<p>Take her to visit campuses in GA, it is usually a day trip, she may change her mind about local schools. I would encourage her to take SAT ASAP and re-take ACT. </p>
<p>Being adopted from China is not unique or a hook, especially at Stanford. Being Asian might help a little if she wants to go to Kansas or Arizona or to a small LAC in Indiana, but Stanford has all the Asians it needs. There are scholarships for Asian students at a few schools, but they are small.</p>
<p>How do I know this? My daughter is a Chinese adoptee. I know hundreds of kids adopted from China, and all their stories are similar; I’m sure her story is compelling, but it is not unique except to her and the admin officers have read the same story many times. Some adoptees have written about their struggles as an Asian child in a white family, or growing up as a minority but they have to make the story fresh for the essays. Just saying she was abandoned as an infant will not be unique in any way</p>
<p>I think it is great she’s excited by colleges as a junior. She still has a lot of time to look for schools, set goals of how to get into those schools, find hidden gems. My daughter goes to an engineering school, but there are a lot of bio med majors, or bio tech majors. Also a lot of psychology majors, especially working with autism. Alas, no D-1 sports but a lot of fun D2 ones.</p>
<p>Your daughter might like Agnes Scott in GA. Lot of those students follow GaTech sports.</p>
<p>Emilybee, The OP’s daughter has medical school on her mind. To get above a 3.5 GPA, she should be looking at schools where she can perform in the top 25% or higher. (I know, many future MDs change their mind.) She should be trying for as much financial/merit aid as she can get, to have money left for medical school. In essence, she could learn from MiamiDAP’s DD.</p>
<p>if her future goal was not medical school, then I would probably be suggesting looking for a school with a strong program in her field. </p>
<p>Given the difference between grades and AP score (5) on the one hand, and standardized test scores, I would think about doing a neuropsych. evaluation, especially given the girl’s early history. Public schools will do this. The standardized tests may be uncovering some learning challenge that she has so far compensated for. Is there any evidence for this? Or are her academic skills uneven, with stronger verbal than math, for instance?</p>
<p>I would not offer incentives or disincentives in a case where the student is clearly motivated, but not performing: it will only make her feel worse. (I realize that some kids apparently need to prepare for SAT and ACT but in theory that should not be needed: they are aptitude tests.)</p>
<p>One more time: the desire to go to medical school is sometimes a mark of immaturity and lack of sophistication. I would not base all decisions on that future goal, nor is there a need to. A student can major in anything as an undergrad and still go to medical school later.</p>
<p>There is absolutely no reason to create a stressful situation trying to get thru doors that are barely open for a very few. Why? After all, the kid may not even like such a school, may feel out of place. Just choose the school that will welcome her with wide open arms where your D. will feel “at home”, where she will be comfortable with the student body and can choose from variety of kids. Many top schools (and even HSs) have homoginious type of students, very focused, too intense, hard to have normal conversation with. Well, I mention that because both of my D. and GrandD are always looking to be with variety of people and definitely do not see themselves in a crowd of kids who focus primarily about their academics. BTW, both are straight A students with high scores. Poor GrandD said that at her HS, she has to go as far as being on the gymnastics team to be with kids who are more fun. Self-motivated kids simply do not want any more pressure around them, they put enough on themselves by themselves, they want to relax with friends with wide variety of interests. D. had a Music Minor for this reason and participated in Sorority, both of whcih had very positive effect during her college life as well as now, 3 years later. Just keep in mind that it is not just UG, it is 4 years of the young life and they should be memorable from the positive porspective. </p>
<p>Sorry to diverge from the focus of the thread, but MiamiDAP, please do not suggest that studying music is a way to “relax.” It is a rigorous area of study with a required sequence of classes in theory, history, composition, and other difficult topics, and quite a few academic and artistic pressures.</p>
<p>Thank you all for the wonderful replies!</p>
<p>My D also reminded me that she co-authored a published book along with some other students as part of National Honor Society. The book was sponsored by Gary Martin Hays. Would this be considered a hook?
