I feel like this is a setup for another chance for you to tell me how much UofI sucks.

Same is true Doc about Ivy League schools.

Unless your parents are very wealthy, they through the money at you if they want you. A good friend of mine paid less at Dartmouth for two kids then he spent on Notre Dame and Resurrection High School for them.

No, that place and the pizza place next door were things I really enjoyed. And being in the room when my neighbor across the hall got drafted by Tampa. And he got a call from John McKay.

What was the name of the pizza place? Started with a D iirc.

Option two.

I'd always heard that Papa Del's had a Gino's or Giordano's connection.

And now I feel even older

Yeah, I kind of remember that too. They are still there. They just moved to a bigger place out by Memorial Stadium on Neil.

I get a few every year to bring back home. It is good.

I liked Garcia's too. Just different.

The thing that was interesting about Vanderbilt, and something I did not know when I was in HS, they just flat-out give you a lot of money.

So, yes, it's like $80k/year, but in the orientation visit they give you a scale based on your family income that tells you how much money they will give you if you are accepted.

My wife and I make a pretty good buck, but we would have gotten like $50k a year from college grants, discounts, whatever you want to call them to make it where it would be pretty much the same cost as UofI, more, but reasonably close.

I knew universities with large-endowments are their own countries but I just guess I didn't understand they give the money to everybody that goes there.

I'm sorry you're poor.

Who got drafted by Tampa?

Duwaune Smoot was in the news today (UofI guy on Jacksonville) for delivering their baby in an emergency. Whole family is good.

FamILLy!

What is "attempted cocaine smuggling"?

Aren't you either smuggling it or not? Can you be arrested for making plans?

A kilo?

That's a lot of cocaine. Trust me, I know.

That's like a week.

We lose a lot of rights when we look the other way when it doesn't affect our lives or it isn't a cause we agree with.

It's funny you mention a Cali school. Mine was Stanford. After my parents said no to West Point, they then turned around and said no to my next choice. They didn't think that I'd come back (I wouldn't have) and didn't think that I was mature enough to be so far away (I probably wasn't).

Earlier this year, I took my son (HS Senior) on a road trip and we visited Ohio State and Purdue.

He wanted to see University of Georgia, which Michael Jordan's Geography would tell you that's a big deal for one school. So....we did looked at NC State, Clemson, and Georgia.

His new rankings
1. Georgia
2. Purdue
3. NC State
4. Clemson

My rankings (which don't matter)
1. Clemson
2. Georgia
3. Purdue
4. NC State

Maybe this should have been in the brag about something nobody cares about threads. Still....it was a fun time and I was able to see some great campuses. I'd be thrilled if he went to any of them.

Every college-bound midwestern male must clock the picture in the brochure of the campus on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific and think "hmm, I'm gonna go to school in Cail; spend days tooling up and down the PCH in a Karmann Ghia, wearing an ascot, drinking pinot grigio and blasting Burt Bacharach". As though if we go to school in proximity to the beach in California only a matter of time until Carmen Electra or Halle Barry jogs up and offers to blow us right there on the beach. Might've been Farrah Fawcett or one or both of the Heathers for Doc and, dunno, Angie Dickinson? Angela Lansbury? (Mrs Jarvis / Samson Delilah era Lansbury) for Reader?

Hate to tell ya this "Amigo", but that is sort of the essence of how life works.

If you live in IL and your kid wants to be an engineer, I think UofI is the only choice. I’d suggest you persuade him - he’ll make friends, have fun, maybe see an entertaining basketball game or too (and have a couple shots of seeing OSU come through town to stomp his team).

Absent major financial aid, going out of state to a football school for a lesser degree may as well be going to a shitty liberal arts college. Tons of loans & unemployable is no way to go through life.

In short, UofI, Purdue (best out of state option)…all the rest.

What is "attempted cocaine smuggling"?

Aren't you either smuggling it or not? Can you be arrested for making plans?

Don’t try to make a connection in Mexico City. It’s a bad idea.

Michigan, Wisconsin and Northwestern are all up there as well.

Northwestern had a good one 25 years ago but I think it depends on what type of engineering you’re looking at. The economics are a touch different too I imagine.

Depends what the goal is; if it's educational merit, big-ass flagship southern universities top out at the level of directional midwestern universities. Purdue, Illinois heads and tails above any SEC/southern ACC school for quality of book learnin'. And if you're talking STEM or finance you'd have to go to MIT or CalTech or Carnegie-Mellon + a handful of others on the coasts to get access to a better regarded education in those fields than Purdue or Illinois.

But if you're looking to crush puss and pound brews without the distraction of rigorous course work, definitely head south.