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(05-02-2021 07:52 AM)Bearcat 1985 Wrote:  

(05-01-2021 10:18 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Xavier tuition is listed on their website as $42,460/year
Dayton tuition is listed on their website as $44,840/year

Insanity. I can see that for an Ivy-Chicago-Stanford level school or even the next level Northwestern-Duke-Notre Dame types. To pay that to go to entirely run of the mill, mediocre colleges just so you can say you went to a private Catholic school is ridiculous.

That’s their sticker price, but after discounts Xavier basically offered to match UC’s rate (also helped his mom has her master’s from there). It sort of shocked me because he was an average student in high school. He turned them down and just wrapped up his third year at UC.

(05-02-2021 08:35 AM)CliftonAve Wrote:  

(05-02-2021 07:52 AM)Bearcat 1985 Wrote:  

(05-01-2021 10:18 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Xavier tuition is listed on their website as $42,460/year
Dayton tuition is listed on their website as $44,840/year

Insanity. I can see that for an Ivy-Chicago-Stanford level school or even the next level Northwestern-Duke-Notre Dame types. To pay that to go to entirely run of the mill, mediocre colleges just so you can say you went to a private Catholic school is ridiculous.

That’s their sticker price, but after discounts Xavier basically offered to match UC’s rate (also helped his mom has her master’s from there). It sort of shocked me because he was an average student in high school. He turned them down and just wrapped up his third year at UC.

Yeah, predatory recruitment practices run strong in the private schools. You jack up the sticker then give average kids "$130,000" of scholarships to make them feel special when public schools that are mandated to stay at a specific tuition level can't give many scholarships to them at all. There isn't a student alive who wouldn't get $20,000/year from Xavier...there was a student who we didn't admit initially at Toledo that I was working with who got a $100,000 total award from Xavier and thought she was going there for free. Private/For Profits are the root of the student loan crises because they seemingly take advantage of more students who don't know any better.

(05-01-2021 10:18 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Xavier tuition is listed on their website as $42,460/year
Dayton tuition is listed on their website as $44,840/year

My daughter narrowed her choices down to UC and OSU, and just committed to UC this past week.

I think a big part of her decision came down to feeling comfortable at UC due to all of the football and basketball games I took her to over the years.

But OSU is CHEAPER than UC!

Without referring to my notes, it is several hundred a semester cheaper just on tuition.

With comparable dorm housing and food plans added in, OSU would have been $2k a year cheaper than UC.

That really made me push her to give OSU a fair consideration, even though for my own selfish reasons I wanted her to go to UC. (Now I have an excuse to come to a lot more football and basketball games)

(05-02-2021 08:35 AM)CliftonAve Wrote:  

(05-02-2021 07:52 AM)Bearcat 1985 Wrote:  

(05-01-2021 10:18 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Xavier tuition is listed on their website as $42,460/year
Dayton tuition is listed on their website as $44,840/year

Insanity. I can see that for an Ivy-Chicago-Stanford level school or even the next level Northwestern-Duke-Notre Dame types. To pay that to go to entirely run of the mill, mediocre colleges just so you can say you went to a private Catholic school is ridiculous.

That’s their sticker price, but after discounts Xavier basically offered to match UC’s rate (also helped his mom has her master’s from there). It sort of shocked me because he was an average student in high school. He turned them down and just wrapped up his third year at UC.

When my daughters were looking at schools, my oldest was accepted into Northwestern. It was quite expensive (over $50,000 a year back in 2014), But Northwestern offered her a $25,000 a year scholarship because she was a diverse student (Northwestern didn't give academic scholarships).

I was surprised since as a German-American she is not very diverse around here. Northwestern apparently thought she was diverse because she was non-Jewish and not from Chicago or New York. They loved that she was in 4-H.

She went to UC instead, because it was cheaper and because of the co-op program. She never regretted it, graduating with money still in her savings and a good job offer to work in greater Cincinnati.

