Help Me Plan: Early College visits

[Terabith]

Waving to you from Roanoke, VA.  We homeschooled when my kids were little, and for a brief stretch for my oldest in high school due to a mental health crisis, but my senior is at Community High School (which, if you decide you DO want to look at a brick and mortar, is a school that really excels with languages and the liberal arts and quirky) and my sophomore is at Patrick Henry High School.  

I'll share with you places we have looked for my senior who is also liberal artsy and who will be going to Hollins in the fall.  In general, small private schools came in as less expensive than state schools for us.  

Roanoke College has good merit aid.  I went there on a full ride about 25 years ago, and my oldest got decent merit aid from them.  They have a phenomenal international relations department.  

Longwood and University of Mary Washington should go on your list as smaller state schools that offer more merit than the bigger state schools and are less cut throat than places like William and Mary, although the fees aspect of state schools make getting total price down hard even with the highest merit offerings.  Mary Washington also has the advantage of being able to take the Amtrack from Roanoke right to it.  

College of Wooster is six hours away in Ohio, and it came in as the second best option for us financially.  I was very impressed by it.  

Earlham in Indiana is also six hours away.  They gave us less merit money, but that's always a crap shoot.  I don't think my oldest is as competitive as your kid is likely to be, so you might have a better experience.  Earlham was actually my oldest's favorite school they looked at.  

Check out Warren Wilson, in North Carolina.  Also maybe Maryville College in Tennessee.  It's maybe four or five hours away.  

Some North Carolina schools like Appalachian State are pretty affordable.  Also University of Virginia - Wise campus is somewhere to look at.  My oldest is nonbinary, so we needed more LGBT friendly towns than those two, but they were on our radar as options.  

 

[pehp]

On 4/2/2022 at 5:27 PM, Terabith said:

Waving to you from Roanoke, VA.  We homeschooled when my kids were little, and for a brief stretch for my oldest in high school due to a mental health crisis, but my senior is at Community High School (which, if you decide you DO want to look at a brick and mortar, is a school that really excels with languages and the liberal arts and quirky) and my sophomore is at Patrick Henry High School.  

I'll share with you places we have looked for my senior who is also liberal artsy and who will be going to Hollins in the fall.  In general, small private schools came in as less expensive than state schools for us.  

Roanoke College has good merit aid.  I went there on a full ride about 25 years ago, and my oldest got decent merit aid from them.  They have a phenomenal international relations department.  

Longwood and University of Mary Washington should go on your list as smaller state schools that offer more merit than the bigger state schools and are less cut throat than places like William and Mary, although the fees aspect of state schools make getting total price down hard even with the highest merit offerings.  Mary Washington also has the advantage of being able to take the Amtrack from Roanoke right to it.  

College of Wooster is six hours away in Ohio, and it came in as the second best option for us financially.  I was very impressed by it.  

Earlham in Indiana is also six hours away.  They gave us less merit money, but that's always a crap shoot.  I don't think my oldest is as competitive as your kid is likely to be, so you might have a better experience.  Earlham was actually my oldest's favorite school they looked at.  

Check out Warren Wilson, in North Carolina.  Also maybe Maryville College in Tennessee.  It's maybe four or five hours away.  

Some North Carolina schools like Appalachian State are pretty affordable.  Also University of Virginia - Wise campus is somewhere to look at.  My oldest is nonbinary, so we needed more LGBT friendly towns than those two, but they were on our radar as options.  

 

Thanks!  We have an acquaintance at Community HS! It's such a neat place.... 🙂

My sister is a Roanoke College grad and got excellent aid even though she had middling grades and a not-great-SAT score (of course this was in 2001).  I think my son would get in there with no problem, and of course, it's nice and close to home. It's definitely on the list of probable options. My mom went to Mary Washington back in the dark ages--and it's on my mental list, if not my physical one.  I didn't realize we can take the Amtrak to Fredericksburg from here!  That is a bonus.

I will check out the other schools you mention.  We are also going to take a look sometime at Dickinson.  My BIL is in administration there and they apparently have a super study abroad program.  

I'm super intrigued by W&M's new "St Andrews/William and Mary" degree (2 years in Williamsburg, 2 years in Scotland!), but so far, my son hasn't shown a ton of interest in W&M.  We'll see.  I loved it there!  It was very much the right fit for me, but he's a different creature.  (And much, much smarter than I am. ;))

So many possibilities!

