<p>I am new to this…Do schools read these threads? I would hate to not be anonymous and this hurt his chances or something that’s kinda why I haven’t posted the schools name…how do I private message you and I will do that… </p>
<p>Schools aren’t named, and schools don’t have time to read the parents forum with the key word “school” 
(Colleges may search using their college’s name).</p>
<p>Yes “School” is a good word for any college you might want to discuss. No worry.</p>
<p>The dream school has been visited 6 times at least, including an on campus interview with admissions and they have his scores, and transcripts he just has NOT pushed the submit button for ED yet. The second school he applied already early action. They have his essays and rec letters transcripts and scores his application and have interviewed him too.</p>
<p>Acceptance at dream school is only a maybe (ED or RD), It’s great he likes the “Truman” school too. Not sure what to advise here. </p>
<p>Well then… if he gets in ED at Dream School, it’s perfect, and if he doesn’t and he’s in at “Truman” school, it’s great too, right? </p>
<p>Are the two schools similar academic-wise?
Don’t discount a friendly campus simply as a “marketing ploy” made up as a staged play. There really is a vibe of friendliness that permeates some campuses and makes them welcoming. Your son obviously likes music and the fact that they are inviting him into those groups is great. Does the “dream” school have these also? Entering college with a group to join (and make friends) is a real plus.</p>
<p>
If that’s what OP’s son has experienced, absolutely correct. Each campus really does have its own ethos, and that can be a good index to the way a student will experience the next 4 years.</p>
<p>Applicants have to be careful to distinguish between between the vibe of the campus and the vibe of the recruitment team.</p>
<p>At the school where I teach, for example, the recruitment people have several weekend “bashes” for prospective students, and a bunch over the summer, too. There are waterslides, tandem bicycle rides, visits with faculty and current students, all of that. NONE of it has anything to do with academics or student life as it is really experienced. And those friendly, welcoming students are all chosen for the recruitment team because they are preppy and wholesome and look really good in school polo shirts. They do NOT represent the student body. But the sales approach is designed to make you think otherwise. Like we all ride tandem bikes to class or something. o.O</p>
<p>Now, if a prospective student visited a current student and spent all day Friday and Saturday here, attending classes and going to a football game and maybe a concert, they’d catch a different vibe and maybe love the place for what it really is. Because we really are friendly and it really does permeate most things that happen here.</p>
<p>All I’m saying is that you have to know the difference between the sale and the purchase.</p>
<p>As others have asked, are the two schools on the same academic tier? Or are we comparing something like top 10 to a regional university? Does ED make a big difference at the ED school? It doesn’t sound like your son got a random sales pitch at School #2, but was shown some specific activities he might want to pursue once his interest was known (and the random cute neuroscience girl lucky coincidence). It is also possible that the dream school profs and students get a lot of emails from prospective students and just don’t answer. It may be very different for actual student.s It is hard to give up a dream, but if he has any doubts, probably not a good idea to go ED. </p>
<p>A couple of legalistic grace notes here:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The real decision date is not the last week of October, but the first week of December. If you submit an ED application to Dream U, you can convert it to RD any time before the decision in released. So if the OP’s son wants more time to think about his choices here, he can go ahead and apply ED to Dream U; he just has to remember to decide right after Thanksgiving whether to let it ride or to convert it to RD.</p></li>
<li><p>Contrary to popular folklore, the standard ED agreement does not bind you to withdraw all other applications and to enroll in the ED school if you are accepted. It binds you to decide in a short period of time (usually a week or two) after an offer of acceptance by the school whether you will accept that offer and enroll (and withdraw all your other applications), or effectively terminate your application to the ED school. The main reason for giving kids the ability to turn down an ED acceptance is to give the family an out if the financial aid offer is not acceptable, but there is no mechanism for determining what the actual reason for turning down the offer is, and no college is going to try to get an injunction against a high school student forbidding enrollment in any other college. And, in any event, if the ED college’s financial aid offer is meaningfully worse than another offer the applicant has (say, from an EA college), that would be a reason anyone would accept for turning down ED.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So, while it’s not what I would consider a classy thing to do, as a practical matter the OP’s son can wait and decide between the two colleges at Christmas time (assuming both accept him), having seen concrete financial aid offers from both. if it were my kid, I would tell him to go with #1 above, but keep this #2 in mind if he didn’t withdraw the ED</p>
<p>Thank you for all the helpful tips! I don’t know what OP’s means? Please elaborate.</p>
