I've posted other threads about touring colleges:
http://www.early-retirement.org/for...notre-dame-carnegie-mellon-and-rpi-28353.html
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/showpost.php?p=705346&postcount=80
http://www.early-retirement.org/for...-programs-for-high-school-students-41588.html
I'm probably overdoing the college-selection process like any [-]anal-retentive[/-] keenly focused nuclear engineer, but I'm becoming a big fan of personal visits and dress rehearsals. We parents want this to happen one time, first time, no boomerangs. If we have to spend some of the college fund up front to make sure that the rest of it's not wasted, then it's worth it.
Our kid just finished her junior year of high school. As graduation approached, we've been hearing horror stories from other local families whose high-school graduates had returned home from college in total defeat after only a semester or two. One young man was thrown out of West Point for grades/honor while two others were totally unprepared for college academics. They (the students) were thoroughly demoralized by homesickness, unexpected Mainland weather, and no local foods or surfing. Not uncommon for Hawaii residents, they'd never even visited the campuses they'd applied to. They got into good schools, but with only hearsay (or Mom & Dad's decades-old sea stories) they had no idea what they were getting themselves into. There was no opportunity to look around the campus and say "Yeah, I can do this" or to develop any self-confidence before matriculation day.
This summer we decided to blow even more of our kid's college fund on in-residence programs. Part of this came from USNA's encouragement-- they know from bitter (and expensive) experience that one of the strongest indicators of freshman success is trying the lifestyle before the new plebes take the oath. Notre Dame also offers a three-week "Intro to Engineering" [-]extended recruiting[/-] program, and as far as we can tell all you need is their $1750 fee. USNA's one-week summer seminar is only $325, and both schools offered needs-based financial assistance. More practice was worth these prices. Unfortunately, perhaps due to Houston's summer weather, Rice didn't offer anything. No time left over for Carnegie-Mellon or Rensselaer, but those schools aren't in the top two.
Four days ago we put our kid on the plane, her first solo trip, for the 5000-mile Annapolis redeye-- with 2500 miles over water at the same time they were looking for the Air France flight. Despite our parental packing advice, she stripped the house of 80 pounds of her possessions and crammed them into two suitcases-- but that's not our problem! She arrived at her grandparents' condo next day and listened once again to all their lurid tales about raising her mother. She reported aboard USNA the following afternoon and left us voicemail that she'd already met a midshipman from Hawaii.
We got a call Sunday afternoon, after her first 24 hours, and she's already hearing the seductive invitations of the Dark Side. They just finished an 18-hour day (although she sneaked in a jet-lag nap) and they're being run around pretty hard. She's exhausted, every muscle in her body is sore, the weather is hotter & muggier than Hawaii, they've been leading "Go Navy" shouting matches all day until she's hoarse-- and she claims she's having the best time of her life. She's living in Bancroft Hall, getting all sorts of presentations on cool Navy careers, working out for 60-90 minutes on Go Navy fields, visiting great classrooms and labs, eating food that she's never seen before in a huge dining hall, meeting 750 other students who she'd never encounter in high school, and being challenged by attractive midshipmen to do things she never thought possible. She said the submarine officer even told them my same jokes as he explained the underwater lifestyle to his new fan club. (Hey, the classics always get a laugh from the right crowd.) By the end of the week they'll be running several miles a day, crawling through a mud-soaked obstacle course, solving "battle problems" with teamwork and body armor and and time pressure, and using the cool lab gear.
Well, I guess that stuff's fun the first few times, but cults could learn a lot of techniques from these mids. She even thinks Marine Corps infantry is cool-- it's almost as if she doesn't believe a word we've been telling her all these years. She did at least agree to visit my old room to see if there's still any beer still hidden above the ceiling tiles.
Thank goodness for college summer programs. And thank goodness that she'll have three weeks of deprogramming at Notre Dame.
http://www.early-retirement.org/for...notre-dame-carnegie-mellon-and-rpi-28353.html
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/showpost.php?p=705346&postcount=80
http://www.early-retirement.org/for...-programs-for-high-school-students-41588.html
I'm probably overdoing the college-selection process like any [-]anal-retentive[/-] keenly focused nuclear engineer, but I'm becoming a big fan of personal visits and dress rehearsals. We parents want this to happen one time, first time, no boomerangs. If we have to spend some of the college fund up front to make sure that the rest of it's not wasted, then it's worth it.
Our kid just finished her junior year of high school. As graduation approached, we've been hearing horror stories from other local families whose high-school graduates had returned home from college in total defeat after only a semester or two. One young man was thrown out of West Point for grades/honor while two others were totally unprepared for college academics. They (the students) were thoroughly demoralized by homesickness, unexpected Mainland weather, and no local foods or surfing. Not uncommon for Hawaii residents, they'd never even visited the campuses they'd applied to. They got into good schools, but with only hearsay (or Mom & Dad's decades-old sea stories) they had no idea what they were getting themselves into. There was no opportunity to look around the campus and say "Yeah, I can do this" or to develop any self-confidence before matriculation day.
This summer we decided to blow even more of our kid's college fund on in-residence programs. Part of this came from USNA's encouragement-- they know from bitter (and expensive) experience that one of the strongest indicators of freshman success is trying the lifestyle before the new plebes take the oath. Notre Dame also offers a three-week "Intro to Engineering" [-]extended recruiting[/-] program, and as far as we can tell all you need is their $1750 fee. USNA's one-week summer seminar is only $325, and both schools offered needs-based financial assistance. More practice was worth these prices. Unfortunately, perhaps due to Houston's summer weather, Rice didn't offer anything. No time left over for Carnegie-Mellon or Rensselaer, but those schools aren't in the top two.
Four days ago we put our kid on the plane, her first solo trip, for the 5000-mile Annapolis redeye-- with 2500 miles over water at the same time they were looking for the Air France flight. Despite our parental packing advice, she stripped the house of 80 pounds of her possessions and crammed them into two suitcases-- but that's not our problem! She arrived at her grandparents' condo next day and listened once again to all their lurid tales about raising her mother. She reported aboard USNA the following afternoon and left us voicemail that she'd already met a midshipman from Hawaii.
We got a call Sunday afternoon, after her first 24 hours, and she's already hearing the seductive invitations of the Dark Side. They just finished an 18-hour day (although she sneaked in a jet-lag nap) and they're being run around pretty hard. She's exhausted, every muscle in her body is sore, the weather is hotter & muggier than Hawaii, they've been leading "Go Navy" shouting matches all day until she's hoarse-- and she claims she's having the best time of her life. She's living in Bancroft Hall, getting all sorts of presentations on cool Navy careers, working out for 60-90 minutes on Go Navy fields, visiting great classrooms and labs, eating food that she's never seen before in a huge dining hall, meeting 750 other students who she'd never encounter in high school, and being challenged by attractive midshipmen to do things she never thought possible. She said the submarine officer even told them my same jokes as he explained the underwater lifestyle to his new fan club. (Hey, the classics always get a laugh from the right crowd.) By the end of the week they'll be running several miles a day, crawling through a mud-soaked obstacle course, solving "battle problems" with teamwork and body armor and and time pressure, and using the cool lab gear.
Well, I guess that stuff's fun the first few times, but cults could learn a lot of techniques from these mids. She even thinks Marine Corps infantry is cool-- it's almost as if she doesn't believe a word we've been telling her all these years. She did at least agree to visit my old room to see if there's still any beer still hidden above the ceiling tiles.
Thank goodness for college summer programs. And thank goodness that she'll have three weeks of deprogramming at Notre Dame.
