Quote:
Originally Posted by golfgal
Have him make a list of his top 5 choices and go visit the campus of each school. Have him get a feel for each and chances are he will be able to narrow it down quite a bit by doing that. If he doesn't have a list yet, just visit a few in your area even though he doesn't want to go there, so he can get some ideas of what he likes and what he doesn't like.
The VAST majority of college students change their major at LEAST once so selecting a school solely on a major isn't the best idea.
They haven't released the National Merit finalists yet so how do you know he qualified for that?
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He's not a finalist. He's just in the top 10th percentile on his PSATs which qualifies him to participate. I've not yet done all my research but people have told me that simply qualifying can open the doors to some money.
As far as college visits go, I think we're going to try to plan some this spring. He's away most of the summer, working as a counselor at a camp in NH. The problem is the schools he is interested in are concentrated in MD/VA/SC/NC (ok, that's sort of all together and not too bad to get to from MA) and then Cal (Berkeley) and Oregon (Eugene). Getting there means a 3000 mile trip (though our family lives in the PNW, this is probably not the time for the 5 of us to go traipsing out there), so probably best for he and his Dad, since it's his side of the family who lives there. But from OR to the Bay Area is another flight--it's about 700 miles which is really too far to drive for a short visit. It's a quick flight--about 1.5 hours and can easily be done in a day but the cost of that can be prohibitive. I used to travel for work quite a bit when we lived out there and thought nothing of flying from Seattle ot SF or LA for the day. But I wasn't funding my own airfare!