A "is this a good college" thread for all college searchers...

[pixie dust 112]

Anyone know about York College in PA or College of St. Rose in Albany?
We're also on a budget so the SUNY schools may be the way to go if my DD doesn't receive enough merit awards.

My older DD goes to SUNY Cortland and loves it. Seems to be pretty good.

Well Muffycat you know I'm a huge fan of SUNY. I know a few kids that go to Saint Rose, including my next door neighbor. I think it is a good school. They seem to give a lot of scholarship money to the kids with high class rankings from our High School.

When I went to law school, I lived in the St. Rose neighborhood. Great place to live. Tons to do and you are in a city that has a small town feel to it!

 

[mom2travel]

I'm curious as to what criteria you're using to help pick the right college for your kids?
Location?
Tuition?
Size?
Reputation?
Major?
How difficult or how easy it is to get into?

Everyone's criteria is so different so the "right" college is quite personal.

DS has a number of things that are currently important to him. The ones that meet more of his criteria made it on his list. Among the things he's considering are: location, size, academic reputation, athletics (both to follow and to play club sports), offering his course of study, whether the school would look good when applying for post-grad, whether he could get in, percentage of students accepted/wait-listed/enrolling. He is crossing off schools labelled party schools or very religious.

We gave him 2 books with college info and I was happily surprised at how quickly he looked it over and how much we have already discussed different schools. Now we just need to figure out where to visit first.

 

[punkin]

Eckerd. My friend's son was very wild in High School and had rather mediocre grades. However he was a bright boy. He went to Eckerd and really turned himself around there. They were very supportive and, of course, the campus is on the water.

 

[cruisnfamily]

Anybody familiar with Florida Gulf Coast University(FGCU)?

 

[MUFFYCAT]

Well Muffycat you know I'm a huge fan of SUNY. I know a few kids that go to Saint Rose, including my next door neighbor. I think it is a good school. They seem to give a lot of scholarship money to the kids with high class rankings from our High School.

When I went to law school, I lived in the St. Rose neighborhood. Great place to live. Tons to do and you are in a city that has a small town feel to it!

I follow on being a SUNY fan that's why New Paltz was the first college she visited and she really liked it.. She wants to see a few colleges. I told her St Rose has to come down to a SUNY price if she wants to go there.
I was wondering if it was too small. She's visited her sister at Cortland.
Between that and New Paltz she thought the size was just right.

The SUNYS have so many different schools it's nice to that there is a school that fits most kids.

 

[DVCLiz]

I checked Davidson's website since it looks like we are going to be in the general area for Spring Break-the have NO WOMAN'S GOLF . How can a college in the Carolinas not have woman's golf They must use the same website developer that my college uses because they look exactly alike . If we have bad weather one day we may swing through there anyway. I can see DS15 going there.

Golf gal, take a look at Wake Forest, too. Excellent school, great golf program.

Davidson is a fabulous school, and what I especially like about it is the way I see their graduates succeed later in life. DD17 sits for several families and they are my favorites,too - well employed, community leaders, great young parents, etc. Wish "we" had had the grades to be competitive there!

 

[NCRedding]

I started another thread but I'll add to this one as well. The college DD17 is interested in is Eckerd in St. Petersburg. Any thoughts?

A great small liberal arts college in SC is Wofford. DD22 graduated last year and works as an admissions counselor there. I'll be glad to answer any questions.

As far as cars are concerned, here are my thoughts. I wanted DD to be as independent as possible. Parking at her college was convenient and inexpensive. I didn't want to have to make a 6 hour round trip each time she came home. I wanted her to learn how to make good decisions and handle car repairs on her own.

She's done a great job all four years and now is out on her own.

NOT that I think this about any DIS parent, but I do see in some of my friends a tendency to treat college freshmen as 13th graders. That's not what I wanted so I went pretty far in the other direction.

My DD attends Wofford as a freshman and LOVES it. It is an excellent fit for my DD. DVCLiz deduced through some of my posts that DD was going there, and has led me through and encouraged me through PMs this year.

DD also has a car on campus and has ventured to Atlanta and other places. She grows more independent each day.

Golfgal: DH has often talked about Davidson's need to add women's golf.

 

[DVCLiz]

My DD attends Wofford as a freshman and LOVES it. It is an excellent fit for my DD. DVCLiz deduced through some of my posts that DD was going there, and has led me through and encouraged me through PMs this year.

DD also has a car on campus and has ventured to Atlanta and other places. She grows more independent each day.

Golfgal: DH has often talked about Davidson's need to add women's golf.

Go Terriers!!!! So glad she is happy there - I wish DD17 wanted to go there but I think she might venture further afield. We will see....

 

[tar heel]

Yeah, Davidson's grads are bonded to each other for life. That's not just your class, but anyone who ever went there. We live 20 minutes from Davidson, and when we moved here one of my FIL's classmates brought us a welcome gift, a younger Davidson grad did our house closing, etc. If you look at the backgrounds in a medical or law practice and the senior person is a Davidson grad, you'll find a bunch of others, too. We know a lot of Davidson grads -- mostly doctors, lawyers and Presbyterian ministers -- and they are all interesting, successful people.

golfgal -- It can't be stressed strongly enough how difficult this school is to get into, though. My son will visit because it's so important to his grandfather. He's an excellent student, but whether he would get in is a total toss-up. They turn down kids who are #1 in their class every year.

MrsPete -- I'll never believe Western Carolina's acceptance rate is really that low -- that's why I posted it.

This is our third time around with the college decision. Unlike my older two, my junior does not know what he wants to do, which complicates things a little bit.