[pehp]

On 4/2/2022 at 10:37 AM, JanetC said:

"Window shopping" general admissions tours to determine if a student likes the feel of different types of campuses are one thing, but I agree that you shouldn't do a visit with a professor until you're further down the path and have good questions. Repsect faculty time. On the other hand, feel free to ask your tour guide student anything! Some generic ones are
"Why did you choose X-college?" "What's the best class you've ever taken here?"

We are definitely looking generally! There's certainly no point in contacting professors at this juncture--in fact, I hadn't even thought about that.  Of course, I never went on ONE college tour EVER!

[8filltheheart]

Since you travel to SC all of the time, I'd stop by USC.  That is where my dd attended and graduated with degrees in Russian and French.  She loved her time there.  (She was a Top Scholar and has so many opportunities.  She was selected for CLS (Russia) twice.  She was able to use her scholarship $$ for grad courses her sr yr.  (She is currently earning her MLIS and was part of their accelerated MLIS degree program.)  

If he is interested in critical languages, there are Flagship programs (meaning accelerated language focus).  When she was a sr in high school, there were only 4 Russian Flagships and we couldn't afford any of them. (She attend SC on scholarship.)  She had been told she would never be able to achieve her language goals without attending one or spending significant time abroad.  She managed to reach advanced-mid with neither.  (CLS Russia was virtual both yrs for her thanks to covid.)  

[Terabith]

1 hour ago, pehp said:

Thanks!  We have an acquaintance at Community HS! It's such a neat place.... 🙂

My sister is a Roanoke College grad and got excellent aid even though she had middling grades and a not-great-SAT score (of course this was in 2001).  I think my son would get in there with no problem, and of course, it's nice and close to home. It's definitely on the list of probable options. My mom went to Mary Washington back in the dark ages--and it's on my mental list, if not my physical one.  I didn't realize we can take the Amtrak to Fredericksburg from here!  That is a bonus.

I will check out the other schools you mention.  We are also going to take a look sometime at Dickinson.  My BIL is in administration there and they apparently have a super study abroad program.  

I'm super intrigued by W&M's new "St Andrews/William and Mary" degree (2 years in Williamsburg, 2 years in Scotland!), but so far, my son hasn't shown a ton of interest in W&M.  We'll see.  I loved it there!  It was very much the right fit for me, but he's a different creature.  (And much, much smarter than I am. ;))

So many possibilities!

The one thing I'm annoyed about Roanoke College for is that "back in the day" they used to have a number of full ride and full tuition scholarships.  There was a big scholarship weekend with essays and interviews and what not, in addition to the scholarship application.  They've gotten rid of those things now.  

[bensonduck]

It may be too late for this year but USC does have a pre-university program for high schoolers to live there for a week or two over the summer and take a course. I think it is called Master Scholars. 

[pehp]

1 hour ago, 8filltheheart said:

Since you travel to SC all of the time, I'd stop by USC.  That is where my dd attended and graduated with degrees in Russian and French.  She loved her time there.  (She was a Top Scholar and has so many opportunities.  She was selected for CLS (Russia) twice.  She was able to use her scholarship $$ for grad courses her sr yr.  (She is currently earning her MLIS and was part of their accelerated MLIS degree program.)  

If he is interested in critical languages, there are Flagship programs (meaning accelerated language focus).  When she was a sr in high school, there were only 4 Russian Flagships and we couldn't afford any of them. (She attend SC on scholarship.)  She had been told she would never be able to achieve her language goals without attending one or spending significant time abroad.  She managed to reach advanced-mid with neither.  (CLS Russia was virtual both yrs for her thanks to covid.)  

Oh thanks for this! My sweet dad is a gamecock (in fact my parents met in grad school at USC!) & would loooveeee this. 😉 

What is CLS? That’s an acronym I don’t readily know, apparently. 
 

This is definitely keeping me open to the larger public schools! Are you a SC resident?

[pehp]

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

The one thing I'm annoyed about Roanoke College for is that "back in the day" they used to have a number of full ride and full tuition scholarships.  There was a big scholarship weekend with essays and interviews and what not, in addition to the scholarship application.  They've gotten rid of those things now.  

That is a bummer. My sister didn’t get a full ride but she got LOTS of money. I’m sorry to hear that they’re offering fewer full scholarships. 

