<p>There’s nothing “wrong” with this student. The student is a B student with honors classes, nice ECs and an slightly above average standardized test score and seemingly educated parents. There’s hundreds of students getting ready to off to college like this student. The only thing “wrong” is the student applied to almost all wing and a prayer schools for some reason and schools that are wing and a prayer for kids with much stronger applications. There are handfuls of great schools that would have admitted this student that could very well have been doable financially. There are schools famous for writing programs that aren’t on the original list and on and on. There are lengthy threads about where solid B kids applied and were admitted. Now the student is left with one choice and it isn’t doable from a cost perspective. It’s unfortunate but it happens. Like many have said find a Plan B and if DePaul was your Plan B, find a Plan C. Lots of very good and very measured advice on this thread.</p>
<p>Schools that still have openings for the fall:</p>
<p>[Space</a> Availability Survey Results 2011](<a href=“http://www.nacacnet.org/PublicationsResources/Research/SpaceAvailabiltySurvey/Pages/SpaceSurveyResults.aspx]Space”>http://www.nacacnet.org/PublicationsResources/Research/SpaceAvailabiltySurvey/Pages/SpaceSurveyResults.aspx)</p>
<p>Wow. Really, just wow. Is this child for real.</p>
<p>^^^^</p>
<p>Yes…</p>
<p>I don’t know what to make of this student. On one hand I think she has illusions of grandeur. On the other, I think she wasn’t given enough “reality checks” as a young child. She operates in sort of a “memory-less system.” She’ll fail, but then not learn from it.</p>
<p>“She’ll fail?” I guess I see it differently. If you mean she’ll fail to come up with the $, yes, she probably will-- because she doesn’t realize just how much $ it is. But this student is bright, realizes she has to work harder and is aiming high. I think she can succeed at a lot. However, I do agree with the many posters here that she needs to learn to be more realistic. </p>
<p>See, OP, you can only succeed if you understand where you are and where you want to be. You obviously know where you want to be but you misjudge where you are. You did that when she chose a college list and you are doing that when you think you can afford this school or jump hundreds of points on the SAT. I suspect that what you lack is discipline. I think you would get very far if you lived at home awhile longer, in an environment where you don’t have to stress about $ but can focus on schoolwork and family, and force yourself to study every night for a certain amount of time, even if you have no homework. I think that kind of discipline is critical to success in college and to being a writer. </p>
<p>By the way, I still think the time to start writing is now. Interview your dad and write about his life. It may make a lovely portfolio supplement.</p>
<p>2collegewego- this student definitely has some problems with not being realistic.</p>
<p>But I think it’s being too harsh to say that she lacks discipline - she may not have said much about it on this thread, but her other threads indicate that there have been some MAJOR family stressors. Dad has chronic severe renal failure, sounds like last year there were some serious health crises and possibly also some issues w/ her mother (don’t remember details, skimmed some of those threads a couple of days ago). Her grades junior year suffered as a result - I don’t know about the rest of you, but I know that I have a hard time focusing on work when dealing with family issues that involve grief, stress and anxiety. (there is some vagueness, though, about the grades in fr & soph yr)</p>
<p>But at this point, those grades are what they are, and she has to move forward and look for schools that are <em>realistic</em> matches, both in terms of admission and affordability.</p>
<p>I don’t think I was harsh at all. I read her prior posts. At some point, I thought I saw a breakdown of gpa by year but I couldn’t find it now. She has, at best, a 3.0 gpa, 1720 SATs and 27 ACTs… yet she says she had A+ up through middle school and was a very good student. She also says that her parents are college educated and her writing is excellent. I honestly agree with her: to me, she seems to have a lot of ability. I think, however, that she hasn’t worked up to her level for years and it wasn’t just a junior year fluke. I understand there were difficult issues in her life-- but I think if it were a bump in the road, the colleges would be more understanding. (I know a kid who was hospitalized twice during junior year and sat in a hospital bed doing homework. Grades were impacted but kid got into great colleges.) </p>
<p>So I do think she needs more realistic choices but I also think she needs to be more consistent with herself. She can’t really afford this college choice and I think she could use take a year at home and use that time wisely.</p>
