No Free Ride Here

Well, our, I mean my daughter's, hopes for a full scholarship to Roanoke College were dashed when nestled amongst the Christmas cards was a Congratulations! letter informing the girl she had been awarded an additional $2,000. The professor who interviewed her wrote in his remarks that she was "a good person." I thought that was an odd thing to write. How would he know that after a five minute interview and her sitting quietly in his class? I snickered at that statement, she snickered at the amount. Then the girl rolled the letter into a telescope, held it to her eye, looked through it and said, "There goes Roanoke College...bye bye!"

Although the total award she would receive would amount to $20,000 per year, that is not nearly enough. That's less than half of what she would need. Writing those last two sentences hurt. Sorry, but no college is worth paying that amount of money per year. And one where her original broadcast, communications and/or graphic design major would have had to be replaced by history, it's doubly not worth it. Yeah, she's a history buff, and wanted to learn Italian, but what employment opportunities, besides teaching, which she's not interested in, would a $100,000+ degree in those two fields offer, and, be worth? Can you imagine paying full tuition for that? Well, I can't.

I would rather the girl attend Virginia Western for web & graphic design than saddle her with enormous student loans for a history degree. I would prefer spending my hard earned money setting her up in her own media business. I've seen her work, she's totally capable, and with more real-life experience, and not just a piece of paper telling the world she's "smart" can dominate the field. You might need that degree to get your foot in the door, but once you're in, it's not as important as excelling in your field. Heck, I never needed a degree, and I've accomplished more in my life than most people I know with degrees. But, I hear nowadays things are different, and we all want what's best for our children, so I won't stand in her way.

But, I think my plan is a better plan for her future. I've offered to buy her a Mac along with all the programs she'll need. It's expensive, but I feel it's a good investment in her, and a good opportunity for her. It's up to her to make it work. Meanwhile, with all the credits she already has from dual enrollment classes and passing AP exams, she'll have plenty of time to be able to take on a part time job as well.

Now, I know she was disappointed as she really liked Roanoke College's campus, and had she been granted enough money to attend without putting her in debt, she would have probably have gone there. What I liked most about it was that it was close to home. Frankly, I think it was more a "prestige" thing for her than anything else. I told her she should be proud of herself that she did get accepted, and not get down on herself just because she can't afford to go there. It took her about a day to lick her wounds, and I didn't let on that I was secretly glad her master plan had been thwarted. When she marched down the hall and informed me she was totally on board with this new plan, I just nodded my head. I always knew she'd be.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if it's meant to be, it will be, so Roanoke College wasn't meant to be. Besides, in our family we never get anything handed to us. We have to work for everything, but we're tough, we know how to adapt, and everything happens for a reason. In the end, she's probably going to wind up back in New York City anyway. The salaries, and shopping, are better there...

Another Visit to Roanoke College

Visitors to the Roanoke Valley, and in particular, those who came to Roanoke College on Monday, got to experience the beauty that is Southwest Virginia this time of the year. Yesterday, the first students who were semi-finalists for Roanoke College's Scholarship descended upon Salem to compete for the coveted awards. Yes, my daughter was one of them and we didn't have to travel as far as some of the folks I met had to.

I spoke with parents of students from Colorado, Connecticut and Maryland. Their kids, like my daughter, have had their mailboxes inundated with offers from across the country trying to entice them to attend their college. I literally have a Rubbermaid tub filled with brochures, papers and award letters. Marie could go to quite a few well-known universities, including NYU, free of charge. But she is smitten with Roanoke College.

She told me that many of the potential students she met, who lived out of state, wanted to go to Roanoke College, just so they could be far away from home. When they heard she lived only a couple of miles away, they thought she was "crazy" that she wanted to stay so close to home. I'm thrilled that she wants to stay "so close to home" even if she really wants to live on campus. She'll have plenty of time after she graduates to wind up in some far-away city. Of course, I hope she finds a good-paying job and chooses to remain right here in the Valley after she does graduate.

Anyway, yesterday's competition entailed writing an essay on the spot, listening to currently enrolled students, and then having a one-on-one interview with a professor. She was a little nervous, but thrilled when the professor she was interviewing with invited her to sit on his history class where they would be discussing the Holocaust. She is a history buff, and begged me to let her go. Even though Monday's are the day I take my chemo pills, and I was barely able to keep my head up, I would never deny her that opportunity, so naturally I encouraged her to sit in. I stayed at the library while she tasted her first college class.

