<p>Rockville Mom: Perhaps look at this college search as finding the best fit for your son. For example, you wrote that Jewish activities were not a high priority for S1 but is important for S2.</p>
<p>I know that for both of our children access to small classes is very important. They like being able to participate in class discussions and do not like the large lecture, lost in the crowd feel. </p>
<p>You might want to find a thread about merit aid for B plus students (I think there is a thread somewhere on CC about this). Can anyone post the link?</p>
<p>RVM: Iâve really only looked into Emory a little, the climate and Jewish population are attractive. Interestingly enough in the 2008 edition of Princeton Review, although the standardized test scores are higher at Emory it says that the average GPA for Elon is 3.9 and for Emory is 3.72, go figure. It also says that 30% of the Elon class graduated in the top 10% and in Emory 85% graduated in the top 10%. Does this mean the the kids from Elon went to more competitive schools or that PR got it wrong. It seems kind of strange.</p>
<p>Rockville Mom: Not sure if you are thinking this or notâjust because your S1 attends a private university does not mean that your S2 must also attend a private university. I think that Towson will be fine for your S2. And perhaps S1 will want to attend grad school at Towson-you would only possibly need to pay for one off campus apartment if both of your sons end up at the same school!</p>
<p>Chemusic, welcome to Rockvilleâs great creation. Many folks have joined late and , understandably, not read the 1500+ prior posts. Donât be afraid to ask a question that may have been asked before; people will be happy to repeat their prior thoughts, even if it makes us sound like cheerleaders for the schools we repeatedly suggest.</p>
<p>I think Rockvilleâs philosophy of applications is smart. If your child does best when thinking he or she is an above average student, why go for reaches just for prestige? I see nothing wrong, given the uncertainty of admissions, in applying to 10 schools even without reaches. Many a child has changed their mind dramatically in a few months about their desires.</p>
<p>MDCISSP, you are absolutely right to ask colleges pointed questions about job placement and that 50% employed figure for Towson seems very low. For example, Susquehanna (speaking of poster cheerleading) says on its website:<br>
RESULTS</p>
<pre><code>* Percentage of students graduating within four years: about 80 percent
Percentage of students working full time or enrolled in graduate or professional school within six months of graduation: 92 percent
</code></pre>
<p>Before this year, it said 96%, so it is feeling the pinch of the recession.</p>
<p>I am sorry I donât remember the figures for the numbers of those who went on to grad school. Susquehannaâs numbers include grad school (which is what many are doing because they canât find jobs).</p>
<p>I think the grad school number is 20-30%, but I do not know what the separate breakdown for the business school is. I think liberal arts majors are more likely to want or need to go to graduate or professional school. </p>
<p>At more selective schools, or schools with a higher % of liberal arts majors (vs. business, education or, for schools which have it, physical therapy or nursing) the further education % is much higher.</p>
<p>I mistakenly thought your Towson number included kids going to grad school.</p>
<p>Regarding how many schools to apply to. My D does not want to stay in Maryland. However, in order to make sure we have some schools we can afford, she will apply to two Maryland schools. I did tell her to pick them carefully, she could end up at one of them.</p>
<p>She doesnât think itâs fair that the two Maryland schools count in the number of schools she applies to, since she doesnât want to apply to them. For the cost of two applicationsâŠnot worth the fight. </p>
<p>This year will be a very interesting year and I think we will get a feel for the type of school that would be a good fit for her. She is very interested in her reach schools. She is taking a very demanding course load this year (Jr. year), if she pulls it off, I could see her at one of her reach schools, as far as handling the workload. That is if we can afford it!</p>
<p>If she canât pull it off, then she probably wouldnât get into her reach schools, so that would end that! </p>
