Yes he is definitely applying to UMass Amherst. It is currently the school he is measuring other schools against, but he knows it isn’t as likely admission as the other UMass schools. It is a little hard to tell his chance for UMass Amherst engineering. I think he hs a very good chance, but I’ve read about some in-state kids with better stats being rejected (although more often for CS).
OP- I’m losing track a bit- I thought we were trying to find good fits for linguistics/psychology/data science/maybe engineering, lots of interdisciplinary work, but the focus seems to have shifted to “engineering is a must have”. Can you clarify?
Anyway- here are some options that kids who love Brown ALSO love, or end up there and by the end of first semester, love it (you’ll need to figure out which are affordable, are within your preferred geography, etc.)
Wesleyan
Haverford
University of Vermont
Rice
Muhlenberg
Wittenberg
Beloit
Lawrence
Holy Cross
None of these have everything-- but since I’m not sure exactly what about Brown resonated with your son, I’m suggesting that he poke around a bit for each of them.
Holy Cross for example- learning for learning’s sake, tremendously engaged faculty which takes undergraduate learning very seriously, not overtly pre-professional. Worcester? Probably where Providence was 40 years ago if he’s interested in watching economic development in an urban environment in real time!
University of Vermont- artsy, crunchy, not pre-professional.
Haverford- a great place for kids who love to learn, deep into intellectual inquiry but not competitive/intense vibe.
Etc.
If linguistics is even on the table at this point- U Mass Amherst for the win. I think Dartmouth checks off almost none of your son’s boxes. Lowell possibly a better fit but not by much- the flagship is the flagship for a reason.
I am not a big proponent of the “choose the school in the lowest crime area”. Would you rather your kid be at a college which takes personal safety seriously (blue lights, escorts and vans home from the library or a late night workout, accurate reporting of incidents so students know what’s happening, etc.) or at a college which suppresses crime data (actively encouraging students NOT to report to local law enforcement, fiddling with the numbers to classify a mugging as “property theft”, etc.)? In my experience, urban colleges do a much better job of awareness, training, safety protocols than the “safe” colleges. Any student can be a victim of crime anywhere- people know that kids are likely carrying expensive computers, wearing expensive watches, and are not paying attention when they cross a street because they have earbuds in and are distracted. The leafiest, most bucolic campuses have crime- much of which gets under-reported (your kid is the victim of a sexual assault at a party-- how relevant is it that the perpetrator is a fellow student or a local resident, if the college does not do adequate training on “how not to become a victim of a sexual assault”?)
Glad to hear U Mass Amherst is back on the table!
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Why does he need a local safety ? Lots of more national names - even close enough - wouldn’t break the bank and the kid you describe would be insulted at a U Mass branch. There’s nothing wrong with them but just based on what you wrote of your son. If he ends up wanting to be close, there’s Maine and URI.
I didn’t make my daughter apply to U of TN. She hated it and there’s lots of schools that made budget otherwise.
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It depends on the specifics of the core or GE requirements. If they are heavy in subjects that the student is less likely to be interested in, then they may reduce the schedule space available to explore different subjects.
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His thoughts have definitely shifted over the past six months. To summarize where he is now:
- definitely truly undecided
- not willing to eliminate engineering as a possibility, which means he will need to start as an engineering major to be on track
- the engineering fields that are most attractive to him are ones that lend themselves to inter-disciplinary approaches & are rare, like industrial engineering and human factors engineering, so he’s also willing to explore other fields that have some similar characteristics & could lead to graduate degrees in those areas, like systems engineering or computer engineering
- but since he is truly undecided, he wants to have schedule space in his first year and possibly second year to explore other fields, without those other explorations preventing him from graduating in four years with an engineering degree, or the engineering classes preventing him from graduating in four years with a non-engineering degree
- the other fields that are very interesting to him are things that are somewhat logical, somewhat problem-solving, involve answering questions and deal with people: cognitive psychology, linguistics, possibly economics or political science
- he does very much like the sound of interdisciplinary majors, like Northeastern’s computer science & linguistics or cog psych majors, but those are so rare, and he really is so far from knowing what he wants to do, that he isn’t making it a requirement
Oh and
- not as excited about computer science as he was six months ago. He really likes the logic/problem-solving aspects of it, but really hates the detail oriented and monotonous work of coding.
