another Mines visit

 We went back for a tour of the school and to talk about financial aid.  Since it is an out of state public college, we would have to pay the out of state fees and that means it's almost $50,000 a year.  Unless my son gets some financial aide or a scholarship, the school is out of our financial reach.

 It's a beautiful college with lots of great things to offer.  We learned that every student has to take 2 years of PE, just like in high school.  We thought that was pretty funny.  Some of the classes offered were 'Rest and Relaxation' which fill up pretty quickly.  Other offerings include fly fishing, mountain biking, trail running and hiking.  I guess since all of the students are science majors, they figure they better get them outside to encourage them to be healthy too.

 One of the traditions at the school is to welcome all the freshmen by having them bring a 10 pound white rock from their home town. The students climb up this hill the first week of school and place that rock on the letter M.  They are sprayed with water by the older students and then they clean the rocks that are already there.  At the end of their time at the school, they each come back and take one of the rocks as a way to remember their time at the college.

 The campus was beautiful and about half way through our tour, the temperature dropped from a nice 65 degrees to about 35 degrees.  The wind picked up and we got to experience all four seasons in about 20 minutes.

 After talking with the financial aide counselor and having lunch, we came out to snow.  We had lunch in the dining commons.  It was fabulous.  I always insist on having lunch in the dining commons and think that's the best way to get a feel for a college.  We sat for almost an hour listening to the kids talk and watching them interact.  You get a really good feel for what college life is like by watching the kids eat.  At first you had the single kids sitting alone and either texting on their phones or just staring into space.  Then, the large groups of kids came through.  The football players, each carrying a gallon jug of water and several full plates of food all crowding around a big table talking loudly.  The school has only 25% women and you could see the very few women in the dining commons in small groups which was also very weird.

 My son really liked the feel for the college and the small size.  There are 4200 undergraduate students and about 1500 graduate students on campus.  Freshmen have to live in the dorms.

 My oldest says, "Nice fanny pack, mom."  I say, it's practical and am trying to bring the fashion of the 80's back.  I wonder why it ever went away.

 The snow started coming down fairly heavily as we left.  I wanted to go to the top of Table Rock, but my son thought it was too scary in the snow.

I wonder what he is going to choose.  Time will tell.