(05-02-2021 03:08 PM)namrag Wrote:  

(05-01-2021 10:18 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Xavier tuition is listed on their website as $42,460/year
Dayton tuition is listed on their website as $44,840/year

My daughter narrowed her choices down to UC and OSU, and just committed to UC this past week.

I think a big part of her decision came down to feeling comfortable at UC due to all of the football and basketball games I took her to over the years.

But OSU is CHEAPER than UC!

Without referring to my notes, it is several hundred a semester cheaper just on tuition.

With comparable dorm housing and food plans added in, OSU would have been $2k a year cheaper than UC.

That really made me push her to give OSU a fair consideration, even though for my own selfish reasons I wanted her to go to UC. (Now I have an excuse to come to a lot more football and basketball games)

I thought for awhile that I was going to lose my youngest daughter to OSU. The cost difference didn't matter, as the mandatory co-op program in UC engineering easily made up the difference over OSU's voluntary program. After the campus tour (which at OSU was great and UC was poor), OSU was looking way ahead, but OSU bombed the engineering department tour, whereas UC excelled at that.

(05-02-2021 03:50 PM)Bruce Monnin Wrote:  

(05-02-2021 03:08 PM)namrag Wrote:  

(05-01-2021 10:18 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Xavier tuition is listed on their website as $42,460/year
Dayton tuition is listed on their website as $44,840/year

My daughter narrowed her choices down to UC and OSU, and just committed to UC this past week.

I think a big part of her decision came down to feeling comfortable at UC due to all of the football and basketball games I took her to over the years.

But OSU is CHEAPER than UC!

Without referring to my notes, it is several hundred a semester cheaper just on tuition.

With comparable dorm housing and food plans added in, OSU would have been $2k a year cheaper than UC.

That really made me push her to give OSU a fair consideration, even though for my own selfish reasons I wanted her to go to UC. (Now I have an excuse to come to a lot more football and basketball games)

I thought for awhile that I was going to lose my youngest daughter to OSU. The cost difference didn't matter, as the mandatory co-op program in UC engineering easily made up the difference over OSU's voluntary program. After the campus tour (which at OSU was great and UC was poor), OSU was looking way ahead, but OSU bombed the engineering department tour, whereas UC excelled at that.

Congrats. I had 3 brothers and 6 cousins graduating from UC Engineering. All went on to have very successful careers. UC engineering Co-op program is second to none in the nation.

(05-02-2021 03:50 PM)Bruce Monnin Wrote:  

(05-02-2021 03:08 PM)namrag Wrote:  

(05-01-2021 10:18 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Xavier tuition is listed on their website as $42,460/year
Dayton tuition is listed on their website as $44,840/year

My daughter narrowed her choices down to UC and OSU, and just committed to UC this past week.

I think a big part of her decision came down to feeling comfortable at UC due to all of the football and basketball games I took her to over the years.

But OSU is CHEAPER than UC!

Without referring to my notes, it is several hundred a semester cheaper just on tuition.

With comparable dorm housing and food plans added in, OSU would have been $2k a year cheaper than UC.

That really made me push her to give OSU a fair consideration, even though for my own selfish reasons I wanted her to go to UC. (Now I have an excuse to come to a lot more football and basketball games)

I thought for awhile that I was going to lose my youngest daughter to OSU. The cost difference didn't matter, as the mandatory co-op program in UC engineering easily made up the difference over OSU's voluntary program. After the campus tour (which at OSU was great and UC was poor), OSU was looking way ahead, but OSU bombed the engineering department tour, whereas UC excelled at that.

Yes the UC tour was the worst of all the tours we did: OSU, UC, BGSU, Otterbien.

The OSU tour had us in groups of 6, and it was a full 90 minutes of nonstop talk by the guide.

At UC we went to 2 different tours. The first tour was maybe 30 minutes, and the guide didn’t give much dialogue.
The second was self guided.

