all over the common areas. Dining room is open 24/7, with a fruit bowl and drink dispensers accessible. The shared bathroom is enormous and airy and bright and spotlessly clean, the hallway is wide with high ceilings. The tour guide’s single was unremarkable.
Getting classes is not a problem. Preregister for more classes than you plan to keep, and use drop add to figure out what you really want to take. Professors are generally willing to make room for one more. Intro classes really are suitable for people with no prior background, even if the topic is one that many people have exposure to in high school. Administration and professors are very receptive to student input and requests.
Kid comments from the overnight so far: “I think it’s basically like a lot of people with a similar temperament to me.” “[The house she’s staying in] looks really comfy and warm.” Also, dining hall dinner was really good, which was a concern - she’s hard to feed when stressed, and said that if she couldn’t eat there on the overnight that she couldn’t go there for school. Fortunately for everyone, it was pasta night!
Assuming no calamity in the next 18 hours, I think Smith will be it.
Things you only learn by doing: my kid does not like being a guest. (This is something I actually should have been able to predict. Oops. Not that it would have mattered, though.)
Lack of late night food is a big thing. At home, she usually eats breakfast at 7, snack at 10, lunch at 12:30, early dinner at 3:30 and late dinner at 9. Smith weekday meals (assuming willingness to travel for food) are breakfast 7am-11am, lunch 11:15 to 1:30, dinner 5:30-8:30. It’s a long time between the end of lunch and the start of dinner, and not really enough time between the start and end of dinner to make it into two meals. Grab-n-go (exchange a token for a reusable take out container) and the “bring your own Tupperware to take food back to your room,” which are both officially suggested as ways to get food outside of dining hall hours, should work for her as a student but it makes for hungry guests.
This morning it’s pouring rain and her morning class was unexpectedly cancelled via notice on the classroom door. Alas.
@Dancingmom518 “You might not get a single as a first year” was a comment we heard both from the admissions office person and the tour guide. My kid wants a roommate, which is unusual, apparently. But there are a lot of singles, enough that after first year anyone who wants one can get one.
I think she’ll have a better assessment once we’re back home. Fortunately we have another two weeks for her to decide.
If not Smith, I suspect Mount Holyoke. The 7:15am-4pm, 5pm-midnight dining hall hours are really a selling point. But Northampton is so much more of a town than South Hadley is. Personality wise, I think she’d do well at either.
@allyphoe If she is concerned about eating between meals, she will also have the option of having a refrigerator in her room, where she can store snacks. Maybe that will help.
Also, I think there will be a lot of adjustments for all of our kids when they head off to college, where the schedule will be different from what they are used to in high school. When I was in college back in the Dark Ages, I don’t remember anyone being up and eating breakfast at 7 a.m. LOL.
Northampton definitely has options for food (to buy) until late at night - go out, get delivery, whatever. MoHo has a few restaurants in town but I bet none open late. Both have free bus service to most any grocery store.
Grab n Go is a great option, D used it often at her school. Between that and a fridge with the basics, I think she’ll be able to eat late. I love that they actually encourage kids to bring a container and take food to go!
Apparently on weekdays Cushing House dining hall is open until 9:30.
Cushing late night is currently listed as Friday-Saturday on the website.
We parents think she will be totally fine. I even suggested that because Smith is not the most expensive school we agreed was affordable, that there could be a late night snack budget provided by our resources rather than hers, which would mean she could get a 3am Local Burger if she really wanted one (and South Hadley has no 3am burgers, and 3am burgers and Insomnia Cookies were both an unfortunate staple in her summer-in-Boston diet).
She will definitely have a mini fridge, and will probably request a house with a full kitchen. The kitchenettes are a sink and a microwave in a room the size of a large closet, which works great for heating up and rinsing out your Grab and Go, but not so well when you’ve perfected the art of ramen with egg.
Post interview, she has the biggest smile. She went and hung out in the Red Room in the Campus Center beforehand, because she finds that space really cozy and relaxing. Interviewer gave her the inside info on late night eating and picking a house. Turns out her host was vegetarian and took her to the vegetarian dining hall - which she’d said to us before that she hoped she hadn’t had to find something to eat in - and the food there was great. They talked for an hour and I could hear her laughter across the building.
The rain boots that were a hassle in the airport were the best thing for rainy puddly today. I picked the dry spots in my shoes and she waded through the deep spots. She enthused over all the red-leaved trees; at home we mostly have yellow and orange.