<p>"This is on the off chance it would help in advancing to NMF:</p>
<p>Everything I’ve seen by researching this including reviewing stats posted on CC of NM finalists indicates that students need an unweighted 3.5 to advance to finalist.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, your gap year story is compelling and has convinced me to bring up this topic with DH & DS. Now Im tremendously curious as to how theyll react.</p>
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<p>Yeah, Im in denial. :)</p>
<p>I agree that Pitt might be a good school to consider.</p>
<p>Re: Pitt – a 1400 is what they are looking for in their Honors Program. They are also generous with merit $$.</p>
<p>Are you looking for $40k/year from your S or $40k total over four years? Big difference.</p>
<p>Rose123,
Can you clarify what you mean by you want him to pay about $40,000 per year? Do you plan on having him come up with 40K by himself each year of college through loans and work? If so, this is a huge amount, and most of it would probably come through loans. Are you and/or your husband willing to co sign loans for him? What is the approximate dollar amount that you and your husband are willing/able to pay each year for his college?</p>
<p>Also, where does his GPA put him in terms of approximate rank in his school?</p>
<p>^^ $40k total, $10k per year. If he gets jobs, $2-4k per year, that would leave around $30k in loans. I dont think thats unreasonable.</p>
<p>If your S is like mine, he’ll say that he’s not interested in a gap year. </p>
<p>However, I suggest that you do what I did with younger S: back off from nagging him about college apps. He’s a smart young man and can figure out how to get apps in on time if it’s a priority for him. If he doesn’t do what’s required to get into a college that he wants to attend and can afford, then he will have chosen to take a gap year. If you have a rule that offspring have to pay rent and entertainment/car expenses and follow house rules if they choose to live at home when they aren’t full-time students, he’ll have to find some kind of full-time employment. </p>
<p>Also let him know that if he has major grade problems senior year due to senioritis, you won’t pay anything for his first year in college, and won’t pay for college until he has a year of good grades proving your making such an investment is worth it.</p>
<p>Some students who aren’t ready for college yet, but who also fear that taking a gap year will make them look like failures, manage to sabotage their senior years. Both of my sons did this. </p>
<p>For instance, older S, who had a 780 verbal SAT got a “D” fall semester AP English. H and I arranged a meeting with his teacher, and S didn’t bother to show up – said he didn’t realize he was supposed to be there!</p>
<p>Younger S almost didn’t graduate from h.s. because he hadn’t turned in lots of assignments. He spent graduation week working night and day to catch up. </p>
<p>Anyway, he had to pay all application fees to colleges, and he had to take out big loans to pay for his college of choice (which did give him some merit aid, something his gap year volunteer experience probably helped with more than did his high scores). H and I co-signed the loans. Due to his having to pay rent and entertainment expenses from his Americorps stipend, S knows the value of a dollar, and has taken his loan commitment – and college – very seriously.</p>
<p>Northstarmom’s story is compelling, but I’m not convinced that your son is so undirected that he’s definitely not ready for college. (By the way I was a high achieving (but young) kid who took a gap year in France and it was a great experience, I highly recommend gap years in general.) Do you know his class rank? How does that 3.3 compares to the rest of the school is important. Also was his GPA brought down by lower grades as a freshman? There will be a certain amount of forgiveness for that.</p>
<p>I don’t know the upstate NY cities either, but my older son is at Carnegie Mellon and Pittsburgh is a really nice city and U Pitt is in a quite nice area.</p>
<p>My son looked at Pitt, and I third the suggestion. Urban, diverse, good campus vibe and with Carnegie Mellon next door there are thousands of college students, music, lots to do.</p>
<p>Another out of the box suggestion would be the University of Texas - I’m not sure what the situation is over there with merit aid ans state budget cuts, they may not be looking for out of state at all, but Austin is a super music town.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t send an underperforming, bright kid to U Pittsburgh because the graduation rate is only 74%. It would be very easy for such a student to fall in with the partying crowd and flunk out, which is what older S did who had a virtually full ride to a similar school. The courses weren’t challenging to him, he was intellectually ahead of most of his peers, and based on that experience, he decided that college was a waste of time, and has never returned to college. </p>
<p>Very bright, underperforming students may do better in an academic environment in which they are surrounded by very bright, high achieving, highly motivated peers. Being the smartest frog in the pond may cause them to leave the pond. </p>
<p>In addition, if a student is a very bright URM in a school with low graduation rates, professors may not expect much of them. The professors may assume that your very bright kid is someone who barely slipped into the college, and the professors may condescend to your student or do other things that will impede your student’s living up to his potential.</p>
<p>A kid with a 3.3 and the kind of scores your S has is very much underperforming in high school.</p>
<p>He seems to have the vibe suited for Santa Clara University. The train to San Francisco is on the edge of the campus. If he finds himself on the left coast it is worth his time to check it out.</p>