However when my daughter was down to UC and OSU, she scheduled zoom meetings with advisors. The UC advisor was enthusiastic and really sold the program to her.
The OSU advisor was disengaged and seemed to have the attitude of “come here or don’t, we have plenty more who want on main campus”.

That is just one person from each university, but it made a huge impact on her.

I wish the students success.

If you'd like to raise concerns about tour guides then try to reach out to the ROAR tour guide office. ROAR hosts all the campus tours and I'm sure they'd like to hear how they can improve

I expressed my displeasure with the campus tour both time we went with my daughters. Never heard back and i don't think anything changed. The guides were good at pointing out each of the Starbucks on campus. And, oh, by the way, over there somewhere is where the engineers and architects go to class.

However, the engineering tour each year were top notch. Started us in a group of about 15, then kept breaking down my major until each time our daughters got down to just being one of two people walking and talking with the head of the department. Have to think we got lucky each time, but they were very impressive.

(05-02-2021 10:34 PM)Bruce Monnin Wrote:  I expressed my displeasure with the campus tour both time we went with my daughters. Never heard back and i don't think anything changed. The guides were good at pointing out each of the Starbucks on campus. And, oh, by the way, over there somewhere is where the engineers and architects go to class.

However, the engineering tour each year were top notch. Started us in a group of about 15, then kept breaking down my major until each time our daughters got down to just being one of two people walking and talking with the head of the department. Have to think we got lucky each time, but they were very impressive.

Grandson is an entering freshman engineering student, and he and my son did a couple of self guided tours of the campus, but what sold him was the engineering tour - the people they select to do that one seem to be really good at it.

(05-02-2021 07:52 AM)Bearcat 1985 Wrote:  

(05-01-2021 10:18 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Xavier tuition is listed on their website as $42,460/year
Dayton tuition is listed on their website as $44,840/year

Insanity. I can see that for an Ivy-Chicago-Stanford level school or even the next level Northwestern-Duke-Notre Dame types. To pay that to go to entirely run of the mill, mediocre colleges just so you can say you went to a private Catholic school is ridiculous.

You nailed it. If an outstanding student has the chance to go to a truly prestigious private (or public) university they may be wise to do so. But to spend $42,460 for lesser privates is nonsense. And I know that X and others will deeply discount that price through subsidies. But X only has about 1/3 of the endowment that a Dayton or Marquette has so it begs the question, how will it continue to compete as that well gets tapped for so many incoming freshmen?

(05-04-2021 08:09 AM)OKIcat Wrote:  

(05-02-2021 07:52 AM)Bearcat 1985 Wrote:  

(05-01-2021 10:18 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Xavier tuition is listed on their website as $42,460/year
Dayton tuition is listed on their website as $44,840/year

Insanity. I can see that for an Ivy-Chicago-Stanford level school or even the next level Northwestern-Duke-Notre Dame types. To pay that to go to entirely run of the mill, mediocre colleges just so you can say you went to a private Catholic school is ridiculous.

You nailed it. If an outstanding student has the chance to go to a truly prestigious private (or public) university they may be wise to do so. But to spend $42,460 for lesser privates is nonsense. And I know that X and others will deeply discount that price through subsidies. But X only has about 1/3 of the endowment that a Dayton or Marquette has so it begs the question, how will it continue to complete as that well gets tapped for so many incoming freshmen?

I would not have guessed that.

(05-04-2021 08:25 AM)RuckleSt Wrote:  

(05-04-2021 08:09 AM)OKIcat Wrote:  

(05-02-2021 07:52 AM)Bearcat 1985 Wrote:  

(05-01-2021 10:18 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Xavier tuition is listed on their website as $42,460/year
Dayton tuition is listed on their website as $44,840/year

Insanity. I can see that for an Ivy-Chicago-Stanford level school or even the next level Northwestern-Duke-Notre Dame types. To pay that to go to entirely run of the mill, mediocre colleges just so you can say you went to a private Catholic school is ridiculous.

