<p>So, my son is very good at mathematics. And he is good at essays when he is interested, since he did get a 5 in AP US History. But he really doesn't like the SAT 1 verbal, or care much for the SAT II English tests.
So, he has a 4.33 at a tough academic prep school. (Sorry that I don't get weighted and unweighted. It's just what the report card reports.) Tied for second with two other kids out of a class of about 70. He scored 5 on AP calculus, 780 on second Math Sat II. But again 580 on SAT II writing, 3 on AP English. Only 1300 on SAT 1.
But the kicker is that he is taking calculus at a local state college now as a senior, and acing it. And the double kicker is he did really well on a California-wide mathematics test (only 100 percent) and scored second in the nation on the same test. That has gotten him some attention. (Can't say the test. It will identify him by name.) MIT called his school counselor, and suggested strongly that he apply.
The thing is I have been assuming that he would get into the big UCs, and that would be it. And I'm perfectly happy with that. But, of course, he is applying H,P,Y & S, and since a week or so ago MIT too.
I think a lot of parents can relate to this aching feeling of uncertainty I have. I can't tell if wants to go back East, or if it's all about the boasting in the high school hallways.
But the call from MIT worried me. That and the counselor telling me that his application might stand out despite the 1300. Because I am not so big on my kid going to these East Coast schools, even as glorious as they are. I suppose I differ from a lot of folks on this site, because I'm a California snob. I mean a big one, but I love him and don't want to stand in his way. (And we have the very real problem of the harshness of the FAFSA, with one daughter already in college.)
He is an Eagle Scout, tutors a little, does two sports, is a class officer, is an officer in another student service group. But he hasn't started a free clinic or anything.
Is it really bad to want him to stay in California? I mean we're not near anything. He'd still be hours away if he went to Berkeley (Go Bears!), or UCLA, and certainly far away at UC San Diego.
But the math chair at his high school, who wrote what I can only assume is a glowing review, said he is so darn good at math that he would benefit in one of the small departments of one of the Ivies.
A lot of the people on these sites at College Confidential seem really harsh in their assessments of how nobody below 1580 with a Nobel prize or something can get into H,P,Y. I could use that right now.</p>
<p>You're so brave to admit CA snobbery, UC! :) LOL.</p>
<p>I loved your description of your S and you should give yourself a big pat on the back for parenting such a winner. Of course you want to keep him close to home! Who wouldn't?</p>
<p>But rather than keep him close to home, it might be a bigger gift to let him explore the options. He might stay or he might go East. Either way, it wouldn't surprise me if he develops that verbal skill at university--once he locks onto a passion for a verbal subject.</p>
<p>Good luck. Keep us posted by venting your anxieties on Cc!</p>
<p>LOL. It's not bad to want to stay in CA! Plenty of great schools there.</p>
<p>Many colleges disaggregate SAT scores so the high math score would be very visible. I don't know how the UCs do it. At the MIT info, we were told that the adcom looks for scores of 600+ verbal and 700+ in math. 580 is just about acceptable. So I'm not surprised that your S has received encouraging noises from MIT. </p>
<p>Berkeley has an excellent math department. I don't know how much personal attention your S would receive there, however. Other CA colleges to consider would be Caltech, Stanford, Harvey Mudd.
If you don't qualify for finaid but would like your son to consider smaller schools with strong math departments outside CA, consider Duke and Chicago, which both give merit aid. The Honors program at Michigan would also be appropriate as Michigan has strong math department.</p>
<p>It's scary to think of our kids going far away and I don't think there's anything wrong with wishing they could find a school close to home --- I know I hate the thought of my daughter leaving California but there just aren't many schools that meet her requirements for the type of school she's looking for (a small liberal arts school) I guess we just have to hope for the best.</p>
<p>One other thing you should keep in mind is that the UC's tend to weigh the Verbal and SAT II writing scores VERY heavily in admissions - I'd say more so than even MIT. Last year, I did a survey the scores and GPA's of kids on this board who were rejected by the UC's and the most likely ones to be rejected from the "top" UC's like UCLA, UCB and UCLA were those who scored below 600 and/or who scored significantly lower on their verbal scores than their math. Hopefully, this will not be the case for your son but the question you should ask yourself is: if he does not get into one of the "top" UC's would you prefer he go to someplace like UC Irvine or UCSC over MIT or one of the Ivy's? I doubt it. So, maybe you could think of MIT and the other schools as back ups for now. In the spring, when he has all of his acceptances in hand, you can weigh all the choices including financial aspects and make a better-informed choice.</p>
<p>Good luck to your son!</p>
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<p>But the math chair at his high school, who wrote what I can only assume is a glowing review, said he is so darn good at math that he would benefit in one of the small departments of one of the Ivies.< He's a senior? I presume. I know you want him to stay close, and CalTech and Mudd are excellent ideas. What struck me,though, is the GC's quote I pulled out. He should do some quick research about math depts at various schools. I think it matters less about whether or not he attends an Ivy, than he goes somewhere with a really top notch math department, with good teaching, and research in things that interest him. Such lopsidedness feels like a real gift, he should make the most of it. You may be pleasantly surprised to find the place for him might be closer to home.</p>
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<p>I would certainly encourage him to apply to those fine CA schools. OTOH, I think you need to support his applications to the eastern schools as well. It's still early in the game; give it some time and see how things sort themselves out in the next four months or so.</p>
