College tour time

[tractor]

Well, it starts again today as I sit in a hotel room with my youngest planning on spending the day touring a prospective college. He will be a HS senior next year and I'm trying to open his eyes to the world of higher education. He's doing great in HS, but I'm hoping this will motivate him to push through his last year and finish strong.

We have three visits scheduled so far, and I hope he find one or two more he would like to check out. Anyone else starting to take their kids out into the college/University world?

[alabamagal]

Good luck!

I Am on the other end of the journey. Youngest graduates May 5. The end o 8 years of 1 or 2 kids in college (I have 3). One year 1 had one finishing, one starting third year and one starting first year.

[Deleted]

I'm a year or two out from tours, but I'd like to hear how it goes for you and what you look for.  The tour thing is new to me, college choice for me was easy, the one 6 blocks away from my house was where I went. 

[busymom]

Best wishes!  We drove DD all over the place to look at colleges.  (The furthest trip was a college 7 hours away.)  It was exhausting, but always interesting to see the different campuses.  Try & enjoy the tours, & keep in mind how complicated it'll be to get your college student home for Christmas & Spring break.  

[janee]

We don't have kids but we are hosting my brother in law and niece tonight as they come to look at colleges. She's been accepted and now checking them all out a little more thoroughly.

My BIL likes being around us because I ask questions and the typically the kids open up--he learns more that way!  One time he nudged me at the dinner table and said under his breath "keep going".  He said later he learned more about his daughter's school trip at our dinner table than he had when she returned home.  I guess parents are on a need to know basis

Good luck with the tours and enjoy!

[giramomma]

I don't know how much touring we'll do.

DH and I don't believe in applying to 9 different schools. (3 reach, 3 good, 3 just in case.)

My parents did take me on tour of a college. It was a nice little family vacation. Didn't matter, because the college was too expensive, per MY standards. My parents were supportive of whatever I chose.

I applied to two schools, both instate, one good, one just in case. DH applied to one reach and one just in case that happened to also be good.

We'll limit the schools our kids will apply to/tour. Given how lazy DS can be, I don't think he'll put up much of a fight about it. He's already thinking he wants a smaller school and he wants to stay close to family. He wants to be a small business owner for now..so he doesn't need one of the top 10 business schools in the country so that he can go to IVY League for MBA.

[teen persuasion]

Kid #4 just went back after spring break - he got word that he'll be working summer  orientation, so we were talking about how to give tours.  The ones I found most interesting were when the guide had great stories to tell in the walks between points of interest.  DS4 said he saw a tour guide on his campus recently, taking the group thru a boring hallway, pointing out each lame entrance to a classroom (but not explaining the much more useful lesser-known side entries to aud style rooms DS4 discovered).

Useful knowledge we learned or asked about usually revolved around dorm life - free laundry facilities or pay, free on campus printing vs pay/page, tunnels to connect to academic spines vs need for winter gear daily, elevators in dorms, kitchen facilities in dorms, floor bathrooms vs in-suite or in-room, WiFi specs and network connections, shuttle schedule and off campus trips, meal plan quirks (swipes vs dining dollars, use/lose vs buybacks, rollovers).

[973beachbum]

We toured about 6 or 7 schools.  She ended up applying to almost the schools that we toured.  Applications don't have to cost anything too.  She got a free application from most schools. 

The only school that didn't do that was the local state school.  They were $75.  That was her one safety school.

The reason for so many schools was more about financial aid than some dream of a private school experience.  Unless you apply you don't know what aid you will get to compare it to the other schools.  And the  private schools were much more generous than I thought they would be considering our income.  The private school she ended up choosing was actually $300 a year less than the local public college after aid. 

[Annie7]

We are in the midst of it for DS2 who will also be a senior next year. Did UPenn in Sept when DS1 was here during his college break. Went to DC area to tour JHU and Georgetown in Nov. Going to Atlanta (Georgiatech) and NC (Duke and UNC) during spring break. Still have a few more on our list to tour. He's interested in BioMed Engineering.

We did some of these with DS1 but of course 5 years ago DS2 was a bored kid who was dragged along. Now he's interested. I think going and seeing the campus is valuable if you can do it. DS2 didn't like Georgetown, but liked JHU while DS1 had loved Georgetown.