You nailed it. If an outstanding student has the chance to go to a truly prestigious private (or public) university they may be wise to do so. But to spend $42,460 for lesser privates is nonsense. And I know that X and others will deeply discount that price through subsidies. But X only has about 1/3 of the endowment that a Dayton or Marquette has so it begs the question, how will it continue to complete as that well gets tapped for so many incoming freshmen?

I would not have guessed that.

It's not even about endowment. It's also about the type of professors they hire and the salaries they pay.

Dayton is a research school. I'd guess they pay professors roughly as much as UC.

Xavier is a teaching school. I'd guess they pay professors 2/3 as much as UC.

Edit: most professors I've talked to think teaching ability and research ability are highly correlated. While there's plenty of examples of people who are great at one and horrible at the other, a lot of times that stereotypical professor who is "overly focused on his research" is only ignoring his teaching because he's a poor researcher who's about to perish due to lack of publications.

(05-04-2021 09:03 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(05-04-2021 08:25 AM)RuckleSt Wrote:  

(05-04-2021 08:09 AM)OKIcat Wrote:  

(05-02-2021 07:52 AM)Bearcat 1985 Wrote:  

(05-01-2021 10:18 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Xavier tuition is listed on their website as $42,460/year
Dayton tuition is listed on their website as $44,840/year

Insanity. I can see that for an Ivy-Chicago-Stanford level school or even the next level Northwestern-Duke-Notre Dame types. To pay that to go to entirely run of the mill, mediocre colleges just so you can say you went to a private Catholic school is ridiculous.

You nailed it. If an outstanding student has the chance to go to a truly prestigious private (or public) university they may be wise to do so. But to spend $42,460 for lesser privates is nonsense. And I know that X and others will deeply discount that price through subsidies. But X only has about 1/3 of the endowment that a Dayton or Marquette has so it begs the question, how will it continue to complete as that well gets tapped for so many incoming freshmen?

I would not have guessed that.

It's not even about endowment. It's also about the type of professors they hire and the salaries they pay.

Dayton is a research school. I'd guess they pay professors roughly as much as UC.

Xavier is a teaching school. I'd guess they pay professors 2/3 as much as UC.

Edit: most professors I've talked to think teaching ability and research ability are highly correlated. While there's plenty of examples of people who are great at one and horrible at the other, a lot of times that stereotypical professor who is "overly focused on his research" is only ignoring his teaching because he's a poor researcher who's about to perish due to lack of publications.

Great news about those kids choosing UC over OSU. May I ask was it just that they felt it was a better fit or did UC pony up some aid packages that made it more attractive than OSU?

(05-04-2021 10:00 AM)Bearcat 1985 Wrote:  

(05-04-2021 09:03 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(05-04-2021 08:25 AM)RuckleSt Wrote:  

(05-04-2021 08:09 AM)OKIcat Wrote:  

(05-02-2021 07:52 AM)Bearcat 1985 Wrote:  Insanity. I can see that for an Ivy-Chicago-Stanford level school or even the next level Northwestern-Duke-Notre Dame types. To pay that to go to entirely run of the mill, mediocre colleges just so you can say you went to a private Catholic school is ridiculous.

You nailed it. If an outstanding student has the chance to go to a truly prestigious private (or public) university they may be wise to do so. But to spend $42,460 for lesser privates is nonsense. And I know that X and others will deeply discount that price through subsidies. But X only has about 1/3 of the endowment that a Dayton or Marquette has so it begs the question, how will it continue to complete as that well gets tapped for so many incoming freshmen?

I would not have guessed that.

It's not even about endowment. It's also about the type of professors they hire and the salaries they pay.

Dayton is a research school. I'd guess they pay professors roughly as much as UC.

Xavier is a teaching school. I'd guess they pay professors 2/3 as much as UC.

