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?

You need to see a full budget rather just the headline $5k more.

@IdaBWells will do!

Yes please Cat.

We’re moving onto Boston tomorrow. Dc dragging us round MIT if we can. Ds would love to go there, highly unlikely as I’ve heard how tricky it is to get in. He’d love to go to uni in the US, trying to him to focus on course value rather than the uni experience. I’d love it though as Id have loads of excuses to visit.😀

@Owlbabie5

We’re moving onto Boston tomorrow. Dc dragging us round MIT if we can.

Consider Boston University as a more realistic alternative:

www.bu.edu/

It's a very prestigious university with a lovely, contiguous campus in a fabulous neighborhood right on the Charles River. They have outstanding science and maths programs.

We looked at it for DD but she wants a more suburban setting and a smaller uni. We think she'll still wind up in the area, either at Wellesley, Smith or Mount Holyoke, which are more her cup of tea. BU is about 16,000 undergraduates IIRC.

MIT is insanely hard to get into. Loads of kids with perfect SAT scores get turned away. BU is a much more reasonable alternative.

DS wound up going to a small university just north of Boston and is absolutely thriving there. It's a great city to be a student in.

MIT is one of the universities that offers need-based financial aid to international as well as American students. Depending on your financial situation it can be very cheap to go there. Eg if your family income is around £100k then it would cost around $10-20k a year including fees, accommodation and meal plan to send your child there. I looked into this a lot in the last year...

BU unfortunately does not offer need based aid to international students, but they do offer merit scholarships to them.

www.bu.edu/admissions/tuition-aid/scholarships-financial-aid/first-year-merit/

They also have a section on their website just for international applicants

www.bu.edu/admissions/apply/international/

I loved BU and would have gone their in a heartbeat if I'd had the chance when I was a student.

We’ve only just started looking but he needs a US uni with a good reputation and helpful funding options as he’d like to work in the US at some point. He is very good at his subjects( coding and maths). Just don’t want him grabbing a course on any old US uni. Stressing that it needs to support his future aspirations and a 3 year ‘experience’ wouldn’t be that beneficial.😀Will look at that Boston one, thanks.

These rankings may help you sort through options.

www.timeshighereducation.com/rankings/united-states/2019

BU is rated at 36th in the US and 74th in the world.

www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/boston-university

27% of the students are international.

An undergraduate education leading to a BA or BS degree is typically four years, not three.

There's no reason why he can't apply to MIT and some other universities . It's all done on line with a service called the Common App:

www.commonapp.org/

He only has to put in his details once, but some uni's require a separate essay, or what I think you call a personal statement in the UK.

If he does apply to top US universities, it's good to be aware that they'll look at much more than just his grades.

In the US they look at the whole person (what extracurriculars they've done, how long has the student pursued them, what leadership roles have they taken, how have they demonstrated commitment to their community, what do they write in their essays, what challenges have they faced) and also at the difficulty of the courses that the student has taken relative to what kind of school they're coming from.

There is an assumption that students applying to top colleges will already have spectacular GPA and SAT scores unless they're coming from a particularly deprived background. As they are getting 10-20 applicants for every place then the college uses more criteria to narrow down among all those 'perfect' candidates.

This is generally the rankings US parents look at www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings

What happened to the discussion about moving to Texas?

What happened to the discussion about moving to Texas?

The OP said they're not moving there.

Agreed drsausage it's a given that applicants are outstanding academically, so then it's what else do you offer, or what makes you stand out, unique. Of course some do stand out even further on the academic front, for winning state and national prizes in their chosen field etc. You are competing with the best in the states, plus some of the very best from China, India and any other outstanding, ambitious international students.

Kids here start building their college resumes in year 10 if not earlier. DS made National Honor Society and was captain of his crew team. Those were both very helpful.

If anyone is interested, I tried to summarize how university financial aid works in the US in this thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/a3658546-university-in-the-us?msgid=89129053#

I also seemed to have killed the thread somehow.

MIT is ranked number one in the world isn't it? DS is going there. I keep whispering in to his ear as he sleeps. Pushy? Me?

We’re moving onto Boston tomorrow. Dc dragging us round MIT if we can.

Has he signed up for a proper college tour? There might be one going on - you sign up online. The info sessions beforehand are excellent and you really see the school.. He should also look at Harvard - they offer aid to international students (as does Brown - god what a campus - and possibly others) and Harvard's aid is the best in the US.

