Talk about bumping an old thread! :)

Eldest has now been accepted to five of the six schools he's sent applications into. Drexel, Washington and Jefferson, Ohio Northern, U of Toledo and his #1 choice, Michigan. Still waiting to hear from Vanderbilt, he applied regular decision so should hear by April 1st.

We're starting the visit process for DS#2 this spring. He's interested in Penn State, Ohio State, Cincinnati, Wisconsin-Madison, Michigan and Yale.

We really, really need to win the lottery!

Well if #1 goes to Michigan, I hope #2 goes to Ohio State. that could get really interesting around Thanksgiving!

I wish I had checked out Medical Care on campus. My son's school included office visits (minor ones) with tuition which was awesome but my Daughters didn't even accept our Military insurance which was a huge and costly pain.
We were stationed in SC when D was a senior and her idiotic high school only let you have ONE college visit day and if you were absent more, they made you go to Saturday school and FINED you $25 to go to SS. Obviously, they wanted everyone to go to USC or Clemson. She flew out West to visit a school and it took MY intervention (plus showing them all the campus tour pamphlets) to get her out of in school suspension. The prinicpal said it was so students didn't "abuse" the school visit policy. Morons!

I wish I'd gotten more drunk

5 for 5, congrats to your S1 (and his parents :) )! We only have a freshie but will definitely do college visits over Spring Break. In retrospect, junior year was too late to start the visits.

Go for Yale, join the Skulls, he'll be set for life.

Our governor just called for a tuition freeze for all of the public colleges in Michigan so Michigan might not be a bad deal!

I just had an even better idea! Housing is so cheap in Michigan right now, you could get both boys to go to Michigan, buy a house that's been separated into several flats, they would get resident tuition PLUS you can get income from renting out the other apartments in the house!

Update: just paid the tuition and housing deposits for eldest son. He's going to Drexel. They made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Anyone here from Philly? :)

DS#2 visited Pitt, Duquesne, Robert Morris and Penn State over spring break. He loved Pitt and PSU. He also visited Carnegie-Mellon, but walked out on them. I love this kid! DH said C-M was the most unorganized and unprofessional college visit he's been on in his life. #2 is also looking at a bunch of in-state schools, including OSU and Cincinnati.

Thank heavens we'll get a break for a few years before DS#3 goes through the process!

Umm, Early Decision is binding, and it requires you to withdraw your applications at any other schools to which you've applied. You may mean Early Action, which is not binding.

I'm not even going to get into the "we" business.

That said, mad props to those parents who have kids close to each other in age. My sister and I are 7 years apart, which probably made paying for college so much easier for my parents. :)

I'm from the Philly area. Drexel is a great school to go to, and they are currently looking for a president. Their last president, Constance Papakdakis, "Taki" just passed away. I currently have a friend who goes there for Physics and he always talked about the opportunities that he has.

He'll have a great time in the city, since there are several colleges within the city (PCOM, Drexel, Jefferson, and Temple.)

...or the "It took us alot of time, even with the Common App" business.

Your kids should be filling out their own college apps, folks.

Wow - that must have been some offer from Drexel, since he willingly took a drop of like 65 positions for the privilege of not going to Michigan.

Agreed. I did the financial aid stuff, but the kids need to fill out their own college apps. Besides, if they can't write a college essay or personal statement by this point they probably shouldn't be graduating from HS in the first place. Remember, it's the child's college search and not yours. If it was mine they'd all go to Kentucky. :D

Good to know. He visited the day after the last president passed away, so he learned a lot about him. Does/did your friend live on campus, if so please PM!

It was. As a parent, it's great to watch your child see his years of hard work pay off. Michigan made him an offer, but could not come close to matching the offers from the other schools. He should be able to graduate from his intended five-year program without debt and with incredible opportunities due to being in Philadelphia.

Amen to both of those!! Taking the official tour gives only the gloss of the place, they need to see if it is truly someplace they (not you) can see themselves fitting in.

After we toured, I dropped my sons off and told them to take a walk around campus, get something to eat, pick a spot to sit and just absorb the atmosphere.

I went and found a quiet outdoor restaurant where I could get a cup of coffee and read my book :)