Edit: most professors I've talked to think teaching ability and research ability are highly correlated. While there's plenty of examples of people who are great at one and horrible at the other, a lot of times that stereotypical professor who is "overly focused on his research" is only ignoring his teaching because he's a poor researcher who's about to perish due to lack of publications.

Great news about those kids choosing UC over OSU. May I ask was it just that they felt it was a better fit or did UC pony up some aid packages that made it more attractive than OSU?

Neither ponied up any money, yet (but we are still trying).

OSU had the better tour by a long shot, and for us north-of-Dayton country folk I have to admit that the OSU campus with all of it's greenspace is nicer in my eyes. You can tell that OSU has plenty of money to invest in their campus.

But the UC campus is also very nice after you get past the lack of greenspace as compared to OSU.

The clincher for my daughter was the advisors that she spoke to from each university.

The UC advisors were very enthusiastic about their programs, and really made an effort to sell her on them. When she asked them what was unique about the UC program that sets it apart they responded enthusiastically.

When she asked specific questions they either had the answer or followed up afterwards with the answer.

The OSU advisors did not come off as engaged. Many of their answers to specific questions were along the lines of "you can google that. it is online". When she asked the question about what is unique about the OSU program that sets it apart, they turned the question back on her "I will turn that question back to you and ask you what kinds of things you are lookng for in a program".
That in particular really turned her off. She had done a lot of research, and was still really stressing between OSU and UC. And instead of selling OSU to her they (that particular advisor) took the lazy way out.

She called me in the middle of the school day to complain to me about how her Zoom meeting with OSU went. She said that they were no help at all.

Additionally she had scheduled that Zoom call with OSU during the school day (only times OSU offered a meeting), so she had to arrange to get out of class. When she logged on at the set time no one from OSU was there. She scrambled for 15 minutes, in a panic wondering if she had done something wrong, before being able to get through to a secretary, who rescheduled it for an hour later.
She had to get out of class again, logged on, and the advisor did not even mention, let alone apologize for, the earlier meeting that the advisor had missed.

That is only one person out of thousands that work there, but it made a big impact.

I also think my daughter feels more comfortable with UC because I have taken her there for football and basketball games ever since she was a toddler (with me telling stories of my college days there, and pointing out things around campus). And we usually go to the Taste of Cincinnati every Memorial Day weekend, visit the Cincy Zoo, etc. So she is more comfortable with the thought of the campus and the city because she has some familiarity with it.

My advice to my daughter was to choose the one she felt more comfortable with. Both programs are very good, and very respected. So she had the very good problem of having to choose between two excellent options.

(05-03-2021 11:31 AM)beethovan Wrote:  

(05-02-2021 10:34 PM)Bruce Monnin Wrote:  I expressed my displeasure with the campus tour both time we went with my daughters. Never heard back and i don't think anything changed. The guides were good at pointing out each of the Starbucks on campus. And, oh, by the way, over there somewhere is where the engineers and architects go to class.

However, the engineering tour each year were top notch. Started us in a group of about 15, then kept breaking down my major until each time our daughters got down to just being one of two people walking and talking with the head of the department. Have to think we got lucky each time, but they were very impressive.

Grandson is an entering freshman engineering student, and he and my son did a couple of self guided tours of the campus, but what sold him was the engineering tour - the people they select to do that one seem to be really good at it.

More than a few years ago I used to be one of the students giving tours of the College of Engineering to prospective students and their families (we weren't paid, it was part of one of the engineering student organizations, and we had little to no interaction with the university tours). The tours frequently were Friday afternoons so my schedule usually had freed up by that point in the week. If the student had designated an engineering discipline, we took them to that respective department after the tour of the engineering facilities. I noticed the students and family generally found the discussion/Q&A session with the department heads or other professors enthusiastic on selling the college to be very beneficial. I never saw any feedback, anonymous or otherwise, during my time there, so assuming Engineering is still conducting the visits similarly, it makes me feel good to know that, at least for the individual college portion, the tour and visit has been viewed positively and as being influential.

