My D is currently a junior in HS, and we’re starting to tour colleges. We’ve toured a few schools so far, and have more scheduled I’m really leaving it up to D as to where she wants to tour, and letting her do her own research. My only requirement was that she find one big school, one medium-sized school, and one small school to tour, just to figure out what she’d like. The problem we’re having is that so far, she’s liked all of them, and she hasn’t really liked one more than the other. I have no idea what to suggest for her at this point. So far we’ve toured:
UW-Madison (state flagship, older step-sister attends)
UW-La Crosse (medium sized, in-state, other step-sister goes there)
Macalester College (her small school)
Bowdoin College
I really strongly feel that D should tour around to see what she likes, so that’s why this is important for us. If it matters, she has a 31 ACT (she will be taking it again during March for state testing) and a 4.4 weighted GPA. I’ve tried to ask her questions to narrow down our search, but she’s pretty easygoing and sociable, making friends isn’t difficult for her, she doesn’t need a small-school environment to feel supported. She loved how small Macalester and Bowdoin were, and the students there (and she liked Bowdoin’s mascot), but then she also liked Madison and she thought going to the football games were cool.
I asked her if she preferred being in an urban area or being in a rural area. She said both were fine. I asked if she minded going to a large, spread-out school like Madison. She said it would mean she had to spend less time working out because of the all the walking. I asked if she preferred small class-sizes. She said she didn’t mind either way. I asked if she wanted to be close to home or wouldn’t mind being far away. She said either would be fine!
I know she’s selecting a lot of the schools we’re touring based on the fact that she’s either heard good things about them, or she just “likes” them. I don’t know if I’m over-stressing about this or should just be assured that eventually, when this process is over, D will end up at a school that she loves in the end. Any advice or suggestions?
Does she know what she wants to study? Different colleges and universities have different strengths.
My kids are dual citizens. They can live and work in 2 different countries. The first question I asked them (at the beginning of high school) was: Where do you want to live when you’re an adult? The answer to that question drove our search for colleges and universities. Does your daughter envisage herself staying in the area she is now or does she want to live elsewhere when she has her own career? It’s much easier to get a job in the geographical area where your college is.
And then there are kids like my DD…who went to the opposite coast for college. We thought she would stay there. But no…as she put it…she got California out of her system. College is a good time to explore another part of the country, however.
It sounds like your daughter is very flexible. As it gets closer, she may have more specific preferences in terms of college.
I think it is terrific that you have such a cheerful kid who can see herself being happy in so many different settings! She’s a junior. She has time to refine her list.
Sit down with your own financial records, and get straight with yourself about how much money truly will be available for her education. Then run the Net Price Calculator at the website of each place she’s seen so far. That will get you a decent notion of which of them might prove to be affordable. After you’ve had the money talk with your daughter, both of you will be better prepared to get serious about the college hunt.
She doesn’t know what she wants to major in. She does well in a lot of area in school. Academically she tends to do better on English/History/Foreign Language with less work than she does in Math and Science, but I think she has a passion for science that I don’t think she’s really noticed. She can really go either way.
As far as finances, merit aid would be nice but it isn’t necessary. She knows that. We can pay what we need and we are willing to pay what we need depending on the school, and D knows this. My ex and I are splitting her (and my older son’s) college costs 50/50 and we’ve had discussions about this. We want her to find a school that she’ll be happy at.
I truly am lucky to have such an easygoing and adaptable daughter, but it’s times like these when I’d wish she’d hate something! Finding a place to go out for her birthday is just as challenging. “D, where do you want to eat on your birthday?” “I dunno, I’m fine with wherever you guys want to go!”
We toured both UWEC and Beloit with my daughter, who is now a HS senior (her stats sixth semester were very close to your D’s now.)
She loved UWEC but they don’t offer a major she’s leaning toward, so didn’t apply, but I believe it’s the next selective school down from UW-Madison and UW-LAX.
She did not care for Beloit, because of the small size combined with the small town… As a parent, I really liked Beloit, though…
@badgers21 What isn’t obvious with liberal arts college like Bowdoin is that the gender imbalance makes it hard on the females. Bowdoin, Bates and Middlebury are particularly bad. Additionally, for a class of 500, figure 100 - 150 spots are for athletes, legacy and URM students. The also like to get at least one student from each state. Many students that should get in based on stats get turned away. Acceptance rates for females are 10% - 15% in the eastern schools. Colby would be a safer bet for New England choices. It’s much more difficult than Midwestern LACs. There are several in PA that might work like Gettysburg, Dickinson, Bucknell and Lafayette. Then also the small universities like Lehigh and Villanova. Villanova is an extremely attractive school on so many levels. I would disregard Villanova’s inclusion as regional university in US news. It is not easy to get accepted there. It’s absurd Villanova is ranked this way.
One thing I’d consider about going to a college farther away is travel time to get back home. If you and ex don’t live near each other, she’ll spend some time traveling between your houses, plus travel time to get home for holidays. If the school doesn’t have a full week off for fall break or Thanksgiving, trying to get to two homes in a short week may be impossible. Places like Gettysburg and Colby are not hassle-free.
Some friends had a son at Dartmouth and a daughter at ND. Daughter just had to come for surgery to her knee, so needed help in airports. Parents swear that the next kid can go to any school she wants as long as there is a direct flight. I think they’d like Southern Cal for a weather change too.
Seems like there is an important criterion that you are missing, which is that the school offers a wide range of majors, with little or no impaction that creates barriers to changing majors. That would be helpful for an undecided student who could go in many different directions. (Of course, some majors may require starting their prerequisites early.)