I’ll post the link if anyone’s interested 
<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Will-Make-Difference-Students-Inspire-ebook/dp/B00IJJ6VR0/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417838057&sr=1-3&keywords=gary+martin+hays”>http://www.amazon.com/Will-Make-Difference-Students-Inspire-ebook/dp/B00IJJ6VR0/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417838057&sr=1-3&keywords=gary+martin+hays</a></p>
<p>Not a hook, but a nice EC.</p>
<p>
At what age was she adopted? Does she remember any of her life in china? Not sure if there is enough for an essay about it if she only has memories of a middle class life in the US w nurturing parents who took it as a default she would somwday go to college. </p>
<p>Unless she can pull at least a 30 on the ACT, you will have to rethink that list. Many are state schools where you are out of state and Stanford, Rice and USC are very selective schools, Stanford among the most selective. I don’t agree that standardized test are important but the schools you listed rely heavily on them, especially for out of state applicants. You may wanna consider a school like Wake Forest which is test optional.</p>
<p>Take her to visit Agnes Scott -they match HOPE and they’re very, very good for science. They have a partnership with Georgia Tech, too (both for mixers/activities, and to take a couple classes).
Other colleges that are strong in biology or psychology, good for a student with ACT 26-29, would include Eckerd, Juniata, Wheaton (MA), Clark, Goucher.
Lesley, mentioned upthread, is located in Boston, a city that’s terrific for college students, and has a “low tuition” policy coupled with some automatic scholarships meant at boosting the school’s profile. While total costs may not be within your budget, it’s worth it to check it out/run the NPCs.
If she’s in a big city, she can follow professional sports, rather than college sports.</p>
<p>deleted. wrong thread.</p>
“Unless she brings up her test score substantially (32+), she will need to take most of those schools off her list. Sorry to be that blunt.”
Those were my thoughts. Not that I want to burst anyone’s bubble, but Berkeley or Rice with a 26 ACT? Chapel Hill isn’t happening either out-of-state. With that GPA and test score, I would advice looking at the really top test-optionals like Wake, Bowdoin, etc. Otherwise, she’s going to be ‘numbered-out’ as they say. There is no way she’s getting into either UC or Rice or Michigan with a 26. And Stanford, at the risk of sounding mean, isn’t even a stretch - it’s a pipe dream.
Unless I missed that she’s a recruited athlete, which is a game changer, the only schools on this list with a shot are A&M and Ohio State, and I wouldn’t assume those either.
NYU is test-optional to the extent that you’re a full IB Diploma candidate and your projected scores are over their threshold.
@sitamom, you are maintaining a wonderful attitude about all the people here telling you how this all works. kudos to you for having a tough skin. you are going to need it now:
i’ve been down this road twice and working on my last, #3 kiddo. I attended a large state university for undergrad and an Ivy League law school. I live in a part of Seattle that is somewhat of a mixed-zone between the blue-collar north-end of lake washington and the very, very wealthy, educated white collar areas of Kirkland, Redmond, Bellevue, etc. so I’ve spent time with people who know this topic very well and those who don’t at all (and understandably so). you seem to fall into the latter category. nothing wrong with that, but I think it’s time for you to perhaps acknowledge it to yourself, and then get off the internet and go do something about it.
here is what I would do. if at all possible, find a private college advisor (assuming your school resources aren’t getting it done) and pay for some counseling. it’s never cheap. some will give you a price break if you can demonstrate need. but if you can come up with, say, $2 to $3K, it might be the best money you spend in all of this. because I can tell from your posts, especially your responses to what others are telling you, that you don’t really feel comfortable in this arena. and there is no shame in that at all.
for example, you wrote: “Stanford is the ‘if only…’ school and after talking to her, she does realize the improbability of actually attending.”
I must tell you here, Stanford isn’t improbable. It is almost technically not possible unless she’s an athletic recruit. and while Stanford is never going to happen without a mammoth jump on that ACT score (something that doesn’t JUST happen btw - takes a lot of work and time to jump your SATs/ACTs), neither are most of those other schools you listed. She’s not getting into Chapel Hill in or out of state with a 26, nor Rice nor UCLA nor Berkeley nor Michigan. It won’t happen, to the point that you may as well take that app. $$ and flush it. So then you get to the more subtle stuff about why attend A&M or Bama OOS with the high cost vs. something more affordable and perhaps better. For example, she may be much better off at a mid-tier LAC or a higher-tier LAC that is test optional, and that might not cost that much more than A&M OOS.
Also, while @mom2collegekids makes good points about pre-med (my oldest is taking some time off and applying in the next cycle), let me clear, I think it is a HUGE MISTAKE to make your undergrad selection with that narrow goal in mind. She may not want to be a doc. later on, so attending some school that suffices for that purpose but isn’t so great for many others probably going to be a mistake, because going to med school isn’t a likely outcome just based on the probabilities. Don’t let her do that. The odds of your D becoming a doc. are just not high. Those are just the facts. And a good LAC option for her would also do the trick even if she sticks with it. LACs launch a lot of medical careers.