<p>OK. I have no problem with $10k/year either. That is pretty much our expectation for our kids – achievable by some Staffords (not necessarily maxing out), a term-time job and summer employment. I believe in having skin in the game, and as S1 has learned, he does better in school when he has enough commitments that time management is actually required. He paid for a little over 50% of the bill last year (merit + 3500 Stafford + term time and summer jobs) and will cover 40% this year (is making more at his job, but used his one-time merit awards last year). He will graduate with about $20k in Staffords.</p>
<p>Santa Clara is intriguing - I know about SCU - it is one of the West Coast’s best regional schools, but not well recognized as a name outside California. That may be a pigeonhole if he returns to the East Coast for a profession. Well-respected in Silicon Valley circles and clearly the 3rd-best school in the Bay Area after Stanford & Cal. It’s only minutes from San Jose airport, which would be fine so long as Jetblue flies the JFK-SJC route.</p>
<p>The campus is suburban- I would guess the parallel for New York is maybe Hofstra. Seems like an odd match given the other comments about loving city environments like DC.</p>
<p>Of all of the schools on his list, I think Rice would be a great school for him. I’ve met the associate provost there and have had long talks with him about the education Rice provides. To me, it sounded like a great place for a student like your son. Also would have been a good place for my younger S, but he wasn’t interested in moving to Texas.</p>
<p>His GPA puts him just out of 20% rank, maybe around 25%. His school doesnt rank, but this is from the high school profile data.</p>
<p>His low grades stem from not turning in homework on time, lab reports, things like that. Whenever Ive spoken with his teachers, they will typically tell me that he should be getting the highest grades in the class and that he loves learning. Hes a nice kid, generally well liked by his teachers and will get a couple of great LORs. I think part of it is hes ADDish, which I dont happen to believe is pathological. I could go on about this, but Ill just say hes probably more typical (for a boy) than not in his behaviors. He’s the absent-minded professor type.</p>
<p>"His low grades stem from not turning in homework on time, lab reports, things like that. "</p>
<p>Sounds like my sons. They also didn’t do the easy assignments that teachers gave that helped slower learners understand the material better. My sons were bored with such assignments so either skipped them or turned them in very late. I found, for instance, that one reason older S --with a 780 CR-- was getting a D in AP English was that he wasn’t bothering to define the weekly vocabulary words. When I saw the words, I realized they were words he had known since at least middle school. </p>
<p>If your kid goes to a second tier college – the type of place that may give him merit aid – he’ll still be getting those kind of assignments that he’ll find mind-numbing, but that other students may need. I’m saying this as a former prof at a second tier. I had to give assignments like having students write chapter summaries because otherwise, they wouldn’t read the chapters or I wouldn’t know that they didn’t understand things that I thought were easy.</p>
<p>Both of my sons also are either ADD or ADHD, and I’m ADD (diagnosed way into adulthood). Being ADD/ADHD doesn’t prevent people from being very successful including academically, but such people are far less likely to do work that they experience to be boring or a waste of time, something that makes smart ADD/ADHD people more likely to flunk out of lower tier colleges than higher tier ones.</p>
<p>Both of my sons were officially diagnosed ADHD (older S) and ADD (younger S). They scored 98th percentile on SATs without accommodations. I paid big bucks for them to get counseling in study skills and organization. </p>
<p>However, none of that worked. Younger S got organized when he went to a college that he loved, was helping to pay for, and found to be very challenging. He takes a rigorous courseload, is very active in time-consuming ECs, and also works 14 hours a week, and gets good grades because he wants to keep the merit aid that allows him to stay at that college.</p>
<p>Thank you everyone for the ideas so far. I’ll look at these schools more closely:
• Dickinson College
• Pittsburgh – keeping in mind Northstarmom’s words of warning
• San Diego
• Syracuse
• Rochester</p>
<p>University of Texas – We briefly considered it, but I don’t think a big school suits him and I think chances for an OOS kid are very low.</p>
<p>He absolutely loved Rice when he visited. I’m originally from Texas, so he’s not afraid of going to school there, unlike so many others from around here.</p>
<p>Interesting comments about Santa Clara. I’ve heard it’s California preppy so I am a little wary. I think it’s sufficiently near San Francisco that it would suit my son. It’s the schools that are isolated and distant from major urban areas that don’t appeal to him.</p>
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<p>I worry about this. Chapter summaries are a horror I remember from his middle school years. Hes a fast reader with excellent processing and memory skills, so he still doesnt need to take notes like the average person. It is pure drudgery for him, and in social studies his sloppy, extremely scanty chapter notes used to get him Bs or Cs and then he would ace the tests.</p>
<p>I know from reading here on CC that there are other parents in similar situations with the same concerns, but the best I can do is try to help him get into an academically rigorous college. Honors programs, as Binghamton has, are another thing to consider.</p>
<p>I would say that Univ of San Diego is preppy. Santa Clara less so.
Based on kids from our area-
Univ of San Diego- preppy
Santa Clara- The kids I have known who have gone are not preppy at all. Most went due to merit money and also wanting to be at a smaller school but still be in Ca
USC- a mix. Some extremely preppy kids but also a lot of smart and of course many kids who went for the film department.
What about a school like Reed? Would appeal to a laid back, punk rock band type. Maybe it is too small?</p>