<p>wlm,
Now that you mentioned Arch, have you visited the Architecture Major subforum? There are several very informed and experienced posters there, both students and practicing architects. I spent some time there a few years ago when my D1 was considering doing arch in UG. She still does occasionally even though she seems to be going down a very different path at this time.</p>
<p>it is a very confusing thread and major imho…i am not inclined to be very supportive on this but of course have to see how serious my D is towards it. I hate that the best schools, other than say Cornell, Wash U, Rice U Va. etc. and a few others do not offer B/Arch. It makes it very hard for a parent…been through the threads a dozen times and not much great advice, many discouraging posts based on the investment/reward of the degree–bottom line-you have to be passionate about it, problem is when you get such conflicting information…
FWIW, I an just helping on research, but I am in favor of a good overall liberal arts education first, then selecting a very narrowly focused specialty ----but hey, i am totally new to this and my D may disagree totally with me, she is very opinionated, mostly in being against my opinion-lol…thanks though…hope they post some better stuff this year…</p>
<p>w</p>
<p>Yes, it is a more difficult major than most to research. My D1 was only looking at colleges that offered a 4 yr BA or BS in Arch Studies, as she didn’t feel absolutely sure that arch was the direction she wanted. There was no way that she was ready to commit to a 5 yr BArch program. As it was, she attended a college where she could take a studio arch course as a fr, and while she loved the class, she wasn’t sure that she had the personality to deal with the intensity of arch and not go crazy. </p>
<p>Yes, there is much about the actual profession which makes it very difficult to determine if one will truly find job satisfaction and make a decent living, or if that’s reserved for a relatively small proportion of architects. One point that was a negative for D1 was that while she works hard and has some talents, she is not a good “sales person”, and it seems like you do really have to be extremely confident and to be able to sell your visions and ideas to be successful in the field.</p>
<p>But she keeps coming back to it because it really is an exciting field, I tell her that you don’t have make all of your interests a profession, you can keep some to do in your spare time for entertainment value only.</p>
<p>Good luck to her and to you!</p>
<p>I’m a URM at Cornell (spanish heritage, grandma from madrid) and i like it a lot here. I got lucky, getting in with a 31 ACT, 690 SAT2 chem, 770 SAT2 Math2, and a 3.6 uw gpa. There is a back story though which begins with my lackluster performance my freshman year of hs : i ended the first semester with a 1.5. The second semester, 3.0. My subsequent semesters were all in the 4.2-4.3 area with the most rigorous courseload in addition to two courses at a local uni, both A’s in UShistory and MicroEconomics. My school only offered three AP classes, which i took and got a 4 on AP Lit, 5 AP chem, 5 AP Calc AB, and a 4 on AP Calc BC (self studied). I also participated in a research internship where i learned about black holes and gave a presentation to a group of scientists on the topic–it was at a big research institute in TX. I also helped found the MUN at my school and the Chess team, and worked during my junior year.
I was accepted to 3/5 schools: UChicago, Cornell, and Emory. Rejected at MIT and Yale. Cornell was the only school which accepted the non-custodial parent waiver so I didn’t really have much of a choice, though i am happy with the one i was left with.<br>
I think what helped was showing an initiative throughout my hs career, because my hs despite all pretenses, was not a college-preparatory school–the counselors once advised a kid who got a 1700 SAT to go for top 20 schools. I also got to know a few math professors in the city because i attended public events at universities and introduced myself and explained my mathematical aspirations. One was from princeton and was very unsupportive when i attended his Putnam problem-solving class, responding to my questions with “the first thousand hours are the toughest!” But, it helped to put him down as a recommendation. </p>
<p>Architecture is tricky for admissions, because a lot of it is contingent on the portfolio and experience of the applicant. My friend was rejected from Cornell, waitlisted then rejected at Rice, accepted to WUSTL, and is attending Syracuse Arch. He likes it a lot, and constantly extols the profs almost all of whom graduated from Cornell. However, there is an inferiority complex which is blatantly present there. I went to visit for Halloween and went into the studio there–which is in a beautiful building by the way-- and all the arch students groaned when they heard i was from cornell; all had been rejected. The arch students at cornell, in turn, have a little bit of a sense of superiority. I once overheard two arch students talking about how far ahead the program is relative to syracuse’s program. </p>
<p>I can’t comment on other ivy-league schools, but cornell has a nice, close-knit hispanic community. The community often hosts tea with several profs and they all just talk in spanish about various issues. </p>
<p>As for happiness,
Well, i will admit that someone from a hot, sunny climate in southern texas might find the gray skies of winter to be a little bleak, if not depressing. However, it really depends on the person. There are great counseling services offered, and the community as a whole helps each other out, but only if you take that first step out the door. Cornell is more than anything what you make of it. The school prides itself on its self-reliant students who take the initiative to bug professors for research positions, seek out internships early on using the services there, and take advantage of the myriad of resources. The fact is that all the help you need is there, but you have to get it. And although it is a large university, the professors will take the time to get to know you if you initiate the conversation.</p>
<p>Sorry for the long-winded response; hope it was helpful.
