<p>poppymom-my d is not organized…fortunately I am! well, maybe not fortunately, since I obviously am not going off to college with her, and she’ll be on her own. :)</p>
<p>I think procrastinating is more the norm in real life. My youngest son is the only one of my three kids that applied to so many colleges so early. Most of his friends are applying to just one or two colleges and some are deciding now where to apply or even just deciding where to visit! I’ll never forget talking to a Mom at the SPRING musical and asking her where her daughter was going. She said that she had JUST applied to Pitt. Thank goodness she got in. I think I’m just fortunate that Robotics doesn’t really kick in until January or son would have joined the crowd that applies to just one or two colleges.</p>
<p>poppymom, Welcome to this thread and congrats on acceptances to Oregon and Denver! The gpa mentioned is flexible but I think I can safely say that no poster here has a child applying to HYPS!</p>
<p>We’ve been getting some invites lately on financial workshops for a couple of the colleges son has been accepted to. My husband isn’t interested because we went to one 8 years ago. I might go without him if I can rearrange my work schedule.</p>
<p>Skrinkrap - have a good (but younger…in 20s) friend who graduated from Morehouse. He lived at home, but played football, was involved, etc. PM me if you’d like to pick his brain and I’ll get you in-touch.</p>
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<p>thanks for the laugh.</p>
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<p>um, no. If you were sitting in my dining room last night while I worked on AP physics problems with S, you could have seen this first hand. Gosh, I was so looking forward to taking physics again in my 50’s. 
I am seriously beginning to wonder if my S is going to be ready for college come next Sept.</p>
<p>^and by the way, most of his apps are not in because he was organized and motivated, it was that size 9 boot of my husbands that got them in.</p>
<p>poppymom, none of my 4 kids were organized & they teased me constantly about my Excel Spreadsheets. (one for applications, one for financial aid packages). </p>
<p>In looking back now, (youngest is a college freshman) I wish I hadn’t gotten myself all worked up about this process, there was no need to do so! Happy with their choices & happier still with their financial aid packages. :)</p>
<p>Mamom that is too funny. D1 is only a freshman but I come here to see how you “older” folks are getting it done. I’ll have to remember your comment except DH wears a 12. lol</p>
<p>re organized, my wife and I were sure that our son, who had never been away from home, would struggle with the needed personal and academic academic organization in college–and are thrilled at how much he has matured in only 3 months! So there is hope!</p>
<p>yabeyabe2, that’s my concern for my son too. On the other hand, he did empty the dishwasher the other day, totally out of the blue. I guess there’s hope.</p>
<p>He picked a small college; we think the accountability that comes with small classes has been a spur to his growth.</p>
<p>SLUMOM - care to share what’s on those excel spreadsheets? How did you set them up?</p>
<p>With Thanksgiving and all the relatives around, of course everyone wants to know where son wants to go.</p>
<p>The thing is, he applied ED, so if he tells people that he applied ED but ends up going to a different school, everyone will always know that he got rejected. It’s a family legacy school, and a solid but not top school, so there could easily be talk for years about the shock of him not being able to get in if he doesn’t. </p>
<p>So I told him just not to tell people he applied ED. That way, whereever he ends up, it can seem like maybe it was his own choice. (And hopefully it will be ED school anyway - and it might well be!) </p>
<p>He said he already started telling people and didn’t care if they knew. He is not trying to seek any status or approval. He’ll tell anyone who asks.</p>
<p>So all the relatives now know - and they say that of course he’ll get in. They all assume that since he’s a smart kid at an excellent high school he can go anywhere. (They haven’t seen his transcript.) I happen to know he’s in a precarious position with his lowish GPA and class rank.</p>
<p>Ah well. Fingers crossed that it works out. And if it doesn’t, I think he’s right that he’ll be okay. He’s an amazing kid, and I need to let go of trying to protect him from people whose opinion doesn’t really matter.</p>
<p>With Thanksgiving and all the relatives around, of course everyone wants to know where son wants to go.</p>
<p>The thing is, he applied ED, so if he tells people that he applied ED but ends up going to a different school, everyone will always know that he got rejected. It’s a family legacy school, and a solid but not top school, so there could easily be talk for years about the shock of him not being able to get in if he doesn’t. </p>
<p>So I told him just not to tell people he applied ED. That way, whereever he ends up, it can seem like maybe it was his own choice. (And hopefully it will be ED school anyway - and it might well be!) </p>
<p>He said he already started telling people and didn’t care if they knew. He is not trying to seek any status or approval. He’ll tell anyone who asks.</p>
