@STEM2017 A very valid concern. (1) I would look into their class drop rules and see how far into to the semester they allow drops or switch to P/F. (2) My advice to my kids is that they need to be on top of it - if there’s anything they have a hard time with, get help right away. (3) Know your professors, visit their office hours, sit near the front and engage so your professor knows you are doing the work. And (4) from my own experience, I wasn’t even close to a 4.5 GPA student and only got one D in college in a tax course at a time when all the rules were in flux.
anyone hear about honors program? said letters would go out by Feb 1??
@Schpsych50 Not yet for mine.
My D got the Presidential Scholarship and kept it all four years. As a Biology major she had a couple of classes along the way that were below a C, but kept the 3.0. She met with someone from academic advising the first time it looked like it might happen and they told her people drop classes too quickly and encouraged her to keep the class. They put a note in her file in case there was an issue but there never was. As long as she was making appropriate progress they overlooked it. She never lost a dime of her merit money.
That’s great to know @crazymamaB
Thanks for sharing.
I get an email from USPS every day with images of today’s mail. There is an envelope with a letter about Honors today. We won’t see it until about 6pm. It’s a small envelope so I’m wondering maybe he didn’t get accepted. If anyone gets theirs sooner, feedback please!
Yes, Honors came in the mail today. My son was accepted. It was a small envelope with just one letter. Nothing fancy.
@nws2023 Just home, same here.
Anyone get financial aid packages yet? FA page says packages for EA admits will be released starting Feb 15.
Nothing yet here.
I just called Financial Aid. Packages were sent out today in regular USPS mail.
Anyone go to Open House today? Any thoughts or impressions?
@STEM2017 My son and I went yesterday. I have thoughts on the event and thoughts on what we learned. We were at this same event three years ago, which I thought was better run. The event was somewhat chaotic. There were over 1,000 people there. First we had to wait for a half an hour for a bus. There were literally hundreds of people in line for a bus and not a bus in sight. Come to find out we could have walked there in 10 minutes. We missed the first ten minutes of the presentation, which was apparently about the first year Messina experience. They didn’t have all of the attendees over from parking until 30 minutes into the event. They did have a continental breakfast station which was well stocked.
After the general welcome, they send groups out to meet with professors in intended majors or to learn more about Messina, etc. There are two sessions. My S is interested in chemistry and computer science. There’s not a huge number of chem majors out there, so there was enough room for everyone and time for questions and to see the labs. Then we went to the second CS session, where there were only four families. The prior session had been standing room only. (Saw similar situation three years ago.) I think they need to do a better job of splitting people between first and second session for popular majors. Consider going to the second session if your child wants a popular major, you’ll get more one on one time.
Next up was lunch. It was not well publicized that lunch was available in three places because there was about 100 people lined up in the arena and I found out when I asked a question about something else. We walked down the hall to another room and there were only a few people in front of us. A nice selection of sandwiches were served. After lunch, tours were available. Having been on the full tour several times, we opted for the dorm only tour. I have no idea what the tour guide said. There were about 25 in our group and she talked only to the few people right next to her while she walked. And as there were people everywhere, we couldn’t hear her above the din. We actually learned more from the guides of other groups we passed. We saw the old cinder block dorm and the nicer one across the way. After my son heard another guide say the newer one is where the honors students live, he was happier. We walked away from the group and back to the arena for the info fair. (Worst tour I’ve ever been on.)
The info fair in 2016 was better. A dedicated room with better acoustics. But whatever… The academic departments were there for follow up questions. There was a Messina table, so we got caught up on that. The program said the clubs would be there. Only 6-10 clubs/activities were represented. I asked someone about the clubs, stating my son’s interests, and she told us about some clubs that would fit his interests. And we talked to housing, because the tour had not been helpful. At this point, things were wrapping up and we had about an hour to kill before the honors info session so we walked over to the other side of the bridge and around the housing buildings over there. With so many visitors on main campus, walking over to the other side gave us more of a regular day vibe.
On to the honors session, which made the day. It was a small group in a one on one with the professor who runs it. Well, when my son applied, he wasn’t sure how interested he was (based on website description) but I said he had to apply and make a decision later if Loyola was his choice. It is everything he could want - small discussion seminar classes covering the periods of history that really interest him and combining the history/theology/philosophy core into one big discussion. Plus other perks of being in honors. We also confirmed that APs can transfer according to the transfer matrix on their website (he could possibly double major if he places out of a couple reqs for his major). After that, we walked right onto a bus that was being held for our group (slightly made up for the morning’s wait in the cold, lol).
