So, Kevin, Kavi and I abandoned Anand this morning, getting up at 6 a.m. (oof) and setting off to Urbana-Champaign to tour UIUC. The admitted student tour was very thorough (over two hours for a detailed presentation and lots of walking).
I’m pretty tired after about 5 hours of driving today (did I mention I really don’t like driving? This is way more driving than I normally do), so my notes will be brief.
There’s a good chance Kavi will end up here, although we’re also touring U Wisconsin-Madison in a week and a half. We may also tour Kalamazoo and/or Oberlin — that’s still up in the air. Decision day for all colleges in the U.S. is May 1, and I think we’re going to probably be close to the wire on this one.
(I think we’re not going to manage to tour University of Denver, so that’s probably off the table at this point, along with U Conn, UC Santa Cruz, Loyola-Marymount, Puget Sound, and Gonzaga. She’s passing on Mt. Holyoke — just too small-town for her.)
She liked UIUC (and UC Davis, of which more details when I get my phone back with its photos; it’s in transit now). It’s taken Kavi a while to realize it, but she really does like the idea of a big school with lots of stuff to do in town, lots of food options, and yes, even lots of sports games to go to. Kavi doesn’t actually play any sports, but apparently, she really likes going to games with her friends and cheering on the team. I had no idea I’d raised a sportsball kid. The things you learn!
UIUC is not as warm as UC Davis — we have actual winters here. But Kavi is used to that. And UIUC is significantly cheaper for us, since we’re residents in Illinois and not California. Given the two schools are reasonably equivalent for general academics, we’d mostly be paying for good weather. Of course, people do pay more for good weather all the time — if more sunshine and warmth keep her happier, how much is that worth?
Well, we’re not there yet. Still gathering information — overall impression is that UIUC felt a lot like Oak Park. So not as different as Kavi might have hoped, but also reassuringly familiar — and she’ll be much more on her own there, which is probably difference enough?
It’d be lovely to have her a 2.5 hr car ride instead of a 5 hr plane ride away, though. Even if I hate driving, as a nervous parent, it’s nice to have the option.
We’ll see.
