^^ Thank you. The challenge is that most LAC are much smaller than she wants to attend. Her HS has over 2700 students and she wanted a bigger college. I tried to interest her in U of Dayton. They don’t have a dance program but do need dancers for their theater program occasionally. Unfortunately, it’s too close for her. It’s another school she could live at home and attend saving R&B.
“If PA is an option, there are multiple possibilities there as well.”
She looked at U of Pittsburgh (rated #3 DPT program in the nation and they have a freshman admit to the program). They require a 33 combined English and Math on the ACT to be considered for the top scholarships. Her’s would be a 31.5. I still might encourage her to apply as you never know until you know.
One college that immediately comes to mind is Ithaca College. I don’t know where in Ohio you live, but from Cleveland, Ithaca is a five hour drive. She will get oodles of money there with those stats. They have a six-year doctoral program.http://www.ithaca.edu/hshp/depts/pt/
@soze “Why is she not considering shooting for the MD route?”
I think being a dancer she has always been aware of how the body moves and has watched people get injured and work to recover from their injuries. She has said she likes the idea of helping people on their path to recovery vs. the challenge of fixing the injury or illness. My sister in law is a Physical Therapist working in a neurology unit and she spent a day shadowing her. She came back saying “I can see myself doing that”. She attended a week long summer honors program at Ohio Northern U. called Human Anatomy Exploration with Histological Technique and really enjoyed it. Dayton OH is a military town (Air Force) and she has expressed an interest in possibly becoming a PT for the military. That’s a few years in the future though.
"I know she’s anti-Wright State but with their theater program as renowned as it is they should have dance options too.
Actually one of her dance instructors is an adjunct at Wright State. They have an excellent musical theater program, however, to dance there you must be a dance major. The only major they offer is a BFA in dance. If it was a BA she might be able to double major.
I have a cousin doing a residency in pain management/orthopedics. He didn’t think he wanted to become a doctor either- and certainly not in ortho which he associated with surgery and the opposite of the type of holistic “whole body” consciousness that he was interested in. But one thing lead to another- and he’s one happy physician right now. For the number of years required to become a physical therapist and the amount of what would have been his loans- he’s very happy to have gone this route (he will be in a loan forgiveness program once he starts to work with an underserved population- which for pain management is apparently a very big demographic). He would have had to pay back the loans himself from a DPT program- the Federal government is doing the honors for med school.
I made my daughter apply to some schools that she wasn’t all that interested in because receiving a good financial package was important. She didn’t hate any of the schools. In the end she enrolled at the school she wanted to attend as I thought she would. This was my first kid attending college and I felt like it was an education for me as well. I wanted to see how the numbers would shake out at various schools so I’d have a better handle on it when we do it with our second kid. She did enjoy getting acceptance letters in the mail, so she got something out of it.
My D had a 35 ACT, but did not apply to Princeton like she originally planned. Because they only offer a BS in engineering. So after she got a full tuition scholarship from her first choice school and conditional acceptance to the top pharmacy school program in our state, she never looked back.
@rhandco “Do Purdue and Miami both have PT and dance?”
Both have pre-PT programs. Miami’s is Kinesiology and Purdue has a variety of pre PT options. Both have dance minors though not majors and dance companies she can dance with. Purdue is OOS so the chance of her being able to afford it is nil, however, D1 is a ChemE there and it ended up being her 2nd cheapest option (and it was her first choice) next to ironically Ohio University (D1 had the same attitude about OU as D2 does about Wright State).
I made my D apply to our large state flagship despite her objections. It was guaranteed free tuition with her stats, and her boyfriend was accepted and planned to attend there. I just wanted her to have options 6 months down the road in case she changed her mind. She didn’t.
I, too, made both of my kids apply to at least one in state school. I wanted them to have options come April. My daughter almost changed her mind but didn’t. BUT if she didn’t have the options I know she would have felt trapped. It really can’t hurt to apply one more place. Just have her do it and the. You can be finished with college conversation until after the holidays. It really is nice to be doe with the conversation!!
Btw - my daughter had an ACT of 34 with a 4.0UW and tons of great EC’s and had absolutely no interest in IVY applications. That is not where she wanted to spend the next 4 years of her life. She is now in phar,act school at her first choice school and she is extremely happy being at the top of her class. To each his own.
I would strongly consider applying to a few other schools. Things change.
She could visit there a month from now and have a terrible experience. It happens. Always good to keep a few options open.
I don’t think many Ivies have a Pre PT major. You would think Penn would with the large teaching hospital, but it appears that they do not. The Nursing program would be the most similar thing.
I would also consider investigating which schools have a large teaching hospital in close proximity. That can create many opportunities to learn.
