What do the college matriculation lists at the high school look like, especially for non-elite colleges that the not-so-top-end students go to?
Some of the more elite private high schools do tend to have college matriculation lists skewed toward smaller private colleges and away from large public colleges. However, this may not necessarily be the case for your private high school. Also, private high schools with a significant religious affiliation may skew toward colleges with the same religious affiliation (e.g. Catholic high school â Catholic college).
IU and the surrounding town of Bloomington are very culturally diverse, despite Indianaâs reputation as a red state. The downtown area, literally steps off of campus, boasts restaurant options from around the globe and you will find the student body mirrors this. Might be worth another consideration, esp if he wants big sports.
IU undergraduates include only 18% on Pell grant, and the largest ethnic group make up 67% of the undergraduates, so it probably would not be considered âdiverseâ relative to the OPâs studentâs preferences.
Bloomington is much less ethnically diverse than New York. Its overall SES level does skew downward from New York, with a lower income level and higher poverty rate.
So at Ohio State - 98% exceeded math requirements. While they are three years, I think itâs a high reach. Doesnât mean it shouldnât be on the list - itâs ok to have reaches.
Of course, more importantly is - can a school support the student.
I think, more than - do they have big time football because even some schools that arenât big time - still are big time on campus - i.e. E Carolina and Marshall mentioned above -
but most important is as you look at each school and you ensure you have some âsafeâ choices so he has a home is - what can they offer him?
Going to a fantastic school that has minimum support levels if the student truly needs support - is not going to help him whatsoever.
So go through each school, check the common data set for ethnicity, and if you want to run them by the group - you can.
Iâd say (my opinion) UMD is no chance, OSU is a slight chance (better than UMD) and Arizona, which actually meets the needs, is a safety. There will be others in all categories - reach, target, safety - that youâll stumble across.
The other thing is - while some schools will be more diverse than others - even a school thatâs 80% white will still have many non-white students - meaning, your student will still have a chance to develop a diverse friend group if he so chooses.
Hereâs the thing - large, big sports schools tend to be public universities or in the south or hard to get into (or some combo of the above).
If you go with a large public university that is not too hard to get into and not in the south, you may find that the academic support system is not what you were hoping for. At a large public school, a student does not just have to advocate for themselves, but they may have to advocate repeatedly for the same thing, remind the advisor to do what they said theyâd do, correct errors by sending three emails and visiting an office in person, etc. And then do that while juggling classes amidst the distractions of dorm life/Greek life/game days, etc.
You may find some public universities with particularly good support programs, but you may have to compromise on location or diversity.
I am wondering if a midsize Catholic university and basketball powerhouse is the way to go. Some place like Gonzaga or Creighton. No football, but perhaps it would be more navigable and, because it is a private institution, the bureaucracy may be more responsive.
I havenât researched their supports, just sharing my impressions.
Thanks. We are Jewish so a Catholic University not high on priority list. Rather have secular. One of our kids spent freshman year at University of San Francisco which is Jesuit and she didnât think it would bother her but it ended up being an issue - she transferred after freshman year (not because of the Jesuit factor but it did bear on her decision).
This is VERY important. In college, no one will be chasing him down for anything he needs to do. In addition, even with accommodations, he will need to self advocate for those accommodations to be done. There isnât some case manager or counselor who contacts all his professors. He will need to be proactive.
And one thing many students doâŠis they wait until itâs too late to ask for their accommodations or get the help they could have gotten sooner.
His motivation to ask for help needs to be a key ingredient of his college being. Either that, or he could attend a college where these supports are built inâŠe.g. Mitchell College in CT. It doesnât have any of his criteriaâŠbut it has the support.
I will add, I went to a very small LAC (900 students) my freshman year. There were a couple of required courses with in excess of 100 students because those courses were required for just about every major. I transferred to a large (25,000 students) public university and had only one class in three years that had over 25 students in it.
Speaking of whichâŠwould Ohio University interest him?
If you think Iowa might stay on his list (has a lot of what he is looking for) at the end of junior year (summer before senior year), he can put his information into the Regent Admission Index on their website and see if he is an auto admit. It feels really good to get an early acceptance and takes a lot of stress off to have a good option on the table. You can get some sense of what his RAI will be with this formula.
