<p>I am unclear what ur point is. Your D seems quite a well-rounded young woman who will get into a good school. So maybe not ivy or top ten lac but so what? So she gets into a top 25 school or a top thirty school. She will choose a place that is a good fit for her. That is the key to success and happiness in a college choice. Is this her issue or yours? Please learn from CC parents who have trod this path before you who have seen their kids thrive at the school the KID chose. Just be supportive and make sure she applies to a well-balanced list of schools that she would want to attend,even the safeties. Nothing is always fair in the college application process. I hope you ae not letting this issue burden your kid. I remember thinking last year that there were aspects of admissions that were unfair such as the fact that white, upper middleclass mid-atlantic,N.E. girls were treated less fairly than other applicants to lacs. But as I mentioned in my last posting my D got in to a school she chose as her best fit and she loves it. There is life after the USNWR top ten.</p>
<p>...and I'm at Dartmouth (granted, I didn't get into Princeton, but in retrospect that was probably for the best). More importantly, I'm happy; isn't that what we're aiming for?</p>
<p>Univmom - It sounds like your D has some good options for her already which should give you both some peace of mind. Encourage her to work out a plan for deciding where to go when all the decisions are in. Even though she has a good shot at getting in all of the schools you listed, it is rare that a student gets in all of them. Help her sort through scholarship/financial aid offers, can she see herself living at each of the schools?, does each school offer something outside of classes that she might enjoy participating in?.....Personally, WashU is a favorite on the list. In the end, you need to let her have the final decision.</p>
<p>Momstl4 - Wash U is very high on her list too. She was nominated for a scholarship and is applying for a couple of other Leadership and Academic scholarships there. She visited the school and fell in love with it after attending a BioMed E class. It was the largest lecture in the program, 100 students and the professor introduced himself to the visiting students after class. Personally, I think it is an excellent fit for her. (Not to mention that airfare home is about $125 round trip if she gets homesick). </p>
<p>All she sees is UT. She frequently visits friends there. Going there would be like living at home. UT is a mega school,56,000 in Austin alone, which intimidates many of the kids. Most of the students from around here end up with roommates that they went to HS with and they all come back to visit almost every weekend (laundry) and never seem meet new people. She is starting to see this pattern. Large lectures have 500 plus students (biology and chemistry), so they are largely taught by TAs. Because of the top 10% rule 96% of the freshman class will be from somewhere in Texas (their statistics). Huge with very very very little diversity - ethnic, racial, religious or regional.</p>
<p>Univmom, If she likes the feel of Wash U and is interested in Engineering, then she should strongly consider USC, which has one of the top 10 engineering schools in the country. [Overall USC is # 26 in USNews] USC has 16000 students UG, but it feels smaller because of it's compact campus. Since she is NMF then she will qualify for 1/2 tuition scholarship if she applies by Dec 10, and she may qualify for a fulll tuition scholarship. In addition, becasue of her stats, she would most likely be offered the opportunity to be in the Freshman Honors Science program, where top students have the opportunity to take science classes from the best professors at USC in small classes- average Honors Science class size is 50 students. USC has a lot of diversity, and reflects the mix of cultures in Calif and the west.</p>
<p>I am very familiar with the synagogue youth movements you describe. My suggestion: when she writes up her EC's in the synagogue youth movement, I suggest she focus less upon how absolutely wonderful it is for the poor kids the events help, and more upon the meaning she derives and her personal role in the event. She can express the social justice result in a phrase or sentence, but I believe the greater interest is in how she as an individual plays a role within the leadership structure of the movement. What differences did SHE observe between the local and regional levels of the same organization? This demonstrates she has a need and interest in going beyond her home community. What leadership skills can she exercise in this voluntary organization that exceed what she can do within the school building? Why does she care and how does it inform her thinking about social issues.</p>
<p>I think the AdComs know these national church and synagogue youth movements well, and don't need to hear her spiel it out as to the grit of the actual events. They also know (and it's true) that the adult leadership helps kids find and identify venues for this social justice work to occur. WHat's important and accurate is that the adults empower the kids to take on leadership roles to organize and perform each event.</p>
<p>This can fit into the Common App likmited essay space; just learn to make one point per sentence and don'[t repeat. She can hit upon each of these ideas (or more of her own) regarding the meaning she derived from her youth group, one sentence apiece, and build to a one-sentence punchy conclusion. Limiy herself to one sentence to suggest the range of events they do (or better yet, the kind that most interest HER) rather than list or sell the youth group, which is surely impressive. </p>
<p>You are right when you had her focus on HER ROLE in the youth movement, but I feel she should articulate why it was so compelling and meaningful to her. THey know the kids served are impacted positively; what about the kids serving?</p>
<p>Good luck and best wishes. I was curious why no JHU or Smith which has the 5=year engineering program, but I don't really know the sciences whatsoever!!</p>
<p>The computer Common App this year is not allowing attachments and only gives a couple of character spaces for description. She has done the best she can to condense everything to three words, but will be sending supplementary Resumes to the schools that encourage this. Some of the applications have additional essay topics that allowed her to write a short impact essay.</p>
<p>We will see. . .</p>
<p>Smith is all girls school. She wants to go co-ed. I suggested JH, I think she is just tired of filling out applications for now.</p>
<p>UnivMom - What about uploading her detailed list of activities/awards (however she decides to format it) in the "additional info" section of the Common App?</p>
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I think she is just tired of filling out applications for now.