(05-04-2021 01:20 PM)UCengr Wrote:  

(05-03-2021 11:31 AM)beethovan Wrote:  

(05-02-2021 10:34 PM)Bruce Monnin Wrote:  I expressed my displeasure with the campus tour both time we went with my daughters. Never heard back and i don't think anything changed. The guides were good at pointing out each of the Starbucks on campus. And, oh, by the way, over there somewhere is where the engineers and architects go to class.

However, the engineering tour each year were top notch. Started us in a group of about 15, then kept breaking down my major until each time our daughters got down to just being one of two people walking and talking with the head of the department. Have to think we got lucky each time, but they were very impressive.

Grandson is an entering freshman engineering student, and he and my son did a couple of self guided tours of the campus, but what sold him was the engineering tour - the people they select to do that one seem to be really good at it.

More than a few years ago I used to be one of the students giving tours of the College of Engineering to prospective students and their families (we weren't paid, it was part of one of the engineering student organizations, and we had little to no interaction with the university tours). The tours frequently were Friday afternoons so my schedule usually had freed up by that point in the week. If the student had designated an engineering discipline, we took them to that respective department after the tour of the engineering facilities. I noticed the students and family generally found the discussion/Q&A session with the department heads or other professors enthusiastic on selling the college to be very beneficial. I never saw any feedback, anonymous or otherwise, during my time there, so assuming Engineering is still conducting the visits similarly, it makes me feel good to know that, at least for the individual college portion, the tour and visit has been viewed positively and as being influential.

I'm trying to get my kid to consider UC. His dream school is Northwestern, and he's a slight reach for that. He'll do it and roll the dice at a couple of hard reaches (Ivy & Chicago) and another slight reach private LAC like Carleton or Kenyon. His matches are big AAU flagships, and right now his list is Illinois (yeah, in-state tuition), Wisconsin, OSU, Minnesota and if he wants to go far away Washington or UCLA.

That's why I'm wondering what UC is putting on the table to lure these kids away from Columbus. Unfortunately, he's not engineering. He wants to dual major in a hard science (physics or astronomy most likely) and a humanities/social science with the goal of the State Department/CIA/NSA. Although the ultimate goal can surely change over the course of college, and he might end up in law school or med school or a doctoral program instead.

(05-04-2021 07:26 PM)Bearcat 1985 Wrote:  

(05-04-2021 01:20 PM)UCengr Wrote:  

(05-03-2021 11:31 AM)beethovan Wrote:  

(05-02-2021 10:34 PM)Bruce Monnin Wrote:  I expressed my displeasure with the campus tour both time we went with my daughters. Never heard back and i don't think anything changed. The guides were good at pointing out each of the Starbucks on campus. And, oh, by the way, over there somewhere is where the engineers and architects go to class.

However, the engineering tour each year were top notch. Started us in a group of about 15, then kept breaking down my major until each time our daughters got down to just being one of two people walking and talking with the head of the department. Have to think we got lucky each time, but they were very impressive.

Grandson is an entering freshman engineering student, and he and my son did a couple of self guided tours of the campus, but what sold him was the engineering tour - the people they select to do that one seem to be really good at it.

More than a few years ago I used to be one of the students giving tours of the College of Engineering to prospective students and their families (we weren't paid, it was part of one of the engineering student organizations, and we had little to no interaction with the university tours). The tours frequently were Friday afternoons so my schedule usually had freed up by that point in the week. If the student had designated an engineering discipline, we took them to that respective department after the tour of the engineering facilities. I noticed the students and family generally found the discussion/Q&A session with the department heads or other professors enthusiastic on selling the college to be very beneficial. I never saw any feedback, anonymous or otherwise, during my time there, so assuming Engineering is still conducting the visits similarly, it makes me feel good to know that, at least for the individual college portion, the tour and visit has been viewed positively and as being influential.

