- -- ok, speaking of introverts another disadvantage that we've seen (and are seeing it now) is the club/team leadership aspect. It seems that the presidents, captains, etc are often on the extroverted side of things; along with the smooth talkers, the players, the funny kids. My introvert sort of stays under the radar with that all; and I do think that's a slight disadvantage. But he's sure learned a lot by listening.
OP, you are right that extroverts have an advantage over introverts. Good essay writers have an advantage over those who don’t write well. If your daughter is an extrovert who writes well, that’s great. If she is neither of those, she can ask a school English teacher to help, or get help here on CC.
I don’t believe that extroverts have an overall advantage in interview situations and you don’t do your kid any favors by increasing their anxiety by telling them that. Introverts interview beautifully as long as they aren’t completely non-communicative and stare at their fingernails for half an hour. Introverts are often happy to do a deep dive on a subject of massive interest to them-- they aren’t going to spend fifteen minutes on idle chitchat, but the interviewer isn’t interested in idle chitchat!
You can help your kid do better in interview situations regardless of how he or she is wired. Practice eye contact; practice handshakes, practice asking follow up questions if your kid didn’t understand the initial prompt.
I’ve seen introverts nail an interview- and seen extroverts blow it. (I interview for a living).
The issue of kids and leadership in HS situations is also a tricky one. Class president, head of the honor society, any form of student government- these are often popularity contests which favor the cool kids. But there are all types of leadership. Pope Francis? General/President Eisenhower? Winston Churchill? Nancy Pelosi? Golda Meir? Bill Gates? These are all distinct personalities- there’s no single “type”.
Not every kid is going to have the right resume for scholarships that want oodles of community service, in the same way that a white male from Greenwich, CT is not going to be eligible for a scholarship targeting Af-Am females from rural Kentucky. Help your kid perform at his/her peak for whatever is a fit.
My D is an introvert and had plenty of interviews. She wrote her essay about being shy and had lots of great offers. I don’t think it’s bad to be an introvert, but I definitely think extroverts have an advantage and there are plenty of studies that support that. Of course, no parent should tell their child they are at a disadvantage if they are introverted. We have to be who we are.
Extroverts definitely have an advantage at some of the big scholarship weekends. We’ve been to many. I can tell you a number of major full rides that choose the extroverts, even though they end up missing out on some really great kids who end up outshining the extroverts in college. I also coach students for these competitions. It’s not just about personal interviews. It’s about the entire weekend of events, which they use to identify the extroverts. It’s no surprise that my D ended up at a school that has a more intellectually focused rather than popularity focused scholarship competition. One on one with an interviewer(s) or a classroom type discussion and she’ll win almost every time, but the ones that wanted the most bubbly kids or that made friends with everyone immediately, she did not win those. This is why it’s important to dig into the details of each scholarship.
I have been following this thread with interest since both S19 and S20 are top 1% kids and we are all about merit. (For the negative folks out there - not because we didn’t manage to save $ or can’t afford to cashflow but because why not leverage high stats into free $?)
Just to chime in our experience with B/K at UMD. Please understand the level of competition there. UMD has become quite competitive in recent years and I have seen top kids not even get an honors invite. My S19 (NMF, 36/1570, national competitor for speech and debate, state competitor for XC, leadership in all sports/clubs, Eagle Scout, self-initiated community impact project, graduated with 66 credits between AP and DE, attended UMD recruitment engineering summer program and is a legacy many times over but now OOS) made it into honors mechanical engineering with $12,000/year merit and no invite to B/K weekend. No sour grapes over here because the OOS kids I saw getting invites were off the charts.
S19 also went after University of Delaware for merit. While their auto merit did not get the cost down to where we wanted it (he received $17,000/year auto) he was invited for the Distinguished Scholar Weekend and was awarded their full-ride plus Dupont award. UD’s application required some extra honors essays and I think his essays made a big difference as they allowed him to showcase his strengths to a greater extent than the UMD application essays.