<p>My son, too, is a bit lopsided. And what we heard last year when we were looking is that if he wanted to pursue mathematics and eventually go to graduate school, then the undergraduate college didn't make a whole lot of difference. In other words, the math departments at all the schools that have been mentioned here...Ivy's, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Harvey Mudd, Berkeley, etc....they're all just fine. More important is that your son finds a school where he feels at home.</p>
<p>My son chose on that basis...passing up a few schools that were "reputed" to be stronger in math...and he's absolutely delighted with his decision, now just finishing up his first semester. His math classes are fine...and he loves everything else, too.</p>
<p>Don't be shy, though, about using math as a hook to get in wherever he wants to go. Top math students are few and far between. If he's really strong, he can go wherever he wants.</p>
<p>As an aside though, being close to home doesn't mean a whole lot. Our S is less than two hours away by train and has been back home just once for Thanksgiving so far. He's having too good a time at school, and we couldn't be happier for him.</p>
<p>I feel that kids should apply to their dream schools even if they are not within the 50% midrange statistically, and the counselors say "not a chance". I've seen a few cases where conventional wisdom was wrong. And it appears that your school supports your son's applications. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, so the fact that he has applied to HPY and MIT gives him a chance to contemplate going to to any of those choices. And those big UCs are not exactly shoo ins from what I have seen on these posts, so getting into UCLA or Berkeley is quite an achievement. My son has applied to a number of lottery ticket schools and programs , and not all of them with his counselor's blessing. </p>
<p>But I always tell people that the fun part about college admissions is the "cherry picking" right off the top. It becomes a bit more difficult to research colleges for some good fits that do not have the big names that schools like MIT, UCLA have. Checking out some schools like Case Western Reserve, Carnegie Mellon U, Georgia Tech would round out the college search process. I am assuming that he has already designated some California schools as safeties so is really all right in that department.</p>
<p>In my experience, I have not seen kids with scores that lopsided get into HPY or MIT. And many of the kids who have that lopsidedness have the disadvantage of English being their second language sometimes only having been in this country for 5 years or less. Only 25% of the kids at MIT have a verbal score below 680 is a statistic I have seen. And the 1400 SAT1 mark is within the lower 25% of the scores. So though your son's math scores are top of the line, it is going to be long shot for him, as it is for most applicants to these schools. If he gets into these schools, his awards, recs, school support are truly phenomonal. It has come to the point that nearly all of the kids who get into the most selective school has some major hook or some academic gift that is truly unusual.</p>
<p>ucmom -</p>
<p>My son is currently a sophomore at MIT. I personally know of three students currently enrolled at MIT (one junior, two seniors) who had similar SAT scores to your son. They are all doing just fine academically - all A's and B's. I'm guessing that MIT is interested in your son because of his performance on the nationwide mathematics test, supported by his strong standardized test scores in math. But his verbal scores are "within the range" and more importantly, his grades, across the board, appear to be excellent. Don't dismiss MIT out of hand please! I realize it is a long way from California, but there are many students at MIT from the far west, in fact all over the world. I think the truly amazing thing about the place is the way students learn from each other. They are not competitive, students work in groups to solve their p-sets and have a great deal of respect and admiration for each others abilities and interests. The math olympiad champion lived down the hall from my son last year and as the math champion put it, "where else could I go to college and meet other students who could stimulate me and make me think in different ways." MIT is a challenge, definitely, but it is also a tremendous opportunity.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you and your son!</p>
<p>Seems to me the best gift we can give our hard-working kids at this point is to honor them by making them aware of their options and then removing ourselves from the equation to the degree that we think their maturity permits.</p>
<p>My parents prevented me -- partly due to poverty and partly to their provincial attitudes -- from having the experience I wanted of going to college in a part of the country different from where I grew up. I deeply resented their interference at the time, and in retrospect, I still think the provinciality aspect of it was selfish and short-sighted.</p>
<p>Because I now live in one of those places where people sell their souls for a one-bedroom studio and a job for which they're way over-qualified, I raised my children to value the concept of going away to school -- and I even warned them that the closer the time came for them to go, the more I would try to talk them out of it. Which is exactly what I've been trying to do now that they're in high school. </p>
<p>I don't know that West is better than East or vice versa, but I think there's a huge amount to be said for how living even temporarily in a different part of the country broadens a person, and that's part of what a college experience provides above and beyond what goes on in the classroom.</p>
<p>Anecdotally, I've been told that while the future once lay in CA for college graduates, the fall of the dotcoms and the state's fiscal woes have now rewritten the call to read "Go east, young man!" That claim, of course, could be hotly debated, especially if you're a 'CA snob' ;-)</p>
<p>Good luck to your son -- he sounds like a very talented young man!</p>
<p>Thank you everybody. I'm hoping this gets through to the right place. It's my first posting.
