The college tour redux

[Nords]

What is the cost of tuition, room and board for a year at Notre Dame these days?

Short answer: $40,000/year.

Long answer:
It's like going onto a new car lot, handing your credit card to the nice sales guy, and asking how much Hummer you can afford to buy.

Notre Dame has a $7 billion dollar endowment, one of the nation's largest NROTC units, and what seems to be a hypercompetitive bunch of alumni donors. You can't swing a dead cat anywhere on the campus without hitting at least one plaque, and you practically expect the hallways & doorframes to be named "in grateful appreciation for..." One building (named for one alum) had a lobby with a half-dozen plaques explaining what other parts of the building had been donated by other alums.

The ROTC building, a few years old, was built completely by alumni donations. No military funding-- rumor is they didn't even bother asking. It's so opulent that the submarine lieutenant's office has a (*gasp*) window.

So for an ER with a $38K pension, some investment income, and some rental equity-- I'd guess $25K-$30K/year. (If anyone has a better estimate then I'd love to know how to work the system.) If she gets a NROTC scholarship for the tuition then we're talking just room & board. That might be as little as $10K/year.

The maturing process of sending a Hawaii student to the Mainland-- priceless.

By next January I'll be a freakin' expert on the details and no doubt I'll start a thread to [-]vent[/-] share what I've learned.

 

[LOL!]

As you know I have a rising senior in the household, so I have enjoyed reading this. Our daughter did a California college tour with mom at spring break. Many of her friends went on college trips elsewhere, so they all compared their notes which turned out mostly about dissing their parent chaperones. One controversial bit of advice was to only tour colleges that you were accepted to which means you don't do the tour until Spring of your senior year. Mom didn't like that idea.

We live near Houston. The weather in Houston has not been as freezing as the forecast shown earlier in this thread. This June was the hottest on record. I think every day was 100 deg F or hotter and no rain. I didn't know that the thermometer on my car could go up to 108.

 

[Bestwifeever]

One controversial bit of advice was to only tour colleges that you were accepted to which means you don't do the tour until Spring of your senior year.

Interesting--my kids actually both ended up going to college (and being very happy there) at places they had not seen before being accepted (they did tours previously of some of the other schools they then applied to, but not the ones they went to). So maybe there is something to be said for kids visiting the schools once they know they're in.

 

[RunningBum]

Hmm, how do the kids know where to apply to then? I guess the Common Ap saves time, but it still costs money for each application, doesn't it? And if they're applying very far away, it'd be tough to get in many visits before a decision would have to be made, and the letters usually come after spring break.

Mine applied to one school she didn't visit, because it was a reach, and a long ways away. If she got accepted, we'd have visited there. She would up going to, and loving, a place she might not have applied to had I not talked her into visiting it.

In fact there was one state school I thought would be a slam dunk for her for a number of reasons, and she just plain didn't like it on her visit.

My problem with the financial aid packages is that they assume you don't have much saved beyond your 401K, have a mortgage, etc. I started plugging numbers into a FAFSA estimator and saw that we weren't going to get any aid even for Duke or Stanford. She applied there anyway, but I wasn't too disappointed she didn't get accepted.

 

[Buckeye]

Nords - I graduated from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA and at least 15% of our student body was from Hawaii. My freshman roommate was from Kauai. The students threw a big party for the rest of the school every year with food and foliage sent by their parents. Virtually all of them managed to stay in shorts and flip-flops all year but winters in Tacoma are much milder than they will be at Notre Dame. Your daughter is going to have to get a whole new wardrobe!

 

[Nords]

Virtually all of them managed to stay in shorts and flip-flops all year but winters in Tacoma are much milder than they will be at Notre Dame. Your daughter is going to have to get a whole new wardrobe!

"Winter" is one of the reasons Rice is #1 on her list. She figures that by the time the Houston temperatures start climbing she'll be on midshipman training or doing a research project/internship in an air-conditioned building.

Local kids have to leave the islands to appreciate what they grew up with. Then they spend a decade on the Mainland (or in Asia) saving up for the move back because they want to raise their kids here. And the cycle repeats itself...