I hate to throw another school into the mix but UD is very highly ranked for ChemE and I think your daughter would absolutely have a shot at their competitive merit. I realize that overall UD is not as highly ranked as some of the others you are considering but be aware that the Distinguished Scholars kids are turning down full pay at some very elite schools to take the full ride there. My son never applied to any elite schools but turned down full rides at UF, UCF and the NMF package at Alabama to attend. For him, it came down to fit and the special perks of the Distinguished Scholar program. My S19 has been there a week and is over the moon.
Good luck to your daughter!
Interviews are basically tests of in-person sales and marketing skills, which are the real qualities that are selected for (rather than extroversion/introversion or qualities relevant for what is being interviewed for that may be the intended selection factors).
I agree about UD and I think UMD is a possible too. I’ve seen kids get the Banneker and not the UD top awards. It doesn’t always make sense.
Both schools are easy apps till it comes to getting the big money. Also easy ins, IMO. It’s the BIG MONEY that is the issue.
I just don’t like the perpetuation of the stereotype that students in engineering/math/cs are not just introverts, but “nerdy” introverts (what’s that even mean?)
The problem is NOBODY knows if their kid is top 1% until around high school and therefore should be saving for college early and often in case they don’t quite reach the stats for lots of merit. For example, D20 has always been a top student and historically good test taker but did not quite make NMSF and is topping out at 32 ACT. Had we solely relied on merit for college she would not have nearly as many options (especially if she wants to stay in-state CA) without us saving a considerable amount of money over the past 17 years. I look at merit as gravy but not something that the majority of families should rely upon to fund their kids college education. If so, these families might be setting themselves up for disappointment or limited options. These are not “negative” comments just the facts as college becomes more and more expensive in the future and the big merit money harder to come by. Good luck to all…
I have no doubt that some scholarship weekends are choosing the sales and marketing pros. But that is absolutely not the case across the board- I know quiet, reflective, cerebral kids who have won big time money; I know brilliant kids who cannot self promote to save their lives but who shine when it comes to discussing the volcanic ash in Pompei and why ruins in Italy are better preserved than contemporaneous ones in Ireland.
Not every scholarship is looking for self promotion skills. Some are looking for actual scholarship. And if you’ve got a cerebral, introspective kid, help that kid figure out which college and which scholarship committee is looking for the absolute best of the best in the “Intellectual” category, and not the “cheerleader” category.
The money that’s going to the “I have a bazillion hours of community service” kid is going to be a waste of your kids time if that’s not your kid.
Kids change. One of mine was very introverted, and really flew under the radar screen in high school. That same kid came into their own in college. Really blossomed. Had to do multiple interviews for a great college job, and had no difficulty.
So…just because your kid is an introvert now…does not mean they will be an introvert forever.
Obviously, an applicant for a highly competitive scholarship or college using subjective evaluation needs the substance to impress those awarding the scholarship or admission. If the substance clearly stands out by itself, then great. But if it is merely competitive, how well it is sold and marketed (not necessarily in rah-rah ways – introverted people can be effective at sales and marketing in many contexts) can affect who wins (and what is good sales and marketing to one scholarship committee may not be to a different scholarship committee). Remember that application essays are effectively sales and marketing documents (the applicant is selling himself/herself). Recommendations are sales and marketing documents written by others to sell the applicant.
Boy, the “introvert” aspect has exploded! Not all STEM kids are introverts, of course not. But I bet a much higher percentage of STEM kids are introverts compared to the general population. And “nerd” is a term of endearment. She has passed up many functions, gatherings, and parties because she wanted to study. She gets chided (but not in a mean way) from her teammates about being in the math club, even though at a winter hockey tournament as a sophomore she helped the seniors on her team study for their Calculus AB test. I remember in 8th grade I came home from work and she was so excited to tell me about a new concept she learned in math at school that day. That’s being a “nerd/geek”. It’s a good thing! Perhaps we need a nerd pride awareness program - I’ll start on a flag!
Oh sure about the introvert aspect of the very top STEM kids. Spend a summer at a top math camp like Canada/USA Mathcamp, PROMYS, Ross, MOP, SUMaC, etc. Sure, not all are introverts, but boy it’s a high percentage.
