<p>Perhaps not of the caliber you are looking for, but at Lawrence University, in Appleton, WI, students are quite proud of being 'nerds' and bragged about it during our visit. A fine school.</p>
<p>My brother went to Lawrence and loved it. He and his college friends there had great experiences. I also like the suggestions of Carleton and Brown. All of these have different atmospheres, so he should definitely think about what he wants in a school. It's worth looking at some state schools as well.</p>
<p>Do you have financial constraints? Do you have some financial safeties to put on the list? Many of the schools on your list don't offer merit aid, so you will have to show need to get financial assistance and you might have loans included in the package, which may not be what you want for the long term. </p>
<p>You could look through the thread on "merit aid colleges" at the top of the Parent Forum and see if there are any that could go on the application list as a financial backup to the possibility of your S, as talented as he is, getting into some great schools, but without sufficient FA to allow him to choose to attend.</p>
<p>DS gave Carleton and Brown serious consideration. Great math departments plus LAC environment.</p>
<p>Rice, Cal State, MIT, Ga Tech, Harvey Mudd, Carnegie Mellon..etc. .I think they are steering him on the right track and he will find a lot of similar people there. My D took the other road a State U. and she misses her "nerd" friends who went to engineering schools. She is drawn towards those type students. ANOTHER reason to visit visit visit.</p>
<p>I wasn't trying to say that there is something negative about being a "geek" when I suggested the name be changed. I'm just not much of a labels person. My kids went to a school where all the kids in general did a pretty good job of assimilating themselves. My sons were in the band, played varsity football and baseball, and were involved in the Latin Club and student government. They didn't do the self-segregation thing (I'm a jock, he's a band geek, she's a bookworm, they are latin dweebs, he's a good-two-shoes, etc.) </p>
<p>The gaming club would have gone over very well at their school. I'm not sure the administration would have supported the name, though, LOL. The idea of people labeling themselves or others was something I discouraged, as did the administration. As a result, the students at the school accepted, respected, and generally liked each other; kids who otherwise might have been ridiculed or ostracized at other schools were embraced by their classmates and accepted for their quirkiness. </p>
<p>Anyway, I hope you didn't take it the wrong way. Sorry for sidetracking the discussion.
Best wishes for your son. I'm sure he's going to do great in his college search!</p>
<p>Similar son, Bach, not math. High Latins honors too. His schools science olympiad team is named Nerd Herd,with t-shirts to match. Academic (quiz bowl) team is --Academicz with t-shirts. DS never did sports so I almost fainted when groupie girls surrounded the academic team with fan signs that said, "I love Jew boys." (All team members were Jewish boys by happenstance.)</p>
<p>DS was accepted to many schools. No 800 on math. Just his nerdy, Bach loving self. Many didn't even require interview, but I bet your son is funny in interview setting.</p>
<p>S is at Williams which would also be excellent place for your son. Where the nerdy and non-nerdy meet, no barriers. He is really doing well there. No interview. Stellar math dept. Check it out.</p>
<p>BTW my non-nerdy daughter began her admissions essay, "I'm a dork," to great success.</p>
<p>I think you have little to worry about.</p>
<p>Agree that choosing the right teachers to write his recommendations is key. S#1 would fit into the category you described. Didn't speak out in class too much, but the teachers said that when he did, he raised the level of discourse by several notches. He graduated from Swarthmore and is now at the U. of Chicago for grad school. I don't think you need to worry. There will be excellent colleges who would love to have your son join their freshman class.</p>
<p>Consider Cornell.</p>
<p>My introverted daughter, who is a freshman there, likes it so far, and it has a good math department (full disclosure: my husband got his PhD in that department). Although Cornell is often thought of as a work hard/play hard (translation: work hard/drink hard) school, there's also a sizeable contingent of nerds. </p>
<p>Two big pluses for introverts: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Except for certain specialty schools (not Arts and Sciences), the interviews are only with alumni, they're optional, and they count for practically nothing.</p></li>
