Seems relatively similar to other publics.

It was an eye opener for me to go on tours with her before she selected Clemson and to now go through the Clemson experience. As I said in the opening post -- I made a lot of false assumptions on things ND did as being standard at any school. Not even remotely close to being true.

I'll get another state school to compare to soon. Daughter two starts at Florida State in June. This time as in state tuition though. FSU couldn't understand why I asked questions like this during the admitted student tour:

1) Do your dorms have mold growing all over the walls?
2) Do you have working elevators in your dorms?
3) Do you have working air conditioning in your dorms (Clemson and SC are southern weather schools -- not like ND)
4) Do you actually feed kids on the weekend or do you close the dining halls for each weekend but make me pay for it anyway?

The merit scholarship offer from Clemson was literally laugh-out-loud funny, while CofC came through with 80% of tuition. Add the state sponsored merit scholarship and it's well under 10k out of pocket... a fantastic deal. And hey, it's Charleston.

The football success of Clemson has increased demand to the point that they don't even try to incentivize kids to attend. It's unfortunate since my daughter kind of wanted the whole rah-rah experience, but at the same time, the place really doesn't have much character as far as colleges go.

But the remainder is still 40k per year. The real “scholarship” there is they accepted all the high school AP classes and effectively cut one full year out of the equation. That’s 40k less I have to spend there. ND level schools would not accept most of those AP classes - because you need a 5 not a 3 or 4 for ND and also in general they accept less because the average student also takes those classes.

It’s been a fight every day there though. Dorms with broken elevators. Dorms with no air conditioning, rooms with black mold all over the walls, etc. Freshman must buy a 7 day per week meal plan. Clemson closes the dining halls on weekends though. Imagine that. No freaking food on weekends - but you have to pay for it!

They go out of their way to prevent taking required classes on time. Anything and everything to try and force you into going longer to graduate. Constant fights to get into classes needed to graduate on time.

For what it is worth, my friend's daughter went to Clemson, graduated in 4 years with engineering degree, had great internships, got hired by Deloitte, and is very happy with her choice. Not sure about her living arrangements all four years but she lived in a campus apartment for at least one year and really liked it. Saw the apartment when we went there for the ND game.

Some of your daughter's issue may have been due to seniors and juniors getting priority for classes ahead of her due to Clemson not recognizing her academic status as being 1.5 years ahead of a normal student. My son ran into that at a different state school since he entered with a year's worth of credits due to AP classes.

are attempting to make over a five year period. They have torn down dorms, the campus equivalent of Lafortune, one dining hall, etc. -- and have multi year gaps where the replacements aren't open. Anyone going there during that period just lives without.

The excuse for the dorms (two different dorms FR and SO year -- progressively worse) are they are being torn down so all repairs, maintenance and improvements have been canceled.

They don't meet ADA legal requirements for most dorms. Their solution is if you are handicapped or get injured (e.g., break a leg) they move you into a dorm that does have an elevator.

My sense is Clemson is/was a commuter school whereby campus is designed for about 10% of the student population to live on campus. They aim now to convert that to about 60% on campus -- guaranteed for FR and SO and a portion of Juniors. Anyone going there 2017-2021 will be caught in a massive transition period.

You likely are right about classes -- but that's an institutional failure and a fundamental flaw in tracking of her status. One system shows her as a 2nd semester Junior right now and others show her as a SO. Their graduation advisers refuse to process her requests because of her age -- she's 20. They pay zero attention to academic status. That took legal threats from me to resolve that issue. Literally to get them to push a button on a program that confirms you have met the requirements to graduate if you take the presently scheduled courses (they register for the next semester literally a few weeks into a current semester -- also select dorms for the following year 8 weeks into the current year).