Would you move to Texas for USD 5k more a month

[Constance17]

DH has been offered a job in U.S, we have children aged 6 & 8. What concerns you most?

DD just got a Subaru Forester and I'm really impressed with the features!

@drsausage SO many Canadians! And Mexicans! I'm so confused by the whole thing.

Ugh the smoking. There were big signs up all over the fun fair and people were still chain smoking. And chain smoking on the beach too. The amount of butts at the end of the day .

It is a glorious place though. Although I think it's going to take a week's quiet to shift this headache I have. It's so loud and bright!

And I've eaten so much fried everything I feel like I've been dipped in lard.

@MissConductUS I'm utterly in love. I was a bit sniffy about Subaru's and we'd initially got an Audi Q5 but after two days of owning it the engine light came on. It had a complete engine rebuild and was in the garage for 2 months! After the 5th problem flagged up and the repair bill had got to $17,000 (not payable by us) I swapped it for the Outback.

It's AMAZING. It coped with our road in an inch of ice and then almost a foot of mud like a tank. I'll never buy anything but Subaru ever again!

God I'm dreading the college applications. And him going.

If anyone really wants an eye opener then go to Atlantic City. Insane. We had to stay there one night taking a boat to Maryland for work. As we stayed where the marina was it happened to be the Golden Nugget casino. Dear God. I've never seen anything like it.

The restaurants are open plan in the middle of the casino. Everyone was chainsmoking.

Pumping techno and people gambling at 7am.

The rooms were all black leather, mirrors and red velvet. It was like the set of an 80's soft porn film!!

Nothing against Canadians or Mexicans before anyone accuses me of being racist again.

I just can't fathom why the fuck you would travel that far and go to OOB.

It's AMAZING. It coped with our road in an inch of ice and then almost a foot of mud like a tank. I'll never buy anything but Subaru ever again!

They are. DH puts Michelin snow tires on the Impreza every winter and then it is really unstoppable. The Forester is a great car too. Ours has 130k miles on it and is still going strong. When DS really needs a car we will probably pass it along to him and buy a new one.

He really has far less need of a car at uni than I did in my day. They have Zip cars on campus that you can rent by the hour if he just needs to run into town for something. He also uses Uber a lot. It is so much less expensive than providing his own car.

God I'm dreading the college applications. And him going.

Get help with the applications. We hired a private college counselor for both of ours and it is so worth it. They all work by Skype or Zoom, so they don't need to be on the island, but it's nice if they're close enough for a few face to face meetings. And it is hard when they go. Facetiming with DS once a week saved my sanity. Just stay within a two or three hour drive when he's looking, which will be easy where you are.

@MissConductUS we actually just appointed a great new guidance counsellor at school who specialises in college admissions.

The one that just left was good too.

We've had kids go to Yale, Harvard, MIT, Stanford and CIT in the last few years so she must have been doing something right! I don't know so much about it but I think kids at our school get some kind of extra points for being diverse (as we live in the arse end of nowhere.) And it's much easier for a school counsellor to give a lot of help when there's only 4-8 kids in a year.

It may have all changed by then anyway!

Catofdoom you are definitely right on geographic diversity. Having a kid from Maine is rare as hen's teeth for many admissions counselors, especially on the west coast. If they then wax lyrical about Island life, repairing boats and knowing all their neighbors and have a generally strong academic app they'd have a very good chance getting in anywhere.

Hmm... When we toured Stanford there were dozens of kids there from the east coast - it was so ridiculously obvious that everyone started laughing each time someone else said 'Yeah, I'm from Boston too'.

But you're right that fewer of them apply to the west coast than to east coast schools.

DD was able to wax lyrical about snowshoeing to school and knowing all her neighbours and living in a town so small it doesn't have traffic lights, but despite a 1570 SAT she didn't get in to either of her west coast choices.

Is the population of Maine really 1.3 million?!? If so that is fantastic for your son ! Even rarer than I realised, his app will be red flagged immediately. If his graduating class is 8 it just gets better and better!

Well yes drsausage unfortunately Stanford is the No. 1 school of choice in the US, even more desirable than Harvard so you really have to stand out in many, many areas. I think their acceptance rate is something like 4%.

Yes - the acceptance rates are astonishingly low! But she is also from Maine, from a school with a tiny graduating class, and ticked all the boxes for admission to any college in terms of SAT, GPA, interests, volunteer roles, leadership roles, etc.

But you're right - the acceptance rates are astonishingly low. She would have had a much better chance of getting into Oxford or Cambridge.

And unfortunately applying from a small Island in Maine where you need to be ruggedly independent is not the same as living in the greater Boston area, where there are plenty of outstanding high schools. Large numbers of East coast kids apply to the most desirable West Coast schools (Berkeley, UCLA, Stanford, CalTech, Harvey Mudd etc.).

Sorry to hear that drsausage but if she was applying to Stanford she must be an excellent student, where did she go?

Yep some courses at Oxbridge have a 30% acceptance rate or better!

Over my dead body will he go to a West Coast uni.

I will just follow him.

If Brexit happens and the USD meets parity with Sterling it financially starts to make more sense to send a kid to the UK. Although right now it's about the same price as a good private uni in the States. Brexit will definitely inject more Americans into Britain, not sure that's one of their goals!

I just found out recently that MIL followed SIL to college and actually shared a house with her!

@IdaBWells haha yes. Britain may get more of the terrible Americans there.

I just found out recently that MIL followed SIL to college and actually shared a house with her! 

Sounds perfectly sensible to me.

I asked DH what on earth possessed her and he said he thinks it was around the time of his parents divorce.

Sorry to hear that drsausage but if she was applying to Stanford she must be an excellent student, where did she go?

Northwestern - she's very happy :-)

(I'm happy too - going to get to visit her in Chicago)

Completely OT, but there's been a major power failure in the UK:

www.thesun.co.uk/news/9691385/power-cut-uk-trains-tubes-power-lights-outage/

Hopefully MNHQ went on backup generators.

I visited when I was in college at DC and one of my best friends was at Northwestern. Loved it and Chicago, although it’s not called the Windy City for nothing! Fantastic school.

Catofdoom I am really fascinated by your life on an island in Maine. Rather than derail this thread even further would you consider doing a AMA so I can barrage you with questions?