A Cougar to A....

In the coming week the picture will become clearer as to whether Josh will be a Duke (James Madison), a Mountaineer (West Virginia), a Tiger (Louisiana State), a Patriot (Mason) or a Hokie (Virginia Tech). As noted in my blogs of 12 and 19 February Josh has a double acceptance process. He has to gain entrance to the college as well as the school of music through an audition.

Josh has had friends in the last two years who have been accepted to the colleges but not into the schools of music, or accepted into the schools of music but not the college. To have choice everyone hopes to be fully accepted at two institutions, having more than one choice is not uncommon.

Josh has been accepted into the five colleges to which he has applied. He has now heard from four of the five schools of music and been accepted by all four. James Madison does not inform their prospective students until the end of the month. Therefore, he is in an enviable position of having a range of good choices.

For our Canadian family, American state colleges have three different tuition rates. For residents of that state, the “In-state” tuition is around $6,200 to 7,500 a year. “Out-of state” tuition tends to run 160 to 250% of the In-state rates. “Non-US Resident” tuition is around 30% higher than the “Out-of state” rates.

Two programs, LSU and WVU, have given scholarships from the colleges. Both schools of music have noted that scholarship offers could be forthcoming in the coming days. Interestingly Virginia schools are slower in come forth with scholarship offers...two are slow in making scholarship announcements and one, JMU, gives few scholarships. What a school offers in the coming week or so could well make a difference as to where he will attend.