<p>I also think you are mistaken about the type of students that attend Clark University in Worcester. My son visited WPI while his cousin visited Clark. Both kids were suitably impressed with the colleges they looked at and both have applied. My SIL was quite enthusiastic about the friendly students and how many kids were in the library on a Sunday afternoon at Clark. Coincidentally, another College my niece is applying to is Goucher.</p>
<p>Ponornica - I know you said no religous affilication, but I will offer up the Jesuit schools anyway. Many are located in urban areas, great fit for the B student and offer decent merit. Although there may be some required religeous classes (ie-ethics type classes) religion is not a big deal. My S currently goes to a Jesuit HS and the religion aspect is more of a “do the right thing” and be “an upstanding citizen” type of thing. My neice is at Loyola Maryland and I know that is the case there also. </p>
<p>My 3.2 GPA/2180 SAT son has already been accepted to Xavier in Cincinatti, Loyola Chicago (how can you beat that for urban?) and Pitt. He got great merit from Xavier, good merit from Loyola and still waiting to here about merit from Pitt. </p>
<p>Last, I think your S will not be dragged to parties against his will. He will become friends with kids who are like him. If he is into partying, no matter what school he goes to he will find them. If he isn’t into partying, he will hang with the kids who aren’t and they will find other things to do.</p>
<p>My understanding is that Clark is a rigorous school with a strong social service ethic.</p>
<p>Although I am not Christian, I think St Josephs University, another Jesuit school, is very good option–our high school sends a lot of kids there and they are very happy.</p>
<p>Thank you, everyone. He hasn’t taken SATs yet. I expect his reading/writing scores to be very high (above 750) and his math score will depend on how much work he does between now and taking the SAT. He has huge gaps in his mathematical education due to long illness related absences. It probably won’t be above 650 though (more likely around 500) since the gaps are huge and he is not very motivated to fill them.
I am afraid that religious schools are not an option, so I will look closer to the colleges and universities mentioned above. Mamom, you are absolutely right in pointing out that he will or won’t party no matter where he ends up - this is very much up to the individual. But I also know that he is susceptible to the expectations of his peers. A friend’s son went to U of Pitt and had to transfer in the end - the pressure to party is not just psychological but in his freshmen dorm, the noise all around, vomit in the common room, and bursting into his room late at night were frequent. He did some of it himself, but much more than he does now when he is in a very different environment. That said, I know that I cannot do much to prevent this except help my son select an intellectually engaging place, hopefully with diverse, cosmopolitan, quirky student body.
Does anyone know about colleges and universities in Canada? What are the GPA expectations from US students at U of Toronto, York U, McGill, UBC? Is there in Canada or US a Reed-like college NOT in the middle of nowhere?</p>
<p>U of Toronto is like an IVY. Forget about it. McGill is not as difficult to get into but still, a kid with a 2 something GPA is a non starter.</p>
<p>Reed? If you think Hampshire is a reach, Reed is more of a reach. </p>
<p>I understand you wanting your kid to go to a really good school but you need to seriously reduce your expectations given his grades. Sorry if I sound harsh.</p>
<p>I would be shocked if her son scored anywhere close to that. It’s not about knowledge - it’s about how well they learn to take that particular test. Strategy is very important and the kid does not sound motivated enough to me to spend the time learning how to take the test. </p>
<p>He sounds like an average student (and there is nothing wrong with that) and needs to look at schools where average kids go.</p>
<p>I have no idea as to what scores ponornica’s son might get. FWIW, I don’t value these tests much. I prefer to look at day to day performance when deciding a good fit for my children. I would much rather that my kids attend a safety to match school than attend a reach school. My younger son attends what was a safety school when he applied. He is being challenged at this school, and he has a balanced social life. My son could have attended a reach school, or high match schools. He opted for a safety school where he felt comfortable. He does not regret it. He could challenge himself more at the school he attends if he wanted to, but he feels challenged enough.</p>
<p>Thanks for your responses. It is useless to speculate about his future scores now - he has to take the tests and then we’ll see. The reason I think that he will do very well on reading comprehension & writing are: he performed near perfectly in these areas on all state-mandated tests; before he became ill he qualified for Johns Hopkins talented youth summer school, again on the basis of tests; he reads, with understanding and engagement, professional articles in social studies and philosophy; he can hold his own in conversation about such issues with top LAC college students and their professors. So yes, I don’t think that I am unrealistic in estimating his reading comprehension at above 700, probably around 750. But again, we do not know, and I do know that his math knowledge is currently below his highschool average. It is not even clear that high SAT scores will help him much if he does achieve them - high SAT and mediocre grades are the “standard underachiever” profile, not beloved of college admissions (understandably). Emilybee, thank you so much for making the point about strategy of test taking. I was not aware that this is so important and I’ll make sure to explain this to him.
I am sorry for not being clear enough in what respect I think Reed would be excellent for him. I didn’t mean the selectivity of the college, I meant the social and political awareness of the institution and the student body, somewhat counter-cultural flavor to it, and of course (important to me) relatively small size.