DS1 applied early to Princeton and got in. He had applied to the instate one and since they have rolling admissions, he had gotten in with full ride. He also applied to a couple more like Harvard and Wharton after getting into Princeton. He was waitlisted in one and got in the other but finally chose Princeton. He graduates in May.

I think applying to 5-6 colleges makes sense for my kids.

[Deleted]

I don't anticipate we'll be touring a lot of schools.  Maybe 2 or 3 outside of the 2 in town that we know pretty well already.  We're not looking out of state and there is so much info online that I think we'll have narrowed it down quite a bit by the time it comes to tours.

[alabamagal]

Mar 31, 2017 9:27:03 GMT -5 Annie7 said:

We are in the midst of it for DS2 who will also be a senior next year. Did UPenn in Sept when DS1 was here during his college break. Went to DC area to tour JHU and Georgetown in Nov. Going to Atlanta (Georgiatech) and NC (Duke and UNC) during spring break. Still have a few more on our list to tour. He's interested in BioMed Engineering.

We did some of these with DS1 but of course 5 years ago DS2 was a bored kid who was dragged along. Now he's interested. I think going and seeing the campus is valuable if you can do it. DS2 didn't like Georgetown, but liked JHU while DS1 had loved Georgetown.

DS1 applied early to Princeton and got in. He had applied to the instate one and since they have rolling admissions, he had gotten in with full ride. He also applied to a couple more like Harvard and Wharton after getting into Princeton. He was waitlisted in one and got in the other but finally chose Princeton. He graduates in May.

I think applying to 5-6 colleges makes sense for my kids.

Go Jackets!  The campus is not the prettiest, right off the interstate in downtown Atlanta.  When I lived there my dorm was literally on the exit ramp of the interstate!  They upgraded the campus for the '96 Olympics so no more housing projects right off campus.  If you are interested in engineering or computer science, it is a great place to be!  I graduated from school of Chemical Engineering, which is now Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, so will say it is top level school.

I could not get any of my kids to go there .  And really with what the chose, they were better off at other schools.  

[busymom]

One thing to be aware of, when comparing costs, is some of the universities will "fee" you to death, whereas the private colleges have a lot of stuff for free.  One example is, the college DD ended up attending had much cheaper student parking (had she brought a car--which she didn't) AND the laundry room was free to use for students.  She also had free use of the college printer each semester, I think it was up to 500 printed pages.  All those little expenses can add up.  


You've heard this here before, but I'll mention it again:  DD's student aid brought the total cost of private college so far down, that it was cheaper for her to attend there, compared to the best nearby state college.  It can happen!  

[giramomma]

Mar 31, 2017 9:13:26 GMT -5 973beachbum said:

We toured about 6 or 7 schools.  She ended up applying to almost the schools that we toured.  Applications don't have to cost anything too.  She got a free application from most schools. 

The only school that didn't do that was the local state school.  They were $75.  That was her one safety school.

The reason for so many schools was more about financial aid than some dream of a private school experience.  Unless you apply you don't know what aid you will get to compare it to the other schools.  And the  private schools were much more generous than I thought they would be considering our income.  The private school she ended up choosing was actually $300 a year less than the local public college after aid. 

We'll see how it goes for aid.  Our income works for us, but our assets works against us. As a lark, I put in DS being a 18  yo and going to college, and his EFC for Institution was 20K and ours was 35K, based on a close estimate of our numbers and going to private school costing 20K/year in tuition alone. I just don't see how private colleges are going to give us non-merit based scholarships if our EFC is 55K between DS and us.

But, we haven't started looking at colleges, either. So I could be surprised.

[alabamagal]

Actually, we never really did any college tours prior to our kids applying to schools.  We did some drive bys of my alma mater (Georgia Tech) when kids were growing up, and I took my youngest to some basketball games there.

My kids were eligible for HOPE scholarship in GA (full tuition scholarship at the time), so they knew if they wanted to go somewhere else, they would have to match that offer

For oldest, we did chose schools based on her intended major.  She was accepted to all 3.  One of the schools was a private school and she was asked to interview for the honors program (plus additional scholarship money).  So we went for that.  She did not get honors, but got offer to reduce paid tuition from $28k to $5k.  We did go visit the school she ended up going to (full tuition offer but out of state) during her senior year, it was only 2 hours from home.