When I saw her descending the stairs from the grand old building, folders in hand, the wind whipping her hair gently, I have to tell you I teared up. It looked like she belonged there. When she saw me waiting in the car, a huge smile spread across her face. She excitedly told me about the class and how interesting the professor was. "I'm definitely signing up for that class!" I hated to remind her, "if you go here."

Look, every time we go back to Roanoke College we love it more and more, and I don't want to burst her bubble, but I'm just being a realist. There are only 3 spots open for a full scholarship. Hundreds are applying. And although I truly believe she does deserve it, not only because of her academic performance, but for all she's had to deal with and overcome in her life, all the while never complaining and keeping a pure heart, things like a free scholarship just don't happen in our lives. We always have to work doubly hard for everything.

When I asked her if the interviewer saw all the scars on her legs from her operations, or if she mentioned that she would be the first female in her family to attend college, she rolled her eyes at me. "No, Mom, I can do this without playing the pity card. I'm pulling a 4.3 right now, did good on the SAT and pulled 4 & 5's on the AP exams. That's got to count for something!"

We'll see. I'm already proud of her for getting this far. Like I told her, if it's meant to be, it'll be...

College Costs Updated

Just a quick update to my last blog post...my daughter just received a card informing her she has been selected as a semi-finaist for the Scholars Program! The competition is in November. Woo Hoo!

Congratulations baby!!! You are one determined little cookie. Maybe I should put the umbrella back in the closet!

Calculating College Costs

You know a college is really expensive when your child gets a letter congratulating them on receiving $18,000 a year in scholarships and your reply is, "Not nearly enough." At today's tuition rates, the remaining cost for her tuition and board would be $108,000 for four years. Um, no. There's no way I could justify that amount for the career path she has chosen. I can't see saddling her, and me, with a student loan so high.

I imagine that cost will drop some once we apply for financial aid, but I've begun bracing her for the possibility that she may very well have to follow her brother's community college footsteps. She's not thrilled with that prospect, and reminded me there is still hope as she also applied to the Scholars Program. Oddly enough, her award letter suggests she's "encouraged to apply" to said program, so now I'm wondering if they ever received her application.

I know she is an excellent student and has worked very hard to achieve her 4.0, taking the most difficult courses, going above and beyond what was "required" of her, and succeeding despite her medical travails. It's wonderful when you have a child who is so determined to achieve a goal, but sometimes Mom's got to be the "bad guy" and bring them back down to earth. I don't want to rain on her parade, but I do want to make sure she has an umbrella handy, just in case.

The College Quest Ends

With today's visit to Roanoke College I am thrilled to report that our college quest has come to a happy end. This is the one. We loved everything about it.

I suspected we were heading in the right direction, not only because the school had a name tag typed up and a Roanoke College t-shirt for my daughter, but after listening to a short presentation by the admissions person. She touched on areas no other college has touched on, explained how Roanoke College is changing with the times via their general education courses and not once directed anyone to go to the website to find an answer to their question.

After another fellow spoke on areas she hadn't touched, he showed two videos. Lo and behold, the students in these videos actually seemed like they had received a decent and well-rounded education. I took it as a good sign when one of the students spoke about her major and I recognized one of the bluegrass guitar players she was jamming with -- a really nice guy who I've heard pick many times.

Before we went on a student guided tour the school showed real class by handing us ice cold water bottles and cookies to help cool us in the hot sun and keep our blood sugar up. This tour guide was wonderful. She was an intelligent rising senior who knew the answers to all our questions.

We actually got to see the inside of buildings, classrooms, library, cafeteria, fitness center and dorm rooms. For a school that was built in 1842 it's remarkably well kept and up-to-date. This is the new language building, recently completed and sporting green technology.



All the dorms are air conditioned and have wireless capability as well. The rooms themselves are small but the outside sitting area is a nice size.



The bathrooms were also large and clean, and what I really liked was that in each dorm there was a kitchen area.



In the common area I would have sworn we were in a classy hotel lobby with a gift shop, couches, chairs, computers and a really cool game room. The only thing missing was the slot machines.

The grounds are beautiful and I love the feel of the place.



I like old, but it's not decrepit, it's classy. I got great vibes everywhere I went. In fact, I liked it so much I would let my daughter live on campus there, even though Salem is only a couple of miles from home. They allow freshman to have cars as well.



My two concerns were the programs offered and the price. Yesterday my daughter directed a news segment live, worked the teleprompter and did some coding for the local newscast. After the three years she has spent in the Mass Communications program at Burton as well as interning, there is nothing that a college is going to teach her that would rival actual experience. She decided getting a BA in Communications wouldn't be mandatory for her career choice and didn't want the lack of television production classes at Roanoke College stop her from considering it. Her other love is history and the history classes they offer more than suit her desires. She could get a BA in History as her major, minor in Communications and have a concentration in Italian. Yes, they offer Italian.