If applying test optional, they do a âwholist reviewâ, but once S23 put in his information, he realized that he could be a direct admit even if his ACT score was very low, so decided to take it anyway.
Fair enough. I was only speaking on my experience when we have visited and/or toured. In general, I thought it would be a solid choice for a student with these stats/desires.
Edited to add: started this post before OPâs earlier post about preferring secular schools, so⊠probably not a good suggestion⊠but I wonât delete, just in case.
Does âbig school sportsâ mean football in particular, to your son, or not necessarily?
Also, whatâs your budget?
What ties those questions together is that Iâm wondering whether a school like Providence College might work for him. No football, but basketball fandom is huge and vibrant and could certainly satisfy the desire for school spirit and sports, if it doesnât have to be football. With just over 4K undergrads, it could be a more manageably-sized school. I have no personal experience with the support services, but the website looks promising. https://academic-services.providence.edu/ Median GPA is 3.48. (But acceptance rate is under 50%.) If this genre of school works, there are others that we can suggest⊠but theyâll be more expensive than the public Uâs youâre looking at, because he probably wonât pull in significant merit awards. Plus, these schools will generally be less diverse than their public counterparts.
As a secular reach school with huge basketball fandom/spirit, and strong disability services, Syracuse could be worth a shot. 3.67 median GPA (and presumably thatâs weighted), 50% acceptance rate⊠large Jewish population, and no worries about heat, haha. Not a likely admit, but not such a reach as to be a waste of an application, IMO. Theyâre need-aware, so being full pay, if thatâs the case, could help, especially in the ED cycle.
Sorry that was confusing. My ds goes to UVM but my comment was in reference to Rutgers, which is one of the schools he originally applied to. You are correctâUVM is not diverse. Itâs an issue they need to deal with, but also reflective of the population of the state.
Would he consider Virginia? A friend has a daughter at James Madison University who has ADHD and a variety of accommodations and she has been really happy with the support. Decent-sized but not huge, lots of school spirit, probably more of a likely/match.
I know heâs not interested in the south, but my ds22 with accommodations transferred from a small LAC to the College of Charleston and we have been pleased with disability services there. He for sure needs to advocate for himself, but the profs have been great and the tutoring and learning support services (available to all students) have been great as well. Lots of kids from up north there, and itâs an urban campus, so it doesnât feel like a big SEC school if thatâs what heâs picturing when he thinks of school in the south! They donât have footballâbasketball is their big fan favorite.
Agreed re: UVM and I clarified in a different response. My comment was in reference to Rutgers.
UMass being reachy for out of state depends somewhat on the major a student is applying for. Business, Engineering and Comp Sci are crazy competitive, but there are other majors/schools that are less so.
Would he be open to working with a privately hired tutor/coach during his first year at least? This might expand the schools he could consider if it is affordable.
You do tend to hear a lot of positives about SALT but I would caveat that with a few observations (S23 was accepted to U of AZ and SALT, but ultimately decided not to attend when he got off the waitlist at a UC much closer to home that was much cheaper and offered free disability support, albeit something heâs not used much so far):
U of A is essentially open access with many unprepared kids who tend to fail out (due to partying too much or just inability to know how to deal with the responsibility of living independently)
in that context, SALT is inevitably viewed positively by parents (âmy kid got through the first year and their friend X didnâtâ)
SALT has done a great job of promoting itself to college counselors, child psychologists etc. This is at least partly because they have budget to do this and every extra referral brings them more money, whereas for a regular disability support program, more participants just means their budget is stretched thinner.
The program is self-supporting through high fees ($7000 per year) and to some extent allows U of A to avoid providing (or at least avoid highlighting) some of the supports that many other universities provide for free, such as peer mentors. For example, thereâs a university tutoring center, but you are made to feel like SALTâs tutoring is superior. Maybe it is for ill-prepared students, but it wouldnât be for higher level courses (eg SALT only tutors up to the level of Calc BC).
So I would suggest viewing the hype about SALT in this context.
