DMV kids at UMass Amherst

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh I checked, btw. Umass undergrad is 55k OOS, including room and board. I thought it was higher but maybe I missed something? So... 16k merit, 39k. College Park 30K. Insuring a car for male teen driver in the DMV... Just take out a second mortgage.

You’re scoffing at a $100K price differential? Without taking into account travel costs to MA? Lmao

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh I checked, btw. Umass undergrad is 55k OOS, including room and board. I thought it was higher but maybe I missed something? So... 16k merit, 39k. College Park 30K. Insuring a car for male teen driver in the DMV... Just take out a second mortgage.

You’re scoffing at a $100K price differential? Without taking into account travel costs to MA? Lmao

I guess if you get merit and your kid prefers it, maybe. But it’s not a better school. Not even a pretty campus.

[Anonymous]

UMASS is okay. But no way you forego UMD in state over Zoo Mass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One thing that is overlooked by many in DMV is that Massachusetts generally has the best public primary and secondary schooling in the country. The baseline of kids is higher than one would expect from your familiarity with Maryland, Virginia, and DC school systems. And the very top tier of students at UMass, as is true at just about any flagship, is as smart as students anywhere. Couple that with the fact that many middle class families in Massachusetts are foregoing a lot of great (but not quite elite) New England privates because they don’t offer much merit aid (unlike similar-caliber schools in other parts of the country), and UMass is on the rise.

All great points and very accurate

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UMASS is okay. But no way you forego UMD in state over Zoo Mass.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UMASS is okay. But no way you forego UMD in state over Zoo Mass.

+1000

it’s not really “zoo mass” anymore. That dates from the days when students from elite public and private schools in New England were guaranteed admission to the ivy leagues or the top SLACs that’s not the case anymore, mostly due to the emphasis on geographic diversity and globalization of the education market. As a result, upper middle-class families are looking at state schools, particularly at UMass Amherst. It has changed a lot because the chances of an in-state student getting into the top local private are lower. I was told by my Massachusetts private school counselor that a top NE private would be “the toughest field in the country” for my 4.0 unweighted kid with great ECs test scores in the 99th percentile and great references. Knowing this, we played hard, and our kid got into many of these schools. However, many of our friends were disappointed. The education market has changed, and UMass Amherst is in a different category as a result. The kids we know who go there are very happy with the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh I checked, btw. Umass undergrad is 55k OOS, including room and board. I thought it was higher but maybe I missed something? So... 16k merit, 39k. College Park 30K. Insuring a car for male teen driver in the DMV... Just take out a second mortgage.

You’re scoffing at a $100K price differential? Without taking into account travel costs to MA? Lmao

Can you ask your kid to explain to you what 39,000 x 4 is?

Then ask them what 30,000 x 4 is.

They must be the math person in the family.

I'll wait.

Travel costs to MA: about $100 each way. How many times is your kid traveling? Half the time they can probably catch a ride too, tons of kids going south.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh I checked, btw. Umass undergrad is 55k OOS, including room and board. I thought it was higher but maybe I missed something? So... 16k merit, 39k. College Park 30K. Insuring a car for male teen driver in the DMV... Just take out a second mortgage.

You’re scoffing at a $100K price differential? Without taking into account travel costs to MA? Lmao

Can you ask your kid to explain to you what 39,000 x 4 is?

Then ask them what 30,000 x 4 is.

They must be the math person in the family.

I'll wait.

Travel costs to MA: about $100 each way. How many times is your kid traveling? Half the time they can probably catch a ride too, tons of kids going south.

NP- thank you for replying with this. I was confused by PP math!

[Anonymous]

I graduated from UMass (I'm from Maryland) in 2008, boy it has changed its reputation!

[Anonymous]

For good or bad?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For good or bad?

I would suggest reading previous comments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UMASS is okay. But no way you forego UMD in state over Zoo Mass.

+1000

it’s not really “zoo mass” anymore. That dates from the days when students from elite public and private schools in New England were guaranteed admission to the ivy leagues or the top SLACs that’s not the case anymore, mostly due to the emphasis on geographic diversity and globalization of the education market. As a result, upper middle-class families are looking at state schools, particularly at UMass Amherst. It has changed a lot because the chances of an in-state student getting into the top local private are lower. I was told by my Massachusetts private school counselor that a top NE private would be “the toughest field in the country” for my 4.0 unweighted kid with great ECs test scores in the 99th percentile and great references. Knowing this, we played hard, and our kid got into many of these schools. However, many of our friends were disappointed. The education market has changed, and UMass Amherst is in a different category as a result. The kids we know who go there are very happy with the school.

Agree. There are many unfamiliar parents (HS students?) trying to chime in on some of these posts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, don't need a car for them in Amherst. College Park... I bet you're sending them with a car.

LOL I don't see shit around Amherst. So you are stuck in the campus all the time?

College Park has metro to Washing to DC.

Bus runs between Amherst and Northampton, looping through the colleges about every... I don't know, I think it was 20-30 mins when I lived there. It's free.

Northampton is the epitome of a cute college town. It has bars, bookshops, boutiques, coffee shops, restaurants, pizza, extremely gay nightclubs, etc.

There are five colleges in the area. There's quite a lot going on all the time. Actually, probably a lot more that's interesting for a college student than anything in DC.

Never heard of Northampton
Bus to Northampton LOL

Tell me you're a snob living in a bad subdivision in North Potomac, who's never really seen the rest of America without saying the actual words out loud.

+1

[Anonymous]

Just visited this weekend and quite impressed. Amherst and surrounding towns like Hadley and Northampton quite nice with lots of restaurants and shopping (TJs, Whole Foods, Target, LL Bean, Walmart, Barnes and Noble, etc)

[Anonymous]

Any insight about five college consortium ?