I liked all the colleges we visited, especially compared to USNA, but once the winter wind leaves the Great Lakes there's only cornfields to slow it down before it slams into South Bend. I think it's also a lot easier for family visits & graduations to be in a large metropolitan area that can soak up a few thousand [-]hotel rooms[/-] people. Geographically remote places like West Point, Annapolis, Troy NY, and South Bend are simply overwhelmed. If I had to do one of them again I'd want to park an RV on a corner of the campus.

 

[LOL!]

Hmm, how do the kids know where to apply to then?

They use the same techniques that were used decades ago:

1. Apply to the State school by default. If there is more than one state school, one can use the criteria below to help decide.

2. Look to where your friends are going. Don't listen to your parents.

3. Check your SAT scores and see which colleges you can get into. You don't need to apply to Stanford if you aren't special, but conversely you don't need to apply to U of Houston if you are somewhat special. Basically, your scores and activities are gonna select the "tier" of schools that you will apply to.

4. Check which majors the schools might have. Engineering? Accounting? Basket weaving? Be sure to account for the fact that you will change majors 3 to 10 times.

5. Decide if you want to go as far away from your parents as you can get, or if you want to stay close.

That's about it. Did I miss anything? Note that money/budget is not used to decide which schools to apply to.

 

[TiredOfDoingDiddly]

Is there a specific reason that she has no desire to remain in Paradise for an education?

Sounds very much like in your opinion she is leaving heaven for a tour in hell.

 

[Dreamer]

What a great experience for your daughter. She will be very prepared for what to expect when she goes to college.

 

[CCdaCE]

Ahhh, Civil Engineering... or as the old joke goes... now she can build targets (for the Mech. Engr.'s to shoot).

Always work to be had.

-CC

 

[Buckeye]

Nords - That unrelenting winter wind is what is driving us back to FL. If she does decide to attend Notre Dame, I'm sure she'll get a great education and I know she will get a fantastic alumni network which will serve her well upon graduation. The quality of the summer program is a concrete example of the quality of the school. Pretty cool to get to try before you buy!

 

[Nords]

We're picking her up at the airport in a few hours. Five weeks off the island and nowhere near the homesickness that we might have been concerned about. It's certainly been a tremendous [-]dating[/-] growth experience, and I bet she can't wait to get back home so that she can stop acting so mature and polite.

She's sold on Notre Dame and their sense of family. But she agrees that she needs to make a list of each school, their advantages, and whatever unique features that she can't get at the other schools. ND may be big on family but I bet Rice and Carnegie-Mellon are too. And USNA's midshipmen are just one big happy family.

She tried the "just one more college visit" line but we're done. At this point I think the chances of a bad travel experience are higher than the opportunity for a good college visit, and I'd hate for lost luggage or some other logistics disaster to be the basis for her teen logic to decide that Notre Dame is better than Rice.

I thought she'd have to play up the "surfer grrrl from Hawayuh" aspect with the admissions staff, but there's another perspective even more important to ND: women engineers. The ND chapter of the Society of Women Engineers threw the high-school women a pizza party with major chick geek chic power. ND also puts the women engineering students together in their own special section of the dorm. That made her feel a lot better about homework help and networking.

They use the same techniques that were used decades ago:
5. Decide if you want to go as far away from your parents as you can get, or if you want to stay close.
That's about it. Did I miss anything? Note that money/budget is not used to decide which schools to apply to.

Don't forget about parsing the website photos and the campus visits for hot bodies and guy::girl ratios. Can't just wing it-- gotta do the research.

But I agree that distance is the only way to cut the umbilical cord.

To be fair to her, we didn't want her excluding schools based on her idea of how much things should cost. Teens just don't have the cerebral critical-thinking circuitry, let alone the experience, to handle that. Our parental job has been saving $100/week since 1992 and aggressively investing most of it (thank you, Berkshire Hathaway) to cover at least the local UH campus expenses.

