To add to the above - her GC seems hesitant to submit these scores. The ED school accepts a self-reported superscore. I think her hesitation is over the two tests, D’s lowest sub score is a 26 (science) and highest is 36 (reading).
My opinion…go test optional. If her ACT was in the top 25%, I’d say send it, but it’s not. It sounds like the rest of her application is excellent. Her ACT score is a very good one, but without knowing the school, it’s hard to say whether it’s a top one or not. From what you wrote…it’s in the middle of the pack, and actually not at the top of that middle.
@happymomof1 what do you think?
I’m also going to tag @lookingforward who might have an opinion about this.
The difficulty is we know so little here. What college will be ED? Where are you located? Her other subscores, plus more, down to how much local competition from your area for her targets.
Our D applied to a total of 11 schools, though she didn’t have to do 11 applications because the CSU (California State University) and UC systems only require one application where you apply to multiple schools. Our S applied to 9 schools total. Our college counselors really encourage the kids from going overboard with applying to too many schools. There was one kid one year who applied to 25 schools! That is the exception and not the rule. Most kids, even the top students, don’t apply to more then 15 schools at the very most.
We only looked at and applied to schools that would be affordable. If you live out west, WUE is great! It really helps a lot of out of state schools become affordable. My kids both applied to a lot of WUE schools. Some WUE schools that are popular with people in our area are: Northern Arizona University, Western Washington, University of Idaho, Western Colorado University…
For juniors looking at this thread…when you start to look at colleges, @natty1988 makes a good point. Some states participate in an academic common market whereby residents of one state can attend public universities in participating states at either their instate cost or a reduced cost. For many students, this is one way to go further away than their own state but financially be affordable. Definitely something worth pursuing if your state participates in one of these.
As I’ve mentioned several times, I personal think students can do a lot of vetting of colleges before they send applications. Once a student makes their criteria list (an important beginning step), they can then start looking for schools that will satisfy those requirements.
Affordability needs to be considered as well. This can be difficult to determine in some cases especially where competitive merit aid is a factor.
But agree that getting the list down to a reasonable number is a good idea. It makes the application process so much more approachable.
And if the family can agree on the applications being sent, it makes a matriculation choice easier for the student.
@thumper1 @lookingforward
Any chance we could email offline?
@thumper1 or could I send you a PM?
Not sure I will have a lot more to offer, but I sent you a PM.
Self-discovery starts with discovering colleges that suit you best, which means getting to know your interests, your ambitions, and what’s most important to you. You will get off on the right direction with the following five moves.
Yes…these are the basis for creating that list of criteria for colleges. But I would add…high school students and their parents also need to keep an open mind because so many students have evolving interests, ambitions and things that become important to them as they go through college.
My hs senior daughter is looking for schools with strong studio art programs as well as marching band programs that are within a day’s drive of DC. ( she is not keen to go super far from home in midst of pandemic) She has a 4.0, multiple 5s on APs and has not taken the SAT or ACT. Any thoughts?
My daughter got an acceptance into a BS/MS OT program which is a rolling admissions school, but has not heard from her ED choice yet. Do we accept the first admission then decline if she ends up getting her ED choice, or wait? We don’t want her to lose her spot and be left with nothing, as they are competitive programs
When is the deadline to accept this and when will you hear from the ED school? No need to accept at this point if the deadline is far down the road.
Most flagship universities have both a studio arts program and a marching band. I would suggest you start with the one in your state. You don’t mention financials in your post, so you need to figure that out yourselves…what is affordable for you? Can you be a full pay student at an OOS public or private university?
I know there is a terrific marching band at University of Maryland (multiple friends have kids who were in that band and had a great time). I’m going to guess that the public and private universities that have a football team, also have a marching band.
Not sure how marching band is doing their thing during Covid…
Here is the Visual Arts and Film Majors section of this forum:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/visual-arts-film-majors/
You might want to consider starting a thread there asking your question. Folks there might have suggestions about visual arts programs that also have marching bands.
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lkellyvava, has she checked out VCU in Richmond? No marching band (no football), but a great pep band and fantastic arts programs.
Question for the Experts:
DD#1 is a senior, has an ok GPA (3.85 unweighted, 4.3 weighted) for our area (Northern Va public HS, pretty competitive in general). Has pretty severe inattentive ADHD + Anxiety and POTS. Competitive swimmer until POTS dx, but still swims for her club. Is in a two year pharmacy tech program at our HS as well. Has interests in pre med and pharmacy and no idea what type of college location she wants. She has a 504 and is absolutely fine with pursuing support from disability services at whatever school she attends. Her SAT is not great - 1250 if you super score; she did a rigorous prep program for it but covid timing was not ideal with her studying effort; and our efforts to get extra time from College Board were denied since they didn’t think her 504 had demonstrated enough need for it. She is a horrid test taker - had an A+ in AP Calc and got a 2 on the online exam for it.
So far her reach list is Hopkins, UVA, and VT honors college. Safety schools are VCU and Tech. She has a list of target, reach and safety schools that is about 12 total and based on programs that have her interests but is not filtered based on price and location yet. We have only been able to visit VT due to pandemic. She is struggling to narrow the list and know where she wants to go.
1 - In force ranking apps to focus on with Early Action, how to address schools like U.Pitt and Perdue that have strong programs for her interest, and we can afford, but she can’t visit before applying? I would prefer to move those apps to RD to focus on the EA apps for UVA and VTech.