Older DS applied to one state school and the school DD went to.  He had full tuition offer at both.  He chose state school, and he was offered to interview for honors program, so we visited to interview for that.  Didn't get it but got $500 more.

Second DS applied to all state schools, and ended up at the one his brother went to (2 years ahead of him), so no need to visit, he had seen the school multiple times.

[Deleted]

Mar 31, 2017 9:53:35 GMT -5 giramomma said:

Mar 31, 2017 9:13:26 GMT -5 973beachbum said:

We toured about 6 or 7 schools.  She ended up applying to almost the schools that we toured.  Applications don't have to cost anything too.  She got a free application from most schools. 

The only school that didn't do that was the local state school.  They were $75.  That was her one safety school.

The reason for so many schools was more about financial aid than some dream of a private school experience.  Unless you apply you don't know what aid you will get to compare it to the other schools.  And the  private schools were much more generous than I thought they would be considering our income.  The private school she ended up choosing was actually $300 a year less than the local public college after aid. 

We'll see how it goes for aid.  Our income works for us, but our assets works against us. As a lark, I put in DS being a 18  yo and going to college, and his EFC for Institution was 20K and ours was 35K, based on a close estimate of our numbers and going to private school costing 20K/year in tuition alone. I just don't see how private colleges are going to give us non-merit based scholarships if our EFC is 55K between DS and us.

But, we haven't started looking at colleges, either. So I could be surprised.

Have you tried the Net Price Calculators on the school's websites?  I play around with them a lot and some of the private schools give a crap ton of aid.  The private in our hometown is actually the cheapest option.

I just worry about them pulling that money. It would suck to go for a year or two and then have to either pony up or make the kid switch schools because a bad semester of grades caused them to cancel a 14K scholarship. 

[giramomma]

Mar 31, 2017 10:02:38 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Mar 31, 2017 9:53:35 GMT -5 giramomma said:

We'll see how it goes for aid.  Our income works for us, but our assets works against us. As a lark, I put in DS being a 18  yo and going to college, and his EFC for Institution was 20K and ours was 35K, based on a close estimate of our numbers and going to private school costing 20K/year in tuition alone. I just don't see how private colleges are going to give us non-merit based scholarships if our EFC is 55K between DS and us.

But, we haven't started looking at colleges, either. So I could be surprised.

Have you tried the Net Price Calculators on the school's websites?  I play around with them a lot and some of the private schools give a crap ton of aid.  The private in our hometown is actually the cheapest option.

I just worry about them pulling that money. It would suck to go for a year or two and then have to either pony up or make the kid switch schools because a bad semester of grades caused them to cancel a 14K scholarship. 

I went to our private college in town. Tuition is 28K/year. Apparently DS would qualify for a 9K scholarship. I put our EFC at 15000. (But I'm sure it's going to be a lot more).

Our final price for tuition is 18K/year.

Tuition AND fees at Madison is 11K for us.

Madison isn't a particularly slouchy school (yet.)

I'm sure this is just one example. But, I've yet to be sold on "Private school will be so much cheaper." My kids are worth too much, no matter how you slice it. So are we.

[giramomma]

I just went on to Carleton College's EFC. (Carleton seems to be popular in my neck of the woods.)

After scholarship, we'd be looking at a total cost of 33K a year.

If DS stayed at the dorms in Madison, paid fees (and even something called a loan fee) the estimated cost is 25K.

[teen persuasion]

Mar 31, 2017 9:53:35 GMT -5 giramomma said:

Mar 31, 2017 9:13:26 GMT -5 973beachbum said:

We toured about 6 or 7 schools.  She ended up applying to almost the schools that we toured.  Applications don't have to cost anything too.  She got a free application from most schools. 

The only school that didn't do that was the local state school.  They were $75.  That was her one safety school.

The reason for so many schools was more about financial aid than some dream of a private school experience.  Unless you apply you don't know what aid you will get to compare it to the other schools.  And the  private schools were much more generous than I thought they would be considering our income.  The private school she ended up choosing was actually $300 a year less than the local public college after aid. 

