<p>With May 1 behind us, it's the official start of the Class of 2017 college admissions process!</p>
<p>Opening this thread for questions, discussion, ramblings and encouragement, welcome everyone!</p>
<p>My son is interested in Fordham University. He will most likely be named a National Hispanic Scholar. He has a 98 average from a competitive Catholic H.S. and just scored a 33 on his ACT. He also has several strong EC’s, no leadership, however. Does he stand a good chance of recieving Fordham’s full tuition scholarship? Thank you.</p>
<p>Let’s do this! Good luck to everyone</p>
<p>Welcome Branflakes!</p>
<p>omzac, go to the 2016 Results thread and use the Search function for Fordham. Several members got merit aid there last year and some give stats that should help give you some idea of how your S might do.</p>
<p>Entomom-</p>
<p>No No No!!! I am not ready to jump ahead. I want my last child to still be little and stay home with me!!! If she leaves it means both of us are getting old :)</p>
<p>Luckily she is class of 2018 but still.</p>
<p>Alright in the spirit of the recent movie “let the odds always be in your favor.”</p>
<p>Itsv.</p>
<p>Thanks, entomom.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Ha, luckily on a recent visit to D1 in NYC I hadn’t brought anything to read, but she had the first book checked out from the library, the perfect vacation read. Otherwise, I would have no idea what you were talking about!</p>
<p>I dragged DH to see it so we could get the gist of what all the kids are talking about. I liked it and totally see why my DS likes it. My DS is like the main character. I could totally see her doing the same things. She hated the female inTwilight-'oh save me Edward." can’t stand helpless girls.</p>
<p>Okay now back to college admissions!!!</p>
<p>I only know what y’all are talking about because of the 2013/2017 thread, which has adopted that as its motto.</p>
<p>I think we’re ready here. Ds has a good list, we met with GC last week to tinker with it, and he totally gets our financial limitations. He was one and done on the SAT and will take his last two Subject Tests in June. His summer is busy enough, though I’d love for him to get a job (he can’t get the work he normally does during the school year over the summer).</p>
<p>Hey Yds, I didn’t know you had a kid in the game this year. Sounds like he’s got all his ducks lined up, I’m not surprised!</p>
<p>I am here for my son who will likely be a NHRP scholar and NM Commended student. He plans on applying to HYPSM as well as Caltech. His GPA, SATI &II and ECs appear competitive by CC standards. It will be an exciting time for both of us.</p>
<p>bulbubu,</p>
<p>Welcome! Sounds like your son is well on his way to a great college application season!</p>
<p>Is there one or two of those schools that your son is particularly a good fit for or that he’s most interested in?</p>
<p>My son, a 2012er, didn’t apply to all the selective schools. We worked at forming a list of ones we felt were the best fit for him.</p>
<p>Entomom, is it more typical for top student to apply to all the top schools? Was that your experience? Is this because most kids would be happy at any of the top schools?</p>
<p>sbjdorlo-</p>
<p>My son was initially interested in Caltech only and has opened his options to include MIT and Princeton. He recently mentioned the other schools (HYS) in passing. Possible majors include EE, Physics, Math or CS and possibly a dual major in Music. My hope is that he finds a school that will challenge him and that he will be a good fit socially.</p>
<p>Welcome bublubu and best of luck to your S this year!</p>
<p>sbjdorlo,</p>
<p>I think with admissions being increasingly unpredictable at the highly selective schools, students are applying to more of them than in past years. And while they vary somewhat in attributes such as location and social atmosphere, they all offer excellent academic opportunities. Since they’re all about 5k UGs, there’s usually room for most students to find ‘their people’, which is something I sometimes worry about with the smaller LACs.</p>
<p>Of course MIT & Caltech are different from the other four and students are likely to either be very excited or turned off by their techie nature. Like bublubu’s S, if a kid is interested in MIT and/or Caltech, they may very well also like aspects of HYPS, but often the reverse is not true.</p>
<p>I think problems occur with applying to too many highly selective schools when:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Lists are too top heavy, include very few matches and only an IS safety that the student really doesn’t want to attend. </p></li>
<li><p>A top heavy list makes the total number of schools large, resulting in less than excellent, customized applications.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Hello everyone,</p>
