get to see much of the city due to time but I did like what I had the chance to see. We had a chance to try a local bar and grill type place for dinner called KravN and it was delicious! They bring you bowls of cotton candy so of course that was a hit with me and Ash!
College Visit
We got to sleep in a bit today since we did all the driving last night and stayed pretty close to Augie. We started our visit with a tour of the campus. Our tour guide here was my favorite of all so far. Now in total we have been on 8 campus tours, the 3 we visited in May and the 5 so far on this trip. Carrie was our tour guide and she did a great job giving us a real tour as opposed to just following the script that I am sure they are supposed to memorize. The campus was very pretty and full of cherry blossom trees plus evergreen trees that get decorated for Christmas. One of my favorite parts of the campus was that, several buildings have huge floor to ceiling windows. It really is beautiful there and I'm sure it looks amazing in the fall and during the winter with snow. In the library there are study areas near this huge bank of windows and during the winter months they have hot chocolate and hot apple cider that you can enjoy while you study. It sounds like a great place to curl up and study to me. Not sure that Robert thinks so but I thought it was cool.
The college is pretty historic ( read old) but has been renovated and is very up to date and full of technological equipment. The science building is being renovated with 40 million dollars of improvements and already has a ton of equipment that bigger schools in the area do not have. In one of the buildings they have a bird cage full of birds. I'm sure they were doing some sort of research or habitat study on them, but it was pretty cool to see when you walk in.
The dorms were bigger than some of the other schools we have visited. All dorms are co-ed here like at the previous school. Freshman must live in the dorms but after that have the option of living in a theme house or apartment. The theme houses require a service project for the duration of the year and involves all the housemates. One theme house volunteered with the Big Brother program, another with the local food bank. It's up to the housemates on what their theme or service project is. There is a house near the stadium that is called the Augiholics and they coordinate all the school spirit activities for the campus as well as host tailgating events before the football games.
After our tour, we headed over to meet with the financial aid rep. Our time with her went well as she gave us more insight on how scholarships and aid works for Division II, we learn more and more with each visit. It is such a small world that her husband used to work with the coach that we met with yesterday. Both have moved on, but sure does seem like such a smaller and smaller football world.
Next we met with the director of the Athletic Training Program. Our meeting with him went well. He was very upfront and direct on how much time the program will require, as well as the importance of grades. Many schools will not allow athletes to enroll into the AT program due to the clinical requirements, but Augie is willing to work around the athletes schedule and even work out a summer internship if necessary to complete those required hours. Then we toured their amazing training facilities where the actually do rehab and treatments and headed over to football.
Football
We met with Coach Schrenk who we have been communicating with for the past few months. We chatted for a bit and then went over to the caf for lunch. No, we did not have to pay for lunch here. This caf had by far the best food hands down! Pizza wasn't good, but they has so much other stuff it was ok that the pizza wasn't great! All 4 of us had Mongolian BBQ. We chose our ingredients and they cooked it up for us with our choice of sauce. I think you could eat that everyday and never have the same combination! If the Mongolian bar wasn't enough to make it the greatest, they had a blizzard machine! Of course you know I had to try it! So I had a chocolate malt with butterfinger. Oh my gosh I would be HUGE if I ate there every day!
After lunch we toured the football facilities. The only thing I can say is WOW! Augie has the best facilities in DII. The locker room was NICE. Leather couches, flat screens, PS3. Outside of the locker room were the laundry lockers. What's that you ask? These boys drop their football laundry in the chute, and someone washes it and places it in their laundry locker. During two a days it even gets done between practices! It for sure made a difference in the way the locker room smelled!
Like a few other schools Augie has a separate weight room for athletes. It is also very well equipped and completely decorated in Augie style. As I mentioned Augustana has great facilities. Not just for football but for other sports as well. Wait, are there sports other then football? J/K there's cheer! Seriously though the baseball field has a turf infield which looks amazing. But on to the real sport, the stadium is fantabulous. My pictures don't do it justice since they are taken from on the field.
We ended our day with more talk with the coach and a follow up with admissions. Academic scholarship notifications will go out in the next few weeks, and athletic ones won't be finalized until early next year. Robert has already been admitted to Augie so as with other schools that was brief. The coolest part of the visit was that when they went to give Robert a free t-shirt, they gave Ashleigh one too since she visited Augie as well. This was the only school that did that!
Final Thoughts
I loved loved this school. Now if you are keeping track that is one love less than HSU. I virtually toured this school online and have been following them on twitter so I knew going in that it was going to be one of my favorites. I must say though that the in person visit far surpassed my expectations. The people were so nice! From the hotel we stayed in, to the resturant, to the school, everyone was just down right nice. In the caf one of the workers introduced herself to us, told Robert she would cheer fir him at the games, and then came and showed me and Ash how to use the blizzard machine.
The AT program is outstanding. Academic wise it is a great school and has high standards. I know Robert would be challenged but also helped along the way. He would leave prepared to work or enter PT school. Football facilities are obviously a plus. Seriously a laundry locker and beautiful stadium need I say anything more? On the serious side, even though I had hesitations going in about SD due to the demographics, once there all of those went away. The people we encountered including the coaches care about the kids there and making sure they leave as men and are prepared to be successful. Faith, family, and then football are their order of priorities and I agree.
Being a DII school redshirting is an option and is something that is commonly done. That means if Robert redshirted his fresham year, he would practice and be a part of the team but not play during that first year. Then he would have 4 more years of eligibility for football. So he would stay at college for at least 4.5 years. The benefit is to learn the program that first year. For him and his academic program it would also ease up his workload. The benefit to us, is that by the time he starts, we will be back in the states and can see him play. That is all stuff that is decided once he reports to football camp next year but it is something that is a possibility with DII but not DIII.
So negatives, duh it's SouthfreakingDakota!!!!!!!!!! That's not Texas! Mama can't come to every home game. They also don't have PT school so that means moving on to another school for his doctorate on Physical Therapy when he's done. As every other school, we will weigh the pros and cons and pray about this decision.
Stay tuned as we hit up our final stop, Trinity International University in Deerfield Illinois!
The road to February 5, 2014 continues...
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