<p>I spoke too soon. Right after I posted, S came down the stairs and said he thinks he should apply to NYU! Here we go again.</p>
<p>One last comment regarding the ED. Whether NYU is your daughter's best fit is not what I am addressing. A good friend from my HS applied to NYU last year, RD and was denied, accepted to IVY school. It was certainly not for credentials....top Prep Boarding, top student but they may have mistakenly thought she was a safety. If as you say your daughter is IVY candidate then I see your problem as being perhaps making sure NYU knows your intent to matriculate. This is a concern in my opinion. You may want to address this when you decline the ED option available to you.</p>
<p>This post reminds me of exactly where we were this time last year. D has always loved NY,though we are 12 hours away, she has been to the city a lot for dance. She has always said NYU was her dream school. We looked at several schools in the Northeast including Barnard and NYU. After the official tour, she was leaning towards Barnard because it felt smaller. Then she found out about the Gallatin School for Individualized Study at NYU. She went back up and sat in on a class and learned more about it. To make a long story short, she convinced us that it was definitely the place for her. She applied ED and got in. She, too, is a little shy, but she is very smart and creative and she has a lot of interests. Gallatin will allow her to pursue all these interests and the beauty of the program is that it is so small. At orientation I was so impressed. I got to met her advisor and lstening to the different faclluty members talk I realized how perfect this place is for her. She will be in the big city and big university she thinks is so cool,yet she is ina very small and nurturing program. There are 190 freshmen this year and everyone knows everyone. One of the Gallatin administrators told us their policy is "Catch them if they fall." They keep close tabs on the Gallatin kids and the upperclassmen are very helpful. Another plus to ED is those kids get first dorm choice. D got her first choice and she will move in this weekend. Of course I am anxious about the whole thing, whether she will like dorm, her roommate, will the classes be as great as they seem, etc. I say if you have done your research and your daughter still says NYU, go for it! After orientation I told my D that I was jealous. I would love to have the opportunities she is going to have and many of them she couldn't get any where else! Good luck!</p>
<p>I agree with all those who suggest you insist on an overnight and visits to some classes. My only additional advice is that you maintain a neutral attitude about NYU...if she starts to experience this as any kind of a power struggle, she may than feel inclinced to stick with it even if the overnight turns out to be disappointing (ie. not want to be proven wrong). And lastly, I would say from personal experience on this very issue, that if I kid has a strong gut feeling that a school is a good fit (even with parental misgivings), it very likely is.</p>
<p>My own philososphy:</p>
<p>When I see my kids making decisions that I think are not the best, or at least not well conceived, I feel obligated to tell them so, and tell them why. Then, if they insist on doing it anyway, well it's their life. (I mean assuming it's something like this, and not dangerous or anything...). If I tried to cram something else down their throat, and it didn't work out, they would just be after me about it forever. I more or less chose my own college, so within reason I'll let them do the same.</p>
<p>I think the best you can do is say ok, you can do it. If you first do an overnight there, and an overnight at these two other schools. And talk to these two grads/ current students at of NYU, and these two grads/current students at these other schools. If after you do all this you're still so convinced that you want to apply to NYU ED, well go ahead. We just want to be satisfied that you've really done your homework before you make this irrevocable decision.</p>
<p>An NYU experience is way different than a "normal" campus-centered college experience. It is 90% New York, and 10% school. This is not necessarily bad, since New York is a great city. My own opinion is she
will have other shots perhaps at living in New York and only one shot at undergraduate college. True she can transfer if she really hates it, but best to get in the right place in the first place.</p>
<p>I believe that if she does very well at NYU she can do well subsequently, even if she might qualify for "better" schools now. For one thing, NYU's professional schools and a number of graduate programs there are very good, and they probably favor their own undergrads to an extent.</p>
<p>It's not like it's a bad school or anything. It is however a huge, impersonal school with humongous bureaucracy. But NYC IS great.</p>
<p>Thanks everybody. I will make sure she sits in on the large feshman classes. Actually, I bet she will love an overnight (anywhere). I had thought of Gallatin, but our guidance counselor (overworked, public school) said she thought our daughter was "overqualified" for it and should just go to CAS since she doesn't want Tisch. How can one be "overqualified" for one part of the school. Is the coursework any different? I like the nurturing sound of it.