I won't stand in my son's way, unless we just can't swing it financially. And it's very possible he won't get into anything really big. Personally, I love UC Davis, but my kids put their finger down their throat as if they are forcing themselves to vomit when I bring it up. I like the bike riding and the ambiance.
But I was wondering if others are facing the dichotomy of a totally superficial kid, who is pretty darn bright. He's all excited about these applications to the BIG schools. And he's 17, so he actually says things like, "I want to be outside California. I want to be far away." Like we're Rhode Island or something (no offense meant). But when I suggest that if he wants that then maybe he should consider Emory, Tulane, Duke, they don't qualify as BIG enough in his estimation. Understand, I am not besmirching these schools.
And just to tell you just how superficial he is, he is worried that there are not enough girls at MIT. And that they are not hot enough.
I say this with all the love in the world, mind you. In case he finds this thread.</p>
<p>I do thing that there is something to be said for the fact that the UCs are not what they used to be. And I've witnessed firsthand with the Berkeley girl that tuitions go up, up, up.
Again thanks everybody. And I'm not the one saying that MIT girls are not hot. It's my 17 year old. And he is basing that on nothing, other than a predisposition to liberal arts type girls.</p>
<p>UCmother:</p>
<p>LOL!<br>
I don't know about MIT girls not being hot. My S went to a chocolate tasting at MIT launched by a bunch of chemical engineers bent on making better chocolate through chemistry. They seemed plenty hot to him! The young woman whom we saw at the info session was bright, articulate and very good looking.</p>
<p>I was kind of hoping more people would tell me he was dreaming though.</p>
<p>I assume they are tres hot. It's just an odd bias he has. When we were at UC Davis, he was told he could live with math majors, and he said, "Oh God, No!"
People are usually surprised to find out he has this talent. He surfs and does California guy things, sort of hides his talents. But that goes back a little to the superficial immaturity. At some point, I think he will become more comfortable being a math geek and a regular guy.</p>
<p>I suggest he apply. If he is admitted, he'll have a chance to visit and see for himself which of the various colleges appeals to him most. A couple of my S's friends are at MIT and very happy to be among math nerds. But there is definitely no surfing around here. However, there's sailing on the Charles and the area near MIT is full of sailboats until it gets colda and the Charles ices over in winter.</p>
<p>See. I think he will have trouble with freezing, but he says he won't. I mean let's face it, unless you live in the Sierras, you're a weather wimp in my state.</p>
<p>Yes, he is dreaming. But sometimes such dreams can come true, and without giving it a try, who can really say. With the numbers coming in the way they are, the highly selective schools are really dreams for just about everybody. </p>
<p>And you win either way. If he gets into a dream school, then you'll be happy as a parent who wants her child to reach for the stars and get one. If he only applies to the highly selective schools and does not get into one, it is no shame; even applying to them is big deal thing to do. And he has great choices within the UC system, with a mom who will be happy that he is not out of state. Can't lose.</p>
<p>Why don't you just wait and see where he gets in first, before you start worrying? If he does get into some of the East Coast schools, maybe you can plan a visit so he can take a look and make a decison.</p>
<p>He should know, though, that although he has some good math scores and MIT is interested in him, he may not stand out once he gets there. MIT has lot of kids that got 800's in math SAT's 1&2, 5's in AP calculus, and took college math classes , and some who did it all in 8th and 9th grade. These kids often have high verbal scores as well.</p>
<p>As for the Ivys, they want both strong math and verbal scores. Even if you major in math, most of the other course work requires strong verbal skills. A friend of my son's who was applying to Ivys a couple of years ago said he was told they were sick of kids with high math and low verbal scores. If English is not your son's first language , then that will be taken into consideration as welll.</p>
<p>Good Luck, I'm sure he'll do well wherever he goes.</p>