ETA
- currently he really likes the idea of being a management consultant (although I think there are lots of other jobs that have similar characteristics that he could also like) because he loves learning about problems and trying to find solutions. Since most degrees that have some math and analytical aspect of them could lead toward that, and it is likely he would need an MBA later anyway, it’s kind of a non-issue for thinking about picking an undergraduate school
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It is much easier to start in engineering and transfer out, than go the other way. Engineering courses are rigorous enough and numerous enough to take up most of a student’s time, so he likely will have to decide on that path early on. It is common for engineering students to take physics, math, and chemistry courses first year along with typical frosh writing and/or foreign language requirements as prerequisites before actually entering an engineering major. Those classes can also be prequisites for math/physics majors. It is a big commitment if he remains undecided.
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I would not apply Brown ED. For what I listed from the website, there’s no admission advantage. They don’t appear to take DE and engineering will ultimately restrict what he can take if he takes the abet program and he should.
While there is risk to opting out of math/stem classes and not repeating at the four year school, if that’s his choice then he needs a school that is friendly to these. Many publics and lower level privates will be.
Maybe it’s Ga Tech (budget issues) or a traditional public. For budget a Louisville ahd many of the others mentioned in past days. .
Yes for top tier consulting a top mba is likely later. At the same time the world is changing and maybe less so. And consulting runs the gamut of skills and industries. So it’s hard to hone in on it. I recently read a WUSTL Art History getting a job at McKinsey. Most those kids aren’t really consulting btw. But they work for consulting firms.
I do think the major is like neuro - human factors engineering - it’s made up to be catchy for todays kids. But one can do industrial combined with name a minor - psych, neuro. Even supply chain would go with it.
Good luck.
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Since your son is interested in Brown, this thread may be of general interest.
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In terms of more flagship-like schools (which is a more diffuse concept in the SUNY system than in most other states), has he considered SUNY Buffalo? Undergraduate Education - Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering - University at Buffalo More affordable than most OOS flagships, and they have linguistics and cogsci too, in addition to all of the engineering options he could want. I’m not familiar enough with the competitiveness of the Honors College to guess whether he has a chance, but he certainly could. And it’s hopefully not too far from your upstate NY family. I don’t think it’s come up in this thread, but that was because you were looking for smaller.
Also Binghamton - their engineering school is a bit cozier but still has industrial! Undergraduate | Systems Science and Industrial Engineering | Binghamton University
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That’s my thread thanks 
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As a fellow homeschooling parent having gone through this a year ago, just some observations and my biases to consider touching on some of your questions and specific circumstances…but only if they are helpful to you:)
Leverage whatever you can to boost leadership on the application using that term broadly.
Youth group leaders, church adults, community college professors or Dean’s, or DE coordinators who have known your child over time who can speak to their humanity, personal interactions and the traits your child will bring to the school that are not evident elsewhere on the application would be good references. Look for someone who can write and has experience writing evaluations and start developing a relationship with them early. Give that person a list of traits to which the prospective college wants them to speak (commonly found on the admissions page and homeschool page of the college website). Often these are things like, engagement, intellectual curiosity, leadership, character, initiative, etc. We also gave our recommenders a list of what was already on the application elsewhere so they could dovetail without duplicating (and have a reference unique to our student).
As far as the essay, having your child show (not tell) who they are by telling their stories we found a helpful approach, and brainstormed possible essay topics using the essay options available, our child’s interests and experiences, combined with for what the school says they use the essays. We found starting early and using the essays as our homeschooling writing assignments helpful (read less stressful). My child found the book On Writing the College Essay, by H. Bauld helpful and stress reducing through its humor and perspective. Anything put out by Lee Binz was helpful.