<p>*“She’ll fail?” I guess I see it differently. If you mean she’ll fail to come up with the $, yes, she probably will-- *</p>
<p>What I meant is that when she acts in a headstrong manner (such as ignoring her parents’ advice and applying to the wrong schools) and has a bad result, she doesn’t learn from it. She doesn’t pause and think, “hmmmm, my parents were sooooo right about my app list, so maybe I don’t have good foresight and wisdom about such things. Maybe I need to listen to their advice.” No. Instead, she acknowledges that her choices were wrong, but then acts in a memory-less fashion and proceeds as if she knows what she is doing. It’s like she’s says to herself, “Well, I was wrong those times, but I’m going to be right this time,” when common sense is indicating that she’s wrong again.</p>
<p>Undoubtedly, her parents also advised her throughout her HS years to get better grades, but she didn’t listen and did what she wanted. </p>
<p>It’s one thing to be headstrong about proceeding with something when you have control over many of the variables…such as when a person has the time/money/facilities/equipment to experiment with a new invention/idea when everyone else is saying that it won’t work because they don’t understand the math, physics, science, mechanics behind the idea. I get that. I come from a family that has over 1000 patents, so I understand how someone with an idea might be confronted with “it won’t work” but is able to prove everyone wrong. But, when the person has little-to-no control over the variables and must rely on things like unlikely private scholarships obtained 4 years straight, a parent with serious health issues and the question of continued support, personal debt, etc, then it’s a whole 'nuther story.</p>
<p>I agree that she’ll fail, because her plans have been predicated on nothing but magical thinking–extremely selective LAC’s will see past her GPA and scores to the incredible hidden student within (well, that one didn’t work out); she’ll get a 4.0 at DePaul (though her high school GPA was nowhere near that); she’ll increase her ACT score by ten points (!), she’ll get an internship at the Herald Tribune; she’ll get her book published; she has special knowledge about a bunch of scholarships that few people apply for and will win many of them; she’ll transfer to a prestigious school with massive financial aid. It’s all nonsense, and reveals a terrible lack of maturity, as does her dismissal of all advice. Her parents (who themselves showed terrible judgment in allowing her to get this far with her pipe dreams) should insist on a gap year to give her a chance to do some much needed growing up. She isn’t ready for college, or for adult life. In addition, I suspect that the problems she has encountered in her life have left some psychological damage behind, and I would hope her parents would also insist on some counseling to help her. Her beliefs and behavior seem to go beyond mere teenage stubborness or heedlessness–they may be pathological.</p>
<p>I was harsh. but I also believe she has an intrinsic problem that she should see. At her age to be so inflexible is going to hurt her. </p>
<p>Whether she succeeds or not, to me, is not the issue. What is foolish to me is that she is not considering other options, that she has that may get her everything she truly wants. She is focused on getting into a school that is too expensive for her, from which she wants to transfer!?! If she can get some money from her parents, she’ll probably head out there and manage to pay for at least the first term, maybe more on a trimester scale which it looks like DePaul is, and then run out of money. Since most colleges allow some lag in payments, she’ll probably get a semester in owing money. And then she’ll be stuck.</p>
<p>She won’t be able to transfer. Will be in worse shape in terms of a transfer being a lateral one. Depaul won’t release her transcripts without their accounts paid in full. Money is harder to get as a rule for tranfers.</p>
<p>As a B student URM at a “good” school, severe medical and home life challenges, she might have had a shot at some of the schools where she applied. That she was unilaterally denied after lengthy face to face interviews at some schools that will give wide berth for purely academic shortcoming signals an issue there. I know kids with her stats that have been accepted to Mount Holyoke, Bryn Mawr and one other school that I don’t recall, to which she has applied. Something is a miss here. </p>
<p>That she is taking a very light senior year load does not bode well and doesn’t show the turn around that the uptick in her GPA might indicate. She was warned about this by her father. Her choices on her college list were questioned harshly by her father. She truly did not have any true safeties with financial safety features on her list. UMass did not accept her either, though that is not a safety for her if she cannot commute there. </p>
