Back to Chicago

The college decision has been made, and its back to Chicago for Katie. She liked Loyola when we visited, but said she just could not picture herself there. So she has come full circle and settled on Columbia College Chicago. We visited Columbia in October of 2007, and she decided then and there that it was the college for her. She didn't even want to look anywhere else. As time went on she began to investigate the employment opportunities and starting salaries of graduates in her chosen field, which at the time was Music Business Management. When she determined that she could earn as much being a secretary with no degree at a record label as she could as an employee with a Music Business degree, she decided she better look for a different major. She thought about International Business, thus the visit to NYU, but the study abroad programs did not offer what she was looking for, especially at Loyola. So she has settled on Marketing and Communications at Columbia, and I have to say that it fits her in a number of ways. She has been active in Junior Achievement and DECA while in high school, and her electives have mostly been in the area of marketing. Columbia is appealing in its curriculum in that they immerse the students in classes of their major right away. Katie will never sit in a classroom of 350 students "learning" about western civilization. She will get the core business classes she needs without ever having to take trigonometry. I have friends in Chicago in the marketing and media fields, and they concur that Columbia has a good reputation in the Chicago area. In fact, they said that the graduates they had hired from Columbia walk in the door knowing how to do their jobs. So...the decision is made, the pressure is off, and the deposits have been sent off. Now we can concentrate on the graduation celebrations.

Chicago is so NOT My Kind of Town

Katie and I left for Chicago at 10:00 Friday morning so as to avoid rush hour traffic. Here and there. Figuring we would be heading into town while everyone else was heading out, I thought our timing would be pretty good. We arrived at the outskirts of the city around 3:00 to find the northbound traffic snarled to a stop. It took another hour and 15 minutes to arrive at the hotel, where I gratefully handed off the car keys to the hotel personnel for the weekend. After a little rest in the room (little being the operative word as the kids in the next room were waging a battle of Star Wars proportion), we decided to try a pizza parlor advertised in the shopping guide located in the room. Katie checked the reviews online, and people agreed it was THE place to sample Chicago style pizza. Arriving at 5:45 we were told there would be a 45 minute wait for the two of us. It seemed to be our day of being in the exact same location as everyone else. After 20 minutes we were advised to order our pizza so that it would be ready for us when we were seated. In 50 minutes we were seated at our table, where we received poor service and a pizza that arrived 20 minutes later. So much for the order ahead theory. The pizza was good, thankfully, and we were happy we tried it though we both prefer a thinner crust on our pizza. Facing 30 mile per hour winds (they don't call this the Windy City for nothing!), we struggled to make our way back to the hotel. The heathens in the room next door kept up WWIII until after 12:30, so I was not very perky the next morning as we readied ourselves for the tour at Loyola. The winds had not abated, and coupled with the gray skies overhead led to a less than idealistic day to be hiking around. Warm, comfortable coach buses shuttled us to the campus, located about a half hour away, but after that it was all on foot. Grateful for the fore site to pack my hooded down jacket and gloves, I marveled at the teenage girls tottering around in their high heels and skirts, anxious to impress. It began to rain and then sleet as afternoon turned to evening. By this morning the snow combined with the winds off the lake turned the downtown area into a blizzard. Following a 30 minute wait for my car to arrive from the valet, we trudged through ankle high slush to toss the luggage in the car so we could return home. If this had been my decision on where I wanted to go to attend college, the weather this weekend would have definitely settled things for me. There is no campus or program good enough to convince me to attend college in Chicago. Why weren't we looking at colleges in Florida, for crying out loud? Oh, that's right - it's not my decision.

Chicago is...Katie's Kind of Town?

We are driving to Chicago today for a final (I hope!) look at two colleges. Loyola is hosting a special weekend for students interested in certain majors, business being one of them. We'll have tours on campus during the day tomorrow, and then attend a Scholars Reception in the evening for students who were offered merit scholarships. This will be our first look at Loyola, so I'm interested in seeing what this university is all about. Unfortunately the other Chicago college Katie is interested in is on spring break, so the buildings will be closed. But we have already toured it in the past, so that isn't a huge issue. We'll just take another look at the campus on Sunday before we head home. This whole college search thing is just so overwhelming anymore. When I was a teenager (don't I sound like our parents now?) my dad announced to me that I was going to attend Iowa State. I expressed to him that I wanted to go to the University of Iowa because of their Liberal Arts program. After all, Iowa State's full name is Iowa State University of Science and Technology. You see my problem? Dad said "Your brother goes to Iowa State and that is where you are going". End of discussion. I didn't have to take multiple tests, write essays or drive/fly around the country looking at all the options. In this economy I continue to hear that Washington University had over 23,000 applicants for 1,400 openings in the freshman class, NYU had over 20,000 applicants for 1,000 slots, etc. I'm assuming that most of these kids will be applying for loans in order to pay the $40,000 per year cost of attending these institutions. Is the next financial crisis going to be when these new college graduates can't find jobs paying enough to make the monthly payments and default on the school loans? A scary thought...

New York, New York

My daughter is really interested in attending Columbia College in Chicago. We went on a campus visit last year, and she loved it. They are one of the few schools in the United States where you can get a Music Business Management degree without also being a music major. My husband and I have stressed that she really needs to look at some other schools just so she can be certain Columbia is the way to go. She looked at Mizzou when we took Ji there to college, and she really disliked the feel of the campus. Let alone the fact that they don't offer her program. (Why should either of my children choose a school where we could pay instate tuition?) She has done some analysis lately on the starting salaries of Music Business majors, and apparently it is pretty poor. She is wondering if she could make enough to pay back student loans considering where she would have to live to get a job in her field. (Think LA or New York.) That made her look at the degree of International Business. Now she wants to look at New York University. Oh brother...Let alone a high tuition and room/board rate, the cost of getting her back and forth will be tremendous. I looked up the school and it is rated 3rd in the nation for International Business. She can't make an informed decision without a visit to the campus, and we were the ones who said she needed to see more schools. Trick bag...I'm taking her the first weekend of October for a tour. We'll see what happens, but I decided I will look at this trip as a nice mother-daughter weekend in addition to a school search. Goodness knows there won't be too many more of those in the future.