[8filltheheart]

39 minutes ago, pehp said:

Oh thanks for this! My sweet dad is a gamecock (in fact my parents met in grad school at USC!) & would loooveeee this. 😉 

What is CLS? That’s an acronym I don’t readily know, apparently. 
 

This is definitely keeping me open to the larger public schools! Are you a SC resident?

CLS is Critical Language Scholarship. https://clscholarship.org/about it is a competitive scholarship for IIRC 15 languages. I think they accept something like six hundred students total from around the country for all languages. I think the first year my daughter won there were 60 Russian students. She found out before covid and was so disappointed when it was virtual. 

No, we are not South Carolina residents. She was one of 40 out-of-state students selected as a top scholar.

[pehp]

1 hour ago, 8filltheheart said:

CLS is Critical Language Scholarship. https://clscholarship.org/about it is a competitive scholarship for IIRC 15 languages. I think they accept something like six hundred students total from around the country for all languages. I think the first year my daughter won there were 60 Russian students. She found out before covid and was so disappointed when it was virtual. 

No, we are not South Carolina residents. She was one of 40 out-of-state students selected as a top scholar.

This is incredible! It is right up my son’s alley. He’s most interested in Chinese and Arabic (also Thai but that’s not a critical language)…..hoping to get 2+ years of study of one of those under his belt before college. He’s also quite interested in international relations and diplomacy…..

[8filltheheart]

You might want to look into the Croft Institute at Ole Miss.  About Us | The Croft Institute for International Studies | Ole Miss

Ole Miss is now the home of 2 critical language flagship programs: Chinese and Arabic.

Chinese Language Flagship Program - University of Mississippi (olemiss.edu)

Arabic Language Flagship Program | The Language Flagship (olemiss.edu)

Being able to attend a U on scholarship with a flagship program is a huge blessing.  It was what we had hoped to find for dd, but there weren't any for Russian.  It turned out OK bc she reached very high level language goals anyway.  But, flagship programs are definitely aligned for language mastery.  Not all UG programs have very high language goals.  (Intermediate level is often the target.)   It takes self-motivation to achieve higher levels in most programs.

[pehp]

On 4/7/2022 at 6:40 PM, 8filltheheart said:

You might want to look into the Croft Institute at Ole Miss.  About Us | The Croft Institute for International Studies | Ole Miss

Ole Miss is now the home of 2 critical language flagship programs: Chinese and Arabic.

Chinese Language Flagship Program - University of Mississippi (olemiss.edu)

Arabic Language Flagship Program | The Language Flagship (olemiss.edu)

Being able to attend a U on scholarship with a flagship program is a huge blessing.  It was what we had hoped to find for dd, but there weren't any for Russian.  It turned out OK bc she reached very high level language goals anyway.  But, flagship programs are definitely aligned for language mastery.  Not all UG programs have very high language goals.  (Intermediate level is often the target.)   It takes self-motivation to achieve higher levels in most programs.

This is great--thank you for sharing.

I am ignorant about language education, and would love to know--are flagship programs typically only for critical languages, or are there flagship programs across the US also for French?  He will almost certainly be fluent BY college, so he'll want a program with these higher language goals, if he does continue to pursue languages in college. And I'd be shocked if he didn't.  

He's so intrigued by the CLS program that I showed him!!!!  Like, super enthusiastic!  "Urdu!" he exclaimed.

Ha ha. 

[8filltheheart]

CLS is only for those 15 critical languages.  My dd was fluent in French when she graduated from high school.  Even so, she learned a ton of French in college.  (Different vocabulary.  More complex grammar structures, etc.  She now functions equally in French as she does in English.  (Not quite there in Russian.  She took 4 rys of Russian in high school and was at a B1+ level in high school.  She is advanced-mid/C1 in Russian.  That was accomplished at an ordinary university in an ordinary program.  It was more about what she did while she was there. 

[pehp]

As a quick update, we have started this "early visit" process and it has been very helpful.  I think that choosing schools that are very different (large public research u/state flagship/small private LAC in small town/big city) to visit has been excellent for helping us start to think through what would work well for us/him and what's "out there".  (Not to mention it's just a lot of fun to check out the different cultures on college campuses.) My son is a sophomore this year and this has really helped him formulate his thoughts on colleges and start to catch a vision for what lies ahead.  It has been 100% the right thing to do and a good investment of our time!