<p>I’m a Brandeis graduate and I’ve been interviewing high school students for Brandeis for years.
Ask me anything.</p>
<p>Hi, I’m a mother of a Junior in high school. My daughter is an exceptional writer and was a scholastic reporter a couple of years ago where she interviewed Mr. Ed Bradley from 60 minutes few days before his passing among her other assignments. She has won several state awards for writing and interned at our regional newspaper during summers where she wrote several features. She is her school newspaper editor and hopeful to be the Editor in chief next year. She is a constant contributor to Teen Ink. She has also been accepted for the writing program this summer. The problem is during her freshman year of high school she had a setback and did not perform to her full potential and hence had a very low GPA but things have changed drastically and now her GPA is almost 4.0 but cumulative will be low because of freshman year. She is hopeful about her SAT scores to be competitive. She had visited Brandeis when her older sister was looking at colleges and then fell in love with it.
My question is will her application be looked at holistically? Will she be able to interview and express herself. Or are we wasting our time.</p>
<p>junior_mom:</p>
<p>Firstly, thanks for writing.</p>
<p>Your daughter’s ECs sound exactly like what a school such as Brandeis is seeking in its students: a consistent pursuit of a passion, in-depth and over time. This is far better than joining every club and activity in high school to build up a “resume.”</p>
<p>It sounds like she started off high school with lower grades and then improved over time. This is fine, and clearly preferable than if she ended up with the same GPA but started strong and then fell-off in soph and junior years.</p>
<p>Her application will absolutely be looked at holistically and with great care. If she is really interested in Brandeis here are a few things that will really help:</p>
<ol>
<li>Apply ED. This shows that you are truly interested in Brandeis. This makes a big difference and will distinguish her application.</li>
<li>Have an interview and make it a good one. Come prepared and be able to discuss what about Brandeis appeals to you and how you can contribute to and benefit from the Brandeis community.</li>
<li>Visit, sit-in on classes etc. Make sure Brandeis is what you want.</li>
</ol>
<p>Good luck and let me know if I can be of further assistance.</p>
<p>Deisman-We live in California and D has not heard from any Brandeis interviewers. Is it unlikely that one would get an interview in our location, or did we need to actually request it?
Also, do I understand correctly that Brandeis notfies students about acceptance my regular mail around April 1st? </p>
<p>Thank you,</p>
<p>tokdoc:</p>
<p>Brandeis conducts interviews both on campus and with alumni all over the world. Your daughter would have been able to have an interview in California, but she would have had to request one.</p>
<p>Full details about interviews can be found here:
[Brandeis</a> Admissions | Applying | Admissions Interviews](<a href=“http://www.brandeis.edu/admissions/visiting/interviews.html]Brandeis”>http://www.brandeis.edu/admissions/visiting/interviews.html)</p>
<p>About notification, you are correct. Brandeis does it the old-fashioned way and sends letters via regular mail around April 1st. </p>
<p>Good luck to both of you.</p>
<p>junior_mom, I’m very involved with one of the student newspapers at Brandeis so I would definitely encourage her to mention that as something she is interested in doing as a Brandeis club if that is the case. I think it’s always good to mention some extra-curriculars that you would hope to do. Here’s the website of the [The</a> Justice](<a href=“http://www.thejusticeonline.com/]The”>http://www.thejusticeonline.com/), we also have another weekly newspaper [The</a> Brandeis Hoot](<a href=“http://thebrandeishoot.com/]The”>http://thebrandeishoot.com/), in addition to a pretty funny satire newspaper that is not online and a newer student blog [Innermost</a> Parts](<a href=“http://innermostparts.org/]Innermost”>http://innermostparts.org/) .
Our journalism program is also very good [Journalism</a> Program | Brandeis University](<a href=“http://www.brandeis.edu/programs/journalism/]Journalism”>Journalism Program | Brandeis University) .