<p>I know that you guys would not consider both schools the same caliber. Especially, if you haven’t been to both places and studied about their programs. If you were just looking at them, The “Dream School” is a very well regarded and probably household name. The “Truman School” is probably a well known Liberal Arts College in the south but maybe not nationally known. However, he wants to stay in state and in our State there are only maybe 2-3 places that have neuroscience for undergraduates and offer research opportunities. The “Truman” school would be No. 1 for that. The “Dream School” offers a degree very close to neuroscience but NOT neuroscience and it would be a stepping stone to get into neuroscience in graduate school. So that goes back to the designer label thing which maybe isn’t all that needs to be considered when evaluating the “caliber” of Universities. We are also trying to look at opportunities he could have at both places. (Big Fish little pond or Little Fish Big Pond) kinda thing. He cant go wrong at either place I know and I need to remember how resilient he is and he makes just about everything work and has more determination than anyone I know. I am trying to rationalize the importance of feeling wanted through this journey. There is always the chance of course, that Dream School won’t accept him and then the decision is made. </p>
<p>One friend is a science prof at a research U (not Ivy caliber but still good). We were talking about undergrad research opportunities. He said that at a smaller school the kid may be a big fish, but may not get the same level of research opportunities that come with a bigger research U. Of course, there is a lot more competition at a big school. </p>
<p>Sounds like the dream school ED may still be the right choice. </p>
<p>It’s too bad the dream school does ED (binding) not EA (Early Action, nonbinding). Good luck as you sort through this! </p>
<p>triplehtc: “OP” stands for the Original Poster of the thread. Meaning you.</p>
<p>mom2and: Lots of people say things like that. I say things like that sometimes. And it’s sort of true, but not always true. </p>
<p>A young friend just graduated from a respected LAC, which she chose over probably the top tech school in the world for her particular area of interest. She really wound up with the best of all possible worlds, for her – a double major in a tech and a non-tech field, a semester abroad in an exotic location, and her dream job in the tech field when she graduated. Along the way, she got big university research experience: For the summer between her sophomore and junior year, her LAC funded her to do research anywhere she chose. She found a lab at an Ivy League university that would take her on, doing completely sexy, cutting-edge work. She loved it, and they loved her, and she continued to work for them remotely (doing things it was possible to do remotely, which were considerable) for the following year, until she started her summer internship with her eventual permanent employer (which had ties to the Ivy League professor in whose lab she had worked). </p>
<p>Her peer co-workers work include people who went to the greatest research universities in the world, and they all loved the educations they got, too. So it’s not as though my friend’s LAC experience was objectively better than their experiences at Harvard or MIT (among others). But there’s little question it was better for her, and it got her exactly where she wanted to go.</p>
<p>JHS thanks for letting me know. I scoured the abbreviations thread and it didn’t have OP anywhere so I decided to just ask.</p>
<p>The LAC “Truman” school did tell him in his meeting with the head of the department that “if” he was selected and agreed to be on his particular research team they do pay for all expenses. Room, Board, Tuition! Again, that is still a big “IF” but I can say the same olive branch wasn’t extended from the dream school. BUT I know the DREAM School has MANY outstanding students and I guess they are just waiting to see how things play out once students get accepted and sized up once on campus. </p>
<p>I appreciate your experience and loved the phrase “doing completely sexy, cutting-edge work. She loved it, and they loved her” sounds like a great match and that provides a lot of promise as my son goes thru this decision process. Pros and Cons but mainly just Pros and Pros and that’s awesome to remember. </p>
<p>OP- there is no dream school just like there is no dream spouse or dream job or dream house or I daresay- a dream child (even though I love my husband and my job and my kids.)</p>
<p>I think your decision will become easier if you don’t allow yourselves to create a black and white universe where one college has a department labeled neuroscience and the other doesn’t (really? the big U doesn’t have neuroscience? You do not need to major in neuroscience to become a neurologist or to study neurology in grad school…)</p>
<p>I think all the labeling is cluttering the decision making. One college is friendly and the other is stand-offish. (why that matters I don’t know, unless you believe that EVERYONE at college A is just fabulous and everyone at college B is a snooty lout). One college has fantastic marketing and “branding” for its admissions folks and the other doesn’t. (well, that I believe!)</p>
<p>My point is that life is filled with trade-offs. Sometimes, the better academic environment (more professors doing more interesting work, getting cool grants, a stimulating group of fellow students, lots of non-classroom opportunities) will have the less “rah rah rah” environment. And if your kid wants the rah rah- and is not looking to maximize the academic opportunities, then your choice is an easy one.</p>