So that’s my summary of the actual event. There was a lot of good info, but you really need to advocate for yourself in such a large crowd. We would have learned much less had we not just walked up to event leaders and asked questions. They had a lot of student and professional reps around and they were very willing to answer. As to my thoughts, I had the same general thought as I did three years ago. We came away with a stronger interest in him enrolling at Loyola than how we started the day. Both my kids are great students and went to a STEM magnet but they are also quite different. My first isn’t into core curriculum type stuff, he loves all his technical classes and in the end Loyola was not the right choice for him. Current kid was totally jazzed by the idea of digging into the Middle Ages in a discussion-based class of 15, while also getting his STEM on over in the science building.
We are waiting on one more school (anticipate acceptance) and have to do two accepted days before he makes a decision between four options. He is totally open-minded. Despite the logistical issues, Loyola gained big points yesterday and is a very definite possibility. Sorry if this is too long - thought it might be helpful to current and future applicants.
@Sparcky Very very helpful, and not too long at all. Every bit of information helps. As far as crowds go, I think this is typical during ‘open house’ type events at all schools. We were scheduled for Loyola’s Open House but had a conflict.
We are going to Discover Maryland (U Maryland) tomorrow and we’ve been warned of ludicrous crowds there. We are coming down from NYC, so on our way back home we are swinging by Loyola for a campus tour. Hopefully we’ll get a sense for the place. My son is not in honors, so he would be in the ‘old cinder block’ dorms - lol. However, he found out Friday that he was accepted to CPaMS Scholars which is very exciting, and comes with some merit money (even more exciting).
We need to look into Messina - looks very helpful.
Thanks again for your write up. It will be very helpful for people considering the event. BTW, we rescheduled for the March 16 Open House. We’ll decide whether or not it’s necessary after our swing-by tomorrow.
@STEM2017 It wasn’t the size of the crowds, it was the crowd management at issue. Also, I have seen many more clubs represented at other events. I prefer to do accepted tours on school days, but have been to a few Saturday open houses and this just felt under-organized. Not anticipating LUM to be a finalist, I didn’t think it worth missing a day of work/school.
Congrats on CPAMS! #2 wants to minor in CS, and they only award to majors, so no extra $ there.
As for the dorms, they survive, right?! It’s character building. His actual complaint was more that it didn’t feel homey. His brother lived in an old dorm his soph year but it felt more welcoming. And again, so many people, we didn’t get a real feel.
There were a lot of positive comments about Messina, so definitely check it out. UMD and LUM are like a million miles apart, so it should be easy to lean one way or the other. UMD on a national holiday - keep calm and carry on! Have a safe trip.
Had an excellent visit at Loyola yesterday. We went for the standard info session and tour, but they immediately recognized that S was already admitted and moved us into a different session for admitted students. The session was very helpful and geared toward our questions. The tour was excellent and complete - I think we set foot in EVERY building on campus - lol. Our tour guide was excellent and even gave us a private showing of one of the dorms not part of the tour. Loyola’s dorms are easily S’s favorite of all he has seen (mostly public unis). The remote locations of the rec building and the sports complex is unfortunate, but not a deal breaker. Honestly, the foreign language requirement might be the deal breaker. S suffered through 4 years of Latin in high school and learned yesterday that he would need 2 semesters of a foreign language to graduate - he shook his head like “that aint happening”. We’ll see.
It seems like they have MANY core requirements to graduate. maybe too many. S will be a data science major (with a required comp sci minor) with lots and lots of hard core math, science, and computer courses. Adding foreign language, and theology, and philosophy, and ethics, and fine arts, and several levels of writing, and more may be problematic.
@STEM2017 Glad it was a good visit for you and not as crazy as Saturday was for us. Our kids seem to have a lot of similarities.
-Mine took 3 years of Latin. He’s going to bail out and take a new language. I think all of my son’s choices have a language requirement, so there’s no avoiding it.
-He is planning on Chem major, CS minor. It looks doable despite the core. Did you take a look at the recommended four year schedule for his major under the academic departments on the website to see how the school envisions fitting it all in?
-Do you anticipate any AP credits in his major? Having looked at the AP matrix on the website, if mine gets AP credit for gen chem 1 and calc 1, we feel the minor is a lock and maybe even a double major or interdisciplinary.
@Sparcky I did take a quick look at the data science course map but it’s definitely lacking info. It only shows 2-3 classes per semester - so it’s obviously missing um, data (see link below). I need to dig deeper. The CS minor is definitely possible considering some of the core courses for data science would fulfill the CS requirements.
I’m going to have him call and ask for a full 4-year ‘model’ course map for a data science major/ CS minor student.
https://www.loyola.edu/academics/data-science/undergraduate/major
@STEM2017 I guess every department is different! Chem is totally spelled out.
For future reference, my son committed to LUM after a return visit for a shadow day. They really went out of their way to make it all about his interests. Between the scholarship, location, honors program and school size, he decided this was his place.