For those asking about expenses, here's what's on the college's websites:

Expense category	Rice	Notre Dame	Carnegie-Mellon	UVA
Tuition & fees	$31,430	$38,480	$40,920	$29,790
Room & board	$11,230	$10,370	$10,340	$7,709
Books & supplies	$628	$950	$1,000	$1,150

NROTC would cover the "Tuition & fees" category for all of the above, as well as pay her a book allowance and a monthly stipend ranging from $250/month (freshman) to $400/month (senior). With NROTC paying most of the bill, the college wouldn't feel obligated to offer any more financial aid. Parents, scholarships, and part-time work would cover the rest.

USNA, of course, is "free", with the caveat "An interest-free loan from the federal government is advanced to entering midshipmen to help defray first-year costs. This loan is repaid through monthly deductions from midshipmen pay during the first two to three years at the Academy."

Ahhh, Civil Engineering...
Always work to be had.

Psssst... sewage!

That unrelenting winter wind is what is driving us back to FL.

I joked that if she thinks the Notre Dame campus is too big & spread out now, wait until she has to walk through it in January with 25-below windchill.

First I had to explain what "windchill" is. Then I had to answer the question "Below what?" And finally we realized that she thought she could ride her bike in South Bend in winter. Never occurred to her that the powdery white stuff or the shiny glassy stuff might be slippery. After all they keep the streets clear, don't they?

Pretty cool to get to try before you buy!

Five weeks of empty-nester practice has been worth every penny!

 

[IndependentlyPoor]

OK. I went to Rice and think highly of the place, but the thought of somebody leaving Hawaii to attend college in Houston leaves me speechless!

 

[freebird5825]

...I thought she'd have to play up the "surfer grrrl from Hawayuh" aspect with the admissions staff, but there's another perspective even more important to ND: women engineers. The ND chapter of the Society of Women Engineers threw the high-school women a pizza party with major chick geek chic power. ND also puts the women engineering students together in their own special section of the dorm. That made her feel a lot better about homework help and networking.

Ah, finally a place where I can contribute. I'd like to offer another perspective on the SWE woman engineer thing...from a real live woman engineer, yours truly.
I would like to think that gender bias in any field is history, but let's stay real here.
In my own experience, it was the fact that I did not separate myself from the guys that I think had a lot to do with my acceptance into the field. Granted I was an odd duck and w*rked as a mechanic and talked about guy things very naturally. I always netw*rked with both genders in college.
If DD is going to w*rk alongside guy engineers when she graduates and gets a j*b, what purpose would it serve to have a separatist attitude from college experience?
I'd like the guy engineers here to chime in, please, for other opinions. Don't want to start a gender war, but may be worth discussing, IMHO.

 

[Buckeye]

I have come to know and appreciate the sense of family which is to be found in the midwest. It's great she is feeling it and it is real. I will miss it very much when we leave OH. I will try hard to cultivate it in our new surroundings in FL but it's totally the culture of the midwest.

 

[Nords]

In my own experience, it was the fact that I did not separate myself from the guys that I think had a lot to do with my acceptance into the field. Granted I was an odd duck and w*rked as a mechanic and talked about guy things very naturally. I always netw*rked with both genders in college.
If DD is going to w*rk alongside guy engineers when she graduates and gets a j*b, what purpose would it serve to have a separatist attitude from college experience?
I'd like the guy engineers here to chime in, please, for other opinions. Don't want to start a gender war, but may be worth discussing, IMHO.

Well, it's not quite as bad as it seems.

Despite its tolerant and accomodative soft-pedaling, Notre Dame is a school founded on religious roots. It didn't even go co-ed until 1972. The dorms are already separated by gender (always have been, probably always will be), sex and alcohol are actively discouraged within those walls, and the chain of command goes a bit higher than the typical NROTC environment. Their version of the UCMJ is distinctively more Old Testament-- it IS the Old Testament.

So the women are separated from the guys to begin with but at least they make up nearly half of the student population. In my experience they're probably also the half with better grades, focus, and behavior. Putting the women engineers in the same section of the dorm just gives them the option to work together without the guys getting in the way any more than they already do. I'm sure the women know how to integrate the guys into their dorm life if they choose to do so.

