Class of 2021 Results: Celebrate, Discuss, Support Here

Parents Forum
401

My DD knew where she wanted to go by 9th grade. She had done robotics in middle school and fell in love with engineering. She researched and decided GA Teh was her dream school based on its urban setting, ranking and ROI. Furthermore she considered the cheering program and cost. She did realize early on that GA Tech does not give out a lot of money.

With this knowledge, I offered my assistance and provided a list of 20 or so schools. She then further narrowed that down to 4 schoolds Georgia Tech, Rice, NYU and University of Memphis (safety school). We visited GA Teh and Memphis in her junior year, followed by fall visits to Tulane and Vanderbilt. Tulane was added upon the advice of guidance couselor. She also suggested Clemson (no thank you). I urged her to consider Vanderbilt to have a good choice closer to home in case GA Tech didn’t work out. I also suggested Columbia just to get an ivy in the mix.

She took the ACT 4 times. First as a Duke Scholar in 7th grade. She researched an knew what she needed for merit aid at her chosen schools as well as the average acceptance score for her chosen schools. We benefitted tremendously by taking a review course 5 point increase.

We applied to a great deal of scholarship programs (Burger King, Jack Ken Cooke, Horatio Alger, Coca Cola, Reagan, etc) with not much success. We also applied to a couple of local program. She was kinda stuck in the middle syndrome when it came to scholarships. Her stats not good enough for the national scholarships and too high for the local programs. But it was a good experience especially with the challenge of meeting deadlines and writing essays.

Here are her stats and results:

ACT: C 31, M 32, E 30, R 30, S 35 (superscore 32)
GPA: W 4.03
Rank: 32 out of 270 (will be honor graduate and rank 1st in class)
URM: female, african american
EC: Robotics, Math Team, Band, Key Club, Cheerleader, Young Democrats, etc.

School Results:

Rice & Columbia - Rejected
University of Memphis - Accepted, Honors College, Presidential Scholarship $24,000, Engineering Scholarship $20,000
Tulane University - Accepted, Academic Recognition Scholarship $68,000
NYU - Accepted, Tandon Engineering Scholarship $190,000
Georgia Tech - Accepted after being Deferred, Undergraduate Scholarship $38,000

Vanderbilt - Accepted, Chancellors Scholarship $185,000
She didn’t think she had the stats for Vandy and didn’t feel it during the tour. She fell in love with it after the Mosaic
Program and the Chancellors Scholarship made it affordable and gave her the ability to attend college debt free.

She enjoyed prom and homecoming this year. Didn’t attend many school events throughout high school.

Haven’t given much thought to graduation gift. But looking forward to orientation and move in day. She will have trunk party that’s just our culture (honestly only heard the term trunk party a couple of years ago).

Anyways, I’ve enjoyed this ride with her and will cruise along some in the next stage.

402

@ProudMom17 She sounds like a focused, mature young lady. Congrats on the outcome and she has a very bright future.

403

@IvyGrad09 Congrats on Conn College - seems like a good fit for your S’s academic interests, and the music opportunities there are excellent too. I’m a little wistful now about taking it off my D’s list - several supposedly-reliable sources told me that they didn’t offer any merit, and it just wasn’t on the curve for us as a full-pay choice… but since then I’ve heard of several kids getting merit money there and now I wonder what they might have given my D! She’s even a legacy of sorts, as my grandmother graduated from Conn College many many years ago (circa 1930!). No regrets, as I’m happy to have her staying closer to home at Scripps, which offered her a very nice merit scholarship; but I might have lobbied harder for a visit to New London when we did our Northeast loop last summer if I’d known $ was possible! Hope your S has a great experience there!

404

@aquapt Thank you for your well-wishes! Best to you too and your D too! We all did our best, didn’t we? As parents we never have all the wisdom, and even if we did, we have very little influence over the wild-ride of college admissions!

405

@ProudMom17 When listing merit and other aid, I thought we list it by yearly amount? Vanderbuilt at $185,000 is surely $46,250? Unless I’m reading this wrong.

Congrats either way to you and your ambitious D!

406

Grrr I meant Vanderbilt. Newbie here unfamiliar with “edit” feature.

407

I’m a newbie, didn’t realize that, but you are correct. I was doing the 4 year total.

408

Deleted

409

@ProudMom17, don’t stress it too hard, since it is after all the (somewhat misleading) way colleges themselves advertise their awards.

410

One more thing. Do not think a kid devoid of passion cannot develop one. I can vouch that as a freshman, my kid was not passionate about any area (he was not lazy though; only interested in League of Legends game) but with our encouragement, he consciously decided to foray into some areas he thought would be interesting, such as deciding to skip one day of school to attend a 2 day conference on human rights organization. When he expressed interest in getting involved in high school newspaper, we encouraged him to apply for summer internships at CA. And who would have known that Stanford student newspaper was one of few student newspapers which accepted high schoolers as summer interns! This is where he met and talked to Stanford students who encouraged him with their own stories. He began to see bigger possibilities of what he could do than trudge along 4 years of HS and play League of Legends while messaging with other players.

Therefore, help your kid develop passion through a lot of encouragement and instilling in them that there are people who like to help kids who try to improve themselves. But note every kid has a different timeline. All you can do is try to enjoy this short, roller coast ride filled with highs and lows called life with your loved ones.

And for those with religious beliefs, after you do your best for your kid, leave it up to God. I say this even though I am an agnostic.

411

2nd Child admitted to Arizona State University

412

Thanks for sharing the message about passion. I think this is a key factor for student success.

413

Exceedingly proud to say that my oldest granddaughter was accepted into Harvard University. She’s had many family struggles growing up, yet managed to stay on top of her schooling and extra curricular school activities and graduate Valedictorian.

414

My S is headed to Kalamazoo College in less than two weeks!

If you are also a K parent and looking for more content about Kalamazoo College, I’ve started a group on Facebook for confirmed parents whose students are attending K. There we can share resources and support. Ask about good places for brunch, clarification on information from the school, sharing about helpful programs on and off campus, etc.

The group is closed so we can share comments without having our students have access and get embarrassed (like that never happens).

Here’s the link for the Facebook Group, just add the site name with the dot com where the asterisks are. I left it out in case CC doesn’t allow full links to outside groups. Then copy and paste into your search box in your browser:

****/groups/kalamazoocollegeparents/

415

@JBekkaZ Congrats. We didn’t have too many family struggles but he did struggle for parts of his high school as many teens do and fitting into the U.S. culture but he never gave up and remained focused. I actually came to respect my kid in the process because he never gave up, and then good things started happening, which eventually saw him get into Stanford REA and a great gap year study abroad scholarship program. Looking back, I am glad he struggled in high school so that in college when he goes through tough times, he can look back and it will help him not give up in the face of adversities.

We are so glad and relieved that we are done with his high school experience though.