2 - She likes the idea of an Honors College to have a smaller community within a larger school. Is this a valid way to consider this?
3 - How do we evaluate student support services at potential schools?
4 - With an uncertain pre med/ pre pharm major should i head to the specific med major forum to ask about preserving her flexibility post undergrad in case she doesn’t want to get her PharmD? I tried to show her articles about Pharm D saturation but she still sees it as a potential path (but isn’t sure she loves it)
My opinions. First…a lot of kids think they want to be pre-Med, but a huge %age never get there. I would make sure the list includes a broad list of schools with many majors. In your case, communication with the disability office sounds essential…but do keep in mind that your student will need to self advocate for any accommodations. There isn’t a case manager like in HS to make sure this gets done.
Get as many of the EA applications done as possible. Really once those are done, getting anything else done ASAP is probably a good idea. You need to determine time management with this student.
Honors colleges do make the larger university experience feel smaller…plus often have other worthwhile perks like housing and preferred registration.
Give them a call. See if you can set up a time to discuss what services they offer. I would suggest posting in the parents forum about specific colleges and their support services. My guess is there will be folks who can comment.
@compmom do you have any suggestions on evaluating these disability offices?
Anyone thinking premed needs to have a decent plan B. I would think this is the same for pharmacy schools. Both have competitive admissions, not guaranteed. She will need to take the pre-requisite courses for applying to these programs, but really can major in just about anything. This major should be something she enjoys, and maybe could have some job potential in case Med school or pharmacy don’t work out. Keep in mind also that many students do not apply to medical school directly out of undergrad. So a major that would lead to a job might be a good idea. Having said that…many careers are not tied to a specific college major!
I’m tagging @WayOutWestMom who can better describe the need for a Plan B.
Here is the pharmacy forum:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/pre-pharmacy-pharmacy-school/
You might also get some good advice in the premed area.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-medical-school/
Plan B is critical item for every pre-med student.
Admission rates to medical school are low, with only 40% of applicants getting an acceptance. (Plus an estimated 60-75% of freshmen pre-meds never even to to the point of applying to med school.)
The important thing to remember is that pre-med/pre-pharm is an idea or an aspiration, not a actual major. Pre-meds can major in anything and still apply to med school so long as they have completed the basic pre-reqs. Ditto for pre-pharm
The typical pre-med/pre-pharm majors (biology, chemistry, biochem, psychology) don’t have great post-graduation job prospects. Especially bio and psych. The onus is on the student to make themselves into a desirable hire by developing some useful job skills—like computer coding and data analysis-- as well doing some industry (agribusiness, biopharma, medical technology & software, medical and pharmaceutical sales, etc) internships during college.
I frequently suggest that pre-meds major in something other than biology. Anything that has advanced math, data analysis and computing skills offers the best post-graduation employment opportunities. Thing like data science, computational biology, biostatistics, math, etc. (Fwiw, both my daughters majored in math, then went to med school. Each had a Plan B career. D1 would have gone into medical physics. D2 would have pursued biostatistics & public health policy.)
If your D isn’t a math-y person, consider clinical laboratory science (also sometimes called med tech)–which is hands on degree where she can go immediately to work at hospital or stand alone medical lab. (CLS also includes all or nearly all of the required pre-med and pre-pharm courses.)
Where there are no restrictions* on EA, do as many as you can. Some colleges fill up much of their space in EA, so that they become much more selective in RD than EA. Rolling admissions colleges should be applied to early for the same reason.
Some colleges are also more likely to offer merit scholarships to earlier applicants.
*Restrictions meaning cases where if you apply EA to a specific college, that college wants you not to apply EA to some set of other colleges that includes those on your list.
Someone asked me about evaluating disability services. I have posted in the past, and still feel, that people need to understand that the main source of support often is not the Office of Disabilities.
The process with them is that you register and are evaluated, then the student is given a letter for each professor. The letter often will not list the accommodations or the specific disability (though the latter is on file). It does state that the student is registered with the O of D. The student then basically advocates for him or herself.
The function of the O of D was once stated as “the guard dog of the curriculum.” In other words, they filter out requests for accommodation and then sort of certify the need, without suggesting ways to implement. Schools are required to accommodate, but not in a way that causes the school undue financial or administrative burden, and not in ways that affect academic standards for the program as a whole.
Accommodations in college have a lower level of requirement than high school.
Each school has its own structure for all this but we found that deans of one sort or another, along with the relevant professionals (MD, psychiatrist etc.) were the key people in implementing accommodations and also that some professors were much better than others.
I think it is quite difficult to ascertain in advance how each school will be because the implementation may be complex. Once accepted, it is a little easier. And of course some schools have good reputations in this regard, which can be helpful. We found one tiny school that didn’t even have an Office of Disabilities actually provided better accommodations than a large top level university with a full O of D
I am kind of surprised that one poster’s daughter with severe inattentive ADHD, anxiety and POTS was refused accommodation for the College Board.
One other thing: I suggest that parents research accommodations relevant to their child’s disabilities and write a letter themselves, for the professionals, listing those accommodations. Don’t expect MD’s and psychiatrists know a lot about this, though neuropsych.'s do. Not a single professional had a problem with me writing the letter- they thanked me- and they signed the letters without any problems.