When she goes out in the fleet ("It's not a job, it's an adventure!") women are about 10-20% of the wardroom. Their staterooms are along the same passageways as the men's staterooms. At sea, there's just no way to separate themselves from the guys. And frankly, once again they're generally better performers than the guys...

Who knows, maybe ND's women engineers room together so that they don't have to live with those icky liberal-arts [insert pejorative here]!

 

[LOL!]

I have to say that putting all the women engineers together is not good. Even same-sex dorms are kinda bad because in real-life (to my knowledge) same-sex apartment complexes are rare. I know of a university who had problems with all-male dorms being too rowdy, so they diluted the machismo with women.

Anyways, university and dorm-life can lack diversity, so no need to foist additional homogeneity on unsuspecting freshman. It's hard enough to get out "beyond the hedges" (that's for you Independently Poor ).

 

[Bestwifeever]

Although South Bend's weather through mid-April is not nearly as pleasant as Houston's during the same months, it is the unusual college-kid who even notices climate (although a Hawaiian upbringing may make her more sensitive to cold, I suppose--if she goes to Notre Dame she might actually wear a warm coat instead of just a hoodie like the other Leprechauns during those months, and hat and gloves? What are those?). So weather probably won't (and shouldn't) enter into her decision-making.

Sounds like she had good visits and better to love all her choices than not. The money will all work out no matter where she decides to go, so fingers crossed that all the schools she applies to see what a strong smart independent young lady she is.

 

[mews]

LOL, I lived in the women's dorms. Believe me, there were guys around.

I could tell from the vomit-noises in the bathrooms on Friday and Saturday nights. (a deeper, more resonant tone, yaknow.)

Ta,
mews

 

[freebird5825]

Well, it's not quite as bad as it seems.
Despite its tolerant and accomodative soft-pedaling, Notre Dame is a school founded on religious roots...
So the women are separated from the guys to begin with but at least they make up nearly half of the student population. In my experience they're probably also the half with better grades, focus, and behavior. Putting the women engineers in the same section of the dorm just gives them the option to work together without the guys getting in the way any more than they already do. I'm sure the women know how to integrate the guys into their dorm life if they choose to do so.

When she goes out in the fleet ("It's not a job, it's an adventure!") women are about 10-20% of the wardroom. Their staterooms are along the same passageways as the men's staterooms. At sea, there's just no way to separate themselves from the guys. And frankly, once again they're generally better performers than the guys...

Who knows, maybe ND's women engineers room together so that they don't have to live with those icky liberal-arts [insert pejorative here]!

Ah, so. I missed that part of the ND culture. I am a 12 year parochial school veteran, so I understand the religious based gender separation of living quarters.
I lived in an all girls' dorm my freshman year at a SUNY school on the recommendation of my older sister. It was a bad idea because it was kinda like HS the Sequel in atmosphere. It was the only non-coed dorm on campus.
It was a good idea because I had a quiet dorm to study in versus the social party in the library scene.
I moved off campus for the remaining 3 years. That was an economic as well as "I want to grow up and have my own apartment" decision.
YMMV...
So DD is eventually headed for fleet duty? I must have missed that part.

 

[CCdaCE]

Ah, finally a place where I can contribute. I'd like to offer another perspective on the SWE woman engineer thing...from a real live woman engineer, yours truly.
I would like to think that gender bias in any field is history, but let's stay real here.
In my own experience, it was the fact that I did not separate myself from the guys that I think had a lot to do with my acceptance into the field. Granted I was an odd duck and w*rked as a mechanic and talked about guy things very naturally. I always netw*rked with both genders in college.
If DD is going to w*rk alongside guy engineers when she graduates and gets a j*b, what purpose would it serve to have a separatist attitude from college experience?
I'd like the guy engineers here to chime in, please, for other opinions. Don't want to start a gender war, but may be worth discussing, IMHO.

Golly, Gee, Shucks, I have a hard enough time communicating with fellow male engineers, let alone a female one. So, I can't imagine it's any easier for women in the reverse situation. One female in an office of 17 guys.