Good luck with admissions!</p>
<p>Well, that was a happy coincidence ChaoticOrder. Thanks so much for your reply. I too noticed the enormous number of rejects from Cornell and felt a bit discouraged. My thinking was at least by getting into Cornell, if for some reason you were overwhelmed by the intensity of the arch. program, well heck, you are still at Cornell and can likely move into the liberal arts and science college and go the slower route to the M/Arch 4+2(3) and have the time to take the many electives that will allow you to be a “renaissance” student.
While Syracuse is probably great as well, if that happened there you would (no offense) be in a second tier college when you could likely have gotten into the likes of Dartmouth, Brown, Columbia etc. But it sounds like you wound up pretty happy with your choice. I would bet if she got in there she would probably be ecstatic. But I realize that its a very small number of spots, and as you said very skewed to portfolio etc.</p>
<p>Thanks very much for the sincere reply. U Chicago and Emory are also pretty amazing schools in their own right. I think your key was persistence in HS. Taking BC Calculus on “YOUR OWN” is not exactly “normal”, shows a huge aptitude for difficult math. That is one thing my D also is a natural at, as she is in art…its an interesting road for me to see so many paths. Just glad she is in the running for a shot at so many opportunities. Feedback like yours is great help.</p>
<p>Also entomom, thanks for the perspective on level of commitment needed for this difficult field. Some people are born knowing what they want to do, I did not declare my major til junior year! But once I did I lit into it. And I was always grateful for the rounding out I got by having tried a couple of majors. Its really hard to only have 3 electives and learn your place in the world, its why many top schools will not let you declare a major til you are a sophomore…but not everyone can afford 7 years of school either! Thanks again both for replies.</p>
<p>W</p>
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<p>I did qualify for NHRP, and my counselor and I submitted the required application for students who did not mark themselves as Hispanic on the PSAT. My only concern about applying for colleges is the fact that my transcript labels me as non-Hispanic (Under the Race/Hispanic? portion, it says White/No). Hopefully, this is changeable. I do have a copy of my father’s birth certificate if my school questions the change, and my surname is undeniably Latino in origin.</p>
<p>Since you will have NHRP, I don’t think colleges will question your ethnicity. Go ahead and see if you can get your HS record changed if possible (you should be able to), but either way I don’t think it’s going to be a problem as many Hispanics are not recorded as such for various reasons (don’t understand the importance, don’t pay attention, etc.)</p>
<p>Thank-you, entomom, for directing me over to this list. It looks like fairly low volume so I’m not sure if my questions will get answered but I appreciate being able to read of others’ experiences.</p>
<p>My first question has to do with self-identification of an Hispanic student. For background, my oldest son, a homeschooled junior, is 1/2 Puerto Rican but we, his parents, are white. He does not think of himself as “Hispanic”, though he does think of himself as Puerto Rican. However, we are a working class (dh didn’t go to college, I graduated from a state university), middle class family and my son would probably most identify with our socio-economic status and with other Christians, mathemeticians, musicians, etc., regardless of race. Our church is multi-ethnic and I guess we don’t think about it too much, though we discuss issues of race, ethnicity and culture at home. (My father is a Ukranian Jew and this gets discussed as much as anything)</p>
<p>So, should my son not be identifying himself as Puerto Rican or Hispanic since culturally, he doesn’t associate himself with that label? I have begun discussing this with my son but I just am not sure if it’s fair for him to get a “leg up” because of his ethnicity; otoh, I have been encouraged to let it be known. I have seen him put PR on some applications, so I know he is working through this identity. Most of his friends in chess and math are A-A and tease him that he’s from the wrong side of the tracks. He takes it in stride, though, because he knows his friends well.</p>
<p>He does have his sights set on applying to a variety of schools including 3 Ivies and several safeties. His stats:</p>
<p>SAT I M 800 CR 790 W 730</p>
<p>SAT II Physics 800 Math II 760 (took in 8th grade; will take again in May) Lit (waiting for score; felt he did very well) Chem (will take in the fall)</p>
<p>GPA: 4.0 unweighted, around 4.6 weighted</p>
<p>Has taken about 50-55 units of community college and university courses, math through Real Analysis and upper division physics</p>
<p>National awards included physics olympiad semis (with hopes of olympiad this year or next year), AIME (with hopes of USAMO), nationally ranked in chess, AP Scholar, member of SET</p>