If what you want most is to dance and to become a physical therapist eventually, Princeton would be a pretty unsatisfactory place to go to college. That’s not to say it’s impossible to imagine someone who cared about dance and PT and who also valued highly what Princeton (and others of its ilk) has to offer. But if you are that person, you probably already know it. And if you don’t know it already, the chance that you would turn out to be that person is very, very small.
IMO, applying to 3 additional schools is not enough. I think she should work harder to identify schools she might like and apply to at least 7 schools that are likely to meet her academic, financial and ec requirements.
We asked our kids to prepare a spreadsheet with all the potential choices and then reasons for applying/not applying. We reviewed the spreadsheet with them and then added a bunch of schools for them to investigate. Then we asked them to rank the schools and talked about how they came up w the ranking. Then they applied to the top schools in their ranking. the whole spreadsheet process took a weekend and, as we occasionally look back at the process, we’re satisfied we didn’t miss any schools they should have considered.
coincidentally, my son is your neck of woods at oberlin. he was also admitted to case western, we visited and liked the school, is that a possibility for your d?
OP, have the two of you considered Notre Dame? I think it’s probably within your 5 hour radius requirement. You may get surprised with the financial aid, as they have a very large endowment and can be pretty generous.
Duquesne has a good PT program, not sure if you would get enough need based aid. Highest merit last year was $20 k. Run the NPC and see. And you have to check on the dance opportunities.
Reading more posts, I am reminded that D2 ended up at “mom’s choice” – a school I asked her to keep on her list and go to accepted student days at if she got in. I promised her that would be the end of it if she thought it wasn’t for. In the end it displaced the schools she thought were her top choices, and she is a very happy junior there. Making a few more apps and going to accepted student visits can be very revealing.
“Why is she aiming so low?” - While this question is not offensive at all, I just do not understand why in-state publics are considered low. I did not mention in my previous post, that D. happened to end up in Medical school class full of graduates from Ivy / Elite colleges, the highest ranked in the nation. At end, close to graduating from Med. School. many of them regretted ever attending at expensive elite colleges. The Ivy / Elite education did NOT provide them any advantages at Medical School (by their own admission) and family resources could have been used much more wisely for Med. School. As far as I know PT requires Grad. School. So, why to pay for UG without gaining any advantages, when family resources could be used for paying for Grad. School? Sorry if my question is offensive, I did not mean to make it so.
On the note of a great personal interests that kids are planning to pursue at college. My D. was in the same kind of position with her sport. She was on competitive team since the age of 5 all thru graduating from HS. Still holds around 15 team records that are 18 years old now. So, she was not too bad at all and several college coaches were after her, she even spent couple days with overnight with the team at CWRU.
Good that she did not commit to any of the varsity teams. She tried a club team for freshman year and then realized that she simply did not have time for that. If one wants to get accepted to very selective Grad. School, and both Med. School and PT Grad. school belong in this category, then they better think and plan very carefully their ECs. I do not know the college GPA requirements for the PT Grad. school, the Med. School requires to have at least 3.6. But if one is aiming at certain Med. School, they better have it much higher. And then there are medical ECs. Getting straight As at college requires great time commitment and great time management. The person may be able to pursue other interests and may not, just need to be open to the fact, that something that was such a huge part of your life may need to be dropped. For my D., 3 hrs of her every day were devoted to her sport all thru graduating from HS.
I’m at the camp, if she is happy where she is going why make her do more applications unless finance is an issue. If that is the case, she should be aware of it since the beginning.
Capital doesn’t generally match public school offers (they told me they didn’t in 2012), but did match a private school offer for S’12 (it wound up being his least $ option, but we had need-based aid in there too). The Capital app is short and sweet, they give an answer in like 10 days, and I think may be free as well. So have her give it a shot.
OSU is stingy as heck unless your kid is top 3% of her class and has super high scores.
Miami is definitely a good option, if only because the more-or-less automatic merit makes it so. D’15 had a 35ACT and 3.9 GPA and was offered 3/4 tuition. No need-based aid at all from them though, except the federal stuff.
Cincy may be more generous with your D’s stats.
I have a friend whose son is at OU studying some kind of sports PT, he’s a senior now I think. It’s not easy, be aware of GPA requirements to keep merit scholarships.
NO public school in Ohio guarantees (or even tries, IMO) to meet full need, so your EFC is probably not what you’ll be asked to pay.
Your D has the stats to get good offers form many LACs. Maybe add one - like Wooster or Denison -just so she has that option to consider. Those two will likely come closest to meeting need for her, in my experience (with S’12 and D’15) both are generous with kids they want.