<p>If she commutes to a local school and does stunningly well with emphasis on her field of study, she would be an attractive transfer student. She could also have money put away those years by her mother, by borrowing maximum Stafford amounts and having her parents also stash any excess over what they can pay per year. She can also get a job which I don’t see mentioned. Any scholarships she gets can go to pay for her expenses and firstyear will increase that fund so much more. Even then it will be tight for her to go to an top priced school for 2 years but she will have a clear goal in sight, and we are talking two years of loans, over 4 for someone who has shown her mettle in an actual college setting. </p>
<p>This poster has a lot of opportunities and options, more than most kids. She just isn’t getting what she wants which has put her into a meltdown. How one handles disappointments and rejections is really more indicative of a person than the “failures” themselves. Such failures are often, in retrospect, opportunities to show what you have in dealing with life.</p>
<p>MommaJ–I think you summed it up perfectly down to “Her beliefs and behavior seem to go beyond mere teenage stubborness or heedlessness–they may be pathological.”</p>
<p>When I was following the OPs postings as she kept being rejected from one college after another and then read her “rant” on how she could transfer into some prestigious schools because of her father’s and family members connections to Brandeis and Tufts, I said to myself “there’s something else going on here beyond stubbornness.” </p>
<p>She probably feels a heavy burden coming from what sounds like a high-achieving (maybe over-achieving) family that she cannot compete with it. To me, she has sounded quite delusional about her own abilities and future. </p>
<p>I hope that she can step back, finally take the advice everyone is giving her AND get some counseling for her emotional issues. (but I doubt she will)</p>
<p>*When I was following the OPs postings as she kept being rejected from one college after another and then read her “rant” on how she could transfer into some prestigious schools because of her father’s and family members connections to Brandeis and Tufts, I said to myself “there’s something else going on here beyond stubbornness.” </p>
<p>She probably feels a heavy burden coming from what sounds like a high-achieving (maybe over-achieving) family that she cannot compete with it. To me, she has sounded quite delusional about her own abilities and future. </p>
<p>*</p>
<p>I think you’ve nailed it. </p>
<p>I find it odd that she thinks her “family connections” can get her in as a transfer student when they obviously weren’t able to get her in as an incoming frosh. </p>
<p>And, yes, the pressure from being in a highly educated family can be immense (remember the Mark Hacking case??? He lied to his family and told them that he had been admitted to med school and then killed his wife, Lori, when she discovered the lie.) I am NOT suggesting that the OP would ever kill anyone or anything like that, but when one is surrounded by people associated with top schools it can be hard to say that you’re attending the local CC or whatever at family get-togethers. However, it can be done. A couple of years at an inexpensive school (and doing well) could result in a transfer to a very good school. And, if her wealthy relatives see/learn of such achievements, they may willingly offer to help with those last two year. Right now, they may just view her as too much of a risk.</p>
<p>Both DH and I graduated from top 20 schools as have many of our family members. We have a whole Harvard team here at times. Yet none of my kids had the stats or grades to even be a candidate for HPY, nor did they have any interest in some other schools where we had some history. Admissions clout, ummm, doubt it, but history and connections, yes. Our alma maters did not even make their lists, and two of my kids had a good shot of admissions there for certain specialty interest/ talent reasons. Not even a consideration for them.</p>
<p>They all picked their schools themselves and none of them picked schools I would have picked for them. BUT, they were all within what DH and I could pay. That was a fact of life. They were given the financial facts, and they stayed within them. That we had few other requirements was a choice we made. They could give a hang about pressures from being in a highly educated family. </p>
<p>The advice that the OP’s dad was giving her is sound to me. She is choosing not to listen and the strategy she is taking is the same old tired one that many kids risk, and in every case I have seen, dropped out. Schools simply are not sympathetic to students who run out of money. No tickee, no laundry, which in the student’s case is the transcript release. Without it you can’t go on with college. Gotta pay your tuition to get it and if you run out, they’re glad to wait till you come up with the funds. I hate seeing another kid walk right into that one especially when she has some good possibilities to get exactly what she wants; just not exactly the way she wants it.</p>