Bottom line: you need help, and reading more posts on CC isn’t the kind of help you really need. I’d sign off CC right now and spend time finding a way to pay for a college counselor. For someone like you, it would be a HUGE help.
Good luck to you.
@compmom: “(I realize that some kids apparently need to prepare for SAT and ACT but in theory that should not be needed: they are aptitude tests.)”
There is a test prep center in Kirkland, Washington that is very well known in Seattle, and the woman who runs it used to write tests for the college board. She would say that statement is dead wrong. She would also point out that the outcry against financial bias in standardized testing is entirely justified because prepping is huge.
Those who say it isn’t are usually basing it off of what a kid can accomplish in 8 weeks. Sure, you don’t go from a 1600 to a 2400 in 8 weeks. But if you attend a private school and that school brings in someone like Molly (and they do) to teach a class twice a week after school starting in 8th grade, then it becomes a HUGE predictor of score outcome.
With the exception of performance at the extreme tails of the bell curve, these tests are not about aptitude. Prepping is big. I don’t mean having your own book and doing it alone. I mean spending a year with a professional and hitting it hard and strategically, including making educated decisions about SAT vs. ACT. It’s incredibly affected by coaching and thus by $$.
“Some kids”?? A good % of kids who score high had coaching. It’s not a bad thing in my view. My kids have benefited from it.
Muhlenberg? LAC in Pennsylvania with strong pre-med, middle range ACT 25-50, amazing need-based aid, small % of Asians.
My d is also adopted from China, and would prefer a larger school, but applied to some LACs. LACs are the most likely places where being Asian will give you a boost in admissions. Many of the reachier/wealthier ones have expense-paid diversity fly-ins.
Oh, it’s so fun to discuss the name brand colleges, cherry picking from that list. Which is better, HP or Y? Stanford on the list or maybe Duke? It’s easy to get those names of the most well known schools, which often tend to be highly selective. The big name sports type schools like OSU, Mich State, UG, with the name recognition.
The real challenge of picking college is going beyond that. Scratching below the surface and getting to the nitty gritty. What can you afford? How much are the schools likely to cost? If a school guarantees to meet full need, schools like Rice, Stanford will but how much will they say you should need? Get that info as well as the likelihoods of getting into the schools. No big deal throwing in some lottery ticket schools in the mix, but get a realistic picture of the likely, affordable school, and make sure they are on the list too.
Hard to say where your DD will be test score wise. I have two sons, one after the other, went to the same high school, took about the same courses with close to the same grades, and they were not that far apart in PSAT and PLAN scores. With a little test prep, the younger one took off, and did well the first time he took the SAT for real. Th other one couldn’t even do as well as the adjusted scores would project. Didn’t bode well for college admissions at all. Did test prep up the whazoo, took the ACT, SAT mulitple times and the numbers wouldn’t budge. He was not going to get into college on those numbers, certainly not the big name schools, and merit money wasn’t likely. We had to focus on a realistic list for him.
So if your DD is interested in NYC, look at Manhattan College, Iona College, Wagner, other such schools, as well as NYU. You support her applying to her lottery tickets and she adds some state schools where you know she’ll be acccepted and are affordable in return, and see how the spread looks at the end of the process. There may be a surprise in the mix. We did get some pleasant surprises in our process.
Husky Lawyer, I said in theory. It is called the Scholastic Aptitude Test and, yes, in theory, tests aptitude, not achievement. Of course coaching as you describe will raise scores. So will reading during childhood and adolescence (for verbal).
If everyone stopped doing the prep, it would again be an aptitude test with a more level playing field, though still no doubt biased in other ways. (My own kids did absolutely no prep.)
Everyone is affected by what everyone else does and it has distorted the tests, yes. If I write “in theory” it should be clear that I do not mean “in reality.”
It used to be the Scholastic Aptitude Test, but now it’s just the SAT, not an acronym for anything. Even ETS and the College Board realized it wasn’t measuring aptitude.
I agree with Huskylawyer on a college consultant if possible. One of the reasons we hired one (ours actually was very reasonable as I only paid $800 total - it was pay as you go from a counselor with 30 years of experience but a side job so he didn’t need to charge an arm and a leg). is my son initially had unrealistic expectations of where he wanted to attend given his stats. The counselor gave him recommendations of where we would get in within the budget we set and helped him to embrace and like every one of his 15 (yeah, it grew - was supposed to be 7) applications. Of course, now, since they are all good choices, it’s going to be tough to make a final decision!