My son is off to college next fall, and really the only college he wants to attend is the University of Manitoba. He's never been there, only talked to a recruiter at a school for a few minutes and did a little research online, and we have made a couple phone calls to the school to ask some questions. We probably won't be able to do a school visit ahead of time because of time and logistic problems, so we are having to make decisions solely based on what we can find out online.
We live in Minnesota so we have tuition reciprocity, which is great (we pay your rates), but I can already see there are going to be a ton of expenses involved that we haven't even begun to think about... and getting third-party student loans for attending an international college is quite limited (the federal student loans don't even come close to covering expenses).
So, I am looking for information from anyone who maybe lives in the Winnipeg area, or even anywhere in Canada if you know something about this University.
Some things I am wondering about specifically:
**The local reputation of the school, and if we can get even more specific, their reputation for their Computer Science program.
**The campus climate - party school? Or more serious? Laid-back or uptight?
**Seems like budget cuts are a controversy for the school right now??
**Just how expensive is living up there compared to the states?
**What is the off-campus housing situation nearby? Seems like they don't have a lot of on-campus housing spots.
**What would the price of a cab ride from the University to the airport be?
**Anything else you think we would want to know that we won't easily find.
I really appreciate any help we can get with this. He has already submitted an application, but I am at the point where I am starting to wonder if this is a bad idea - there is going to be a whole lot of work and money involved!! If it is a great school and would be a great experience for him, it would be worth it, but at this point we don't know enough to make that determination!
We live in Minnesota so we have tuition reciprocity, which is great (we pay your rates), but I can already see there are going to be a ton of expenses involved that we haven't even begun to think about... and getting third-party student loans for attending an international college is quite limited (the federal student loans don't even come close to covering expenses).
So, I am looking for information from anyone who maybe lives in the Winnipeg area, or even anywhere in Canada if you know something about this University.
Some things I am wondering about specifically:
**The local reputation of the school, and if we can get even more specific, their reputation for their Computer Science program.
**The campus climate - party school? Or more serious? Laid-back or uptight?
**Seems like budget cuts are a controversy for the school right now??
**Just how expensive is living up there compared to the states?
**What is the off-campus housing situation nearby? Seems like they don't have a lot of on-campus housing spots.
**What would the price of a cab ride from the University to the airport be?
**Anything else you think we would want to know that we won't easily find.
I really appreciate any help we can get with this. He has already submitted an application, but I am at the point where I am starting to wonder if this is a bad idea - there is going to be a whole lot of work and money involved!! If it is a great school and would be a great experience for him, it would be worth it, but at this point we don't know enough to make that determination!