<p>Regarding college major, football teams and fraternities my S has not expressed strong preferences. This is why the selection has been so challenging for us.</p>
<p>College major international studies, history, geography, political science, economics, Spanish, Arabic, finance, even possibly some sciences are all possibilities. And this is just what hes thinking of today; next month and next year it may be different. For example, I could see him studying something like neuroscience.</p>
<p>Football teams he says its fine if theres one or not. However, he has expressed interest in a strong sense of school sprit. Rice comes to mind but there are many other schools that would qualify in this regard.</p>
<p>Greek life he doesnt care and he says he could see himself in a fraternity or not. He liked the residential college system at Rice, but I could also see him joining a certain type of fraternity. Not the jock type of fraternity, however.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, your latest post fuels my optimism about my Ss chances for admission and merit at selective schools. While I want to believe that there are many schools that would love to have a kid with his profile, I must remain level-headed and realize there are many unknowns and make certain he has a couple of safety schools.</p>
<p>You make a good point about making sure my S will be treated as an individual and not as a stereotype at any college he selects. Because weve been in the same school district for many years, hes not had this problem since, for the most part, hes gained a reputation as the brainy kid. Thank you for bringing this up.</p>
<p>Do you think your son likes Rice enough to apply ED, even without anticipating merit aid? Without aid, Rice should still be less expensive than many other schools.</p>
<p>The thing about many safety schools is that if you wait too long to apply, they are no longer “safeties.” I got my own children to apply to a few schools in this category (larger schools that would give them merit money or a quick decision) that didn’t seem too bad to them, but to wait until everything came in to choose a school in the spring. If nothing else, it gave them a “practice run” in filling out applications and sending them off. Some top students at our own high school even end up choosing their “safety.”</p>
<p>Agree with frazzled2thecore about safeties. Case in point: In 2007 Indiana University- Bloomington with rolling admissions simply stopped accepting applications, for the first time. Not sure if that happened again last year but it was D’s safety and we made sure her app was in plenty early.</p>
<p>Warning about ED/merit aid - remember that merit aid is a recruiting tool, so in general schools will not devote as much merit aid to ED applicants because they have already indicated they don’t need to be “recruited”.</p>
<p>Re: Brandeis: due to their economic situation, they are shifting some merit aid to need-based, but there are several endowed scholarships that will always be awarded on the basis of merit. Rose123, PM me if you want more info on Brandeis - my D with similar stats and desire for a small-medium size school in/near a city is a first-year.</p>
<p>Rose123, I also agree with Northstartmom on this point.</p>
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<p>A long long ago, I took a class that had the reputation as the hardest class on campus. 5 minutes into the first class of the semester, 3 black students walked in and before any student figured out what was going on, the professor turned to these three young men and told them “You are in the wrong class.” I always remember that scene, because that was when my respect for this smart prof went down the drain.</p>
<p>Rose, I agree with your son: URochester is just too far away from everything. My DS1 went there and had a most horrendously bad year. This may not be true for everyone, but my son felt totally isolated.</p>
<p>But, I’m really writing to you with another spectacular school to consider: UVa. I absolutely think they’s be a terrific match. I’m a teacher, and a fellow teacher’s daughter–who could have gone just about anywhere–chose UVa because of their diversity. (Mom is black, dad is white–and diversity was an extremely important subject.) It’s warm enough to be ‘south’, school spirit is great, traditions are unsurpassed, and kids are all incredibly smart. Check it out.</p>
<p>Rose, haven’t read the whole thread and don’t know what your S’s current list looks like, but if someone hasn’t mentioned USC [ southern calif] then, you should know that IF your S is accepted there, he WILL, as a NMSF, receive an automatic 1/2 tuition scholarship. That’s $80,000 over 4 years for a top 25 college with a great team spirit, lots of greek life if he wants it, majors in all the areas he is interested in[ plus USC encourages students to double major or minor if they can], and a smart, diverse student body. </p>
<p>DS does not like Rice enough to apply ED, and Im unconvinced that ED confers such a tremendous advantage at most schools. In any case, it would take a lot to make me give up the chance to have several merit options next spring.</p>
<p>As a side note, at our high school only one or two students apply ED anywhere each year. Its just not done.</p>
<p>Your son doesn’t need to apply ED anywhere. He has good grades, excellent scores and ECs and is a highly desired URM. ED won’t give him any additional advantage, and applying ED would prevent his comparing financial aid and merit scholarship offers.</p>
<p>Brandeis & UVA are maybes. I’ll check more about merit possibilities for Brandeis.</p>
<p>We had looked at UVA since it had been recommended by S’s GC and it did look appealing. However, we had ruled it out based on size and other factors – gender ratio, low percent of students living on campus. Interestingly enough, I had read some things, here on CC iirc, which had suggested racism was more of a problem than on some other campuses. This certainly contrasts with zweebop’s take on this issue.</p>
<p>Brandeis ----- MAYBE “fun location. Waltham is a cool suburb and Brandeis students have easy train access to Boston. Could have many opportunities for merit aid, but some shift to needs based.”