 

[DVCLiz]

Yeah, Davidson's grads are bonded to each other for life.

golfgal -- It can't be stressed strongly enough how difficult this school is to get into, though. My son will visit because it's so important to his grandfather. He's an excellent student, but whether he would get in is a total toss-up. They turn down kids who are #1 in their class every year.

This makes me laugh - almost everyone I know had Davidson on their lists freshman and sophomore year. We were all sure they would snap up our wonderful offspring. Somewhere during junior year we all quietly stopped talking about it as the reality hit that our wonderful kids were not going to get in under any circumstances. LOL!

The ones who did were really outstanding.

 

[MrsPete]

Remember, this is the school your daughter will be attending. Make sure you don't "influence" her decision because of your impressions about the school.

Not a problem. We both went in expecting to like this school . . . and we both left with a mildly negative impression of it.

We're 100% in sync when it comes to college choices for her. We have the same "favorite" right now, though I think she's more in love, whereas I'm encouraging her to keep her eyes open 'til we've finished our college visits.

 

[DVCLiz]

Not a problem. We both went in expecting to like this school . . . and we both left with a mildly negative impression of it.

We're 100% in sync when it comes to college choices for her. We have the same "favorite" right now, though I think she's more in love, whereas I'm encouraging her to keep her eyes open 'til we've finished our college visits.

Just curious, Mrs. Pete - what didn't you like about Carolina? What schools are on your list?

 

[allison443]

Yes, they're particularly known for their Halloween bash. They also have the highest percentage of STD among all the UNC system. It's not a bad school, but it does attract its share of students who come for reasons other than academics.

I have to ask, where did you read that statistic? And even if you read it somewhere, why would you believe it? I can't imagine how a school can keep accurate statistics on that...sounds like something people say about the school to express a negative opinion about it.

 

[Nancy]

I'm curious as to what criteria you're using to help pick the right college for your kids?

Location?

Tuition?

Size?

Reputation?

Major?

How difficult or how easy it is to get into?

Everyone's criteria is so different so the "right" college is quite personal.

My daughter did her picks based on her major. That limited her choices. While cost is important it was lower on the list. Location came second. Reputation is third. Size was not factored at all and neither was how easy or hard.

My middle daughter tried 2 schools before she settled into Ohio State..she also changed her major twice. So now she is taking summer courses to graduate on time.

Wow, HOW I left out cost I'll never know! I added "tuition".

Can I ask why you don't want him to have a car at college? Mine will probably NEED one.

Some of the schools we looked at don't let freshman have cars. Syracuse was one of them.

 

[agnes!]

Drexel was ds number one pick until we spoke with parents of students there- and learned tuition is way higher than you would imagine- They do offer the 5 year masters program and offer some great internships- but for that price- it's off the list. When all was said and done(room and board and tuition- ) one person ended up paying $60,000!

Purdue is one we are going to check out. Computer sciences-he likes the specialized fields they offer. But we are from NJ and I think it's going to be a bit too small town feel for him. That's why we want to check it out.

We went to visit Salem U in MA and that was a bust.

Don't give up on Drexel. I will say that Drexel's scholarship offer is the best that DD has gotten so far...we're still waiting on two more schools, but if DD does decide to go to Drexel a year's tuition there will cost less than at the local community college.

agnes!

 

[MrsPete]

Just curious, Mrs. Pete - what didn't you like about Carolina? What schools are on your list?

Originally she said she wanted a big school -- and I see her fitting into a big school -- but Carolina was bigger than we expected. It felt cold and impersonal. We didn't like that it was so spread out and that so many major roads run through it; there's no definition between the college and the town. We've learned that she wants a "college town" feel, and Carolina doesn't have it. We didn't like the nursing department as much as some of the other schools we'd visited -- more of a feeling than anything in particular we could point out, but we both agreed that they just weren't as friendly. And although she feels certain that she'd be admitted to the university, only 50 people will be admitted to the nursing program as Juniors -- she's not sure that she'd be one of the top 50. Finally, there's money. She stands a good chance of being awarded some good scholarship money at some of the other schools that interest her; she's not going to get a scholarship at UNC.

She's most interested in Appalachian, UNC-Wilmington, and UNC-Charlotte. We're also planning to visit Clemson and USC, though out of state isn't all that likely. A few others are "possibilities" that we discuss occasionally, but these are the frontrunners.

 

[MrsPete]

I have to ask, where did you read that statistic? And even if you read it somewhere, why would you believe it? I can't imagine how a school can keep accurate statistics on that...sounds like something people say about the school to express a negative opinion about it.

My student teacher read it to me from an article in her college newspaper. The article compared the party-quality ratings of the 16 UNC schools.

 

[MrsPete]

Some of the schools we looked at don't let freshman have cars. Syracuse was one of them.

The schools my daughter has visited all ALLOW freshmen to have cars . . . but some DISCOURAGE it in more subtle ways (like the two-mile away parking lot).

 

[Nancy]

The schools my daughter has visited all ALLOW freshmen to have cars . . . but some DISCOURAGE it in more subtle ways (like the two-mile away parking lot).

She is lucky! I did notice the bigger schools seem to have no issues...Syracuse is right in the middle of the city, not a lot of room for parking so no freshman cars. The only school right now that I could see NOT having a car at would be University of Vermont...and that is just due to the distance from home.

 

[allison443]

My student teacher read it to me from an article in her college newspaper. The article compared the party-quality ratings of the 16 UNC schools.

Oh, that makes sense, a college newspaper piece ranking campuses for partying. I thought it was a statistic that was actually researched and published somewhere. I couldn't believe a college would publicize that.