Merit aid will stack on need-based in any school worth its salt, especially for your kid’s scores. My guess is that your child is more likely to get merit than need aid except at very prestigious private schools. My experience is that any school where he is not strong enough to warrant merit aid will have enough of an endowment to meet need except maybe the top 4 or so public universities that are out of state, and that will vary by their individual OOS policies (need blind, need met, etc.) and how badly they want a kid from your region.
Private schools and out of state public schools are likely to know exactly what you would have to pay at in-state MA schools where he could get into and be competitive, and know that they will have to give “merit” aid that meets or beats MA instate tuition/costs depending on how badly they want him. At some schools, particularly big schools, honors colleges come with big merit scholarships for out of state students in particular.
Schools much farther away are going to need MA students more so than schools nearby (except in-state schools right next door), (but not as badly as they will need students from RI /nearby smaller populated states). If you are on a border county, see if adjacent states offer discounted tuition to out of state border counties. Also out of state schools public schools in the west may not quite meet in-state tuition through merit scholarships, but might meet western consortium tuition rates which are still a steep discount.
Watch your safety schools from a yield protect perspective. Some students find they are rejected from their safety schools because the schools hedge their bets that an applicant they know has cheaper more competitive options will likely go elsewhere anyway, so there is limited benefit in offering admission because the likelihood of a refusal that hurts yield is greater than acceptance that raises the school’s profile. Similarly watch applying for an adjacent out of state public school when they know you are competitive for a similar caliber institution at in-state rates.
With your child’s scores, I would not worry that testing again would make a score go down. Counselors know that the bias of a standard test is more likely to be a false low score than a false high score, especially in the higher range where one or two questions can make the difference, and any school worth a darn superscores. If they don’t, I suspect it is because they are too big and bureaurocratic to deal with it and their IT processes are dated…not probably a good match for your kid anyway.
I would be wary of any school with your kids scores and AP classes and DE that makes you jump through GED and diploma hoops as a homeschooler, since those other things are already standardized better and are less subjective than the variation in HS diplomas and MA already has a reputation for a high degree of homeschool regulation. You might want to look at W&M as an example as they have an admissions counselor dedicated to homeschooled and international students that is very responsive and easy to deal with. We had no trouble coming from a state with low regulation with scores 30 pts lower than yours applying to big in and out of state schools including top 10 and 20 public universities and top 20 private LACs (but we did not bother applying to any IVYs.)
If your child has a limited idea of in what he wishes to major, I would recommend looking particularly close as mentoring, internship, and career counseling service options and quality and encouraging your child to get involved with them as soon as possible. Here’s why: In our case, as is often the case with homeschoolers, we have an intellectually curious, engaged learner who was educated early in a liberal arts background and loves learning many subjects for the sake of learning itself, which is great for life-long learning, but not so helpful for narrowing down a major in a cost effective manner. We had several lengthy family discussions about our child’s purposes in attending college, any pivot in purpose of education while transitioning to adulthood, how much and long we were willing to and could pay for college, and our expectations for continuing to do so which included our student becoming self-supporting within so much time after graduation. I am not saying there is a right and wrong, only that each family has to decide this for themselves. It was only fair for our kid to know what resources could be counted upon to launch a self-sufficient adulthood.
Toward that end, I believe shadowing/apprentice/real world mentoring helps focus career interest more so than classroom learning because it helps inform the lifestyle one wants to lead, not just the subjects of interest. I also suggested that our child spend college tuition on things that can’t be learned and credentialed any other way than college because it is the most expensive way to learn (and in turn I agreed to gift a Great Courses subscription for Christmas so learning for learning’s sake could continue cheaper than through college:)
Wish your family all the best.
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Oh forgot…also, I never submitted a weighted GPA. It was never a problem. If you have doubts, you can always email the admissions counselor at the college. I did that once. They did not need me to submit weighted grades. I found there were too many variations in how weighted grades were done among high schools and colleges. If the colleges want it, they will calculate it themselves. We just put our grading system key on our transcript. I also specified what was a “parent grade” and what was an “outside teacher” grade (of which there were plenty…DE, co-op, etc.) “Outside teacher” grade systems were referenced in the course descriptions.