<p>Community Service: A lot in music and church; he’s a worship leader and he taught violin during several summers to disadvantaged students</p>
<p>He works as a math tutor and violin teacher/performer</p>
<p>He’s varsity baseball but doesn’t think he’s good enough to play in college. We’ll see how the season goes.</p>
<p>I have no idea how he’ll do on essays but his honors literature teacher will help him edit them in the fall as well as write a LOR.</p>
<p>He got an incredible LOR from his physic professor at the univ. where he’s auditing a class. (He applied to RSI-doubtful he’ll get in but it’s worth a shot)</p>
<p>So, based on the above, do you think he can just apply without noting his ehtnicity? Do you think it’s ok to note the ethnicity if he’s not in that particular culture? I’m just really torn here and I appreciate being able to discuss this finally.</p>
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<p>From your other post:</p>
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<p>Given your racial descriptions of your S, you and your husband, I’m assuming that he’s adopted. While you have not raised him culturally as Hipspanic, that does not prevent him from marking Hispanic for admissions purposes if indeed he considers himself Hispanic, because ‘self-identification’ is the definition that is used. However, it will possibly affect how adcoms look at him within Hispanics as they sometimes do take into consideration how much an applicant identifies with the Hispanic community.</p>
<p>As with many things in college admissions, as long as he answers honestly, that is what is most important. If he identifies as PR, that qualifies as Hispanic, and he should mark it. It is really a personal decision. I hope other members comment as I’m sure it would help you to get other view points.</p>
<p>Thank-you, Entomom. We will wrestle through these issues as a family; they are complex and personal and we’re all very ambivalent because of our unique situation.</p>
<p>sbjdorlo, the kinds of questions you raise come up for a lot of students in different ways. In college some may decide to identify as Hispanic/Latino/Puerto Rican, etc., whereas in high school they did not. Also, as people move through society and experience different settings their relationship to ethnic identity may change. Someone may not think about these issues until faced with prejudice or racism. That is part of the lived (and changing) experience of ethnic identity. </p>
<p>In addition to the questions about self-identification, the picture also involves the colleges, which are in competition for creating diversity on campus. Some of that is driven by a commitment to making higher education available to people from many different backgrounds. But some of it is also a focus on numbers and percentages. The result is that students are asked questions that may not be easily answered in a box.</p>
<p>This was a very thoughtful reply, copterguy. You’re right; neither my son nor we, his parents, know what kind of identity he’ll forge in college and beyond, nor what prejudices he might face. I did find it interesting that on some application a while ago (I’ve forgotten what it was for), he did say he identified himself as Puerto Rican. That’s still different to me, however, than actually feeling identified to a whole group of people called “Hispanic”. He actually told me yesterday he sometimes thinks of “Hispanic” as Cuban or someone from Dominican Republic, while I had assumed he thought of it in terms of someone from Mexico.</p>
<p>My dh and I discussed this issue. (And this all came up right now because of the PSAT and another program that my son applied to) We both concluded that we will leave it up to our son to identify or not identify himself as Hispanic. He seems nonchalant and ok about it. My dh helped me wrestle through some of my own personal struggles with it.</p>
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<p>Like any demographic grouping (male/female, young/older, etc.), an extremely wide range of origins and experiences is encompassed under the term Hispanic. It includes people from Spain, to South and North America; from Japanese Peruvians to Mexicans who are descendants of Original Peoples, to white Argentinians of Italian descent, and sometimes (eg. NHRP) to Brazilians. My point is, in declaring himself Hispanic, your S is not saying he identifies with the whole group, but rather with any one part of the group.</p>
<p>It kills me that I did well on the PSAT this year (200+) but won’t be recognized for NHRP as I’m not a citizen or permanent resident. It really sucks in fact… Sometimes I feel I should’ve just lied.</p>
<p>You can’t lie. I think they ask you to prove permanent residency. And, citizens generally have to provide their social security numbers as proof.</p>
<p>@sbjdorlo</p>
<p>My son’s stats look a lot like your son’s. He is 1/2 Cuban on his Dad’s side. Although his father was raised in a traditional Cuban household, my son is basically a white suburban kid. </p>