Hello @KevinFromOC
While I have been regularly browsing this site for about a year, this is my first post. I felt compelled to create an account to provide my advice after facing a very similar situation to yours last fall.
Our son attending the local public high school had high stats and NHRP status but did not get NMS, in part due to the fact that he had not prepared for the PSAT as we did not know that the test mattered when he took it (we were under the erroneous impression it was just a practice test). In fact, we did not even know that there was such thing as NHRP until the school counselor informed our child that he had been nominated. Anyway, he wanted to study civil engineering. And as you, living in New Jersey which is a high cost of living area, we have a large income compared to the national average which meant that expensive schools looked out of reach even though we were told by poorly informed people that we might be pleasantly surprised by the amount of aid we would get.
Not really knowing what to expect, he applied to a dozen schools, with the understanding that price would be a factor in the final decision: Rutgers, TCNJ, Stevens, Princeton as they were somewhat local. MIT, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon to see what we would get. Georgia and Virginia Tech because the prices appeared to be potentially reasonable for out of state schools. And finally, University of Kentucky (UK) and Arizona State University (ASU) because they claimed to offer incredible deals to NHRP students.
Applying to a dozen schools is a lot of work, but after writing a few essays, one can recycle ideas so it should not take more than four hours on average to apply to a school. Note however that a lot of schools only offer scholarships to students that apply early (as early as October 1st for Georgia Tech) so you need to make sure that you establish an aggressive application schedule and stick to it. He applied Early Application (EA) whenever a non-restrictive option was offered, and regular application otherwise.
A school that stood out for us is Arizona State University, and that is where he headed two weeks ago. While it was not a school on our radar, our son went to visit their Barrett Honors College after receiving an unsolicited letter basically offering to cover his trip. It was the first time he was flying by himself and he really liked his visit. I don’t know if they will offer that option this year but you might want to have your daughter inquire.
Honors Colleges are in our opinion a great concept. They are much cheaper than private schools yet seem to offer a great environment for high stat kids. A very good resource on the topic is in my opinion the book “Inside Honors 2018-2019: Ratings and Reviews of 50 Public University Honors Programs” by John Willingham (as well as the associated website). A 2019-2020 edition might come out later this year but even if so, the content will probably be similar. I also like “Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania” by Frank Bruni which frequently writes in the New York Times.
Acceptance letters came in little by little. He ended up being rejected by MIT, Princeton and Georgia Tech. He got accepted by all the other schools. While slightly discounted due to need, prices for Cornell and Carnegie Mellon were in our opinion unreasonable. While Stevens provided a significant merit scholarship, it was also unreasonable in our opinion considering its ranking. TCNJ and Virginia Tech did not offer enough merit discount to significantly lower the price. Rutgers and ASU both offered significant merit which made them both similarly priced and both accessible to us. University of Kentucky ended up the cheapest since, as advertised, they also offered money for the room the first two years. Sadly, University of Kentucky is somewhat difficult to reach from NJ and did not offer to arrange a personalized visit so our son never went to visit and therefore we ended up not considering it. He eventually decided on ASU over Rutgers.
Assuming you decide to go to the Barrett Honors College at ASU and you get the a large scholarship, note that they charge numerous fees (engineering fees, honors fees, miscellaneous fees) so your total cost might end up over 15K/year, but still very likely under 20K/year, which even though it is over your target might be your best option.
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@KevinFromOC – I will share my daughter’s journey in hopes it may help yours (or someone else’s) in some way. My daughter had similar stats (35 ACT, 4.0 UW, many APs and dual-credit hours), was applying for engineering, and is a URM with big local leadership positions, a well-known university level research summer program, and volunteer hours with a variety of interests. She also started working part-time when she was 14 and was a varsity athlete in one sport. Like you, we felt our absolute max yearly out of pocket was $15,000. She applied to two safeties and 8 which were reaches due to selectivity or because we could only afford if she was awarded the school’s limited full ride merit scholarships. She only applied to schools she would be happy to attend, but was careful to not fall in love with any one school due our financial situation. There were some other maybe schools on the list, but by the time she filled out all of the applications and scholarship extras (including extra rec letters), we were both fried at 10. And then the invites to diversity fly-ins and scholarship interview weekends started. I think her senior year was a blur, with every minute scheduled.
