05.03.08
Posted in COLLEGE at 10:49 am by Meg
Since Boy made his decision I’ve been hearing that question at least once a day.
Yes, San Antonio is about 1100 miles from here based on mapping software.
Yes, that means he won’t be coming home at the drop of a hat, nor will we be hopping down there for parent’s weekend.
And yes, I know he’s had medical junk to deal with this past year.
But I never expected (or wanted) to keep him close to home (it’s not the way my family has ever operated) and for the medical stuff…
1. The Crohns is doing well with his medication.
2. He’s an adult and needs to be able to handle his condition on his own - college with it’s 24 hr. medical staff is a great transition route.
3. In a worst case situation we can be nearly anywhere in the US in about a day’s time - San Antonio in about a half day.
Trinity is where he wants to be and I’m not going to stop him.
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04.29.08
Posted in COLLEGE at 8:55 pm by Meg
When everything is laid out on the table, Boy was accepted into 10 different schools. With every report coming in saying it was the most competitive/lowest acceptance rates ever for getting into college, he’s done really, really well.
Of the 10 schools, when he started looking closer at them, it quickly came down to the has and the has nots. We aren’t going to cover all of his costs and he doesn’t want to carry a large amount of debt to cover the difference between the offered aid and actual costs.
With his deposit now paid, I figured I’ll tell you where he’s going.
A total of 5 schools offered him scholarships and grants that would allow him to attend for basically the cost of room, board, and books - no tuition. This made them the top contenders.
They were (in terms of distance from home):
Rose-Hulman Inst. of Technology - the ‘local’ school only a mile or two away, though he’d have lived in the dorm because Hubby and I both believe in not having kids be commuters.
Indiana University in Bloomington, IN - his safety school and at only a little more than an hour away, fairly close.
Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN - really another safety school, but a little farther away.
Univ. of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania - a chance to get out of state and to a larger city.
Trinity University in San Antonio, TX - a top ranked, small liberal arts school.
IU, Purdue, and UPitt all enrolled him in their honors colleges - very flattering and that opened up some great opportunities for more personal choices.
The other 5 schools included schools that Boy had thought he was really interested in for one reason or another, but not enough for the debt load that would be coming with them.
American University in Washington, DC.
Boston University
Santa Clara University in San Jose, CA
NYU
Bard College upstate from the City (NY)
As I said, the first 5 schools were looking very, very good. Read the rest of this entry »
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04.24.08
Posted in COLLEGE, Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 12:44 pm by Meg
The Gookins reminded me that I had put this newspaper clipping aside last week to comment on and then forgot about it.
Indiana, like many states, has different license plates you can choose to put on your car. Anything, but a standard plate, has additional fees that you must pay.
Okay, that seems straight forward, doesn’t it?
But last year they figured out a way to get around the separation of church and state, since our money has In God We Trust on it…It’s alright to put that on a license plate!!
Now your first thought is probably ‘okay, what ever floats their boat.’ But this isn’t a special plate; nope, it’s for EVERYONE!
But wait, some people might throw a fit, so we’ll keep the “standard” plate and this one will be an alternative - but it won’t have any additional fees!
Do you want to know how much of an “alternative” it is? Well, when Boy and I were at the BMV getting his driving permit last fall, I watch the clerks setting people up with plates. In every case I saw (small sample, but it was about a half dozen, each with a different clerk) the “God” plate was held up first and then the traditional plate was held up and then the car owner was asked what plate they wanted.
Now, I may be only guessing, but my thought is that whatever is held up first is chosen by a very large percentage of the car owners.
So the ACLU tried to take them to court - no go..
Marion Superior Court Judge Gary Miller’s ruling, issued Wednesday, says the plate is different from special group recognition plates that carry the administrative fee. Those often require a contribution to a group or university and require special handling by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
The “In God We Trust” plate, the ruling says, “was designed by a process similar to the Standard Plate, mass-produced like the Standard Plate, and widely distributed like the Standard Plate based on consistently high sales.”
Really?