<p>My second child will be graduating next year. We have started to look at possible colleges for him/her. We are very limited in our choices do to finances. There are two main schools on the list. Both are considered reaches(ivys). Possible bump in admissions due to SES, URM, and first generation student. I was looking for some guidance on minimum test scores. </p>
<p>Current test scores </p>
<p>SAT 1860 (600CR, 640M, 620W Essay 11)
ACT 26 (33M 26S 21R 26E/W 10Essay)
SAT Bio 650
will be taking SAT MII in June</p>
<p>GPA weighted over 100
6 APs AB Calc, BC Calc, Statistics, US Hist, Micro/Macro Econ, Bio)</p>
<p>EC’s varsity sports, community service, and Treasurer of a club, Honor Society</p>
<p>Will graduate in the top 5% (600 in graduating class).</p>
<p>I know some test scores need to be raised just looking for guidance as to which one(s) should be worked on over the summer. Hiring a tutor is not an option.</p>
<p>Hi smiley,</p>
<p>I’m going to give my thoughts and I hope others will comment with their experiences as well.</p>
<p>As a first gen, low SES URM candidate, your child might see some bump for their test scores; better if they are of MA or PR descent. That said, what I consider a ‘foot in the door’ score for selective colleges is 700 for a section or Subject test. </p>
<p>Looking at SAT section scores, I think that the most important one to get to that threshold is CR. Math can be forgiven some if the kid is not planning on majoring in math/science/engineering. But these colleges require that the student is able to comprehend and interpret large quantities of written material, and they want to be sure they can succeed if accepted.</p>
<p>Is your child taking precalc this year? That’s the best time to take the Math 2. Be sure that they have looked on the CB website to see the subjects covered. Usually review of older concepts is necessary as the math is not high level and quickness is important. The CB has a prep book for the Math 2, you might be able to get it from your local library.</p>
<p>What is the unweighted gpa?</p>
<p>Would your child’s course load be considered 'most 'or ‘very’ rigorous by their HS GC?</p>
<p>[I prefer this approach rather than looking at weighted gpas, because schools vary in how they weight.]</p>
<p>Have you checked out the xiggi method for self-studying the SAT? Do you know about which prep books to use for practice tests, solutions, strategies? If you have questions on SAT prep, PM me and I can give you some input.</p>
<p>Hi Smileygerl, I would recommend that you have your child retake the SAT. It seems to me that if your child is taking AP Calculus AB/BC and has scored 33 on ACT Math, his SAT Math score of 640 is lower than what he should be able to score. You should also see the Math II score confirm this.</p>
<p>Hey all!
I’m a Hispanic Student! When I was 7 years old I moved to Florida from Puerto Rico! NExt year I’ll be graduating high school and plan to study Aerospace Engineering after high school. I’m part of the IB program in Florida. Many schools that offer aerospace engineering are public, which only a handful are private, such as MIT and Cornell, both of which I’m applying to. </p>
<p>But my highest chances are for public schools, having Georgia Tech as one of my highest preferences of going to. Yet, the out-of-state tuition is big!!! So I’m on the hunt for some merits offered by the school!
Nice to meet you all!</p>
<p>Hi FraNeighbor and welcome to the Hispanic Students forum!</p>
<p>Excellent idea to search for schools with good merit aid, a much better strategy than spending a lot of time with outside scholarships. By definition, those schools should be in the safety and maybe match range for your stats.</p>
<p>For the privates, will you qualify for substantial FA, have you run the NPCs for those schools?</p>
<p>I saw some of your past threads, did you take the SAT/ACT or any Subject tests this past spring? It looks like you should have been able to sit several different Subject tests since you were taking the corresponding AP exams. I know that many Engineering programs specify which Subject tests you need to take, so hopefully you’re aware of those requirements/recommendations.</p>
<p>The most important thing is to have a realistic list of admissions and financial safety, match and reach schools to apply to. I assume that you have a FL public which you could consider a safety both for admissions and affordability?</p>
<p>Franieghbor:</p>
<p>We just visited Georgia Tech this week. My dd loved it and she too wants engineering. Be sure to contact Valentina De La Fe-she is in charge of minority recruitment at GA Tech and she is great. We met with her and she was very helpful. Also they have an Office of Hispanic Initatives which offers the Goizueta (sp??) Fellows Scholarship Program. As a backup check out Clemson; I don’t know if they offer AA eng. but there merit money was good. Also check out Baylor; Missouri Tech and Perdue. I remember they had some great merit money. Again I know they have engineering I just don’t know if they have AA. Also Ohio State has some good merit scholarships for Latinos. Good luck and welcome to the Hispanic forum.</p>