<p>But rah rah and marketing and friendly admissions folks is MUCH cheaper to create than to build a research capability. Rah rah is cheap and easy compared with becoming a competitive player in getting NIH dollars or creating funded chairs for faculty to do cutting edge stuff. That costs hundreds of millions.</p>
<p>So you can see where the institutional priorities are. And although here on CC we love to compare climbing walls and sushi bars and the AC in the dormitories, the reality is that your son is choosing an academic institution, and to my mind, would need very compelling reasons to pick the lesser academics (regardless of the label) if the “pull” was just “being wanted”. Which at some colleges is code for “this kid has high stats. Let’s show him the love so we can improve our rankings”.</p>
<p>I don’t know if that’s the case here and I could be totally off base (and since I don’t know which colleges you are comparing, I probably am). But if you can afford Duke- and your kid can get into Duke- and you’re debating going to High Point because they really, really really want him, then to me the choice is clear. Duke is a top academic institution- and if it has fewer cute girls majoring in neuroscience than High Point, that wouldn’t bother me in the slightest. You’re picking college, not summer camp.</p>
<p>And be wary of what a “particular” research team means. At big universities, a professor may have 5 or 6 teams running concurrently. So a grant doesn’t get renewed- still lots going on. A study ends- a new one takes its place. At a smaller college, when a grant doesn’t get renewed, the professor might go on Sabbatical to write a book and the students staffed on the grant are sort of orphaned.</p>
<p>Just a consideration. And again, I don’t know the colleges in question. Duke vs. Vanderbilt- you can’t go wrong. Emory vs. Rice- pick the one your son likes the best. Once you’re comparing University of Illinois (just to pick a huge place) with Hiram- then for a budding scientist, I think the academic environment really matters.</p>
<p>Blossom, simply an excellent post. Thanks for sharing you insight.</p>
<p>Yes rah-rah is cheaper than academic but that doesn’t mean the rah-rah is not also academic with research facilities and opportunities. They are not exclusive.</p>
<p>I think this demonstrates the dangers of getting too fixed on one school, a few years before actually applying. It isn’t that healthy to spend four years doing everything with the goal of getting into any particular school, as described in the original post. It can interfere with openness to new possibilities (not sure if the son is uncertain here, or just you, the mom-?). Kids can change a lot in the 4 years of high school. And I think it might be better to live life naturally and then figure out what school fits when the time comes.</p>
<p>Highly selective schools don’t need to court students the way your #2 school seems to be doing. Why would they?</p>
<p>To me, the only really relevant question here is money. It is unclear whether your family qualifies for financial aid, which is often excellent at highly selective schools. The “second” school is offering merit aid, right? Do you qualify for financial aid there as well? Be aware that often merit aid is not in addition to financial aid: it is subtracted.</p>
<p>If finances are not an issue, then a deeper look at both schools might help. Has your son attended classes or spent the night at either school? </p>
<p>I would encourage your son to make his own decisions, but with as much openness and wisdom as he can muster (as an 18 year-old boy). Vibe is important, and he can get that by spending some time at both schools, in the cafeteria/dining hall for instance. You can tell him that fixing on one school as a freshman is a bit like wanting to be a fireman. It may be a great path but he needs to choose it as the more mature person he is now.</p>
<p>Finally, the real point isn’t getting in but the experience of being there. That sounds obvious but I think we lose sight of that sometimes. There are all kinds of things to consider that may be hard to ascertain (is is competitive or cooperative for instance, how much contact with professors versus grad students etc.) but I think this decision should be made independent of marketing and courting unless money is a a main factor in the decision.</p>
<p>As you are aware, this is a win win and whatever happens will be good :)</p>
<p>Some schools act all nice and warm because they ARE warm and nice. My daughter is not a stand out by any means, but the OOS flagship she picked was nice to her from the first contact. She did a visit and the admissions office arranged a meeting with two departments. We were delayed by weather and one department was just okay, squeezed us in but no bells and whistles. The other, theater, couldn’t have been nicer or more welcoming. Invited her to a director’s run through of a play. Showed her every closet and storage room. Introduced her to many many students, staff, profs. You would have thought she was a famous child actor or something. She tried for a department scholarship and didn’t get one, then they reconsidered and she did. The school and department want to make it work for everyone, from the superstars to the average student, and my daughter is just the average joe.</p>
<p>All of this niceness has continued. The school is just NICE, I think to everyone, but my daughter feels very special there all the time. She couldn’t be happier with her choice.</p>