I enjoyed reading your post.@GoatMama
Congrats @SculptorDad to you all! Great news and so wonderful to have shared your DD’s journey on CC with us.
This thanksgiving weekend was a bit tough for us. Many of our relatives pounded on dd to just stay at Grier for another year, graduate, and try for Ivy level colleges. Her getting very good ACT and 2 SAT II scores in the Summer, her now averaging A+ at Grier and claiming that she loves to be in Grier this year more than ever, made them even more enthusiastic.
Even my wife, who has been really minimizing her involvement on dd’s education choices, came up with a brilliant and convincing Summer project that can show her community involvement and cashing in her professional level visual art, combined with her academic strength, will give her a decent shot at an Ivy if dd stays in Grier until her senior year.
But she came home with her mind made, after spending majority of her thanksgiving break with her second Mines visit, connecting with many people and sitting in several classes. She had a clear vision on her future. I convinced her to take community college classes at 11 because I felt that the positive effect would be the greatest if she did. Now she feels the same with early college at the cost of a possibly batter branded degree on her resume. I can’t argue with that.
When it didn’t work, they became aggressive to me and my wife, who they finally convinced on what is the better long term choice, yet refused to exercise our dutiful parental authority just for this once. I am still the one who is going to pay the OOS tuition, doable with her 14k merit aid and probably some need-based aid at least, but still is more strain compare to in-state UCB/UCLA or fully-need-meeting top private colleges. But I haven’t objected anything my daughter wanted for many years. Same for my wife except mom things - food etc. Neither of us felt we should put a pressure on her college choice now.
Unexpectedly, Grier’s counseling was cool with her choice. I have to admit that there were times that I would have liked if Grier convinced dd to stay for another year and aim for a top college. Instead it only gave her a blessing. Grier was the only one I really truly felt sorry for not putting her name on their newsletter with a cool looking Ivy acceptance. The scholarship she was given, and excellent education that formed half of what she is now, will be paid back in many ways including but not limited with donations. With Mines’ curriculum heavily heavily focused in engineering, she probably will never again be able to receive such quality general education, and she will become a much lesser writer by missing her senior year at Grier. I mean, who else will give her 80/100 on her essay with very long and detailed comments, explaining that her logic, structure and grammar are exemplary but her tone is shown and it wasn’t helpful? (She wrote that under high fever and wasn’t feeling very kind toward to the side she was arguing against). And her task management skill shown on her elaborate diary will put her on top of her situation at any college or job that she will have.
Anyway, after all the obligatory receiving and considering of advises on Thursday, she accepted Mines’ offer and made the room deposit on Friday. So it is now final. She will start at Mines next Fall.
Thanks for all the support we have received. Especially more so for those who gave different opinions.
You can let this one go. There is no guarantee that she would have gotten an Ivy acceptance, and Grier isn’t giving this a second thought.
Congrats to your daughter on making a decision.
Congrats, @SculptorDad, and best wishes to your daughter!
Changing gears a bit. . . (And I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving!). . . Has anyone seriously started looking at colleges. . . We have looked at a few and it appears we need a bit of tutorial as to what a ¨Safety school¨ list should entail. DD appears to think a 25% admit rate is a ¨Safety.´¨
Yikes!
Anyone, that is, aside from @SculptorDad and his amazing daughter (congrats to her!). . e.g., those of us with mere human children!
@itcannotbetrue we are in our 6th college application cycle in 6 years. The definition from our school is safety >90% chance of acceptance. The trick is identifying schools in this range that would be a decent fit. Not easy to do.
All hail @vegas1! SIX college application cycles, WOW. Rookie question, but that is 90% for similar GPA and test score kids per Naviance, correct
Thanks @itcannotbetrue definitely happy this is our last application cycle. In theory yes, however we receive letters that break down the categories the schools fall in (categories 1-5). I just looked over my daughters more closely and it does not seem to be based on her gpa/ test scores. For instance our state school is listed as category 2 50% acceptance rate (likely). She applied early and their early acceptance rate is 76%. She is in the top quintile for grades at her school, has a 35ACT, will have great rec, EC, community service, leadership, played varsity sport etc… after reviewing the other schools listed, they have not put her in a more advantageous spot than the national admit rate at any- even the school her sister attends that has a well know sibling preference.
So who knows. In the end, kids end up where they are supposed to be- or they change schools. 2 of the admission cycles we have gone through were for these type circumstances. Our oldest son had a terrible time in admissions the first time, so he took a gap year and reapplied to schools. Our daughter hated the party culture at her school and transferred as a result. Both are now at the perfect schools for them. It does somehow all work out in the end.
Safety for ChoatieKid was our ginormous state U (to which Choate required that he apply). Application was online from the website where applicants were instructed to “Allow 30 minutes to complete your application.” When I sent that link to his GC for a chuckle, she sent back ROTFLMAO. OTOH, he did have that acceptance in his pocket before starting his senior year.
Remember that another criteria for safety schools, besides high chance of acceptance, are schools your child would actually be okay and preferably happy attending.
My daughter and her peers are overly focused on Ivy admissions — and they are only freshmen in high school! That’s why, when we switched insurance companies, I found us a doctor who attended Chico State. I don’t know anyone who applied and wasn’t admitted. “How do you like your new doctor, kid? Did you know she graduated from Harvard Medical School? Did you know she did her undergrad at Chico State?”
Oh yay! There is life in the 2020 thread! We are just starting a list for our Chimneykid2 and waiting for her PSAT scores due any day now I think. I think our first official college meeting at school is in Feb. My biggest surprise so far is that Chimneykid2’s list overlaps substantially with schools where Chimneykid1 applied, something I never would have foreseen as their paths were pretty different. I am hoping our best state option which is basically in our town will be an appropriate safety. The accept rate is only 40% so I will have to rely on our school counselor for advice on that. There are art school safeties on the list as well. We will start visiting schools in Feb or over spring break. With Chimneykid1 we waited till summer and there were few kids on campus then which it made it more difficult to judge fit. Plus this time around my daughter will have portfolio reviews at schools so we want to make sure we are strategic about saving the few fall slots for schools that will definitely remain on the list and have this option. Good luck everybody!
Just got access to Naviance and PSAT scores. No merit semi-finalist here (most likely) in NJ. That’s OK. We are happy with SAT scores so PSAT/SAT/ACT testing is over!! We have visited our state flagship (should be a safety - though the honors program is not!) as well as some schools that are definitely not safeties for anyone. Before we get to any list making, parents need to fill out a survey and kids need to fill out a survey. Already, this has been a much different experience than we had with our older one in the public schools.
@carpoolingma Is the cutoff score based on your home state or boarding school?
@NYTXCA
“In addition to Semifinalists designated in each of the 50 states and without affecting the allocation to any state, Semifinalists are named in several other selection units that NMSC establishes for the competition. These units are for students attending schools in the District of Columbia, schools in U.S. commonwealths and territories, schools in other countries that enroll U.S. citizens, and
U.S. boarding schools that enroll a sizable proportion of their students from outside the state in which the school is located. A participant can be considered for Semifinalist standing in only one state or selection unit, based on the high school in which the student is regularly enrolled when taking the PSAT/NMSQT.” - from the 2018 guide
So I think boarding schools are their own unit, presumably with a high cut-off.
@vegas1 -Thanks for your response and sorry to go dark on my initial post on this topic–we were actually moving, hence my vortex!
@nytxca --can you please clarify? Does that mean its the state that they are going to school in? Thanks!
It sounds like they are making boarding schools a separate bucket which I think is a change? Our school is in our home state so for us it’s a wash, but I think this will make it harder for some to meet the cut off.