On other news, Boy and I are off tomorrow for a quick, quick trip to San Antonio. He wants to check out Trinity University before he makes his final decision next week. At this point, I’m guessing the he is down to a short list of three schools: Trinity, UPitt, or IU. He doesn’t seem really set on any one of them.
IU is in Indiana, though with scholarships it would be the cheapest option.
Trinity is in Texas, though it has what appears to be a great economics program and San Antonio can’t be so bad, can it? - With scholarships it will only be a couple grand more than IU, but he’s being very aware that will be loans he’s taking out.
UPitt is nearly twice Trinity with out of state tuition and the scholarships they are offering, but it’s not Indiana or Texas.
So we’ll take off at 6 AM on Friday and return at midnight Saturday night. Whirl-wind trip!
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02.18.08
Posted in COLLEGE at 10:35 am by Meg
I decided that it was time for an update.
Admitted - Boy’s been offered admission to four colleges at this point. He’s keeping very close to his chest which one would be his first choice if he could only choose among these four. I know his last choice though.
IU has given him a merit scholarship that will cover his tuition and asked him to apply for as much as $5,000 per year more aid as part of their honors program. We have no idea when we can expect to hear about the additional scholarship money.
Purdue has given him a merit scholarship that will nearly cover his tuition, but nothing more.
UPitt has given him a merit scholarship that is larger than either of the Indiana colleges, but their out-of-state tuition is larger still, so it only makes a dent in our tuition costs. OTH, they asked Boy to apply for a Chancellor’s Scholarship that covers everything and more. When I saw the numbers, I realized that just being asked to apply is such a recognition. Their typical freshman class is about 3400 students, but they’ve offered admission to nearly 10,000 students. They only ask 800 people to apply for a Chancellor’s Scholarship. Kind of impressive, huh?
If he should make it further toward actually getting one of these awards - they only expect about 650 people to fill out the application and from those they will bring in 100 to interview. Ten to twelve lucky kids get to walk out with the prize.
Financial stuff - After doing the PROFILE, doing the FAFSA wasn’t much of problem. I still wonder why so many schools needed the PROFILE as well. Right now, I’m waiting for our taxes to be completed because so many of the schools want to actually ’see’ our 2007 income tax forms (some want the 2006 forms as well.) And then there are the schools that want a form filled out by Boy indicating that he won’t be filing his own income tax forms this year. And don’t forget the schools that have their own forms as well. Trying to keep it all straight and watch deadlines is a pain!
As for the rest of the colleges he applied to - we can expect to start hearing from them in another month (ish). It’s nerve-wracking to wait.
In the meantime, Bennington is doing a phone interview with him this week. Bard had said that they might want him to come up to Chicago to interview (homeschoolers are sometimes interviewed), but we haven’t heard anything yet. I know that the dates that we will be up there (the IN-Home conference on March 7 and 8 ) are past when they’d want to talk to him. And while I said we’d be happy to come up and talk to the woman, she said that she’s only do it if it was a borderline decision. Does that make him a shoe-in or a non-starter?
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01.28.08
Posted in COLLEGE at 11:32 pm by Meg
We have a T-shirt!
Yep, a T-shirt from U Pitt Honors College for Boy. They have not only admitted Boy, but they want him in the honors program.
and…..
They’ve given him an $10,000 academic scholarship (out of state tuition is about $22,000) and have asked him to apply for a special Chancellor’s Scholarship (Full tuition, room and board and fees for 4 years - and money for books and a study abroad scholarship)
The application is a bear though with 3 long essays on topics that aren’t easy. Oh well, he wants to do it.
And in other news, we slapped some grades on the transcript for Purdue and then emailed them a pdf of it - and they are happy. How happy we’ll see.
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01.27.08
Posted in COLLEGE, Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 10:54 pm by Meg
Boy got an email on Friday from Purdue.
Now Purdue and IU are the two BIG public universities in the state. IU is a little more focused towards liberal arts and such and Purdue is a little more focused on engineering (it’s also the state agricultural school). But they are generally comparable.
