@yearstogo Were you local or in the Northeast? Certainly kids from unknown schools succeed brilliantly, just as Ivy kids crash and burn.
Reviving old thread if anyone’s still looking:
Any thoughts on NCState vs App for undecided but def non-STEM? My guess is that she’ll end up a biz major. GPA and SAT are comfortably above our school’s average of accepted students (157) over the last 3 years at State, and APP is.a safety.
[cross posting in NCSU forum]
Funny, I just saw this thread a day or two ago and almost revived it myself!
Your daughter and mine sound absolutely the same on their college preferences…started out not being interested in the local NC publics because “everyone” she knows from HS will be there, doesn’t want to go south, only north, etc. Private is only an option if there is significant aid. I can’t offer good specifics on her backups, but most likely, they will be App and Wilmington. We haven’t toured App yet and I don’t know much about it, but we’ve toured Wilmington. Loved a lot of what we saw, but have a few concerns.
Her strategy is that she will apply EA to as many schools as she can (list is probably NCSU, UNC-CH, Richmond, Dickinson, Ursinus), then only apply to Wilmington or App if she is rejected everywhere.
My son is at State, studying business, and has been very happy with the program.
^ for merit scholarships, the deadlines tend to be early (think December 1st but I think the best scholarships, Watauga or Honors College are November 15th). Keep Asheville in mind too.
I should clarify that she will apply to the backups if she is rejected at the state schools and the privates are not affordable.
But she won’t know till AFTER the scholarships and honors deadlines at both UNCW and App have passed.
In other words, if she waits till she hears from the private colleges (best case scenario she’ll hear December 15-20) it’ll be too late to apply to Honors College and scholarships, which would really be a shame.
@xyxyxx - Myos makes a good point. If she applies to App early she’ll have the option of Honors or various scholarships. I’ve told my D that if she ends up at her safety she should squeeze all the juice that she can from that apple. She says she will never stop crying. I understand her feeling - she could have worked at LOT less hard in HS and still be accepted at App.
But Wilson and Chancellors Scholarships are VERY HARD to get (Wilson = top 6 students - not top 6%, top SIX-, and Chancellors is for the next 10.) If she got one of them, there’d be no need to cry; she could be very proud.
If she has to attend her safety, you’re right, she’s better off having all the perks she can and being in the Honors college will mean she has a built-in peer group with kids who worked hard in HS.
It’s perception vs reality. Unfortunately there is a competitive aspect amongst the higher-achieving kids at her school and people will be judged on where they are accepted. You don’t have to tell me the absurdity of this and she realizes it herself, but that doesn’t mean she likes the idea of being the one kid who had to go to a safety. This is the lunchtime hell chatter she anticipates:
I’m going to Chapel Hill! Us too!
I’m going to Duke! Awesome!
I’m going to Michigan!
I’m going to Smith!
Where are you going?
…app…
Oh, well that’s good too – you can have fun with Joe Jock who never did his homework."
@MYOS1634 , thanks for the heads up. Honestly, she hasn’t really considered it App yet, hasn’t visited, etc., but the Honors College deadline is 11/15 (just looked it up.) I’ll share this with her. She may need to revise her plan a bit and at least apply to App early.
She has a good chance of being accepted at NCSU. If she is, she won’t need the backups. If she isn’t, she will still have time to apply to the Honors College and for merit scholarships at UNCW. This if from the FAQ’s on their website:
We encourage all applicants to Honors to submit applications by April 1, and students who want to be considered for merit scholarships should definitely apply to Honors by April 1 (but we ask that you apply as soon as possible to be considered for admission and scholarships). Decisions are made on a rolling basis, but we cannot act on your Honors application until UNCW makes a decision on your UNCW application.
Thanks, again.
^ however it’s on a first come first served basis and from experience I can tell you that applying that late means no scholarship and low odds of honors college (and virtually nil, even if admitted, if honors housing, which is very important).
For App, there’s Honors, Wilson, Chancellor’s, and Wautega.
She should also apply to NCSU honors.
In the end, the humiliation at lunch lasts little compared to regrets of spending four years at a university without the Honors perks whee could have had if only shed applied on time.
(Also, most kids may have dream schools they brag about, but reality often intervenes and many parents push for cheapest option or best value option.)
Myos - Of course lunchtime isn’t important but neither you nor I are teen girls with social anxiety.
@xyxyxx - We were impressed by App, perhaps because we didn’t really expect anything. Neither of my daughters is outdoorsy and that’s a major part of it’s appeal. D’s would always opt for city life over country whether for a 3 day weekend or their “where do you see yourself in 10 years” exercises. If your D wants to hike or learn to ski on the cheap (school provides equipment) App is the place to be.
