I think all undecided kids should just major in Econ. It would make things so much easier for everyone.
And the blades whir on.
Did you go on the tours, or just drive through?
I recently went on my first set of college tours, and I couldn’t figure out what the point was going to be - before I went. It turns out - it’s amazing how much you could infer just listening to a 1 hour talk and a 1 hour tour. Were you unable to learn anything, or more likely are you just discounting as not valuable any of the touchy-feely parts of a campus?
AFAICT, you are portraying yourself as someone who only cares about the reputation of the school, and doesn’t care about how good of a fit it is for your child. Maybe you don’t even believe that “fit” is a thing? That’s definitely a rather extreme position, IMHO.
To be fair, @MYOS1634, the econ programs in the US that aim to send kids in to PhD programs are or can be math-heavy as well. And not all the UK econ programs are PhD-prep programs. LSE’s and Warwick’s are. Durham’s econ program is really a business+econ major (look at their courses). They’re clearly looking to send kids in to the workforce.
Oh, and BESS is business+econ+politics+sociology.
Small nit. Carry on.
162: the issue is that "fit" is very important to all very selective universities/LACs.
Someone who doesn’t believe “fit” is a thing should apply to CSU’s, UIowa, etc., where admission is more or less automatic based on GPA X SAT.
All highly selective colleges will take “fit” into account.
The “8 essays, pick 4” format of the new UC application may or may not work with this mindset.
I assume califoniaaa doesn’t mean to, but s/he sounds like Sheldon Cooper trying to justify why jokes aren’t funny, except in this case, the consequences would be real for the applicant and no laughing matter. If that sentiment is also conveyed by the daughter, she’s likely going to UCSC/UCR/UCM, when she could attend a school that, at least, doesn’t suffer from major budget cuts, would offer small classes, excellent advising and career services, and would would give her tremendous scholarships.
@MYOS1634, nah, I think TCD, St. A’s, and the 2 Canadian unis, at least, will come through (but if she applies to those 4 schools, why not UMich, UW-Madison, W&M, and UNC as well? But that is a different question). And granted, some of those foreign publics may also suffer from funding issues.
Also, just because the OP is like this doesn’t mean the D won’t hit it out of the park.
^true, TCD, St A’s, etc, are purely stats + personal statement.
UManchester is on CommonApp!
It’s possible the daughter won’t apply to UMich/UWi/UVA/UNC-CH/W&M because they’re not on CommonApp???
^ Pretty certain that at least some if not all of those publics are. One of Edinburgh/St. A’s as well, I believe.
How do you expect to refine her list once she gets acceptances? You have ONE MONTH (okay, maybe 5 weeks) to figure out where she will attend once you get acceptances. Let’s say she gets into 10 of the colleges she applies to besides the UCs. You will spend a TON of money if you need to visit several to make up her mind. Let’s say she has a lot of choices that are pretty close in rankings – Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Vandy, Cornell, Wash U, Rice. And maybe she gets a good acceptance in the UK, too. You can’t possibly visit more than maybe four of those in the month of April (we did 3 widely dispersed accepted student visits for D2, and that was pretty nuts and pretty expensive). Remember that any spring ECs have stuff going on (state tournaments, etc) in that window, too. It is possible that once she sets foot on one or more of those campuses, she will know that it is NOT for her (happens more often than you think). I think you are setting yourself up for a very difficult spring. You can be proud that you “saved money”, but you will spend a bundle and have a lot of stress figuring it out on the back end.
Also, if you are applying for financial aid, you are going to find it to be a nightmare if she has applied to over 20 schools Every school has slightly different requirements for FA paperwork – which tax forms they want you to send, how they want you to send them, what date they need them by. Some have their own forms for certain things (eg, non-custodial parent or small business information). And the CSS profile costs money to send, as do test scores.
I hope you aren’t serving as the travel agent for your child.
@californiaaa the fortunate thing about the UC application is that you don’t need to (and shouldn’t) answer the question “Why Berkeley?” If she is placed on the wait list and she wants a spot, that’s when she needs to tell them why she wants to go there. Hopefully, by then she will narrow her choices a bit.
Even on the waitlist essay, you are not asked to write “Why Berkeley”. You are only asked to provide any information that was not already in your application.
And yet, somehow my family in England knows Oregon isn’t in California… and those aren’t even countries.
FWIW, the OP does the same thing in every one of her threads. She asks a question that she thinks she already knows the answer to and then shoots down all the helpful advice.
It doesn’t matter : this thread can be useful for others.
Even though there’s no ‘why Berkeley’ in the 4uc essays, admissions can’t be predicted on stats alone. Nobody can ‘count on’ getting into any UC at the level of uci and above.
And for all other colleges listed by the OP, ‘fit’ would be super important at the final cut level (as long as the applicant doesn’t make stupid mistakes before that.)
If the student hasn’t visited any holistic college, she can use all the guidebooks, read the websites critically, look at last year’s supplements to see what they’re looking for.
We didn’t visit any schools D16 applied to (except California schools) before she got admitted. These days you can pretty much learn everything you need to know about the school virtually. The only school visit we did on east coast was to the school she will be attending in the fall. I think school visit it extremely important during admitted students days to determine perfect fit with future classmates. I guess in my DD case it was easy to pick one school among many she got into since it is the best in her field.
If we had to do it all over again, I would advise DD against applying to so many safeties. OP compare your child stats with accepted students profile to determine if she needs to apply to all 9 UCs.
It’s only one application to all those UCs!
My free advice is to vet those reach schools a little more.
This is all different when the family has a comfortable list, some nice safeties, isn’t all-hog for the prestige names, hasn’t been micro-managing since before 9th started.
Johns Hopkins has essays posted and along with comments from the adcoms. They were quite revealing to me. One of the essays was a “professor X and Program Y at JHU” type. But I think it was sincere. From this thread, I gather that the types of essays JHU likes may not be what, say, Brown may be looking for. Despite the tone deafness of the OP, I am learning a lot from this thread. I attended state flagships and teach at a small university. The world of essay writing for elite admissions is a new one for me.
Momprof- unless your kid is ee cummings, you cannot overstate how important spelling and basic syntax can be in an essay.
The only essays that I’ve seen that I would characterize as truly awful are those with obvious mulitple errors. Kids would bring them to their interview- and hand them to me proudly- and I’d wonder, “Why so many semi-colons, all used incorrectly?” or “There and Their- don’t they teach that in the third grade?”
Basics. Your kid doesn’t need to be Hemingway or Faulkner.
And not knowing how to spell the name of the college- happens more often than you’d like to know (JHU, looking at you. CMU- you know what I’m talking about. Swarthmore- oy vey.)
^^ I can see some “She Being Brand” inspired essay for U of Chicago being brilliant.
edit: with a education subject matter of course.