By the time we finished the visit my daughter was head over heels in love with the place. By the way, she almost cancelled going today because she didn't think it would suit her. I talked her into it, and loved that she hugged me tightly afterwards, "Thank you Mommy. I'm so glad I listened to you. I really appreciate everything you do for me." You're welcome.



Now the hard part...the price. It is not cheap. They said they do offer merit based scholarships as well as need based. My daughter thinks her grades are high enough that she'll be accepted and that she could get the price way down. She's already compiling private scholarship applications and said she is determined to go there. "I'm not even applying anywhere else and I'm going to ask the station if they'll hire me part-time after my internship is over."

I let her know I can only contribute so much and the rest is up to her, and if it's meant to be, it'll be. I think it's meant to be.



I can't believe we've had this gem in our backyard the whole time...

Is That A Sign?

Being Sicilian, knowing how to read signs seems to come naturally to me. Some people call it intuition or that little voice inside, but my "signs" usually come in the form of slapping me across the head. So when I ventured outdoors yesterday and found a dead cardinal lying on the table under my carport I wondered what it meant. I quickly called to my husband to remove the bird asking, "What do you think it means?" "It means the bird probably flew into the window and cracked her neck." "Do you think it's a sign about JMU?" "Why would it be about JMU?" "Duh, because we're going there today to check out the campus and maybe the bird represents our daughter." He looked at me like I was crazy.

We piled into the minivan and headed 112 miles from Roanoke to Harrisonburg to check out my daughter's "dream college." About 20 miles into the trip the air conditioner stopped working. The fan was blowing, but it was hot air. WTF? My husband, the mechanic, just checked out the van the day before to make sure the POS was ready for our excursion -- changing motor mounts to stop the rattling I complain about -- adding an additional cigarette lighter so I could have my Sirius & GPS system (only so I could bring to his attention when he's going way over the speed limit since that's a handy little feature in the right hand corner of Ms. Garmin) -- fixing the AC vacuum leak so that when we go over 40 mph the air doesn't stop flowing -- and boosting the freon in the AC since it's never quite cold enough for me. So when he began cursing saying the AC compressor had just blown -- a compressor he had just installed at the beginning of the summer -- I probably sounded like a lot of customers he hates who say, "Well that wasn't broken before you fixed X, Y, & Z." His customers probably wouldn't ask my next question, "Do you think this is another sign?"

It was already over 90 degrees outside and probably over 110 inside the van. Although I didn't want to open the window and ruin my perfectly straightened hair because I didn't want to make a bad first impression at my daughter's "dream college" I had no choice. When we could go on no more we stopped at Cracker Barrel where I downed three lemonades which is probably my sugar intake for the century. After we left CB we saw a hawk fly right in front of the van carrying a huge snake in his mouth. Was that a sign?

We stayed off the highway so we could see the road that leads to JMU which is basically a strip filled with car dealers, a tattoo parlor, a couple of restaurants and Spanish churches. The whole two miles or so we were accompanied by a truck carrying turkeys.



The smell was God awful even when we closed the windows. Finally we arrived at JMU.



We were grateful that the tour started in a nice air conditioned auditorium. I have to say I was getting a little miffed when after the presentation we were asked if anyone had any questions and I asked a couple and I kept getting told "that information was on the website." I found it odd that the one reason my daughter wanted to attend this "dream college", the School for Media Arts & Design was not mentioned once and had no literature about it. Frankly, that was the only reason we were there and had I known I should just check the website I would have saved eight hours and $60 in gas. My annoyance turned to hope when one of the student tour guides said he was a senior in SMAD. He would be the one we would go with. A good sign that was quickly wiped away after all the student guides introduced themselves adding where each of their favorite places was to take a nap during the school day.

We broke into groups and began our journey touring the campus which is huge and has I-81 and railroad tracks running through it.



Unfortunately most of the buildings we went to see were locked so we had to look in the windows to get a view which we couldn't see because the rooms were dark. That didn't make much sense to me since we had scheduled a campus tour so it's not like a hundred people just showed up and the school had no idea they were coming. I know what a library looks like. I know what a cafeteria looks like and wish they would have allowed us at least a glass of water since it was 100 degrees. I would have gladly paid for a drink after walking what felt like miles in the hot blazing sun. So, we didn't get to see one classroom, not one lab, and we didn't get to see the one building I wanted to see, the one that housed SMAD.