As I posted about last week, Boy was not only admitted to IU, they admitted him into their honors college, they gave him a great merit scholarship, and asked him to apply for an honor scholarship. (There was a min. GPA required for the scholarship that he has.)
So Purdue sent Boy an email.
Please send a high school transcript with letter or number grades. We cannot accept pass/fail for grades on a transcript.
???
So we gave him grades and I’m sending it back. But it sure seems kind of funny. One school worked with it, the other didn’t.
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01.25.08
Posted in COLLEGE, The nuts and bolts of it at 8:35 pm by Meg
According to the the Federal Student Aid Handbook :
Though homeschooled students are not considered to have a high school diploma or equivalent, they are eligible to receive FSA funds if their secondary school education was in a homeschool that state law treats as a home or private school.
Now that seems straight forward….Indiana clearly states:
For purposes of student eligibility for Title IV, HEA aid, must a student who completed a secondary school education in a home school setting that was treated as a home school or private school under State law also pass an ability-to-benefit test?
No. If the student completed a secondary school education in a home school setting that was treated as a home school or private school under the law of the State in which the student was home-schooled (and is otherwise eligible), the student is eligible for Title IV, HEA aid.
IDOE: Under Indiana law, students who complete a secondary school education in a home school setting, have completed their secondary education in a school that is treated as a private school in the state of Indiana. No additional ability to benefit test is required.
Why then are we dealing with a couple of schools that are giving us the option to:
In addition, it is important to note that for a home-schooled student to be eligible for federal financial aid and fulfill admissions requirements, he/she must show an “ability to benefit”. Therefore, to satisfy this requirement, home-schooled students must provide one of the following:
-A Graduate Equivalency Diploma (GED).
-Documentation of completion of an approved Ability to Benefit test designated by the US Department of Education. The student’s score must enable him/her to qualify for aid under the Ability to Benefit regulations governing financial aid. ******** University ’s Office of Financial Aid can provide a list of the approved Ability to Benefit tests, or the student can go to US Department of Education’s website http://www.ifap.ed.gov/sfahandbooks/attachments/0607FSAHBkVol1Ch1.pdf
(Note that this is LAST YEAR’S HANDBOOK!)
-A letter from the student’s local school district officials confirming that the student has received an education “substantially equivalent” to instruction given to students graduating high school in the public or private institution. The letter must specifically state, “substantially equivalent”.
I tried to point this all out to their admission people and I can now say that I’ve hit a brick wall. If it wasn’t for the tuition possibilities, I’d say it isn’t worth the hassle.
Boy is not taking the GED and getting a letter from the local school is a JOKE! So I guess we’ll be trucking down to the local community college to take the fool Compass Test. What a waste.
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01.20.08
Posted in COLLEGE, The nuts and bolts of it at 10:46 am by Meg
Boy has a bad habit of not opening mail that isn’t connected to family or his hobbies. The mail gets dumped on the edge of our fireplace (it’s raised off the floor) unopened.
So, I’m trying to do some picking up and collecting college stuff into the folder we set up and I ask for the acceptance stuff from IU (Bloomington - we are in Indiana, so it is our state university). “What?”
He had received an email from them telling him that they were accepting him for next year, so he NEVER opened the offer!
It turned out he had both a letter from IU and their incoming freshman packet - unopened.
The freshman packet included the expected acceptance, but surprise, surprise - they were offering him a 4 yr. - $8,000 per year (which is about in-state tuition) merit scholarship!
The letter was an invitation to join their honors college and an application to apply for special honor scholarships (with a due date of Feb. 2).
Am I a little frustrated?
Anyway, for anyone still trying to wrap their brain around ‘doing’ high school. I want to make clear that he received these offers based on SAT scores (he missed Indiana merit semi-finalist status by one point on the PSAT), 2 AP scores, and a thorough description of what he did for each high school course. He had only 3 ‘graded’ courses on his transcript - two of them were with a local homeschool group (while we were in NM for that one year) that paid people to teach classes and the other was driver ed. Everything else was listed pass/fail.
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