Why isn't the University of Washington more popular among Acela corridor families?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid wants, and I quote, "cold and rainy" and is into STEM. Doing a lot of CS in high school, but not sure he wants to major in that. So, obviously we are thinking about Pacific Northwest schools, but I also can't see spending that much on a state school on the literal other side of the country. Yes. You would have access to internships at a lot of tech companies. But there are also a lot of tech companies with big offices/presences in other areas of the country (hello new giant Amazon complex). So, I admit that while I've heard of the school, there is nothing that really makes me want to look MORE at it. Maybe that's a mistake. Honestly, it seems like most of the top STEM schools on the West Coast are in CA and not Washington or Oregon....but I admit that I'm a Northeast person, so I'm not really up on it. My kid is only a Sophomore, so I'm just kind of looking around for him right now and asking him to think about the kinds of schools he wants, location, size, etc....

Paying OOS costs will be insane for any out-of-state flagship school. Would you happily send your kid to Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, or UC Irvine? Those all have have the same high cost if he's an OOS.

Flight times:
DCA-LAX: 5h55m
DCA-SFO: 6h14m
DCA-SEA: 6h04m

I don't buy the "distance" argument. You're either cool with your kid attending school on the West Coast....or you're not. Seattle is the same distance from DC as it is from SF or LA.

Yes to Berkeley and no to the others just honestly because at this point I know so little about West Coast schools. I have looked at Reed, only because my kid is quirky, into physics (now), and a close friend went there. I also know of Harvey Mudd, but I admit I really don't understand the whole Claremont colleges thing. I'm not sure my kid would do well at any really big school, as he's a major introvert.

[Anonymous]

My oldest looked at UW, but she realized that it wouldn't be a good fit for her, since she loves the sun and is prone to SAD.

My youngest, who thrives in grey weather, applied last year and got in, but the very small scholarship they gave him wasn't enough to make it worth the cost and distance. He's very happy studying engineering at UMD this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to UW for graduate school. It's beautiful and full of smart people, but the U-District is (or was many years ago) kind of seedy. The weather was difficult if you like warmth and sunshine, and Seattle natives were/are very reserved. It's a very large school. Without a built-in support system or a lot of personal maturity and independence, it might be a difficult place for an eighteen year old.

Nailed it, says this native of the Pacific Northwest.

pp here-- yeah, it's kind of hard to explain...Seattle (at least when I was there) was an adjustment. I made friends through school and stayed on for work and eventually family, but it's not the most outgoing environment. I needed to find my niche and was ultimately quite happy-- but it took time. There was joke that native Seattle(ites) only have a certain number of friends and one needs to drop out of the friend group before you can be added. It's funny because it's kind of true.
On the other hand, UW is a great school, gorgeous campus, and tons of research dollars. It was a good place for a graduate or medical school student.

[Anonymous]

The real answer is simple: East Coast kids, including DC kids, are sheep. Very few other kids are applying, so why apply?

If you are not a sheep, you should know that University of Washington ("U Dub") is beautiful and pretty highly ranked. The students are smart and serious but have fun, especially on weekends. Sports fans have plenty of games to attend. Music fans have plenty of shows to go to.

The University neighborhood is sort of like Madison or Ann Arbor or Berkeley, but it's part of one of the nicest large cities in America.

Getting to Seattle is no harder than getting to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, or San Diego--there are plenty of direct flights from East Coast citiies. While flights are expensive, airfare doesn't make that much difference when you add up all of the costs of college. Flying to Seattle is easier than driving to Upstate New York, Northern New England, or plenty of other places that attract a lot more students from Mid-Atlantic cities.

Go Huskies!

[Anonymous]

Similar ignorance reduces applications to LACs in the PNW. Surprisingly few people from the DC area apply to Reed, Whitman, Puget Sound, Lewis & Clark, and Willamette, even if they're applying to similar colleges in New England, the Mid-Atlantic, the Midwest or the South.

Same phenomenon for PNW Catholic universities.

[Anonymous]

You're all idiots. It's almost entirely because of the distance. UW isn't the top UC schools, Stanford, or the Claremont colleges. Its reputation doesn't justify the distance.

[Anonymous]

Great school. Just too far. There are a zillion great schools that we can or train drive to from the DMV. Why send DC across the country? Four years of plane flights add up, and we want to be able to visit occasionally too.

[Anonymous]

Just. Too. Far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're all idiots. It's almost entirely because of the distance. UW isn't the top UC schools, Stanford, or the Claremont colleges. Its reputation doesn't justify the distance.

So wrote one of the sheep.

[Anonymous]

There are just too many other, better options OP.

[Anonymous]

Why isn't UVA and UMD more popular for students from Washington State?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will note - the research dollars aren’t for the undergrads obviously. And almost nobody is getting those internships, girl. Those are for the serious software engineers.

The internships are in other fields as well - not only STEM majors. My DC is at a different west coast public and landed a high-paying summer internship at a major tech company in their global marketing department.

According to DC, UW is to California students what Wisconsin is to east coast students. There are a lot of CA students at UW who couldn't get into the top UCs. UW is a solid choice for a lot of majors.

Wisconsin? This is really an odd comparison, I think, because I think verrrrry few East Coasters think about Wisconsin, unless they have other family or friends there? How did you randomly pull this out if a hat to say UW is to CA students what WI is to East Coast students. Sounds like CA students think about UW MORE (as a solid alternative for a lot of majors, as an alternative to UC schools) than East Coasters think about Wisconsin (zero, or very close to it?).

I'm the PP you're quoting. I didn't pull it out of anywhere. My DC who goes to school in CA, but grew up in DC and graduated from a DC high school, came to this conclusion after spending two years in a friend group of mostly CA born and raised kids. This is just my DC's opinion. That said, we have a lot of friends and family that live in the Bay Area, work in tech, and are Asian. Most of their kids in the past five years have been shut out of the top UCs for engineering or computer science, even with top stats. Several of them have landed at U Dub. My DC equates it with DC area kids going to Wisconsin after not getting into Michigan. Again - just an ovbservation from college students!

I grew up in NoVA in the 80s and 90s. I never gave Wisconsin one iota of thought and knew no one who went to school there. The state as a whole came into my own purview once I attended college in Chicago and obviously started to meet a lot of people from Wisconsin. Since I have returned to the DC area, it has once again receded into the background of my awareness except for he occasional time I meet people who went to school there or who are from there. Jus try own personal experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're all idiots. It's almost entirely because of the distance. UW isn't the top UC schools, Stanford, or the Claremont colleges. Its reputation doesn't justify the distance.

So wrote one of the sheep.

Oh STFU and get outside of your bubble. The overwhelming majority of American college students go to school close to home, and only a small minority go to school thousands of miles away.

[Anonymous]

Its a long way away OP and the weather there is gray.

[Anonymous]

Kids will apply with palm trees and sunshine in their thoughts to UCLA, USC, etc., but Washington doesn't fulfill the same dream for East Coast kids.