<li><p>Single rooms are readily available in the freshman dorms (although they cost more). Having the ability to get away by oneself from time to time, as a person living in a single can do, can be very important to introverts. My daughter would have been under incredible stress if she had to adjust to sharing a small space with another person on top of all the other adjustments that go with starting college. For her, a single her first year was exactly what she needed.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I really appreciate this thread and the thoughtful discussion and advice. I, too, am the parent of an introvert. My D's extremely reserved until you get to know her, and sometimes that quiet demeanor makes people think she's aloof or rude. She's neither ... and at times it's very painful for her because she wishes that she could be more outgoing. She's also extremely bright. Math, in all its black and white glory where 2 + 2 is always 4, is her passion. She's arguably the best math student in her grade, but she doesn't want to be in Mu Alpha Theta because she doesn't want to compete. She loves to tutor, and she's informly tutoring so many kids because they come to her, knowing she'll help ... but the whole competition thing ... no way. She used to dance, competitively for about 11 years, and she reached a very high level. When she danced at home, she bloomed ... her body was fluid and graceful, the moves she knew by heart ... she didn't have to think of. When she got on the stage with the group, she was competant ... she did what she had to ... but the sparkle that we saw at home, the passion for the dance ... well, many times it was lost. But like the OP's S ... my daughter is a behind the scenes leader. She's been doing community service through our church since she could spell mission, everything from serving community centers in Savannah, Ga to doing maintenance work at orphanages in the Bahamas. She'll be in the Bahamas again this fall, as well as Brazil in the spring. She's a youth intern for a pre-school Sunday School class. Yet, she doesn't feel she's a leader by the definition she feels colleges are looking for. She's in all the honoraries: NHS, BETA, NEHA, Spanish ... etc. but she couldn't bring herself to run for an office against the social kids. Yet, she'll be at everything, pitching in before she's asked. </p>
<p>So, I truly appreciate the ideas that have come from this thread. I especially like the idea of having her GC interview her. Even if she attends a school that doesn't require interviews, I figure it can only help. Yesterday, I told her of some of the national merit scholarship money available at different universities, especially if you put that school as your first choice. She was like, "okay, if they want me do you think we can negotiate out of having to take any general education speech classes?" This from the kid who in 5th grade won a DARE essay contest and had to read it in front of the entire school ... and loved every moment of it. </p>
<p>zebes</p>
<p>For interviews, practice it with him. Pretend you're the admissions officer, he's the student, and ask questions. When you feel that he should elaborate, prod him to do so until he's got it right. If you want, you could always go to some colleges that you know he's not interested in and just interview for the heck of it. I visited 20 colleges (literally) that I was initially interested in, and I ended up liking about 7 or 8 of them. I interviewed at them all though, and by the time I got to my last college I felt like I was a pretty good interviewee. As an earlier poster said, practice makes perfect :)</p>
<p>On the other hand, I suppose there is the possibility the admissions officer won't care. If you can only get him to sound false, just let him be who he is in the interview room.</p>
<p>I've got an excellent kidney I plan to sell and I've always had a predilection for dog food, so the retirement years are set. :)</p>
<p>Seriously, it will be painful, but we've been blessed.</p>
<p>Lots of good advice here.</p>
<p>However, my introverted, sometimes even called shy, family (yes, all 5 of us) felt that only an extrovert would think it could possibly be helpful to tell a shy person that they are self-centered and should basically just buck up and stop it. Would that it were that easy. And you know, sometimes we think those extroverts who dominate the conversation are the ones who are self-centered.</p>
<p>Practice is good. Finding points of contact with people to converse about is good. If it were possible to say "screw it, I'm going to be out-going" we would have long ago.</p>
<p>ACtually I'm not an extrovert and neither are my kids. I do a lot of performing (music) and used this type of focus technique to overcome my stage fright and it worked. Concentrating on bringing a good performance to the audience instead of "OMG I'm gonna die up here!" helped me take the focus off myself and onto what I'm doing instead. The same thing has helped me get through many difficult situations, including public speaking, which I hate and do not feel I'm very good at. So I started preaching this attitude to my sons, who were reticent about doing a lot of things in school, and it has helped them as well to come out of their shells more.</p>
<p>It would seem that your son will excel academically at any school. What he may need maybe broadening his personal skills so that he may be comfortable with non-nerds as well. I would also presume that for such a kid, education will not stop at the undergraduate level. In that sense, a good LAC environment may be more profitable to his development. </p>
<p>Williams, Amherst and Swarthmore are a few LAC's that are well rounded enough that will prepare well a kid for post-graduate work in any major. Because of their small size, leadership positions are pretty well distributed if a student chooses to accept them. I have been pleansantly surprised how such a place has transformed my previously introvert and nerdy D to a confident young woman in a year. BTW, Amherst has done away with the loan component entirely in its FA, and I am sure that the other two LAC's will soon follow suit. So at such places, you kidney will be spared. </p>
<p>Best of Luck and a happy journey.</p>
<p>I agree that there is a difference between being an introvert and shy.
