I have seen a smattering of these things throughout posts here, but thought it fun to gather observations in one place. My S20 is knee-deep in visits and list-whittling right now. These are some of his interesting reactions to colleges (thumbs up/down decisions). Note he has been very analytical during this process, but has had moments of emotionally driven decisions. We have learned a lot about him these past couple of months, actually. Which has been good for us because generally he has nothing to do with us and it is probably killing him knowing that he is dependent on his parents to help with this process.
He eliminated one school from consideration immediately because of the 11 students who applied from his HS in past five years, 9 were wait listed. He viewed that as their being lazy. Otherwise this school was a great match, but that was a non starter for him.
He is very status conscious (despite our protests). He has selected five schools which he believe are worth more $ than our state’s flagship. So he sees no reason at all to apply to any other school than those five + flagship.
Location does not matter one bit. NYC or a cornfield, matters not. But all things being equal he would avoid a long car ride.
Weather is also irrelevant.
He claims ‘fit’ does not matter to him. Despite our urging him to pay attention to what the students at schools are saying, he says it is irrelevant. His logic is that he is going there for 4 years, and the 50 years after those are what matter. He expects college to be all about work (engineering major), not fun, so it doesn’t matter how much he fits in. He will be working his tail off, regardless.
He hates the notion of legacy advantage and refuses to leverage it (only one of his chops there is worth cashing in).
He is giving a clear advantage (overvaluing this school’s specifications) to the one school which emailed him first. So he does have a warm and fuzzy part, way deep inside.
He eliminated schools from contention that had a requirement he felt was capricious: e.g., UCSD requires a writing section from SAT. Game over.
He has found the campus tours useless but the department tours fantastic. I don’t understand why colleges sort kids into tours by alphabetical order for last name and not by academic interest (or some other characteristic). My son doesn’t want to hear about the political science department. Or the volleyball courts.
He has watched some of his senior sports teammates go through the wringer this year and he has noticed that the stronger students have suffered the most. He is steeling himself and is bracing for disappointment. I wish we could get him to actually like a school, and not just a school’s stats, but we have failed. We want him to be excited about the incredible opportunity he is so lucky to have, not trying to choose among several work houses he need to endure so that he can have the career he wants. College is fun! But he just doesn’t see it that way. He refuses to chat with any of the coaches who have reached out as playing a sport would likely jeopardize his GPA. (Plus no coach if any school on list has shown any interest as he is certainly no star athlete). So if Notre Dame’s coaching staff called, I do think he would chat. We are not sitting by the phone.
He is thrilled to be almost done with HS and cannot wait to get to college, however, which is weird as he seems to think it will be hell.
Anyone else have a Mr. Spock kid like mine? His siblings think he is actually from another planet.
Your kid sounds similar to my oldest in many ways. Sigh. As challenging as they can be to parent, I look at the bright side that they tend to be resistant to peer pressure and fantastically independent, successful adults.
Regarding only applying to a few colleges, that was also my son’s approach. Boiled down to a few reaches plus the state flagship. Logically, makes sense, especially if you’re full pay because many of the matches aren’t ‘worth’ $50k a year more than the state flagship. But… reading cc for a while makes it clear that the admissions process can be crazily unpredictable and every kid needs a safety. Unless your state flagship is 100% guaranteed (and most are not, no matter how good the kid’s records is), do what you have to do to convince him to add one single safety app as well. Even better if that app is to a college with rolling admissions so that he’s got that one backup acceptance in his pocket all along.
Good luck with your Spock. Mine’s doing better than I had ever hoped for and I’ll cross my fingers that yours does as well.
Is the state flagship (or any of the five other schools) a 100% certain safety that is 100% certainly affordable?
Have net price calculators been run on all of the schools? (Or is list price for all of them easily affordable to you?)
It looks like his definition of “fit” is the status consciousness you mentioned above.
But that is odd, since engineering has a reputation of being somewhat less status conscious (with respect to college attended and other status symbols) than some other professions.
Admissions is unpredictable because you never know where the AO’s are in the process of creating a “balanced class”. They may already have all the slots filled for a kid like yours and are looking for kids with different life experiences or skill sets. My son applied to 2 schools that I would consider reaches and 4 that were in his sweet spot. He got into 1 reach and 2 of the others. So, you just never know.
He needs a safety, and in determining “safety”, keep in mind that admissions to engineering are often more difficult – so if, for example, the state flagship has a 50% admission rate overall, you might find that the admission rate is much tighter for his prospective major.
If you had written “state public for which admission is guaranteed” rather than “flagship” – I would have told you that is is a perfectly reasonable approach for your son to take. Why stress out over applying to colleges he probably won’t get into if he’s happy with his in-state safety. But I think in most states the “flagship” can’t be counted on as a safety. So the point is that somewhere on his list there needs to be a college where he is absolutely certain of admission and you are absolutely certain of being able to pay for.