Her results were: admitted to Princeton with a yearly COA comfortably within our budget, admitted to Stanford with a COA comfortably within our budget, admitted to Rice with full tuition grant (we are below $130,000 household income) AND $15,000 Trustees Scholarship (which stacks–and there was no extra application–notice came with acceptance letter) with our COA being about $1000, admitted to Cornell with $21,000 COA which they lowered to match Princeton upon showing proof of Princeton’s COA, admitted to Vanderbilt with COA $23,000 (appplied for Cornelius Vanderbilt and one other selective scholarship but got no scholarships or interviews for scholarship money), admitted to Southern Methodist and a finalist for the full ride Presidential Scholars (my daughter really liked their small but very personal Engineering school), admitted to UT Austin (auto admit for her but not auto admit to major, she did not apply to engineering here but rather to Plan II honors) to Plan II Honors and was a finalist for Dedman Scholars full ride (but without Dedman, she was only offered a $5300 scholarship, so COA was in the $19,000 range), and admitted to our local university with full tuition scholarship and offered chance to apply for full ride but she chose not to. She was rejected by one Ivy and waitlisted at another.
We targeted Rice and Vanderbilt because they are among the few schools that say they meet full financial need AND have some generous merit scholarships. I hope you will take another look at Rice–it is a terrific school and well regarded for engineering. My daughter absolutely loved Rice and it was a tough decision. In the end, she chose between Stanford, Rice, Princeton and Cornell. Rice is also looking to expand its nationwide recognition, and offered many California students waived application fees last cycle according to what I read in the CC Rice 2023 thread. She did show a lot of interest to Rice, and she attended SOAR there. I also think your daughter would have a good shot at SMU’s Presidential Scholars, and they also gave my daughter a waived application fee after she showed interest. One final thing–after you apply to Vanderbilt, it takes about 2 days to receive your applicant ID number, and you cannot do the scholarships apps until you receive that app ID number. Because we were unaware, my daughter cut it very close to the Dec 1 deadline for scholarship applications.
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My take re Outlanders post is that OP’s dd is a very different student, very different URM, no leadership per se, no research, and OPs income is quite a lot higher. These are major differences.
My understanding is that meeting need isn’t going to be enough for OP. Especially is the list is lately talking more about to full rides.
@Outlander I agree with @Sybylla. There is no magic need-based aid for URMs, no matter how high the stats. All need-based aid is based on income and OP’s income is well above yours. Even if OP’s D is admitted to top schools, a $15k net price is unlikely. Also OP’s D may not have all the extras for many competitive full rides.
@Sybylla and @itsgettingreal17
You are both very knowledgeable posters, and I have learned much from your posts in the past. I understand that our income is lower than OPs, but we are not low income either. The main reason I shared our story is that OP was considering some of the schools we “chased” that stack merit on top of need, and I thought it might be helpful for him to see my D19s outcomes and tips and whys. I gave details so OP could see the similarities and differences in our children and circumstances and make his own conclusions… His daughter has some strengths that mine did not have, and vice versa. I did consider leaving out the Stanford, Princeton and Cornell outcomes because I agree those are probably not going to be affordable for OP if his D is admitted. I also do think his daughter is someone SMU would be interested in for their top full ride scholarship. Finally, I wanted to agree with others and highlight how much work it was for my daughter to do only 10 apps plus scholarship essays. Recognizing that our situations are not completely equal, and certainly recognizing that there is no magic need-based aid for URMs (I never implied in any way that this was the case so I am confused as to why itsgettingreal17 would say that in response to my post), I hope what I took the time to share might be of some help to OP or others reading this thread. I learned so much on CC that truly helped me and my daughter in her college search.
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