<p>I can easily see 3 - 4 schools in each category, safety, match and reach. I am also hoping to have various merit aid awards to consider (maybe wishful thinking!).</p>
<p>spectrum2 and mdcissp, I think Emory would be at the bottom of the top 20 most competitive schools. Different league than Elon. Oxford College is a 700 kid part of Emory that kids can go to for 2 years and then go to Emory. Itâs a different, rural campus and a read that many more of the kids are from Georgia. They all get Emory degrees at the end. Someone suggested it for ShawD and she liked the idea. Small classes, very supportive. Emory has lots of Jews, but I donât know about the Oxford 2 years. </p>
<p>On number of schools, I concur that the high numbers are more for people who are applying to schools with 10% probability of acceptance. ShawSon applied to quite a few (16) because a) I didnât know how the top schools would take to a brilliant kid with serious learning disabilities; and b) he didnât want to visit and fall in love with schools with a 10% probability of acceptance. He got in to lots of strong schools and is at a school that is great for him. He wants ShawD to apply to his school, but she, like Rockvillemomâs son wants to go to a place that is less pressured and be at the top of her class. Her GC evaluated her list in June and said her list is all likelies (safeties) and possibles (matches) with no reaches. And, ShawD is just fine with that.</p>
<p>Her school incidentally limits her to 10 applications. We have 5-6 Canadian schools (two of which seem to have rather small Jewish populations) and 4-7 US schools (Colorado College and New College of Florida seem to be of declining interest).</p>
<p>The President of one of the Canadian schools emailed her himself tonight. A warm, gracious 3 paragraph email explaining that my contact, an alumnus and Rhodes Scholar, informed him that sheâll be at their summer science program and suggested he meet with her. He invited her to his house for coffee or a cold drink, and suggested that perhaps she could meet his wife (the director of a program there) and their two college-age kids. And they are going to schedule meetings for her with professors in the biology department. The gracious soft-sell may be hard to resist.</p>
<p>Just want to say that I love this threadâthank you RVM for starting it! Like some of you, I have a second child who follows a very academic older sibling who would do much better where sheâs in the upper half or even upper quarter of her college class. Very bright girl but has dyslexia which hampers her success on occasion. As high school has progressed, Iâve been so impressed with her growth and progress but, still, helping her find the right fit seems a bit of a mystery. </p>
<p>Elon tops her list at the moment (subject to change in the blink of an eye, of course)âŠBucknell as well. Bucknell could be a stretch although she could be closer to a fit if she ended up applying ED. Anyone know much about Bucknell? Just found out that the two girls we know who just finished freshman year actually arenât as happy as first reportedâŠalso, just about 100% greek, after adjusting for the sophmore rush process.</p>
<p>In terms of west coast schools, D2 also has Puget Sound on her listâmight want to check that out. University of Oregon accepts anyone with a 3.4, regardless of scoresâlooks at scores if a lower GPA. University of Washington is very large but has a really great, down to earth feel. I would still like D2 at a smaller school but these are 3 safety/match schools for her. I havenât researched these much as D2 isnât interested but Willamette and Linfield (both in Oregon) come up quite a bit for the B student.</p>
<p>I realize that I donât know much about Jewish life at the schools Iâve mentioned but I do recall asking at Bucknell and it met D2âs needs (enough jews to feel comfortable; on campus high holiday services, etc.). Just googled Puget Sound and they do have a hillel and there appear to be about 100 jewish students.</p>
<p>Regarding Colarado College: I am wondering what it is like for a Jewish student to be in Colorado Springs. Does anyone on this thread live there, and what is it like? I would be concerned that the town has become a magnet for some people and activities that make many Jews uncomfortable.</p>
<p>Why are you interested in Colorado College? Colorado is great for those who love to ski.