Note: One reason I am not thrilled about this choice is that my daughter would major in theater at any other school, but can't at NYU since to do that you must go to Tisch and be in conservatory 3 days a week. She doesn't want that - she wants a less pre-professional college experience, admitting she could POSSIBLY change her mind about theater while in college. Most schools let you major in theater just like you major in English or physics or whatever, but not NYU. So she'll essentially be giving up drama while she is there (though spending her free time in sketch comedy clubs that have nothing to do with school). Thanks for the good ideas and for listening to me vent.</p>
<p>I think you should talk to someone at Gallatin. Overqualified is not a fair assessment any more. Maybe Gallatin used to be one of the easier schools at NYU to get into, but not now. They got over 3400 apps this year,and as I said 190 freshmen. The average SAT was over 1400. I can't remember the exact GPA, but it was around 3.75 (unweighted). The roster of freshmen is a very diverse and impressive group. They told us at orientation that the school has gotten extremely competitive. That is for many reasons, of course partly due to the famous freshmen who entered last fall (MK and A), but also because the students chart their own course and they can do just about anything. (with the assistance of a very capable and enthusiastic advisor)The things the kids are doing in Gallatin are amazing and your d could easily incorporate her interest in theater or anything else. My d is a dancer, but she didn't want to go to Tisch either because she wants to do more than dance. She already has some pretty cool ideas and suggestions from her advisor on how she can incorporate dance into some other areas of interest. I guess it's obvious I'm sold and excited. That said,it is NY and it won't be the typical college experience, but I am betting it will be amazing and unlike anything my d could get anywhere else.</p>
<p>
[Quote]
...she wants a less pre-professional college experience, admitting she could POSSIBLY change her mind about theater while in college.
[/quote]
She might want to have a look at Northwestern University for this. NU has a top theater program with a well rounded BA or BS. They encourage double majors and make it easy to change majors. NU's proximity to Chicago might satisfy her craving for a large city. These were some of my daughter's reason for applying there (ED last fall).</p>
<p>Chicago is a nice town but it doesn't compare to The Big Apple. I have to friends from NYC who are at UChicago and two at Northwestern.....they have much to say about the lack of comparison to these two cities. I am not dissing Chicago but if one has their heart set on NYC going to Chicago isn't going to cut it....unless they are solely interested in Second City.</p>
<p>I would love to learn more about Gallatin - maybe that is the answer. Do you know how many females vs. males are enrolled? You said you were impressed by the entering freshmen - anything you can say about the type of kids there? When I call them they make it sound "perfect for anyone", so it is tough to get a read on who goes, etc. My daughter is a combination of artsy (interests)/ preppy seeming when you meet her, as is everyone else in our town. She is not looking for an "alternative" experience, i.e. she was not interested in schools with a hippie reputation, although she does lean toward the liberal. She's basically a fairly regular kid who wants to be somewhere more stimulating than her white bread suburb (which is about anywhere), and the only city she knows is NYC. She did not like Northwestern (I did!) because it felt too suburban.</p>
<p>Gallatin is not the students per se but the department as it were....advising, degree requirements.....Gallatin students take classes with everyone else.</p>
<p>Prospective BA Students</p>
<p>In Gallatins undergraduate program, you combine study in your chosen area of concentration with a liberal arts education focusing on significant texts and the history of ideas. Your course work will consist of classes offered within Gallatin as well as in the various schools of New York University. This solid foundation in the liberal arts tradition is augmented by elective components such as arts workshops, advanced writing courses, community learning courses and projects, internships, independent study, private lessons in the arts, and study abroad.</p>
<p>The key to Gallatins educational approach is its faculty advisers. Your adviser ensures that your program has depth, breadth, and coherence and is consistent with your career and educational goals. Advisers also supervise and evaluate independent study and internship projects.</p>
<p>To follow up on hazmat's info about Gallatin, the advisors seem to have a small load of students, therefore, they can get really involved in working with the student. My d's advisor is supervising 6-7 students. The night I met him he had met my d for 15 minutes that day and he already knew quite a bit about her and he had a lot of ideas for her. These people specialize in helping these kids figure out how to put their interests together to come up with a major. </p>
<p>This year's freshman population comes from all around the US and I think they said there are about 15-20 Asian students. My d sounds a lot like yours and she thinks she is going to fit in very well and have lots of friends. 165 members of this year's class were at orientation so she got a good feel for the kinds of kids in her class. She said there were all kinds of kids, but "plenty like her." My d is very artsy, but also wasn't looking for an alternative situation or a hippie school. She just wanted something different and stimulating and somewhere where she could have more control over what she is doing .I can certainly keep you posted once we actually get started and see if the reality is as great as we've been told.</p>
<p>I personally think that for some kids the "power" over destiny and "control" over what courses they want to take.....making their own label as it were is the draw. Students who want to think of their own desires for learning and also not being locked in. I like this program and many successful folks have graduated from it. Some kids need the independence and if that is the drive...well as I said NYC is a great city, NYU is a fine school and these kids are not floating through a school waiting to fail.....quite the contrary.</p>
<p>Maybe I missed it- but did you say which major or interest your daughter would pursue at NYU?</p>