<p>So all the relatives now know - and they say that of course he’ll get in. They all assume that since he’s a smart kid at an excellent high school he can go anywhere. (They haven’t seen his transcript.) I happen to know he’s in a precarious position with his lowish GPA and class rank.</p>
<p>Ah well. Fingers crossed that it works out. And if it doesn’t, I think he’s right that he’ll be okay. He’s an amazing kid, and I need to let go of trying to protect him from people whose opinion doesn’t really matter.</p>
<p>Hi all, this is a great thread. Do you know of other, similar ones? I am looking for colleges for my son who was very ill in 9 and 10 grade, and had a poor GPA (closer to 2 than to 3). He is doing better now but not spectacularly well (quarterly grades, about 3.1 average). He is taking one AP, one Honors. He took honors in 9 and 10 grade. He is not very motivated to do well in school, either, so it isn’t just the illness that stood in the way. He has no extracurriculars - due to his medical condition he had to stop with sports, and nothing was attractive enough as an organized activity. He reads a lot (more on the web than between the covers I’m sorry to say, but still), has a great understanding of history, politics, economics, nature of the media etc. Talking to him about these issues is like talking to a well-informed adult. But. This will not get him in anywhere, right? He wants to go to an urban or almost-urban LAC - small college is not so attractive to him, universities are. Due to his ongoing medical needs he needs to be within a commuting distance to a serious medical center. He wants a co-ed, no religious affiliation place. I’d like him to be somewhere where partying is not the main goal of the student population, and where he is not going to be among the smartest people who easily gets his Bs and strives for no more. Predictably he doesn’t share these preferences of mine. I’m hoping that academic world will grow on him as he matures, so he’ll take a gap year. He’ll apply in 2012: any suggestions?
We live in Mass so U Mass Amherst is always an option. Great faculty, but too much of a party school for my taste. Hampshire seems a reach for him.</p>
<p>How about Clark in Worcester?<br>
I could not reconcile your asking for LACs with your stating he wants a university, not a small college.
St Josephs in Philly is another option, as are Sacred Heart, UNH, UVT, URI, Bryant, Pitt, Goucher, Towson
Good luck</p>
<p>^^ “this is a great thread. Do you know of other, similar ones?”</p>
<p>There is a class of 2012, one for the west coast, and an “original” 3.0 thread. I’ll add links if my family doesn’t come looking for me first. Shhhhh!</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/907349-western-schools-3-0-3-3-kid.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/907349-western-schools-3-0-3-3-kid.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/767966-where-did-your-3-0-3-3-gpa-child-get.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/767966-where-did-your-3-0-3-3-gpa-child-get.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/707436-new-3-0-3-3-gpa-parents-thread.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/707436-new-3-0-3-3-gpa-parents-thread.html</a></p>
<p>yayabe, what is UVT? Do you mean UVM - University of Vermont? I would think that UVM and Pitt would also be reaches, unless he looks at satellite campuses. </p>
<p>There’s a great site on College Board called, “How do I stack up?”. I thought it was helpful after we narrowed it down to see if it was reasonable.</p>
<p>Sorry I wasn’t clearer, Yabeyabe2. I would prefer my son to go to a strong LAC. He is not opposed to that (provided that the LAC is in urban setting, non-denominational) but would prefer university. However he wants a university with liberal arts education, that is, declaring major after one’s second year and being able to take courses not in his major up until the graduation. He would major in political science, history, sociology, econ, journalism, media studies or philosophy.
Clark Univerisity is close to Boston which is good but Worcester is a depressing town and the university itself is not very strong academically (I don’t mean the faculty, I mean the student body, on average). Goucher looks good, thank you. Pitt can be a frat party place, which doesn’t make me happy. We did find an ideal school for him - American University in Paris - it has the curriculum and the diversity that he wants, not to mention the best “urban area” in the world - but they give very little financial aid, so he won’t apply. West coast, East coast are fine, as is Canada. Any other suggestions?</p>
<p>ponorica, do you have SAT or PSAT scores? ? If they are similar to a 3.1 GPA, unfortunately, I think the options will be limited, especially when coupled with the narrow critieria of in or near a good sized city without religious affiliation (Catholic schools are a significant portion of urban universities not requiring well above 3.1). </p>
<p>You might look at some of the distant schools which are in large college towns, such as U Alabama or Kansas U, although I think your LAC preference is correct.</p>
<p>Although you do not find the Clark student body very strong academically, unless I am misreading something about your son’s GPA (granted, weighed down significantly by his illness) or his SATs are very high, are you sure he will present as a significantly stronger student than the average Clark student?</p>