Anonymous wrote:Caitlin just left. Iowa is over.

Please stop saying this. You sound stupid.

Caitlin just left. Iowa is over.

Anonymous wrote:How does it compare to University of Kansas?

Both are a little more liberal artsy than you might expect, due to their in-state rivals (Iowa State & Kansas State) serving a lot of students who want more practical educations.

For what it’s worth, both universities get 4 out of 5 stars for academics in the reliable Fiske Guide to Colleges. That should dispel some of your concerns that these schools are just a bunch of farmers learning to use plows (I’ve lived in the Northeast & know what you guys tend to think of this part of the country).

Kansas has the prettier & more compact campus, with a coherent architectural theme. Iowa’s campus has a very pretty cluster of buildings at its core, with varying styles of buildings elsewhere. Iowa’s campus slopes down on both sides of river. Kansas’s goes up a gentle hill. In other words, neither campus is flat.

Right across the street from the heart of the Iowa campus is a bustling restaurant/bar district. Kansas’s campus doesn’t have that sort of district adjacent, but it has plenty of fun nearby.

Both schools get their share of suburban Chicago kids, which gives them a bit of an edge.

Both schools accept over 80% of applicants & give merit aid to out-of-staters, making them nice safeties even for students with more than a few Bs on their high school transcripts.

Both are fun & happy places with a majority of students who wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, as hard as that is for most people on the coasts to believe.

If you are out in this part of the country, I suggest you also take a look at Iowa State, Nebraska, Kansas State, Oklahoma, & Oklahoma State. All of which are very pretty, significantly smaller than most Big 10 schools, & offer good automatic OOS merit aid based on GPA & test scores. This takes a lot of the guesswork out of how much merit aid you will receive. Texas Tech is another beautiful school out here with automatic merit, but size-wise it is more like a typical large Big-10 school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does it compare to University of Kansas?

Kansas is near the huge federal prison, which is a host unto itself, but their journalism program can’t be beat!

That's like saying the White House is near BWI. It's 36 miles between the two. It's 37 miles between the University of Kansas and Leavenworth prison. The prison has zero impact on the lives of the college students.

+1

NP. Leavenworth is a pretty town, we lived on post for a year. There’s more there than just the prison. Lots of big trees, green space and historic housing. Pretty lake. The prison isn’t even an eyesore for the town, let alone for a university that’s 30+ miles away.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tell me about your experience with visits or child attending. Junior DS has visited in-state MD schools and prefers a larger school. Need some OOS back-ups for UMD that aren't too expensive. Not really a SEC guy.

TIA

Iowa isn't inexpensive from out of state. It's $50K out of state tuition/room and board, etc. Plus travel costs.

Do they offer merit aid to OOS students with strongish stats? 3.9UW 10-12 AP classes.

My DD with 3.8uw/4.4w 28 ACT got 9k/yr. They offer up to 15k I think. Your kid will probably get closer to 15.

We LOVED it when we visited. Iowa City is a great place with tons to do. Campus was beautiful too.

My DC got either 10 or 12 k merit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Iowa nice” is real if you are a wealthy straight white male (I am). There are deep racial tensions here. There are regular shootings (with guns, people get shot, people are killed) on the pedestrian mall two blocks from campus, where your child will be walking. There are police and cameras everywhere. Iowa City (including UI) is an AWS “city on a cloud” grant award winner; they have cameras and facial AI installed everywhere, even in dorms. Your child will be catalogued. “Tracked and stacked” is what they call it.
It is very cold and very dark, or very hot and very humid. Not much in between.
I truly hate it and feel like I’m dying.

-Prof PP

You sound clinically depressed, PP. I say that in all seriousness.

+1
There are not “regular shootings” and people getting killed on the ped mall. C’mon. Something is wrong with this guy.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Google the murals. They have huge murals on campus painted onto the the sides of 6-story parking garages; the murals are that tall. They are Black people’s disembodied faces, with sayings like “Use your privilege to save Black bodies” and “Black joy needs no permission.” The students laugh at the murals. People throw eggs at the murals.