We'll see how it goes for aid.  Our income works for us, but our assets works against us. As a lark, I put in DS being a 18  yo and going to college, and his EFC for Institution was 20K and ours was 35K, based on a close estimate of our numbers and going to private school costing 20K/year in tuition alone. I just don't see how private colleges are going to give us non-merit based scholarships if our EFC is 55K between DS and us.

But, we haven't started looking at colleges, either. So I could be surprised.

Institutional Methodology is unique to each school.  Don't extrapolate out to all schools based on one.

Federal is based on FAFSA.  The student's EFC portion is essentially 50% of student income over $6400, plus 20% of his assets.  I'm guessing your kids have assets in their names to generate a sizable student portion to the EFC.

This is where qualifying for the Simplified Needs Test would be excellent - asset reporting is skipped entirely if you can qualify.

[Cookies Galore]

I work between UPenn and Drexel, so if anyone tours those schools say hi!

I toured two schools in 2000 - Temple here in Philly and University of Toronto.

I told my Dad I was interested in University of Toronto because of their English program, when I really just wanted a vacation to Toronto. I find out years later that my dad decided we would all drive (nine hours in a minivan with dad, grandmom, and siblings) because he wanted me to see how far away I would be from everyone. So we kind of punked each other. Lol.
Dad did not like Temple at first when I expressed interest because of the location (North Philly). After the tour he was practically hopping on the way to the car, encouraging me to apply.

Have fun with the tours!

[Deleted]

Mar 31, 2017 10:27:01 GMT -5 giramomma said:

I just went on to Carleton College's EFC. (Carleton seems to be popular in my neck of the woods.)

After scholarship, we'd be looking at a total cost of 33K a year.

If DS stayed at the dorms in Madison, paid fees (and even something called a loan fee) the estimated cost is 25K.

Yeah, but Carleton is insane.  66K/year? 

[swamp]

Mar 31, 2017 9:52:22 GMT -5 busymom said:

You've heard this here before, but I'll mention it again:  DD's student aid brought the total cost of private college so far down, that it was cheaper for her to attend there, compared to the best nearby state college.  It can happen!  

I went to an expensive private college for less than I would have paid for community college.    

Expensive school = more scholarship money.

[busymom]

Don't think your financial aid is limited to whatever the FAFSA website says you're eligible to receive, or even the website of a specific college.  Colleges often offer scholarship money, in addition to that, for high achievers.  Go ahead & apply to a favorite college that you think you'll never be able to afford.  You might be pleasantly surprised.  

[GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl]

Ask about how many kids stay on campus on my he weekends. If your kid will be far enough away from home that weekend visits don't make sense, make sure he won't be the only one in his hallway/on his floor (suitcase school).

Also, as Swamp and Beach said, private schools have tons of scholarship money. ODS got a good chunk of merit aid from a private school but not for grades/test scores (he is dyslexic). Private schools have money to give for "leadership skills", or other such vague reasons. So, give private schools a chance to "buy" your son. ;-)

[alabamagal]

For academic scholarships to private schools, other than what GRG said, your student will likely be offered a merit scholarship if they are in the top 25% of incoming freshman.  You can tell by looking at the 25/75 stats for SAT and GPA.  If the student is above the 75%, you will likely get a scholarship offer.  But in most cases, you will not know what you get until you apply and get a response.  

[973beachbum]

My DD actually got an art scholarship from her college.  And she isn't an art major.

Her private school likes having students doing all sorts of things to broaden the horizons of everyone on campus.  So to that end they have talent scholarships for things like art, music and theater arts.  It is $3500 a year for her to do something she loves anyway.

[tractor]

We had a good tour of the state university. My older son already goes there, but my youngest is interested in engineering. I was pleasantly surprised how different the tours were, even though we took the same one only two years ago. The school would be great if he can get in (U of M), but he has to do well on the SAT next week. His stats are the same as his brothers, pending decent test scores. We will be touring a smaller public university next Saturday, and I'm hoping he can start to figure out how big a school he wants to attend. Private schools aren't out of the question yet, we just need to get a list put together and start planning road trips.