I’m a graduating senior who’s learned a lot about the university through covering it extensively the past four years, so feel free to ask me any questions about journalism at Brandeis or anything else.</p>
<p>Can you tell me more about math department?</p>
<p>Thank you so much Deisman and Catperson 247. I made my daughter read this thread and she is very excited. We are visiting Brandeis again March 30 but unfortunately it says Interviews for juniors is only after May 15th. My daughter wants to be heavily involved with the college newspaper. She always makes it a point to read the college newspapers when we visit and critics it…LOL. Very exciting and stressful year coming up for us.</p>
<p>With most college newspapers, she can also sign up online to get weekly e-mail newsletters from them…and I know for sure that The Justice does ;-)</p>
<p>junior_mom:
The two major Brandeis newspapers are The Justice and The Hoot.
Both can be read online:</p>
<p>[The</a> Justice](<a href=“http://www.thejusticeonline.com/]The”>http://www.thejusticeonline.com/)
[The</a> Brandeis Hoot](<a href=“http://thebrandeishoot.com/]The”>http://thebrandeishoot.com/)</p>
<p>luluzg:
The Math department is first-rate, and further details can be found here:
[Mathematics</a> Department Undergraduate Program | Brandeis University](<a href=“Department of Mathematics | Brandeis University”>Department of Mathematics | Brandeis University)
Also, one of the nice things about it is that they currently offer both an major and a minor in Mathematics. This is better than back in the old days when I was a student and they only offered a major. If you have specific questions, you can reach out directly to Prof. Gessel, the department chairman. His contact info can be found here:
<a href=“http://people.brandeis.edu/~gessel/[/url]”>http://people.brandeis.edu/~gessel/</a></p>
<p>Make sure that your visiting date is not over Passover!! This happened to us last year as Passover matched up with Spring Break and my daughter hated it-- I had to take her back again-- and travelling from so far it would be shame not to see Brandeis at its best</p>
<p>Good point.
Brandeis is on break from 3/29-4/6.
The last day of classes for the term is on 5/5.</p>
<p>Any idea what merit-based aid is going to be like this year after losing so much money to Madoff and it being a recession?</p>
<p>If you look at the Common Data Set from last year <a href=“http://www.brandeis.edu/institutionalresearch/2009pdfs/CDS2009_2010.pdf[/url]”>http://www.brandeis.edu/institutionalresearch/2009pdfs/CDS2009_2010.pdf</a>, starting with page 24, you might be able to get some idea…</p>
<p>Wow. Doesn’t seem to be too good at all.</p>
<p>Are you serious? We scheduled a visit on 30th. Did not know spring break was on that weekend. My older daughters college was over last week. Oh my, I booked hotel room non refundable. Oh well, we have to go back again I guess.</p>
<p>Don’t despair junior mom, while spring break is March 29-April 6, we will still have information sessions, tours, and students working in our office. Campus will be quieter than usual, but it won’t be a ghost town by any means.</p>
<p>Jeff Wong
Admissions Counselor
Brandeis University</p>
<p>I have a question about AP scores. I have to submit my deposits in the coming week of which exams I am going to take. I am in both AP Lit and AP Lang and I just am interested in taking AP lang exam. The Brandeis AP Chart, that I can’t figure out how to share in the thread, says that although both exams (when earning a 4,5) will give you 1 Brandeis credit. But AP Lit satisfies a requirement of School of Humanities, and AP Lang satisfies no requirements. My question is, what requirement is this? An expo writing class? Is it a class that you want to satisfy so that you don’t have to take it?</p>
<p>Eliyahu2123:
This is a good old-fashioned distribution requirement. Brandeis requires you to take at least one course in each of the four schools: Humanities, Arts, Science and Social Science.</p>
<p>This is usually a very easy requirement to fulfill as you will be majoring in something in at least one of the four schools (knocking off one of the four distributed classes, leaving at most three more).</p>
<p>What they are telling you is that AP Lit will satisfy your School of Humanities requirement.</p>
<p>More details on this can be found here:
[General</a> Education Requirements](<a href=“http://my.brandeis.edu/faq/one?faq_id=329]General”>http://my.brandeis.edu/faq/one?faq_id=329)</p>
<p>Best of luck to you!</p>
<p>Tnx for answering our questions? </p>
<p>Will internationals students be notified via e-mail? Do you know the exact date?</p>