At least the way I understand it, is being shy- is being uncomfortable in most circumstances about speaking or being the center of attention.</p>
<p>Being an introvert, doesn't mean you can't speak in public but that you get recharged by being by yourself /quiet, rather than being with alot of people.</p>
<p>I suspect that many introverts were raised by extroverts who felt like there was something "wrong" with being quiet & were always asking them "whats the matter"?
Making them feel like there was something the matter.</p>
<p>My older daughter is on the quiet side- however, she has been a very successful camp counselor & instructor, led support groups on her college campus & traveled alone to chicago/pittsburgh & NYC recently.</p>
<p>Social skills can be learned & I agree that the smaller LACs can be a great environment for those who don't want to stick out like they may have in high school- its one thing to self identify as " a geek", but something different to attend a school where * everyone is*, so it really doesn't matter.</p>
<p>For D#1 - who had felt socially awkward in high school to some extent I think, it was empowering to attend Reed college, where all of a sudden she was considered "outgoing & socially skilled" compared to some of the other students ;)
However- it can make it difficult to meet people if everyone is looking at their shoes.</p>
<p>Yes, yes, yes to the difference between introvert and shy, emeraldkity. I've seen that definition elsewhere and it really applies in our family. DS1, DH and I are all introverts of various stripes -- I can handle the social stuff for a while, but then I need to get home and recharge. DH recharges by taking a nap. DS1 recharges by reading a book. </p>
<p>My younger son, DS2, is an extrovert and a type B in a house full of introvert Type As. It takes special efforts to get him what HE needs to recharge. Hence, he's my football player, USYer, debater, etc. He thinks the rest of us are nuts, but his personality has been like this since in utero. It's who he is. My job is to help him develop these strengths.</p>
<p>Proud mother of two nerds (who will quickly inform you that it is definitely genetic). It is very interesting to note the variety of nerds - music, band, knowledge, etc. D preferred nerdy LACs and is at Carleton. S is a computer nerd and can't wait to go to a techy school to "be among his kind".</p>
<p>I am terrified of my son going through the interview process. He has Asperger's Syndrome, so an interview will go one of two ways. He will either feel threatened and give monosyllabic answers and lose all sense of life in his face, or the interviewer will hit upon one of his passions and DS will become antimated and talk for 2 hours. </p>
<p>I also recommend practicing interview skills with your son. That is one thing I have been good about with my own kids. When I was a senior, I was in a scholarship competition that included an interview. I had never been interviewed in my life and did a TERRIBLE (!!!) job. When I think about it, I can't imagine why my parents didn't try to prep me a bit during that 3 1/2 hour car ride up to the school. So now I am big on doing practice interviews with my kids.</p>
<p>Geeksrule -- Nerd Club shows initiative among other qualities. Didn't founding it require school sponsor, signatures, etc. which required interaction (social skills) with faculty and administration? Also, the fact that your son has been consistently doing this since 9th grade is a very positive attribute showing depth and commitment. Sounds like any number of colleges would be fortunate to get him.</p>