<p>Based on our experience last year with college admissions, declaring him to be Hispanic helped… a little. (My husband is proud of his heritage and would never have considered not having his son list himself as Hispanic). We got the feeling that colleges are really looking for Hispanics with a compelling story (which we don’t have) and we also got the sense that there are tons of very talented Hispanics out there.</p>
<p>That being said he is currently a freshman at Princeton where he has really started to connect with other Latinos on campus. He has joined a few organizations and is more proud now of his heritage than ever before. He also says that the kids he is meeting are extremely qualified. While their heritage may have given they a tipping factor in admissions, they are certainly well qualified.</p>
<p>So my advice would be to have your son list his heritage. It is not a lie and it can’t hurt. Besides, he might start to connect with it more as he goes forward.</p>
<p>Soomoo and entomom, I think you’re right in that I could see my son identifying himself with other Puerto Ricans at a highly selective school if he somehow makes it in and we find the resources to pay for it. Soomoo, were you surprised to see him connect with other Latinos on campus? </p>
<p>My son definitely is a working middle class kid with really no strong racial identity at this point; he’s sort of a chamelion. He has several close Asian friends in math, physics, and chess; he does have a new friend, a fellow musician, who is Hispanic and this young man is really nice, but I don’t know if they feel any connection because of it. This young man is an excellent pianist and he and my son recorded a CD together; they have a mutual respect for each other. </p>
<p>I would say my son identifies with lots of “groups”: Christians at church (our church is multi-racial), math/physics/chess kids (mostly Asian, Indian, white, Philipino), musicians (mostly white and Asian), and other homeschoolers (mostly white). When he played baseball locally, many/most of the kids were some sort of Hispanic or black mix. Our feeder high school (and one of the many reasons we homeschool) has a graduation rate of less than 50%. One of my son’s old teammates got arrested last year for pulling some stupid pranks on the campus. My son is really glad to be away from this group of kids. We love the families and the kids but many of them make such terrible choices.</p>
<p>I guess what I’m trying to say is he doesn’t peg himself as anything and he seems to find his identity through us, his family, his church, and through his activities, rather than through his ethnicity. I also think he’s had to work through his blue collar identity with low, safe expectations. Until this year, we didn’t really even discuss Ivy League schools. It still seems weird since most of the homschoolers we know go to either community college or the local colleges. I’ve pressed him and my husband to stretch their imaginations and expectations. My son has some excellent qualifications and it would be really nice if he would be able to be challenged in college on many fronts.</p>
<p>Oh, and he actually does have a personally compelling story but I don’t know that he would be willing to share it.</p>
<p>My son is applying to various schools and his top are Notre Dame, Columbia University, and University of Chicago.He loves Notre Dame so if he could get in there that would be great. He has 4.2 weighted gpa, got 31 on the act, and has ton of extra curricular activities including community service. He goes to a high end, private catholic high school but it is not like are income is great, we have had to make a lot of sacrifices including having to write to the president of his school for extra financial aid that usually the school doesn’t give and my s has had to work hard at school to pay off his the money they give him for FA. My son is 100% Latino my wife and I both emigrated from Nicaragua. Even though my son wont be First generation since I went to UC Davis (wife did not attend college), I am hoping that hopefully with his grades he can get into one of his top three. But I can tell that his heart right now belongs to Notre Dame but looking from schools naviance, the average gpa is 4.5. I’m hoping since ND doesn’t get a lot of applications from Latinos that my son with these stats/ accomplishments will be able to get in there…but I know…what are your thoughts?..o and one thing to add is that he helps with the recruitment of Latinos to his school since 90% of the kids at his school are Caucasian and 3% are Latino</p>
<p>Hi Jesuit and welcome to the Hispanic Students forum!</p>
<p>Yes, it can be beneficial to apply to schools who have a difficult time recruiting/retaining Latinos and it is a positive that he has shown interest in the Latino community.</p>
<p>As long as your S has a solid list of admissions and financial safety/match/reach schools, he’ll be fine. He sounds like a great kid who will thrive and make valuable contributions wherever he matriculates.</p>
<p>I come from a family where dads highest education is some high school and my mother graduated high school. Well, my brother got into cornell - hotel school early decision with a gpa of 3.7 and a ACT score of 25. His hooks are: Gay, Hispanic, First Generation.
I’m am now applying to cornell also</p>