If she’s really that flexible, I vote for UW-Madison. Maximum choice with respect to majors and it’s a great flagship. If she does well there and has aspirations for graduate or professional school, a UW-Madison degree would be a great foundation to go just about anywhere. More prestigious than La Crosse.
Do not underestimate the hassles involved in getting home for the holidays if air travel is involved, especially if more than one flight and if from one cold and snowy clime to another (Bowdoin).
When the time comes for applications, I would have her apply to a few schools of different types, in case she develops a strong preference for a particular type of college experience late in the process.
Congrats on having such an accomplished and level-headed daughter!
Yeah, I vote for UW-M. Great school. Lots to choose from. I’ve heard they have a good honors program that might be possible if she can get her test score up a bit. I was reading your post thinking how my D was similar, until you mentioned she doesn’t know what major she wants to pursue. I’m lucky that my D has an idea, but that is pretty much all I have to go on. Without that, I’d be lost in trying to help her.
We’ve setup a weekly meeting to discuss things (suggested by someone here on CC), and had our first one tonight. That went really well, so I hope she takes over (most of) the process in short order.
For now I’d just keep visiting some schools and taking notes. My S also initially said that most schools we saw would be good but over time he developed more and more definite opinions about what he really wanted. Sometimes it just takes a while for things to get in their minds and for the idea of going away to college to get “real”.
Your D has over a year to nail down what she really wants in a college and it sounds like she has great parental support to help her along the way. If she is a person who could truly be happy in a number of situations then have her apply to a wide variety of schools, see where she gets in, maybe re-visit her top couple of choices and then decide.
^ I second UW-Madison. There’s a lot to love, plenty to do, great academic quality and rep, and lots of options for a major.
If you want to help her “find” herself a decent list of schools to apply to, below are her chances at a variety of schools. There are no rules for how many apps to send, but a lot of students on this site apply to a few reaches, a few matches, and a safety. Based on your daughter’s stats, and some schools already mentioned, here are her admissions chances at some Midwestern schools:
Reach: UChicago, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Carleton, Grinnell, Oberlin
Low Reach: Macalester, Kenyon
High match: St. Olaf
Match: UW-Madison, Beloit, Lawrence, Marquette, Kalamazoo, Wheaton
Low Match/Safety: UW-LaCrosse, UWEC, less-selective private schools
UW-Madison sounds like a good choice, especially if affordable. Give her some time to refine priorities on a major - - that may (or may not) give reason to add more schools down the road.
Thank you for the advice so far, everyone. I’m a former Badger, so obviously if she went to Madison I’d be thrilled. However, she has mentioned that she’d like to attend a school that her older siblings haven’t attended. Madison is certainly large enough where it wouldn’t be an issue, and I’m sure D would love it there, but she and her step-sisters have always been close so I think she’s looking to branch out from what they’ve done.
My only issue with her attending an LAC as that they don’t have a wide range of options which she needs right now. Granted, she may figure out what she wants to do as the year goes on and that will make this a lot easier, but for now it definitely is a considering and I’m thankful it was pointed out.
Ex lives in California, so I’m not entirely sure travel is an issue. Obviously when she’s on her own she has more liberty to visit him, but since we split she’s spent one month in the summer with him every summer and I imagine that would continue for a few years. He travels quite often for work and uses most of the off time he has for the breaks when our son is home (S attends a private boarding school in California-and typically visits for Christmas and a few weeks in the summer) so there has never been a point for her to visit over Thanksgiving and she’s always wanted to spend Christmas here.
She took her first ACT with no prep. She’s been studying for her March one and I’m expecting her score to increase by at least a little. Would Notre Dame be a reach for her? I think it would give her what she liked at Madison but also her “own” school away from her step-sister. I’m not sure about their selection of majors, though. She also mentioned that she looked at Carleton but was unsure about it, so I’m not sure if it’s worth it to take a look.
First, we have to define Reach. To me, a Reach school is one into which the applicant has a 5-15% chance of admittance.
A 31 is a little bit below average for an ACT score at Notre Dame among non-athletes, but it’s still in the ball park I think – I doubt highly that she would be excluded based on that 31 alone. Bumping it up to 32 or 33 would likely help, of course.
Notre Dame’s acceptance rate was 19.8% last year. That includes recruited athletes, legacies and URMs (under-represented minorities), so for your daughter (unless she has one of those hooks…), her chances are likely going to be lower than that 19.8% unless something in her application catches their eye: an extracurricular activity, or a great essay that she wrote as part of the application, or a great letter of recommendation… something like that.
Admissions difficulty is a function of your daughter’s stats, the stats of her competitors at a given college/U, and the selectivity of that school. The average non-hooked applicant to Notre Dame probably has about a 13-15% chance of being admitted, realistically. That, to me, is in the Reach category.
But 13-15% is much higher than 0%, right? She can only get in if she applies.
Edit: I forgot to mention that many private schools want to feel the love – applicants’ level of interest and enthusiasm is more important in the decision than it is at our alma mater (fellow Badger) and most other large schools. So if she does send apps to small private schools, showing her interest will help.
You are lucky to have UW as your flagship. Every student has a unique experience as well- having a sibling there wouldn’t cramp her style. Remember that UW uses the unweighted gpa. A dynamic campus- it keeps changing- for the better.
Her application list should include UW and U of Minn since some WI students get into one and not the other. The rest of the instate schools are not in the same league. However, UW-La Crosse and UW EC may be worth investigating as safeties. It is hard to look at schools when comparing them to top options at instate prices.
@prezbucky ND’s average ACT is a 33 across all students. 75% of students are in the top 5% of their class. If your estimate of 13 - 15% is correct on average then being below average has to have a substantially lower acceptance rate. A 31 is in the bottom 25%.