UMass Amherst is his perfect fit. Reasonable cost, has good engineering, fantastic linguistics and all the fields that articulate with it. If he can get into honors, he’s golden. Apply before the early action deadline and if he gets an answer before the RD deadline for the others, he’s done.
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Agreed - if he gets into his desired major (Industrial Engineering would be the starting point, I assume, and he could pivot pretty easily from there) and Commonwealth Honors, it’s a slam dunk, and most of the other recommendations become moot. Without Honors, it still deserves serious consideration. All of the other recommendations (apart from aspirational super-reaches with generous need-based aid) are really backups… but he does need backups.
Then there’s the question of, if he clears the NMSF threshold, will he turn down free for his best non-free option? (Tulsa sounds tempting but doesn’t have Industrial; UT-D [Systems Engineering, or CogSci w/HCI emphasis?] offers increasingly-good campus life and could be quite appealing if a full ride!) But that’s a bridge you and he can cross when/if you come to it! Mainly, if the free option is in play, it’s likely to cull the rest of the list quite a bit!
As for the merit-stacking question… most of those schools won’t apply merit to get below whatever family contribution their formula assigns to you. (Maybe - maybe URoch would, but that’s counterbalanced by their reputation for getting stingier as graduation approaches and it’s too late to transfer.) What most will do is use merit to eliminate the loans that would otherwise have been part of your package, so your aid becomes debt-free which isn’t nothing! (Anecdotally, I have heard of Northeastern failing to do even that when combining merit with need-based aid, but there’s at least a good chance that they would.) In terms of out-of-pocket, though, it’s unlikely that the bill will drop below what the NPC says, NMSF or not, unless the NMSF merit is so huge as to swallow the whole need-based package plus more, and you already know which schools those are.
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I’m unfamiliar with the engineering departments, so can’t speak to that, but St. Thomas fits in other ways: It is the right size, a beautiful leafy campus (in St. Paul, but has a tranquil residential feel, not urban.) Blue state. Mainly apolitical student body. Catholic affiliated, but not super religious. Ok to be a Christian or not be. Not sure I would call the students quirky or intellectual, but certainly there will be strong students. Can cross register for classes at nearby Macalester, if he is looking for quirky students.
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Yes.
Or, the student should be committed to using the first 2-3 semesters (at least… maybe four) taking a variety of courses in majors like:
- Math
- Biology/Physics/Chemistry
- English/Lit
- Communications
- Economics
- History/Anthro
- Sociology
- Psychology
- Philosophy
- Poli Sci
- A foreign language
Pick 12 of those (three semesters’ worth) and by then you should begin to feel a tug from one of them.
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Agree with you. And not just from course work- kid sees a sign on campus advertising a symposium on “Successful interventions for multi-generational poverty” where professors from the Econ, Poli Sci, Psychology and Sociology are reviewing what works/what doesn’t work from case studies around the world- kid shows up. Kid’s roommate suggests coming with him next week when a fantastic music professor and a visiting lecturer are going to reenact scenes from Macbeth in Hip- Hop. Some of my most memorable moments in college came from these serendipitous events … expand your boundaries, that sort of thing…
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As your son is thinking more about flagship universities and perhaps going bigger than the small to medium-sized schools he was looking at before, I’d take a good look at Binghamton (NY, about 14k undergrads) and U. of Vermont (about 12k undergrads), as they offer industrial engineering, computer engineering, linguistics, etc, while being within a 5-hour drive of your location.
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I have to disagree. I think St. Thomas is one of the most religious Catholic universities out there. The campus is filled with religious symbols and (I don’t know how to describe them) ‘decorations.’ One of the benefactors (I.A. O’Shaughnessy) donated all his regalia and it is displayed all over the campus.
A students doesn’t have to be religious to attend, but there is no doubt that it is a Catholic university and if that doesn’t appeal to a student, it may not be the place for that student.
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