Choosing a university in the USA

[glatt]

I think a big part of it is probably the ritual. Cracking one open is the signal that it's time to relax. I go days or even a week or so without drinking, and don't even think about it. It's not an issue. But then there are times that I'm looking forward to that glass of wine. Or someone mentions having a glass of wine and I hadn't been thinking about it but it sounds real good once they say it.

Anyway, back to colleges.

We stopped by Cornell when we were in Ithaca. Walked around a bit and tried to point things out to the kids to get them thinking about what it will be like to be in college. Cornell is all stone and slate roofs, so I referred to it a couple times as Hogwarts, and the kids perked up a bit at that. We went in the bookstore and in the art museum and snack bar. My dad was a post-doc there for a year or so, and my father-in-law is an alum, so we planted the seed that it was a place our family had a connection to, not just a random school. Hopefully it got them thinking. I also told them the price, and my boy didn't care, but my girl was amazed college was that expensive.

[monster]

Originally Posted by monster

NFI. She likes Latin. And Spanish. She has a 3.9something and letters of interest from colleges with swim teams no-one has ever heard of. Well I haven't. Not Ivy league anyway. Although she's actually more noted in Water Polo circles, but they don't recruit in the same way, especially up here because cali is the center of all things WP. Does that help?

Originally Posted by monster

Thanks guys. We'll certainly be road-tripping, but I just have no idea what's good and what's not. Is it really not that big a deal as long as you get a degree?

So.... I really was very, very clueless when I started this thread. I'm getting better.

I now know which schools are the Ivy League schools (that was a throw-away hignoramus comment before) ...I learned that Stanford is in California and is not one of them! I learned that a 3.9+ GPA is actually very good -good enough to consider Ivy League. Sorry for being such a wazzock before, I truly had no idea. And I learned that the ridiculous tuitions fees of the top universities are not actually what students end up paying because many get Financial Aid, not just the folk who qualify for free lunches. And that the big$$ universities often have big endowments so have more scholarships to offer.

So it turns out our first road trip will be to look at Harvard because they have a D1 Women's Water Polo Team and have been soliciting her academically after she took the ACT. Which is awesome but also very scary. But nothing to lose, right? Right? it is times like this when I kind of get homesick because I knew how it worked there and then.... but of course the whole water polo thing (and the swimming thing) wouldn't even be a consideration.....

interesting times.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Send your kid to Harvard? I guess you'll be a snob then and we'll be lucky to have you visit. Just kidding Monster, that's great news she's having these opportunities. Or should I say earning these opportunities.

[limey]

How it worked then here is not how it works now here. Good luck and remember, as my old uni department head said: "If all you've done while you're here is study hard and got a good degree, I shall be disappointed!".


Sent by thought transference

[wolf]

Pick a school based on two factors.

1. How do the school colors go with my complexion and usual wardrobe choices?

2. Travel time, difficulty, and cost.

Cost of the degree isn't as much of a factor. All college costs ridiculous money these days.

Outside of her current choice of major, what are her interests? Pick baseed on that. Everywhere has languages and she'll change her major at least twice before graduation.

[monster]

She applied early to her back-up and just learned she's in (Michigan State)

Harvard early decision app goes in next week

then the rest in a few weeks. She has to decide her second choice this weekend (because the deadline for getting her SAT subject test results sent to them without extra charge is Monday). 3rd choice is U of Mich. I think she plans to apply to one more

After talking to her counsellor, she figured she needs to apply to Liberal Arts colleges with Water polo teams and good school spirit

We're being called fairly regularly by a D3 water polo coach which is incredibly flattering, but unfortunately the school is not particularly well rated academically

This is expensive. She knows my credit card number by heart. $15 to send ACT results here $3 to send transcript there.... then the application fees are $50-$75 each. nuts.

She took her SAT subject tests last weekend (then we drove like a bat out of hell to get her to an important swim meet where she arrived just in the nick of time for her event (and got another state cut) This is loony tunes.


Limey, how is it different now? They don't apply to 5 through the clearing house and accept 2 any more? Are there fees now?


the thing I find horribly different is I chose based on my major and then how the grades they typically wanted matched my projected grades. It was a double major and only a few universities offered it, so that narrowed it down easily. here/now you don't have to know your major. It helps if you know you want to be an engineer or a doctor, but if you have no idea, that's fine.....

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by monster

This is expensive. She knows my credit card number by heart. $15 to send ACT results here $3 to send transcript there.... then the application fees are $50-$75 each. nuts.

You're right, it is nuts but be aware, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

One Cellar member, I think it was Seakdiver, said her husband wrote the book for the courses he teaches and of the one hundred and fifty odd dollars the students pay for it he gets like three bucks. But I've read most of the text books can be found as a PDF online.

Of course books are just one small expense but it all helps. I wish I'd sold my books to somebody when I graduated. They take up space in the attic, after being moved several times, and never been opened since 1964.

Oh, and congratulations on Michigan State to her mermaid-ness.

[Griff]

I got a couple text books out last week, but I had kept those intentionally and sold back most of the rest.

Congrats on #3 hoping for #1!

My girls are quite happy at the moment. Small liberal arts for #2 professional school for #1. Both are currently comfortable in the environments they chose. Neither wanted the big school culture.

[monster]

I kept my textbooks because I'm a hoarder. I bet I couldn't even give them away to an arsonist now.

Her mermaidness is liking the big school feel I think. That's why she's having trouble with her 2nd choice(s) -because most schools that fit the liberal arts/polo/rahrahrah criteria are pretty small

[Griff]

Any on the left coast?

[DanaC]

@ Monster - You still apply via UCAS to I think 6 institutions at a time and they then pass the apps to the individual universities. And the clearing system still works the same way I think, if you don't have get the required grades for your original offers and so on.

The biggest changes since you left are the increase in fees and the changes to the grants and loan system. Things have got a lot more monetized and students are much more 'customers' than before. Also, the polytechnics and so forth have all been turned into universities so there isn't the corresponding PCAS application alongside UCAS (that might have been before you left?).

The drive to get 50% of school leavers to university (stupid fucking idea) has led to an increase in non-academic 'degrees' - or rather the academicising of previously non-acedemic subjects like hotel catering - and the devaluing of degrees - so jobs that used to require A-levels now require degrees, and many employers who used to employ people with a BA now look for a post grad - similarly, whereas a 2:1 or a 2:2 would get you into graduate employments nowadays you really need a 1st for a lot of those starter graduate jobs.

[monster]

yeah pcas died long before left. I think it died before I went to uni -they had certainly changed all the polys to "metropolitan ubiversities" and similar tosh, so it's not really all that different, just "dumbed down" same as here where you need a McDegree to get a job flipping burgers these days

[xoxoxoBruce]

Now businesses don't want to pay people while they train them, and won't hire untrained people. Catch-22.

Well there's no money to be made with high school level trade schools, but if we expand colleges, especially community, technical and online colleges, to give McDegrees, we can;
1- Make them pay for their training.
2- Make money training them.
3- Hire the now trained graduates.
4- Make them pay us back the money we loaned them for school... plus interest.

But at least all those professors we hire to train them are doing well.
Um... no. Mostly associate professors, non-tenure track, and unless it's a big name school, making less per hour than the kid who cooked your burger at lunch.
What a country.

[monster]

she just learned she got deferred from Harvard. (this means they didn't say yes but they didn't say no either and will reconsider her with the regular pool) :/

[Clodfobble]

Bummer.