Would suggest that “8. He eliminated schools from contention that had a requirement he felt was capricious: e.g., UCSD requires a writing section from SAT.” may pose a problem if he is pursuing an engineering career.
Entry to mid level stages of engineering careers are mostly about engineering. Mid to upper level are more about writing proposals, managing teams and administrative tasks. If your son wants to avoid schools that might have writing and other distribution requirements that he feels distract from a pure engineering experience, he may find himself less well prepared for a career that increasingly rewards skills he might not appreciate at this time.
Boys… Be sure he visits those wish list schools , your flagship and a safer school. Wonder which state you are in- that car ride or a ride to an airport… Be happy he doesn’t intend to play his sport in college. My son was lucky as a runner he could do club sport runs and meets. That is much saner.
Also, most state flagships are much more selective for engineering than for other majors, so that there’s a false sense of safety when in fact that 26 ACT average college may have a 30-31 average for engineering and the applicant with a 31, thinking “safety”, is in fact average with 50% odds of rejection…
You could email your flagship’s College of Engineering and ask the general stats of the Class of 2022 students. Generally, having two safeties is a good thing anyway, so perhaps see if he can find 2 affordable colleges where Engineering is ABET accredited and where he’s sure he qualifies for Honors College/Program.
My Ds were/are incredibly picky and particular in their own ways. Weather and location were actually at the top of their lists, right below affordability. For one if it’s not close to a beach it’s a no-go, for the other if it didn’t have four distinct seasons and in/near a major city it was a no-go. Both refused to consider anything in the south. Both have uncommon majors that did most of the whittling for them (dance and linguistics/Russian/Italian- she had to have all three). Neither cared at all about size of the school or if it was coed. Neither cared about prestige. Neither was willing to jump through excessive hoops- no tests required beyond the SAT/ACT and no big homeschool hoops. I am actually glad- it makes my life easier since there are way too many schools in this country to consider them all!
In addition, some state flagship type universities have secondary admission to engineering majors after enrolling in the engineering division (e.g. Minnesota, Purdue, Ohio State, Penn State, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech), or (occasionally) high GPA requirements to stay in the major (e.g. 3.5 technical and 3.0 overall GPA in college to continue in chemical engineering at Wisconsin).
@cypresspat I loved your post about your Spock son. The logic in our house seems to come out after the emotional decisions have been made. Amazing the “logical” justifications our student can come up with about these college preferences…
It’s sweet but also worrying a bit that the personalized emails and handwritten notes really impact our teens who are trying so hard to rely on scientific style reasoning about the whole situation. I hope your 2020 grad can make the system work. Good luck to all of us parents!
^ That’s because the colleges want to make college application like dating. That way, they can get a ton more applications and reject a ton more, which makes them seem desirable to many and go higher in the US News rankings.
Perverse incentives in this country (as opposed to the UK and Canada).
He is the antithesis of my ds. He only wanted to apply to safety schools, only to land grant universities with vet schools, wanted to go where he could get good grades and have fun. Fit was HUGE on his wish list. He wanted a long car ride. Further from us the better! Didn’t want a big city. He ended up where he is in a very competitive program (early admit to vet school), has good classes, a great GPA, and is having a blast! He could care less about prestige.
So funny how different every child is. Boys are such messes. He also hated physics and is now going to be an LA (undergrad TA) for the second year in a row in physics.
We have a friend who sounds a lot like your son. He is a sophomore in college and really didn’t look at anything other than academics (engineering major). His first year and a half he hardly did anything other than study. This semester he went to Singapore on a study abroad and has blossomed. He realized that he can have fun and study and do well. He has been able to go to Hong Kong and Japan and participate in several maker type competitions. Have your son look at study abroad options and intern options as well when he looks at the colleges.
I have a STEM son who didn’t look at the typical college criteria. You’d better believe he spent tons of time working on his essays. There are definite advantages to writing well. Even top grades, scores, activities and national awards aren’t enough to get in everywhere.
My S19 shares some similarities with your son. He did not like college visits and refused them after a couple. He cared about academics and cost and did not care at all about location, size or fit. He thought it was ridiculous to be concerned with the “feel” of a campus. He was willing to put in the work and write a lot of essays but I also think he benefited from me selecting schools and helping him with application strategies. He ended up on quite a few wait lists but had good results overall at selective schools. He’ll be attending a school that I always thought was the best “fit” for him.
Make sure you figure out what you can afford per year, and give him a budget. Then let him choose a college that meets that budget (either sticker price or with scholarships).
We are very fortunate. Budget is not really a barrier, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t consider cost. He does. He has deemed some schools worth more than state school, and others not.