MIT (and Harvard) are fabulous schools but they have many very intense, very driven, very anxious students. Dh taught Harvard students (Harvard Medical School) and he thinks the majority were highly neurotic. His fellow instructors from outside the US agreed with him. I believe MIT has a higher than average suicide rate. I'm not dismissing these schools - they are fabulous for the right student and Harvard/MIT alums do really well. But they aren't for everyone.

I'm a big fan of the small new england liberal arts college. Although many of them (Williams, middlebury etc) are almost as hard to get into as Harvard these days. catofdoom, if I were you I'd whisper Colby or Bowdoin into your son's ear :) He can do his grad work in MIT

MIT (and Harvard) are fabulous schools but they have many very intense, very driven, very anxious students. Dh taught Harvard students (Harvard Medical School) and he thinks the majority were highly neurotic.

Ivy league graduates also have a reputation in the work force of being smug, entitled brats who think that the world should bow down to them because they went to Harvard or Yale. I've worked with two doctors who went to Harvard Medical School. Highly neurotic would be putting it kindly.

I'm also a fan of the smaller New England colleges. DS is attending one now and thriving there and he's only a 20 minute train ride from downtown Boston. I'll be delighted if DD winds up at Wellseley or Mount Holyoke.

Catofdoom, give a thought to West Point. It would be about a 5 hour drive from you, but the upside is that it's free, other than the required five years of Army service. Not for everyone obviously, but it's a great education and the alumni do very well when they get into the workforce.

West Point is extremely hard to get into. On top of excellent academic results, upstanding character, and stellar extra curricular activities you need a letter of nomination and recommendation from your congressional representative.

If you are a dual citizen I am almost 100% certain you will have to formally renounce your non-US citizenship before they will admit you.

Same goes for the other armed forces academies too.

Owlbabie5
Don't overlook places like
Cornell
Hamilton College
Wesleyan (CT)
Duke
Kenyon College
Reed College
Swarthmore
Middlebury College
Washington and Lee
University of Chicago
Northwestern U
Bates College
Colgate
Columbia (NYC)
Dartmouth
Haverford

Also Cooper Union.

www.stoodnt.com/blog/top-us-colleges-offering-generous-financial-aid-to-international-undergrad-students/

@mathanxiety How can you overlook Bryn Mawr on that list??

West Point is extremely hard to get into.

And stay in! Plenty flunk out after or during the first year, and in the other academies, too.

West Point's acceptance rate is about 10% and the six year completion rate is 82%, which is higher than a lot of comparable colleges. They used to plan on flunking out a certain percentage of cadets each year, but have switched to a supportive model where they try to get them through rather than flunk them out.

To get in the applicants have to pass a very rigorous medical exam and fitness test. Almost any medical issue will get you rejected. If you develop a medical condition while there you will be declared medically unfit for commission and may or may not be allowed to complete the program and graduate. If expelled for an honor code or military law violation the family has to pay back the cost of attendance (about $70k per year IIRC). Cadets are legally members of the Army and are subject to the UCMJ.

Getting the congressional sponsorship is pretty automatic. Members of congress can approve as many applications as they like, so they're not rationed.

The location on the Hudson River is spectacular but somewhat remote. The village adjacent to WP is little more than a collection of pizza and fast food restaurants and it's a huge PITA to get into NYC from there.

We live fairly near WP and go there pretty regularly for various things, including crew meets (they very kindly allow DD's crew team to use their fabulous facilities occasionally), shows at the theater, etc. and I know several alumni. Football is a religion there and thousands come for the football games.

Another benefit - a guaranteed job at graduation! We thought about it for DS but it's a bit too regimented for him and he has no particular desire to serve in the Army.

@pallisers We know two professors with tenure at Colby. We going to stay with them in a couple of weeks (they live on campus) so getting ds used to it early. 

@MissConductUS just asked DH about West Point and apparently he was offered a place there as he scored super high on his ASVAB. Whatever the hell that is.

@catofdoom why didn't he take it? He must have had some interest in military service or he wouldn't have sat for the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery). It's a bit like the SAT - part intelligence test and part maths and English skills.

He must be very smart indeed - he married you!

Can I just say that my oncologist is a Harvard grad, as is my dermatologist. I was very surprised as they both work in a regular suburb but our city draws people from everywhere. They are both excellent doctors and my oncologist was absolutely amazing, I wouldn’t have a thing said against him! Neither seems remotely neurotic but obviously extremely smart. The oncologist seems such a young man to me and has just become a dad for the first time.