It’s a horrible dynamic, regardless of whatever race your kid is. Jim Crow is alive and well in Iowa City.

The murals deserve mocking if that's what they say.

Agreed but the mocking sounds like it gets scary, like it escalates tensions and doesn’t feel safe. Shooting and all, yikes

Then maybe the messaging should have been a little more kumbaya and less othering.

Anonymous wrote:“Iowa nice” is real if you are a wealthy straight white male (I am). There are deep racial tensions here. There are regular shootings (with guns, people get shot, people are killed) on the pedestrian mall two blocks from campus, where your child will be walking. There are police and cameras everywhere. Iowa City (including UI) is an AWS “city on a cloud” grant award winner; they have cameras and facial AI installed everywhere, even in dorms. Your child will be catalogued. “Tracked and stacked” is what they call it.
It is very cold and very dark, or very hot and very humid. Not much in between.
I truly hate it and feel like I’m dying.

-Prof PP

You sound clinically depressed, PP. I say that in all seriousness.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does it compare to University of Kansas?

Kansas is near the huge federal prison, which is a host unto itself, but their journalism program can’t be beat!

That's like saying the White House is near BWI. It's 36 miles between the two. It's 37 miles between the University of Kansas and Leavenworth prison. The prison has zero impact on the lives of the college students.

Leavenworth is closer to KU than DC is. That is all.

Lots of overlap with KU and Leavenworth. Lots of professors teach at both. Lots of in-state students have parents who work there (as staff or as inmates). There is a proximity that is known and felt. At the same time, KU is a solid school and possibly the best journalism program in the US.

I've spent a lot of time in the area and haven't noticed much meaningful overlap or influence in Lawrence. Georgetown professors also regularly teach in prisons (they have well-known programs) but the impact on the campus students is minimal. You'd have far more KU parents who work for the Kochs than the prison!

I was in Lawrence again for the Houston basketball game this month and it was AWESOME! It is a great college town. I slightly prefer Ann Arbor, where my wife's family lives, but Lawrence is way up there on my college town list! I was also pleasantly surprised by Topeka and Kansas City. There were two hipster looking breweries on one downtown drag in Topeka that made me legit feel like I was in Portland atmosphere wise and KC was intense just before the Super Bowl.

My only Iowa experience is driving through and attending the 2016 Rose Bowl. The game was amazing as a Stanford fan but the Iowa fans were great and friendly. The LSJUMB's irreverent Farmer's Only performance at halftime is worth looking up if you haven't seen it, though it was rough to do when the game was essentially over at the half as a blowout.

Isn’t Iowa “idiots out walking around”?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does it compare to University of Kansas?

Kansas is near the huge federal prison, which is a host unto itself, but their journalism program can’t be beat!

That's like saying the White House is near BWI. It's 36 miles between the two. It's 37 miles between the University of Kansas and Leavenworth prison. The prison has zero impact on the lives of the college students.

Dude, no. WH is also within 36 mi of SCOTUS, State Dept, Lincoln Memorial, Arlington, Smithsonians, Nat Zoo, ..

KU has nothing but Leavenworth within 36 mi. Literally zero. Ok, maybe gas stations and Motel 6s.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does it compare to University of Kansas?

Kansas is near the huge federal prison, which is a host unto itself, but their journalism program can’t be beat!

That's like saying the White House is near BWI. It's 36 miles between the two. It's 37 miles between the University of Kansas and Leavenworth prison. The prison has zero impact on the lives of the college students.

Leavenworth is closer to KU than DC is. That is all.

Lots of overlap with KU and Leavenworth. Lots of professors teach at both. Lots of in-state students have parents who work there (as staff or as inmates). There is a proximity that is known and felt. At the same time, KU is a solid school and possibly the best journalism program in the US.