<p>“My son’s guidance counselor advises everyone to never apply ED.”</p>
<p>Everyone and never; time for a new guidance counselor. This is an inappropriate personal preference to be foisting on students.</p>
<p>Hi,
We live in New York. The only state school we are considering is Binghamton…Its bigger then TCNJ …
Since he is a jr… maybe I can hope for things to change in the next year and they start offering more merit…</p>
<p>Then you’ll make out much better financially at Binghamton. All the state colleges in NJ are in a financial bind that unfortunately seems to be getting worse, not better.</p>
<p>thanks mamajay…</p>
<p>I just dont think that BU is a good match… but we will see…I am looking for safety schools for financial and academics to Villanova and BC which are his 1st choices.</p>
<p>my daughter is a freshman and absolutely loves TCNJ. Although it was not originally her first choice, she decided on the school after Accepted Students Day and has not regretted her decision at all! Her SAT scores were a bit low (1280), but I think that her extensive community service helped her.
Regarding things to do and places to go off campus, my daughter says that she spends most of her time on campus. She has developed close relationships with friends she met in the dorm and they spend alot of time taking part in campus activities or just hanging out watching movies, playing games, etc. Homesickness has not been a problem and she seems to always be busy with friends on the weekends. There is a bus service from the campus to the movie theater and malls close by. The school also offers bus trips to NYC, DC, etc. for a reasonable cost.<br>
Classes are challenging and she does feel like her work is never-ending.<br>
It is a great school with a beautiful campus at a reasonable price.</p>
<p>I have a legitimate question about ethnicity
…I am a biracial student (half German and half African)
My top choice school is Duke
and I was wondering what I should select in the race box in order to give me the best chances for admission.
I pretty much look African American, and since duke has the BISA program (I believe that is what it’s called and that it is a program meant to attract African American students), I know that race is a big factor for them.
In addition, I know that I am someone who could benefit from affirmative action, however I feel as if by only checking the ‘black’ box, I am not being true to myself.
I also chose to write my common app. essay on diversity, in which I obviously mention both sides of my heritage. I feel that if the admissions officers detected this incongruence that it would not be good…</p>
<p>I have a 3.7 uw and a 4.6 w. I took 9 AP’s throughout high school and all the rest honors classes.
I’ve got a 30 on my ACT’s…which is a bit higher than my SAT, so i figure I wont even sen my SAT scores in, and a 750 on my Bio SATII
My extracurricular activities include a bunch of clubs (with positions), +ENHS
also, I was the first female at my high school to be a 12 season Letterman (xc, indoor and outdoor track)
my times are good enough that I would contribute to the team, but not amazing enough to get me recruited by such a good DI school!
what do you think my chances of admission are and what should I do about the race predicament? </p>
<p>thanks in advance for the help!</p>
<p>iAvocado,</p>
<p>Wait, are you even applying to TCNJ, or just Duke? If you’re applying to TCNJ, I’m pretty sure you’ll easily get in. Regarding the ethnicity question, since you mentioned your biracialness in your essay, you probably should put down both races on your app. I think you’ll still be considered a URM. If it wasn’t for your essay, I would have told you to just mark the black box 
Maybe take the ACT again if you have time to bump up the score a few points, and I think you’ll have a great chance at getting into Duke.</p>
<p>If your ethnicity is clear from your essay, it shouldn’t make any difference what boxes you check. However, checking the appropriate boxes bumps up the school’s diversity numbers.</p>
<p>I’m surprised at the low amount of merit-aid ($6500) for TCNJ. Do they make up for it with need-based aid, such as grants? Finances are a big factor for college for my D.</p>
<p>They are hurting financially due to lack of funding from the state and I get the feeling they don’t get a lot of endowments. I am in NJ and know a lot of kids at the top of their class that took advantage of their free rides as recently as 2 years ago. This helped them enormously to improve their ranking. However due to the decrease of merit, the better students who want to stay in state seem to be migrating to Rutgers, who still offered free rides last year. I’m not sure what Rutgers will do yet this year as far as merit, but I did read that their endowments are up.</p>
<p>Please just keep in mind though that not all of the better students are going to Rutgers…I chose TCNJ over Rutgers because compared to TCNJ Rutgers actually did not give me a lot of aid (and I have a parent who’s an alumni) and also it just simply did not fit my tastes. For this year, $6500 was roughly half the cost of tuition at TCNJ and there are other financial aid oppurtunities available</p>
<p>I have a question about the application itself
One my teachers who is writing my recomendation does not want to complete it online for whatever reason. Is it okay if I mail them his recomendation and do the others online? Will it be a confusion or a problem?
Thanks!</p>
<p>As far as I know it won’t be a problem but it may be a good idea to call the school and inquire just in case. I sent all of mine by mail with no problem.</p>
<p>I posted earlier on this thread and got some good feedback. My son just got his SAT score back and he jumped from a 1230 to 1340 (1940 on the 3 parts). So hopefully, this should get him in better position for acceptance. Thanks again.</p>
<p>lewmin, congrats to your son and good luck!</p>
<p>hello,
thank you so much for starting this thread!</p>
<p>i just submitted my tcnj app a few days ago an i was wondering if you could chance me…</p>
<p>i know tcnj does look at writing so out of 1600, i have 1380 in one sitting, and 1450 (combined)</p>
<p>i have a significant amount of community service contributions, 3.9 GPA (W), 7 APs by then end of senior year, and a decent rec. letter.</p>
<p>i am out of state. (NY-I dont know if this will hurt my chances)</p>
<p>top 10 percentile in a class size of 350.</p>
<p>tcnj is my top choice right now. i visited and fell head over heals in love with the school. i cannot even BEGIN to articulate how badly i want to enroll fall 2010.
naturally, tuition is a major component of this decision. just wondering, if accepted, how much merit based $ would you expect me to get? vs. how much do most people get?</p>
<p>Also, i dont know if it matters, but i intend to major in either Biology or Biomedical engineering.</p>
<ul>
<li>i meant to say: does NOT look at writing</li>
</ul>
<p>collegegrl i am currently a freshman bio major here at tcnj…i think all of your credentials fall right into what tcnj is looking for (and the fact that you’re out of state may actually help you rather than hurt)</p>
<p>in terms of financial aid, if you read some of the previous posts you can see that the max aid given each year does vary…however, cost was a big factor for me in my college decision making and in the end tcnj came out on top…good luck!</p>
<p>collegegrl, good luck! My son is a freshman Bio major and cost was definitely a factor in his choosing TCNJ, although he really liked the school’s appearance as well. He’s very happy and working very hard. I can only echo what Hazeleyez wrote in that your being from NY will probably help you in the admissions process, as I believe that TCNJ is trying to attract OOS students, but I can’t make an educated guess about merit $$. My son received some merit $$, which was probably due to his SATs and strong ECs.</p>
<p>I believe that Bio is the most competitive major at TCNJ (in terms of the number of students who apply and are accepted). It’s good that you have applied early, so that you won’t be shut out.</p>
<p>collegegrl123,</p>
<p>I’m pretty confident you’d be accepted even if you applied RD. Pretty good SAT score, high GPA and top 10%, and lots of AP classes show you’re pushing yourself, even during senior year.</p>
<p>TCNJ may be a tad expensive for you considering you’re an OOS and the merit aid isn’t much compared to other larger state schools.</p>
<p>I think bio is a harder program to get into but being a BME major requires more work because engineering majors usually take 5 instead of 4 classes.</p>
<p>gl</p>