We did see the model dorm room which is like every other college crappy dorm room, except this one does not have a sink in it and is unable to handle wireless internet. I hate the idea of my daughter being in a dorm room with a total stranger and sharing a "common area" with five other strangers and a bathroom with eleven other strangers. I thought of the turkey truck. I hate the idea that she would be virtually stranded up there as she's not allowed to have a car in freshman year. I hate the idea that she should use the "community drive" or whatever its called system where strangers post where they are going and you sign up to hook a ride with them. Yeah, not gonna happen.

Our tour guide was a nice guy who clearly loved the school, remarked how he was shocked that people held open doors, and thought it was awesome that they had flash mobs. I had to explain to my daughter what a flash mob was by bringing up the stupid Sprint or whatever cellphone commercial it is that runs twenty times a day showing the moron who shows up at Grand Central Station too early to dance. Yeah, flash mobs, people holding open doors, and taking naps during the day for that matter, are not a big draw to me when deciding on a college.

At least our guide was able to answer my questions about the program that my daughter wants to go into. Other than taking one media introductory class, she wouldn't even begin it until sophomore year. He told her how excited he was that in his senior year he'd finally get to learn Dreamweaver. My daughter has mastered Dreamweaver in her junior year of high school and said it sucks. He also mentioned that in their senior year the students can produce a video. My daughter has already written, edited, produced and directed videos, one which will be airing on RTV. For his internship he said for the last two years he was able to work with a company that makes walkers. For my daughter's internship she is working with a local news station and loves it. I don't imagine creating a promo for a walker teaching folks how to use it then sending out the promos would be quite as fulfilling to her, although with all her operations and personal knowledge of walkers she'd be a natural. When I asked him what his plans were upon graduating, our guide said he still had no clue but was thinking about maybe switching to screenwriting so he could "put words in people's mouths." By the time he answered all my questions I hoped my daughter realized that maybe this wasn't the school for her. She still has plans to apply. Sigh.



Now I'm not saying JMU is not a fine school, it must be since they said they were, and that they get over 20,000 applicants a year and only take a couple of thousand. Everyone I know who went there, other than my son's two friends who dropped out after their freshman year, probably because they hated that they didn't get enough bandwith in their dorms, or something to that effect, love it. And it is very pretty, interstate and railroad and all, but it's just not what I think would be best for my daughter. I have major concerns when it comes to her, including the inability to be able to get to her quickly if health issues arise, so please do not send me hate comments because you think I'm dissing JMU. I'm not.

I want her to go into a school where she is going to learn more than she already knows and where it will be put to practical use. She doesn't need to study in Florence. I'll send her there on my own dime and guarantee she will have a fulfilling and educational experience. If I'm going to spend that much money on a piece of paper I want a good return. For what she's already learned, accomplished, and what she wants to do for a living, frankly I believe she doesn't even need a college degree. She doesn't want to waste time being a perpetual student. She wants to dive right into the marketplace and work, but it's been ingrained into her head that she "needs" a degree. I think it's bullshit and experience certainly trumps a piece of paper, but since that's the way of the world now, I want her to get a useful, and not wasteful education.

The highlight of my tour was about two hours in, near the end. As we were walking past another locked building I saw a sprinkler watering the grass. I asked my daughter to hold my pocketbook and walked over to the spraying water and waited for it to come to me. When it did, there I stood, basking in the glory of cool sprinkling water imagining I had driven to the shore instead. So much for me worrying about making an impression. As I walked back to the group wiping the drips off my glasses on the hem of my dress I was happy to see my daughter and husband smiling instead of being mortified. One mother had her hand to her face in shock but the tour guide said, "I like the way you think."

On the way back to the car we chatted some more and I almost stepped on a dead, half eaten squirrel. Another sign? We got to the hotbox car and noticed the rear view mirror had falled from the windshield. At least the mirror didn't crack.



We got into the sauna on wheels and headed towards Main Street. After checking out the downtown I said we wouldn't be bitching about Roanoke any more. I'm sure it has a different feel when school is in session but the sketchy druggies I saw stumbling down the sidewalks were put there for me to see. A sign for sure. That clinched it. I don't care what she thinks, my daughter is not going to JMU, her "dream college." Oh, she can apply if she really wants but I'm not comfortable with it. I got a bad feeling, and mother's instinct trumps all.

Smile girl, this will be the last time you pose there...



Next stop Roanoke College...but we'll wait until after this heatwave breaks.