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<p>The wealthy relatives are on the mom’s side, and the mom isn’t doing well financially–the OP said that her mom could contribute maybe $2-3k a year towards college costs. Even after a divorce, the wealthy grandparents don’t seem to be coughing up a lot of cash. This doesn’t sound like a promising source of funds. Certainly they won’t be cosigning for any loans. </p>
<p>She never mentioned any siblings, did she? An only kid from a family with great academic achievement, with divorced parents and a terminally ill father: that’s indeed a heavy load. No mention of any connection with a non-relative adult advisor, like a favorite teacher. The GC knows of and is clearly sympathetic to the OP’s life circumstances, but couldn’t (or didn’t) give the OP good counsel on her list of colleges. It’s like watching a preschooler, who insists “I can do it mySELF.”</p>
<p>The GC could well have given all kinds of advice. OP may not have taken it. Nothing wrong with her applying to a bunch of reach schools but she did not cover her bases both financially and selectivitywise. I don’t quite understand why she did not get into UMass, her state school. Makes no sense. Also, in terms of some of her other choices, she should have had a good shot. I have no quarrel about her list other than not taking into account that a good safety, including financials is essential to most anyone. </p>
<p>Even if she had been accepted to her other schools other than possibly UMass, if her family is considered non needy, by PROFILE, the likelihood of getting enough to pay for those pricey schools is very small for anyone. I know kids with qualifications way up there who did not get more than half of their costs covered for schools. With the sticker price up towards the $60K level, even a half tuition award leaves a lot uncovered. Scary for all of us. </p>
<p>I don’t go for rich relative talk. I’m considered a rich relative by some family members and I can’t pay full freight for my own kids. We are not rich by this area standards and we stuck our money into a bunch of commitments that leave our available income way down there. Won’t be subsidizing any cousins and others to our alma mater, I can guarantee you. Can’t send my own.</p>
<p>Capt house–UMass is no longer a safety school for a B student, so I am not surprised that OP didn’t get accepted. We are from greater Boston and our town’s GCs now routinely warn the kids not to count on our state flagship any more for an easy admission–the smaller branch campuses; maybe a better safety for many.</p>
<p>I can see that. Still a student in the top half of class in a very good high school, URM with a B average and above average test scores for UMass. I would have though she would get accepted. I wonder if she applied late in the process. Some state schools wouldn’t accept Einstein if he didn’t get his app in by a certain date. Once the seats are filled in a program, the door is shut and all further apps are either WL or reject.</p>
<p>I think UMASS Amherst has become a real destination for OOS students. My d tells me that quite a few from her hs are going there next year. They make more money on OSS students, so they are probably very happy to have them.</p>
<p>But I think the list of schools that still have openings included UMASS Lowell. OP should apply there–at least it’s not a community college if that is an issue for her.</p>
<p>How things have changed. At one time that was not the case. I’m noticing a number of state schools that have become hot destinations for both OOS and instate kids. Not just the big time sports schools. I am so glad to see this happening. </p>
<p>Yes, UMass Lowell does have openings according to the NACAC list. I don’t know a thing about the MA schools, other than the flagship which,yes, I am seeing increasingly on kids’ lists. </p>
<p>A lot of kids are put off by the words “community college” . There are often state colleges that are also available with selectivity and pricetag not as high as the flagship. If one is local, it can be a great money saver.</p>
<p>That’s why I said way back on page 2 that Salem State & Bridgewater State would be MUCH better alternatives for the OP. I know kids that attend or have attended both and they’re a VERY good value, yearly tuition under $8000. It’s still college & she could live in a dorm. And of course community college would be a viable alternative for her as well.</p>
<p>But in the ensuing eight pages of posts, she has chosen not to listen. Well, hopefully no harm done to this point, but I’m guessing it’s due to that part of the 18-year-old brain that hasn’t developed yet, the part that analyzes long-term goals, like past next week.</p>
<p>Hopefully she’s out there looking for a Plan B instead of posting on here telling us to stop yelling at her 'cause we sound like her father.</p>