This Week in Education College Final Decision

Start an Office Pool

You know how it works.  Everybody throws a dollar into a pool and takes their best guess as to an outcome.  We all have run across pools for various reasons.  Sporting events and even births of babies have been placed in pools.  Make your guess and if it's correct you take all the cash in the pool.  Our pool will be what college did my daughter chose.  Where will she end up.  Will it be a university far away or close to home.  So chuck a buck in the hat and take your chance at winning it all.  In previous posts, I told and showed you the schools that we took one of our college road trips to.  Do you remember the Socal, Southern California, college swing?  Check out the April 11th blog, This Week in Education College Road Trips.  We visited the University of Southern California, San Diego State, University California Los Angeles, and University California Riverside which she had guaranteed acceptance to because she was in the top nine percent of California high school students.

Building at USC

Strolling at UCLA

A place to study at San Diego State

All of these are beautiful campuses that offer a rich college environment.  They each have or have had excellent sports teams to give students college spirit.  They have quality academic programs with famous alumni.  Could it be one of these prestigious schools, or one of the Norcal, Northern California, schools?  

These school are closer to where we currently live.  These universities were featured in my April 21st blog.  Since we were much closer, we were able to visit more of these schools.  For those of you wishing to play the game and enter our imaginary pool these are the possible choices for Northern California:  San Jose State, San Fransisco State, University California Santa Cruz, University California Davis, and Stanford.  

San Jose State, they all seem to have towers

A beautiful day at San Fransisco State

Pacific Ocean and tall Redwoods of UC Santa Cruz

A campus that made bicycles popular UC Davis

Hoover Tower and a father's dream 

So there they are the universities that we traveled to in order to give our daughter a clear choice for her future.  We stayed a total eight days at three Embassy Suites Hotel.  We traveled nearly two thirds the length of the state of California easily over 1200 miles.  So what are your picks?  Before you go all in, I'll let you know that she was not accepted at USC and Stanford.  I'll never forget seeing the look on her face when the she received that business sized envelope from USC.  She knew that that was not the same large envelope that contained the necessary forms for acceptance and enrollment.  Stanford emailed her that she was not accepted.  I was ready to box up the Cardinal Red Stanford hoodie that she wore proudly and send it back to them with a letter telling them of the intelligent hard working young lady the were passing up.

The final choice is, drum roll, University California Santa Barbara.  

Did that come from left field or what.  Good thing this is not an actual pool.  How did she come to this decision?  Two years ago, my wife was an advisor for a program for elementary school students who are interested in science, math, and engineering.  It is called MESA, Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement.  Competitions are held at the local area and winners from these contests are then able to go to the state finals.  As an advisor, my wife got to take her mentees to those finals held at University California Santa Barbara.  She was allowed to take our twins, who were sophomores in high school, with her to the MESA Event.  They all came home talking glowingly about the UCSB campus.  They loved the weather, and the fact that is was located at the beach on the Pacific Ocean.

Sunshine and fine weather

Michael Douglas walked this path

Coral trees are in bloom

She made your dream, Nonna

UCSB Library

Peaceful lagoon

Student Union seating with a view

"Ring dem bells" for Marge

 After all the time, expense, and distance traveled, she chose University California Santa Barbara.  Maybe seeing all the other campuses only solidified her decision to attend UCSB.  As a father it is a little difficult to drive to and has limited air service.  This may be why it was chosen, because it gives her independence.  I am extremely proud of both children.  I am proud of my daughter.  She did all the hard work to get there.  I also know that her Grandmother Marge and her Nonna would have also been pleased and proud.  May they watch over her always.

This Week in Education College Roadtrips

Tale of the Towers

As a parent of twins that are high school seniors, my wife and I both knew that this time would come, the kids going to college.  We both, like many parents, have always pushed our kids to go to college.  We push all kids to go to college. 

Being teachers we have sold every student on the fact that they need to continue their quest for knowledge.  Maybe over sold it actually. Because college demand is up and much of the state funding has decreased, and the cost of tuition has sky rocketed. As Baby Boomers we are aware of this situation. It has occurred our entire life. When I was young I saved money to by a car. But by the time I had that amount inflation had made the cost of cars go up, I was not even close to having enough money for the vehicle. 