Some people flourish in their safety schools. My son would be very happy to go to his safety. In my view, this is precisely the problem: he is not ambitious enough, and would benefit from being challenged more - not in terms of “busy work” (a lot of his highschool work has that quality) but in terms of intellectual challenge. When that happens (as it did for him this year in 2 electives) he does really well. One of the problems that I see in our education of children (and I do blame myself for contributing to it) is that we assume that all learning has to be FUN. For some people, fun in learning some things extends, over time, into enjoyment in learning anything. But for other people, such as my son, learning becomes conditional upon being interesting at every moment. I should have made him take up an instrument at a young age… Nothing like music to help you see the connection between the tedium of practice and joy of competent performing…</p>
<p>Ponornica, if your school has Naviance that would be a good place to start-- see where kids with similar GPA’s have gone to school. I’d think ongoing health issues might make it a real challenge to raise a GPA, and I wonder whether he feels discouraged enough about health to lose motivation at school. Roger Williams in Rhode Island, Endicott north of Boston, Wheelock in Boston, and Lasell just outside Boston are some places that might fit-- I don’t know how counterculture-y they might be, but they are small, not far from cities, and no religious affiliations I know of. Also Rhode Island College, in Providence, I think. Good luck!</p>
<p>Speaking of hoping our 3.0 kids will rise to the challenge, I hope some of us will come back and say how often that happens. In addition to my 3.0 son, who is very motivated, just not about grades, I have 4.0 kid, who got the grades, but calls herself lazy. She ended up at her reach, and while her peers have positively influenced her, half way through her junior year, I can see the difference in her attitude from theirs,</p>
<p>Gwen Fairfax, thank you for the excellent list of colleges to look at, and for the Naviance suggestion - I’ll check with her counselor who is terrific but seriously overburdened, so it is possible that she forgot to tell me about Naviance.
Your supposition that my son was discouraged by his illness is exactly right. I don’t want him to think too much about the illness as an excuse, but it is true that he had to deal with quite a lot. He did deal with it in a very mature way, as well as with some unrelated serious family issues; but of course other aspects of his life suffered, motivation for schoolwork being the first among them. My hope is that he will go to college somewhere where he will find again his joy of learning in a structured environment. He never lost the joy itself but in his mind it is sharply divided from anything that goes on in the classroom. It doesn’t have to be that way though. I’ll check the colleges you listed, plus some that other posters suggested - thank you all.
Shrinkrap, your post seems to be interrupted in the middle… Tell us more about your daughter. I for one am very interested in what happens to people who go to safety/match/reach schools.</p>
<p>I should have suggested Suffolk U…right downtown, stats right where your son’s are, a wide liberal arts curriculum with some fine professors. Not a lot of housing, which may also mean there’s not a lot of community feeling. But definitely worth a look…some of the others I suggested have a more professional/vocational focus than it sounds like your son wants.</p>
<p>Ponornica, if you don’t find Clark academically strong, then I don’t know if you are going to find schools like Suffolk, Wheelock, Roger Williams, Endicott, etc. to be academically strong enough. I think that Clark might be stronger than the others. I do think that Gwen has given some good suggestions. To add one more, you might want to look at Quinnipiac.</p>
<p>Maybe I just have a wrong view of Clark. Two of my friends taught there and both complained that the majority of students are barely literate, and almost uninterested in academic work. There were wonderful exceptions but the majority left that impression on my friends. The friends got their PhDs from a big public univerisity where as TAs they taught a wide range of students. They thought that Clark was much worse. Now, these two people may have been too harsh, or may have had exceptionally bad luck in their intro classes. Also, they both left Clark since - their report is from 1990s. Perhaps things changed. Son and I will visit Clark, it’s really not far away.</p>
<p>I am not trying to push Clark on anyone. If you don’t like the school, that’s fine. I can certainly understand if you don’t care for the location of the school. I do think that it is a solid school for a B student. I do think that Clark is overall a stronger school than some of the others mentioned. This is just my opinion.</p>
<p>cherryhillmom, for applications my spreadsheet included following info: </p>
<p>Avg. GPA latest freshmen class, SAT M & CR for Mid 50, Acceptance Rate, Deadline Date & Notification Date, Interview Required? Housing % living on campus/Housing Guaranteed?, % Male % Female, FA Formula, Need Blind?, T, R&B & Fees, Average Amount of FA Award, Average % of Need Met, % of Sophomores Returning, % Graduating in 4 years </p>
<p>Financial Aid Spreadsheet: Colleges at Top, Line items on the left hand side:
Tuition & Required Fees
Room & Board
Total Cost of Attendance
Gift Aid or Grants
Merit Aid
GPA Required to Keep Merit Aid
Total Amount Off Sticker Price
LOANS: Unsubsidized Stafford Loan
Subsidized Stafford Loan
Work Study Job (does not reduce COA)
Our EFC-What Mom & Dad Pay
Loans-Amount Child Will Borrow </p>
<p>You can list anything else you think is important on the application spreadsheet like date the SAT/ACT were sent, Transcript Sent? Teacher Recs Sent? & so on… I just printed out Scores Sent from The Collegeboard website & filed them in a folder & printed out emails from GC about transcripts being sent. Hope this helps!</p>