I'm trying to get my kid to consider UC. His dream school is Northwestern, and he's a slight reach for that. He'll do it and roll the dice at a couple of hard reaches (Ivy & Chicago) and another slight reach private LAC like Carleton or Kenyon. His matches are big AAU flagships, and right now his list is Illinois (yeah, in-state tuition), Wisconsin, OSU, Minnesota and if he wants to go far away Washington or UCLA.

That's why I'm wondering what UC is putting on the table to lure these kids away from Columbus. Unfortunately, he's not engineering. He wants to dual major in a hard science (physics or astronomy most likely) and a humanities/social science with the goal of the State Department/CIA/NSA. Although the ultimate goal can surely change over the course of college, and he might end up in law school or med school or a doctoral program instead.

With either the CIA or the NSA as two of the goals, it wouldn’t hurt to take a goodly number of math classes as electives regardless of major. Good luck to your son!

(05-04-2021 07:45 PM)QSECOFR Wrote:  

(05-04-2021 07:26 PM)Bearcat 1985 Wrote:  

(05-04-2021 01:20 PM)UCengr Wrote:  

(05-03-2021 11:31 AM)beethovan Wrote:  

(05-02-2021 10:34 PM)Bruce Monnin Wrote:  I expressed my displeasure with the campus tour both time we went with my daughters. Never heard back and i don't think anything changed. The guides were good at pointing out each of the Starbucks on campus. And, oh, by the way, over there somewhere is where the engineers and architects go to class.

However, the engineering tour each year were top notch. Started us in a group of about 15, then kept breaking down my major until each time our daughters got down to just being one of two people walking and talking with the head of the department. Have to think we got lucky each time, but they were very impressive.

Grandson is an entering freshman engineering student, and he and my son did a couple of self guided tours of the campus, but what sold him was the engineering tour - the people they select to do that one seem to be really good at it.

More than a few years ago I used to be one of the students giving tours of the College of Engineering to prospective students and their families (we weren't paid, it was part of one of the engineering student organizations, and we had little to no interaction with the university tours). The tours frequently were Friday afternoons so my schedule usually had freed up by that point in the week. If the student had designated an engineering discipline, we took them to that respective department after the tour of the engineering facilities. I noticed the students and family generally found the discussion/Q&A session with the department heads or other professors enthusiastic on selling the college to be very beneficial. I never saw any feedback, anonymous or otherwise, during my time there, so assuming Engineering is still conducting the visits similarly, it makes me feel good to know that, at least for the individual college portion, the tour and visit has been viewed positively and as being influential.

I'm trying to get my kid to consider UC. His dream school is Northwestern, and he's a slight reach for that. He'll do it and roll the dice at a couple of hard reaches (Ivy & Chicago) and another slight reach private LAC like Carleton or Kenyon. His matches are big AAU flagships, and right now his list is Illinois (yeah, in-state tuition), Wisconsin, OSU, Minnesota and if he wants to go far away Washington or UCLA.

That's why I'm wondering what UC is putting on the table to lure these kids away from Columbus. Unfortunately, he's not engineering. He wants to dual major in a hard science (physics or astronomy most likely) and a humanities/social science with the goal of the State Department/CIA/NSA. Although the ultimate goal can surely change over the course of college, and he might end up in law school or med school or a doctoral program instead.

With either the CIA or the NSA as two of the goals, it wouldn’t hurt to take a goodly number of math classes as electives regardless of major. Good luck to your son!

Thanks. That's why he's wants to do the dual major. One half history, poly sci and languages and the other half hard core physical sciences. The wild card is that he's always been a hockey stud since pee wee. There's no way that Minnesota, Wisconsin or OSU (or Michigan which is off the radar because of its ridiculous cost for out of state) will recruit him, but if he completely kicks ass his senior year there's a slim chance that he'd be on the radar for Harvard-Yale-Princeton as a recruited D1 athlete, and his grades and test scores would definitely qualify then.