^ If App is a poor fit, you can always look at UNC Asheville (academics are stronger than App and students dedicated), or UNC Charlotte Honors. But always apply before the Honors deadlines so that, if the safety becomes the final back up for whatever reason, she has something different. I understand that “fit” is important and thus finding two appropriate, affordable safeties matters.
What about Elon, Guilford (depending on her stats)? College of Charleston (honors requires high scores though)? Berry? Christopher Newport? Sweet Briar? Perhaps those would “sound” better than App, and would be a better fit?
In the end it will be, first, “where did you get in” and the first positive answers, especially with scholarships, can be heady. Then your daughter can list the subsequent schools, the more the merrier. But the final discussions will involve a lot of kids going to the college hteir parents an afford, which is often different from what they were talking about in the Fall. Being able to brandish a scholarship or a “named” program and “spin” that is important to a kid who has hopes of getting into “better”, “more prestigious” schools. I’m not saying it’s not important to her, that lunch talk, but rather I’m saying as important it is to her for three months, it’ll be way worse if she doesn’t get into honors AND has to go there without honors, because she’ll also have to live with the non honors dorm and no perks she could have had if only she’d gotten her application in on time.
SATs scores come out tomorrow and will have a tale to tell. If they are high enough then NCSU will become the safety which will be both more emotionally satisfying and in a more appealing town than Boone. App will become the safety’s safety.
This could change after the Honor’s College “Inside Appalachian” day in October. Either could fall in love or run away screaming!
@byadg123 , I think for my D, NCSU is likely a match or maybe even a safety, but I’m not sure. How do you determine the likelihood of acceptance? I know UNC-CH looks at applications holistically, so I know we can’t make assumptions solely on GPA, test scores, etc. I actually have a son at NCSU, but we never got to this level of detail during the application process (he was not as receptive as D is.) Do they take the same holistic approach? Also, I couldn’t find info on the Inside Appalachian event you referenced. Do you have a link, by any chance? Thanks.
@xyxyxx - For likelihood of admission you can look at the common data sets:
https://oirp.ncsu.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/CDS_2016-2017.v10.pdf
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4g6rxKZ4603dUdGWDJaUGtBanc/view
Naviance provides scattergrams for all of our HS students who’ve applied over the last 3 years so I have a pretty good feel for how my girls might do. While CH uses holistic review, there is a point on the scattergram above which v few of our guys have ever been denied, as well as a point beneath which none have been accepted. (130 data points) It’s easy to see clusters for any scattergram and while this isn’t helpful for schools with few applicants like Davidson or High Point, it is very informative for everything in the UNC system plus a handful of others like Elon, Wake Forest, S.Carolina etc.
Based on the scattergrams, both D’s will waltz in to App and have a good chance at CH depending on tomorrow’s SAT. NCSU is all about the numbers (IIRC they don’t even want a letter of recommendation) so tomorrow’s SAT will be very telling. NCSU’s scattergram shows very clear success/deny clusters.
Inside App is by invitation but if you email your admissions rep - your HS councelor will know who - you might be able to get in. I think there’s about 30/day for a half dozen days vs 5,000 for open houses. (That may be hyperbole) Only D1 was invited but I asked and they included D2. Honors has a baseline std SAT score of either 1250 or 1300 (I forget) and a GPA that I don’t know. Acceptances are granted in the order received so get in early!
If the choice is NCS vs App then there’s no question either would pick NCS. If it’s NCS vs AppHonors then I don’t know.
Good luck!
@byadg123 Thank you for that very informative response! Naviance sounds very helpful. Unfortunately, I don’t think our school has access to it, to the best of my knowledge. I’ll check to be sure, though. I have the same sense as you, that NCSU goes more by the numbers. I’ll do some more research to try to better determine how “safe” it is, before deciding on the other safeties.
I’m glad your D’s have a good chance at UNC-CH. It can be a difficult school to get into, I think. S was deferred from EA, then waitlisted RD, so he decided to attend State. My D has pretty good SAT/ACT scores (34 ACT, 1480 SAT) but her UW GPA is 3.4 (W is 4.3). I’m afraid that, even with a holistic view, she may fall in the outlier area of those scattergrams.
So, I’m not sure what we’ll do about App…
Best of luck to your girls and thanks again for all the info!
Why not apply to App and worry about it later if you need to? My girls’ CH success will almost certainly be a function of the essays.
Good luck!
Just read through the thread and was wondering if the scores came back as high as you hoped? I hope they did and your daughters can consider NCSU as a safety!!
D1 can consider NCSU as a safety (though will still apply to App as a safety-safety) and Chapel Hill a match but not a slam dunk. A solid essay should seal the deal for her.
D2 will consider App a safety, NCSU a match, and CH a stretch. A great essay could put her in CH.