The biggest difference between South Carolina and Clemson is that Carolina gives good merit based aid. Both schools are stingy on need based aid (as in there is none) for out of state students.

Anonymous wrote:DD's June SAT scores make University of South Carolina acceptance "likely." It's #1 public college on her list for fall 2014. If anyone else has South Carolina insight, please share.

Apply early- housing for freshman year is based on the date they receive you application- which should be posted online by Mid August. If you are in MCPS, many schools require 6 weeks to send transcripts to schools, so be on the ball, in the counselors office asking them to send the transcripts by the 1st week of school, as the application deadline for the first batch of kids (when most apply) is October 15th.

I really can't say enough about how generous they were. My son (who is a smart slacker) had a 3.2 unweighted, 3.97 weighted. 9 AP's, 6 going into senior year, of which he passed all of them with 3's and 4's, no 5's. He got a 31 on his ACT (one sitting) and a 1920 on his SAT's. They cut the out of state rate in half for us, taking it from 28,000 14,000 under the Woodrow Scholarship. He was invited to Capstone but does not want to do it.

If I could have done one thing differently, I would NOT have submitted the SAT's. The application says that you have to submit all standardized tests, but I found out after the fact that you do not.

We found out about admission mid December. Scholarship info was posted in early April.

Just for comparison, he got into VA Tech (small scholarship, would have been 38,000/yr) and U of Md under the Business LEP (limited enrollment) and got into the Scholars (step below honors, still a signature program). Towson was our safety (they gave us a full ride, he was having none of it) and the University of Central Florida (also got a generous scholarship.)

You can download last years application now to get a feel for the essay questions (which were VERY similar to the year before that's questions) and to see what info you need.

The biggest thing I can tell you again is that Oct 15th is early. Be on the ball and proactive to get those transcripts in.

Good Luck!

Anonymous wrote:Any recent experience at Universities of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and South Carolina?

Indiana has many loyalists in my family and a reputation as offering a lot of what a big, well funded public can do: good research, big sports, good teaching and that kind of low key mid western vibe. It's more the liberal arts oriented Indiana university - Purdue (also public) is the one with the heavier science emphasis (and pretty similar personality).

My DD loves Temple. Will graduate next spring.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All great except for the people who try to have a non-VA college conversation. Which is made impossible by the JMU/GMU hijackers.

Hey now, don't hate.

Hey, I love my neighbors, but my kids think 13 years is long enough going to school with their kids. We're looking for schools beyond the Commonwealth and searching for some DCUM wisdom.

How about umd?

Well there's too popular and there's unpopular. Curiously not a single senior from my first 2 kids' classes (of 500+ students in Fairfax public often mentioned around here) went to UMD. So it gets crossed off the list far too soon, IMO.

St Mary's?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All great except for the people who try to have a non-VA college conversation. Which is made impossible by the JMU/GMU hijackers.

Hey now, don't hate.

Hey, I love my neighbors, but my kids think 13 years is long enough going to school with their kids. We're looking for schools beyond the Commonwealth and searching for some DCUM wisdom.

How about umd?

Well there's too popular and there's unpopular. Curiously not a single senior from my first 2 kids' classes (of 500+ students in Fairfax public often mentioned around here) went to UMD. So it gets crossed off the list far too soon, IMO.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All great except for the people who try to have a non-VA college conversation. Which is made impossible by the JMU/GMU hijackers.

Hey now, don't hate.

Hey, I love my neighbors, but my kids think 13 years is long enough going to school with their kids. We're looking for schools beyond the Commonwealth and searching for some DCUM wisdom.

How about umd?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All great except for the people who try to have a non-VA college conversation. Which is made impossible by the JMU/GMU hijackers.

Hey now, don't hate.

Hey, I love my neighbors, but my kids think 13 years is long enough going to school with their kids. We're looking for schools beyond the Commonwealth and searching for some DCUM wisdom.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been scouring college boards for a while and never before have I seen: "X University is great! At least as good as some of the Big Ten athletic conference schools." But leave it to a DCUM JMU booster. Go Dukes!

Sorry to disappoint but I have no affiliation with JMU or VT or the Big Ten.

Have a nice day GMU troll.

Why do you always respond twice? And even dig up old threads to post your link again? Do you have anything useful to contribute here?

And you? You feed the GMU troll and expect the thread not to devolve? What are you contributing to the discussion? I believe a ranking is very Germaine to the original question. Your response, not so much.

Is Germaine one of the Jackson 5?
Why don't you start your own thread and have a JMU vs GMU smackdown? Then the rest of us can ignore you both.

Who is this us you refer to? Are you schizo and post about VT with multiple personalities?

Anonymous wrote:All great except for the people who try to have a non-VA college conversation. Which is made impossible by the JMU/GMU hijackers.

Correction. I am a VT hijacker. And last time I checked, all these schools are out of state for DC and MD.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been scouring college boards for a while and never before have I seen: "X University is great! At least as good as some of the Big Ten athletic conference schools." But leave it to a DCUM JMU booster. Go Dukes!

Sorry to disappoint but I have no affiliation with JMU or VT or the Big Ten.

Have a nice day GMU troll.

Why do you always respond twice? And even dig up old threads to post your link again? Do you have anything useful to contribute here?

And you? You feed the GMU troll and expect the thread not to devolve? What are you contributing to the discussion? I believe a ranking is very Germaine to the original question. Your response, not so much.

Is Germaine one of the Jackson 5?
Why don't you start your own thread and have a JMU vs GMU smackdown? Then the rest of us can ignore you both.

Anonymous wrote:All great except for the people who try to have a non-VA college conversation. Which is made impossible by the JMU/GMU hijackers.

Hey now, don't hate.

All great except for the people who try to have a non-VA college conversation. Which is made impossible by the JMU/GMU hijackers.

Anonymous wrote:But none show JMU in the "Top Ten."

Actually some ranking out there has both vt and jmu among the top ten is grad rates

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been scouring college boards for a while and never before have I seen: "X University is great! At least as good as some of the Big Ten athletic conference schools." But leave it to a DCUM JMU booster. Go Dukes!

Sorry to disappoint but I have no affiliation with JMU or VT or the Big Ten.

Have a nice day GMU troll.

Why do you always respond twice? And even dig up old threads to post your link again? Do you have anything useful to contribute here?

And you? You feed the GMU troll and expect the thread not to devolve? What are you contributing to the discussion? I believe a ranking is very Germaine to the original question. Your response, not so much.