University of Virginia ----- MAYBE? “diversity, school spirit is great, traditions are unsurpassed, and kids are all incredibly smart”<br>
USC ---- NO, too large and S might not advance to NM Finalist</p>
<p>Rose…I’m the one who has your son’s twin in my home…We are virginia residents which makes, ironically, UVA tougher to get into than OOS …BUT…they really really care about GPA and it has been shown at our HS where a good 30 students apply each year to UVA that a C on a transcript is an automatic reject at UVA. We generally see 6-8 kids (all valedictorians with UW GPAs at 4.0) get in with an occasional kid with a special skill (football, oboe, etc.). My son is not applying to UVA because it really is a 0 probability of admission. William and Mary may be a better, but more costly, alternative. URM from out of state may help at UVA but in a very very small way, and only if first to college, low income, inner city school district etc. My son’s school is full of high achieving hispanic kids and that actually lowers the boost of the URM since they are clearly having to overcome less barriers by virtue of being in a great school district. I think schools try to be fair with the use of URM–it is a flag to help identify students that MAY contribute to diversity–but, if URM has 2 college educated parents doesn’t need financial aid, and is getting an education in a great public school, the URM really isn’t bringing a very different experience to the college than the other bright kids applying to the school. By all means, get an application in, but put it as a big reach school rather t han a match or small reach.</p>
<p>Rose, has he visited schools in your area to try to winnow down some of the large-scale criteria? Sat in on classes? Even if he doesn’t apply locally, the process can be useful and less expensive. (Mentioning this for any junior parents out there who may be reading this thread.)</p>
<p>^ Good idea. He has only visited one school locally that hes not planning to apply to, but I see your point about taking advantage of local visits to help get a better sense of likes and dislikes. I wish we had thought of this a year ago when he had more time for visits. This fall is very busy with academics, ECs, college essays and other things.</p>
<p>The thing about doing things in advance, at least for my S, is that he was relatively uninterested in all this college stuff until now. As much as we talked about it and planned visits, it was like pulling teeth to get him truly involved. Of course, hes very much a wait until the last minute type of person and that doesnt help. Meanwhile, Im a planner, sometimes at the expense of acting (paralysis analysis syndrome). In other words, were at opposite ends of the spectrum so this makes it difficult for us to work together sometimes.</p>
<p>That’s my D and me, too. It made the whole college search/application process somewhat stressful. I thought the early visits (spring of her junior yr) would do it, but I think it was the combination of the first application/acceptance (her safety with rolling admissions) plus visits in the fall of her senior year that finally made it real AND exciting.</p>
<p>Just thought I’d pop in to address this. This specific post came up in a search, so I have not read the entire thread.</p>
<p>The admit rate for Virginia residents at UVa is higher than that of OOS students. In 2008, the offer rate for VA students was 47% and the offer rate for OOS students was 29.7%. In 2009, the offer rate for the VA students was 42.7% and the rate for OOS students was 22%. I post each year’s stats [on</a> my blog](<a href=“http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com%5Don”>http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com) as soon as they are available, but they can also be found (along with data that goes in much greater depth) on [the</a> Office of Institutional Assessment website](<a href=“http://www.web.virginia.edu/iaas/index.shtm]the”>http://www.web.virginia.edu/iaas/index.shtm).</p>
<p>There is no policy of denying a student simply because of the presence of a C on the transcript.</p>
<p>I believe that the poster meant that getting into UVA is more difficult for her son that getting into OOS flagship schools which is probably the case. However, most flagship schools do scrutinize the transcript and gpa is a big deal. Many times the difficulty of the courses,curriculum and school of the student is not taken into account as heavily as it is at LACs where I have seen more kids who have the high test scores, non stellar but good grades in heavy duty courses get accepted.</p>
Perhaps, but there are unfounded rumors in certain communities in our state about VA/OOS admission rates that would lead some to believe what was written. Just trying to put that rumor to rest.</p>