choosing and getting into college

[tulip]

If he's set on the NoVa/DC area make sure he knows almost all of the good schools are private. If he likes the scene from those areas though and wants to be in a city, VCU is a pretty good school and Richmond is a pretty fun city. Every single one of my friends from high school with the exception of one ended up there, whether by transfer or straight out of school. I almost went there, but ended up in Toronto instead.

I didn't go there, but the University of Maryland is a very good school and it's public. It is about 8 miles from the center of DC (and very close to Proteus, the Best Bike Shop Around!) George Mason is also public and quite good. It's on the DC Metro line. James Madison is a further out, but a good school, too (and public). Of course, being an out-of-state student will mean that tuition is high in all public schools. I don't know much about VCU even though I live in Richmond, but it seems to be a vibrant and active place. It has a great art and design program, and city planning is also pretty good. So is social work, I hear, and I'm sure all the rest, too. Richmond is a neat city with lots to do. The University of Richmond is here, too. It's small and private, but very pretty.

[Zen]

+1 to U of MD (and the community college route).
Fear the Turtle!

[NoNo]

I didn't go there, but the University of Maryland is a very good school and it's public. It is about 8 miles from the center of DC (and very close to Proteus, the Best Bike Shop Around!) George Mason is also public and quite good. It's on the DC Metro line. James Madison is a further out, but a good school, too (and public). Of course, being an out-of-state student will mean that tuition is high in all public schools. I don't know much about VCU even though I live in Richmond, but it seems to be a vibrant and active place. It has a great art and design program, and city planning is also pretty good. So is social work, I hear, and I'm sure all the rest, too. Richmond is a neat city with lots to do. The University of Richmond is here, too. It's small and private, but very pretty.

+1 to U of MD (and the community college route).
Fear the Turtle!

03 Alum here! Absolutely the best area to go to college, as there are so many oportunities for internships in any field. And don't worry too much about declaring a major going into college. Most people change it anyway, and the first year is spent taking core classes. Most likely, one of those classes will stoke a fire and help him find what he wants to do. As a junior, he should be doing SATs this year so that next fall all he has to worry about is sending applications in.

The next thing to think about is what kind of campus environment he'd be comfortable in. A few years ago two of my cousins were looking at schools. I took them down to UMD and Towson. Neither liked Towson, one like UMD, one hated it. For her, the campus and student body was WAY too large and she didn't like the urban environment. It's very important to be comfortable in the place you're going to call home the next 4 years. Even places that look perfect on paper may strike you differently once you're there, so visit, visit, visit!

[Aggie_Ama]

The only thing I caution on no major is many of the universities it can be hard to transfer within the school. I know at A&M and UT if you don't start business or engineering you better have close to a 4.0 if you want to move over to those colleges. So general studies isn't always the best choice at some schools, he should look into whether that is an issue.

Oh and the community college thing is good if he may not be the best student as far as dedication. My husband is very intelligent but in high school he just took the regular classes, did enough to get by with B's, wasn't much of a studier. He did the CC thing and dropped about half the classes. He just took a bit of time to really get into the studying, test, note taking routine. He did pretty good in college in a hard major but probably would have flunked out of A&M if he had got in as a freshman.

[Kimmyt]

I never met with a guidance counselor for college stuff. Of course, I was the third kid in about 5 years to go that route, so my mom and dad new what was up, sorta. But I did most of the research myself. I looked online, thought about what I wanted to do.

Even if he doesn't know what he wants to do, he may have an idea of what his strengths are, i.e. math/science, communication/english, or lib arts. That might help to determine colleges.

Personally a big factor for me was cost, but then if he is looking out of state I guess that is not an option. Definitely visit colleges, get a feel for whether you like a more urban or rural environment.

If there is a specific program he wants to get into, now is a good time to start building experience in the field through part time jobs and internships.

(ps. i wanted to go to U of M so bad! But I had to stay in state due to funds. I ended up at PSU and loved it. I'm glad, actually, I'm a much better Football fan than a basketball fan!

[Irulan]

ersonally a big factor for me was cost, but then if he is looking out of state I guess that is not an option. Definitely visit colleges, get a feel for whether you like a more urban or rural environment.

Out of state can be relative. Here in the west, we have a program that is called e WUE (woo-ey) where if you have the right grades, you can get instate tuition at a WUE school in another state. I know that participating states are Washington, Idaho, Colorado, Arizona and Montana, Hawaii,Californiato name just some of them . Not all state schools participate: Colo School of Mines is the one Colo state school that is NOT on the list, where son #2 is attending. But most do. Son#1 is about to graduate from Northern AZ at Flagstaff, AZ, and we've been paying the same that we would have at UW here in Washington.

Is there not something like this in other parts of the country?

Here's the list, pretty extensive:
http://wue.wiche.edu/search_results.jsp?searchType=all

[Aggie_Ama]

Nothing like that in Texas. Then again we are fortunate to have a very extensive state school program since we are a huge state. UT and A&M are fairly highly ranked in business and engineering, Texas Tech is also a good school. The smaller state schools Texas State, UNT, Sam Houston State and the satellite UT and A&M branches are good as well. Then we have tons of smaller state schools like Stephen F. Austin, Tarleton State, Sul Ross and others that are available.

Of course I had a lot of high school classmates go to Nebraska, Oklahoma, Louisiana on out of state tuition waivers, basically a partial scholarship. I am sure Texas does that but it is definitely a case by case thing and not a formal known program. Pretty cool what you have.