Inflation has always played this trick on us even when they say there is no statistical rise in inflation. You save money for college but the cost has gone through the roof and the roof on your home has become worthless. We both have advanced degrees so we qualify for little aid.  Our daughter was driven in high school. She took all Advanced Placement , AP, classes and all the necessary college bound courses. She knew she would be ready.


We new that we needed to show her some of the possible colleges she might want to attend. This meant college road trips. We took the summer and our fall break to go to colleges in California.  We started in the summer with a Southern California swing. We visited the University of Southern California, USC, the University California Los Angeles, UCLA, in the Los Angeles area. We also  travelled further south to San Diego for a tour of San Diego State. Also we investigated the Golf Academy of America.  My son is highly interested in golf.

Our first stop was USC. Arriving there was magical. It looked like a college campus. It was brick solid. It was everything you could imagine in a university. The history was oozing with every step. The ghosts of great Americans were escorting you with the tour guide. The legends of living greats were etched in stone. The reminder  how even all the breaks can still come to a hubristic end. I sat there with my children knowing that this could be spark to inspire them. It worked in my daughter's case not so much for my son. She was impressed with USC.  As we sat there, I knew that there would be a hefty tuition to such a prestigious institution of higher learning. I had gone to California State University Sacramento.  I knew and wanted a step up for my children.  USC would have filled that requirement. 

Douglas Fairbanks    OJ Simpson

Our next stop was UCLA. Again the history was wafting through the air it was a beautiful campus. The rolling terrain spread out dotted with buildings for every type of study. An odd thing was that two months previous to our visit my wife had an accident in the kitchen of our home that resulted in a broken leg and a third degree sprain of her ankle.  Her mobility was limited and she unable to walk.  This put her in a wheelchair while recovering.  My son pushed her around on the tours.  UCLA is laid out on small hills.  He was a trooper but this was the second tour of the day and I'm sure UCLA lost its charms for him.  My daughter was not too enthused either.  The tour guide spiel was getting a bit redundant to USC's tour guides.  

When we were there, a student protest was occurring at the Office of the Chancellor. It was a protest because of the steady increase in tuition that has been announced what seems like daily. We were shown where movie companies have used the UCLA campus to shoot movies about other universities like Harvard in Legally Blond. The traffic leaving was LA strained. I'm sure this would cause someone to rethink their choice. My daughter was not thrilled by UCLA.  She thought that there was little difference between UCLA and Sac State.  On the completion of the day, we knew that USC was on the list and UCLA was not.

The next day we drove to San Diego. Another school my daughter wanted to investigate was San Diego State. The drive was pleasant enough. We pulled up to the security kiosk and asked where we should park for the tour. We were given directions to an outer lot. We showed them the handicapped placard but that didn't alter anything. We were miles away from where the tour started. Again my dedicated son maneuvered that wheelchair around the campus. This campus had some major terrain changes. 


We pushed on without complaint. My daughter is driven not only academically but in the quest to see everything that the college offered. Half way through my wife returned to the car. 

This occurred luckily after the presentation on the requirements necessary to enroll at the college. The requirements were not as stringent as USC or UCLA. Some of the facilities were impressive. The sports and recreation facilities were indeed top notch. Even though they were some distance from the center of campus. Probably the greatest reason for attending San Diego State would be the weather. San Diego has incredible weather.  Goldilocks weather not too hot nor too cold it is always just right. By the end of the day SD State was a possible school. We continued to the Golf Academy of America. My son is playing in his fourth year of varsity at his high school. He is young and aspires to be a professional golfer one day. We meet the representative from the academy at a golf fair. I personally asked him if they help with professional golfers. We asked on the phone when we made an appointment. Again the said yes. However, they really didn't have a program for tour professional.  The did have a program to train teaching and club pros.  We are still not interested at this time.  he still has eligibility remaining to effect his dream.  This Southern California swing was the first college road trip.  We then began to plan a Northern California adventure.  That is what we will talk about next time.