It always irritated me when the Soc. of Women Engr's. had "more fun", but they worked harder to have it, too. Pizza parties, all-women design teams, etc. They arranged the funding, networked to get community/business/university support and achieved. Kinda what Nords is driving at, I think?

So, for these reasons and more... I would want the same chance for my daughter as I would for a son. In the workplace, I make a conscious effort to make equal or more opportunities available for the female co-ops, temps, new engineers, etc. Maybe that backfires on me, or affects me in ways that I'm not aware of, but, hey, I try.

Gender bias is alive and well, even after MY best intentions. So, I don't think it's a separatist issue, but, it's nice to have the option to be with "your own" once in awhile. Support group, you might say. Whether that's based on gender, race, home town, military branch, or whatever.

-CC

 

[Nords]

... although a Hawaiian upbringing may make her more sensitive to cold, I suppose--if she goes to Notre Dame she might actually wear a warm coat instead of just a hoodie like the other Leprechauns during those months, and hat and gloves? What are those?

Notre Dame in July-- she was freezing her butt off. Sweatshirts and jeans every morning to breakfast, sweatshirt & jacket every night.

In her defense, I'd be freezing too if the temp dropped below 70. I can barely even stand to go surfing when the water's below 75.

So DD is eventually headed for fleet duty? I must have missed that part.

She feels that she's seen enough of USNA and doesn't need to repeat their very busy week another 45 or so times for plebe year. But at least she won't spend the rest of her life wondering "What if..."

However she finds the fantasy of the family business very compelling, and she likes the idea of having a job waiting for her after college. Very few get to enter the Navy's SeaBees right out of college so she'll probably go surface warfare after graduation. (Women can go nuclear power on aircraft carriers but she's not interested. She thinks aviators are nuts. She thinks Marines are almost as nuts as aviators. So...) The idea of a destroyer out of Japan (with port visits to Singapore, Hong Kong, Guam, Korea, etc) has her practically turning backflips. She's too happy for me to ruthlessly temper her enthusiasm with reality, so we'll let her figure it out for herself.

Heh-- I found a link to USNA's graphic novel depicting midshipman life for the Millenium Generation. Before clicking on the link below, please refrain from eating for at least three hours and ensure you swallow all liquids. Yeah, sure, our plebe year was just like that too...
http://www.usna.edu/PAO/BZ Adobe PDF.pdf

 

[freebird5825]

Notre Dame in July-- she was freezing her butt off. Sweatshirts and jeans every morning to breakfast, sweatshirt & jacket every night.

...Heh-- I found a link to USNA's graphic novel depicting midshipman life for the Millenium Generation. Before clicking on the link below, please refrain from eating for at least three hours and ensure you swallow all liquids. Yeah, sure, our plebe year was just like that too...
http://www.usna.edu/PAO/BZ%20Adobe%20PDF.pdf

So RPI, Clarkson and RIT are obviously out of the question.

I read the entire [-]comic book[/-] graphic novel. Ummmmmm...ummmmm..."incredulous" would be my best word here.

 

[Nords]

So RPI, Clarkson and RIT are obviously out of the question.

When we visited RPI she asked which dorms are air-conditioned. The RPI tour guide thought that was pretty funny, but she did share that if the dorm heat goes out then the facilities staff consider it a full-blown emergency and will start evacuating dorm residents to "alternate facilities" if they can't get the heat back on within 12 hours.

The alleged "city" of Troy makes South Bend look like a bustling metropolis... and RPI is one of the very few schools for which NROTC will pay not only tuition but also room & board. There has to be a reason the Navy's being so generous!

 

[freebird5825]

When we visited RPI she asked which dorms are air-conditioned. The RPI tour guide thought that was pretty funny, but she did share that if the dorm heat goes out then the facilities staff consider it a full-blown emergency and will start evacuating dorm residents to "alternate facilities" if they can't get the heat back on within 12 hours.

The alleged "city" of Troy makes South Bend look like a bustling metropolis... and RPI is one of the very few schools for which NROTC will pay not only tuition but also room & board. There has to be a reason the Navy's being so generous!

Hmmmm...lemme think for a moment...
I know I know...