I think there is a Jewish community in Denver. If you want Colorado, perhaps see if there is anything in Denver that would meet your criteria.</p>
<p>I still think 10 college applications is ridiculous, Main exception is the UC application where you can apply to all of the UCs in one application. I stress the most important thing is to have at least 2 good safeties and 2 rolling admissions or early notification schools if lessening senior stress is important.</p>
<p>mdcissp, it was Shawbridge who mentioned Colorado College. He suggested that this thread also focus on schools in different geographic areas. I think that Colorado College is an interesting school because of its unique schedule, called a âblock planâ. Students take one course at a time, if I am not mistaken, for something like four to six weeks. So it is probably good for students who have a harder time organizing multiple courses, not so great for those who get sick of focusing on the same thing. I was just wondering about the climate in that town for Jewish students, because of the very particular situation there.</p>
<p>I donât know about this. D applied to 11 schools and got into 10 so I guess, many of them were not strictly necessary, but I honestly (despite copious research) had no idea where her grades and scores would put her so a couple of the schools were extreme safeties.</p>
<p>Looking back, I think there is only one school that she should have left off the list and maybe another 2 that could have been left off. I wish that so many apps were not necessary, but since admission changes so much from year to year and we are never given full disclosure by the colleges, I feel it is prudent to maximize your chances.</p>
<p>spectrum2 - I believe the 3.9 GPA that Elon shows in Princeton Review is their own internal calculation and it is weighted with 1 point extra for honors and 2 points extra for AP - thatâs why it looks so high.</p>
<p>collage1 - I think very highly of Bucknell. It does a good job of offering both stellar academics and great sports. It is kind of Greek-dominated - probably due in part to the rural location. It can be hard to get into - even for an A students. At our hs, in 2009 - 16 applied, 7 were accepted and 1 attended. Maybe Bucknell was not happy with that yield - because the following year - 2010 - 7 applied and no one was accepted! Be interesting to see what happens in 2011. All of the applicants looked strong in terms of GPA and test scores - the Naviance graph was very random looking - I could not really come to any generalization - such as anyone over X was accepted. Our hs has had only 2 ED apps to Bucknell in the past 5 years - both were accepted - but they very well could have been recruited athletes - I have no idea.</p>
<p>there is just so much uncertainty these days â its easy to look back after the fact and say a student could have applied to fewer schools â but for every student who gets into more schools than they feared they would, there is probably a student who gets into fewer schools than they hoped they would. </p>
<p>there always seem to be threads here come april where parents or student bemoan the fact they the student didnât get into the schools they thought he/she would. public colleges that a few years ago were reasonable safeties are becoming more competitive because of the economy. there were posts this past spring where students complained that âlast year iâd have gotten inâ when they didnât this year. when selectivity changes that much in a short time, it just simply becomes hard to accurately predict what is a match and what is a safety.</p>
<p>there are a lot of reasons why students apply to many schools â its what is done at their hs among their peers; they canât decide which schools they really prefer and want to give themselves more options and time to reach that decision; they want to try to make sure they will have choices beyond one or two safeties; they want to âtrophy huntâ (though they can often be surprised and end up with few trophies to brag about). personally, i think some of these reasons are more legitimate than others. but itâs not for me to judge for another student. </p>
<p>the application process is stressful enough without telling a student theyâre wrong on the number they want to apply to and need to narrow it down and thereby increase the pressure to really make sure they get it right. a student shouldnât apply to ten or more schools just for the sake or reaching that number of applications. but, nor should they be told that they have to come up with the ârightâ list at 4, or 6, or whatever. what constitutes a ârightâ list will simply vary by student.</p>
<p>My understanding of Emory is that GPA is paramount as is strong expression of interest (they ask on the application about the various ways the student has had contact with the school). Based on the acceptance experience from our high school, I would put it as a real reach for this thread!! A B student will find it really tough to get in there, IMO.</p>
<p>mdcissp, Colorado College is as levirm says on the block system. It also has the reputation of a small, high quality school. ShawD is ADHD, which is now under control with Ritalin, but I wondered if the block system was good for kids with ADHD and have had a couple of parents with kids on the board say yes. I also have a concern about how lab sciences work when compressed and how one handles cumulative subjects and I gather it is not totally block system. But, I wondered about Jewishness, particularly as levirm pointed out, it is in one of the epicenters of evangelical fundamentalism.</p>
<p>I have the same question as levirm and shawbridge, as Colorado College recently came onto D12âs (very preliminary) list. she is really intrigued by the block plan. maybe if we keep asking the question about comfort level for Jews at CC, someone with information will join this thread and help us out!</p>