[Deleted]

Apr 3, 2017 7:22:18 GMT -5 tractor said:

We had a good tour of the state university. My older son already goes there, but my youngest is interested in engineering. I was pleasantly surprised how different the tours were, even though we took the same one only two years ago. The school would be great if he can get in (U of M), but he has to do well on the SAT next week. His stats are the same as his brothers, pending decent test scores. We will be touring a smaller public university next Saturday, and I'm hoping he can start to figure out how big a school he wants to attend. Private schools aren't out of the question yet, we just need to get a list put together and start planning road trips.

Which U of M?  Minnesota or Michigan?

My son wants to go to University of Minnesota - Twin Cities for engineering (he's just in 9th grade, so this could easily change a half dozen times)  but it is crazy hard to get into the Science and Engineering college there.  He has that as his reach school and Duluth as his next hope, which his chances are a lot better for.

[tractor]

Apr 3, 2017 7:53:07 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Apr 3, 2017 7:22:18 GMT -5 tractor said:

We had a good tour of the state university. My older son already goes there, but my youngest is interested in engineering. I was pleasantly surprised how different the tours were, even though we took the same one only two years ago. The school would be great if he can get in (U of M), but he has to do well on the SAT next week. His stats are the same as his brothers, pending decent test scores. We will be touring a smaller public university next Saturday, and I'm hoping he can start to figure out how big a school he wants to attend. Private schools aren't out of the question yet, we just need to get a list put together and start planning road trips.

Which U of M?  Minnesota or Michigan?

My son wants to go to University of Minnesota - Twin Cities for engineering (he's just in 9th grade, so this could easily change a half dozen times)  but it is crazy hard to get into the Science and Engineering college there.  He has that as his reach school and Duluth as his next hope, which his chances are a lot better for.

University of Michigan. It's also very hard to get in: 15,000 applicants last year to the engineering school, 1,200 accepted. They were very clear, you need at least a 670 in math on the new SAT, or don't bother applying, you won't get in.

I wanted my son to hear what it would take before the test so he will apply himself, if that's what he wants to do, it's time to step up to the plate and get it done (put down the video game controller and study!).

He has a 3.87 now, but is starting to get a little lazy the last half of junior year, the time in HS where it really counts.

[Deleted]

Apr 3, 2017 8:32:29 GMT -5 tractor said:

Apr 3, 2017 7:53:07 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Which U of M?  Minnesota or Michigan?

My son wants to go to University of Minnesota - Twin Cities for engineering (he's just in 9th grade, so this could easily change a half dozen times)  but it is crazy hard to get into the Science and Engineering college there.  He has that as his reach school and Duluth as his next hope, which his chances are a lot better for.

University of Michigan. It's also very hard to get in: 15,000 applicants last year to the engineering school, 1,200 accepted. They were very clear, you need at least a 670 in math on the new SAT, or don't bother applying, you won't get in.

I wanted my son to hear what it would take before the test so he will apply himself, if that's what he wants to do, it's time to step up to the plate and get it done (put down the video game controller and study!).

He has a 3.87 now, but is starting to get a little lazy the last half of junior year, the time in HS where it really counts.

Yes, that sounds very similar to MN.  I read the stats of the incoming accepted and told him he'd better start applying himself more (a lot) and have a back-up plan or two.   He tests very well, especially in math, but his GPA is not stellar. 

[Lizard Queen]

Apr 3, 2017 8:32:29 GMT -5 tractor said:

Apr 3, 2017 7:53:07 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Which U of M?  Minnesota or Michigan?

My son wants to go to University of Minnesota - Twin Cities for engineering (he's just in 9th grade, so this could easily change a half dozen times)  but it is crazy hard to get into the Science and Engineering college there.  He has that as his reach school and Duluth as his next hope, which his chances are a lot better for.

University of Michigan. It's also very hard to get in: 15,000 applicants last year to the engineering school, 1,200 accepted. They were very clear, you need at least a 670 in math on the new SAT, or don't bother applying, you won't get in.

I wanted my son to hear what it would take before the test so he will apply himself, if that's what he wants to do, it's time to step up to the plate and get it done (put down the video game controller and study!).

He has a 3.87 now, but is starting to get a little lazy the last half of junior year, the time in HS where it really counts.

What about Michigan Tech? I know back in the day, it was a great school for engineering.