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</p>
<p>You also sound a bit frustrated and fed up with it all. We've all been there.
My only concern is that, of all the school list, you say she's only truly enthusaistic about 4 of them. </p>
<p>My intuition (based on nuthin, just instinct) tells me she'll get into 1, possibly 2 of those 4. I don't even know which one, but just feel like 25% *by grace of God 50%) of the places she really really wants. </p>
<p>Could you forget your own fed-up-with-it-ness and instead happy-talk or coax her into doing just one, preferably two more apps before the deadlines? It might be helpful to her in Spring. Perhaps either to a top LAC with large endowment that gives merit aid (not all do, but some..), or another uni right under the HYPSM band where having a female scientist will help their stats so maybe some merit aid would happen.</p>
<p>BTW, S-2 had to pull the plug on his personal participation in one youth group event to get through this November/December season.</p>
<p>S has a few more short essays to go, and for the life of him, cannot even come up with short responses (1,000 characters) to college specific questions for the past three days. Then this morning, a good friend asked him for a peer evaluation and he was able to write an excellent, two-pager with no problems. I think our seniors are so stressed about this whole application process and my S welcomed the much-needed break to write about his friend instead of about himself!</p>
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What about uploading her detailed list of activities/awards (however she decides to format it) in the "additional info" section of the Common App?
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</p>
<p>When my daughter tried to do this last year, she had so many formatting issues that she eventually gave up in disgust and retyped the resume into the "additional info" section. It only took a few minutes, most of which was spent on proofreading.</p>
<p>She told me she is finished. She retyped it using a text editor and dit put it in the additional information section then reformated abit. We discovered a strange virus in her computer and that might have caused some of the problems, but I suspect that most of the problems were being caused by macros in the Word program.</p>
<p>She just finished. Cornell, Columbia, Wash U, Tufts (she decided that she couldn't bear living in Houson, so she nixed Rice), Georgia Tech, Purdue, UT-Austin, TAMU and just for the $$ U of Oklahoma. She also completed and submitted the Honors Program apps where appropriate and the admissions counselor at Wash U has contacted her a couple of times and recommended appying to the University Scholars Program (she can get early admission to Med School, plus a scholarship).</p>
<p>
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At its biannual meeting (2003), the Council of Ivy Group Presidents limited the number of recruited athletes who may matriculate to 1.4 times the number needed to fill the travel squads for the 33 “Ivy Championship” sports.</p>
<p>The minimum Academic Index (AI), a measure of eligibility that incorporates SAT scores and GPA or class rank on a 240-point scale, was also raised from 169 to 171, and a requirement was added that the mean AI of recruited athletes be no more than one standard deviation below the mean of all undergraduates at the particular college.
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The number of recruited athletes required to fill 1.4 x 33 teams is a bunch. It probably takes 400 out of the admitted pool at H. That gets you down to 6%. Now take out another 200 for legacies (10-15% at most Ivies). Now you're down to 5%. Another 300 or so minorities and you're down to 3.5%. </p>
<p>So, out of 20000 applicants, 900+ are hooked via athletics,legacy, or minority. An unknown number are hooked other ways. The other 800 come from a pool of 19,000 well qualified applicants.</p>
<p>Your numbers assume NO overlap. I think the number of hooked students is smaller than that. One of my S's schoolmates had a triple hook: legacy, minority, athlete. Oh, and NMF and, according to S, incredibly bright. He would have been admitted into most colleges without a hook.</p>
<p>I've noticed a bunch of recruited athletes at the Ivies are legacies. Would be interesting to see some stats on that. Maybe if Mom played field hockey at Yale, she raised her kids to be field hockey players?</p>