<p>warriorboy, my D is applying ED to her top choice school. Her GC told her that she’d fill out that school’s specific rec form, and send the Common App rec form to the other schools D is applying to (usually our GC’s just fill out one rec form and make copies). But after D’s meeting with the GC she was a little disappointed. The form was there, but where it asked to list what courses D is taking this semester the GC had written “see transcript,” and in the check-box section she had written “see attached letter.” So… I don’t think it will hurt D’s chances, as she clearly cannot control what her GC writes. But still, we were kind of bummed.</p>
<p>You guys are lucky you get to see anything. It’s a big black box at our school…we will never have any idea what the counselor said.</p>
<p>quick question…a few of the reach schools for my daughter are now test optional.
if her ACT are around 23 or 24 and her GPA is about 3.0 with lots and lots of extracurriculars…should we sent in the ACT test score? schools are Loyola, Fairfield and Providence</p>
<p>Are they test optional in the sense that you can submit a paper written for school instead? If so, it may depend on whether you and your Guidance Counselor think the paper will be more impressive than the score</p>
<p>It looks like this one is going to college afterall. My son got his acceptance letter from University of Texas @ Dallas today. We were both surprised.</p>
<p>Congratulations TexMom! There’s a school for everyone. Over here, were just waiting…the suspense is killing me…</p>
<p>Or Hook 'em Horns, if you prefer</p>
<p>I am biting my tongue to stop my desire to berate the teacher who not only did not do my son’s recommendation over the Summer, but lost his self-summary and just admitted it now.
Then there is the GC who suggested a state school without knowing it graduates fewer than 20% in 4 years.</p>
<p>janp, don’t send the test scores to Providence. </p>
<p>Can’t speak to the other 2 but PC is legitimately test-optional. They don’t require anything in place of your scores, whereas some others are only test-optional with a minimum GPA, and an interview or extra essay or something. PC just doesn’t look at scores (at least, that’s the way they were operating 2 years ago when my son was applying).</p>
<p>Lafalum84 - So you think a GPA of 3.2 with no SATs can get you into Providence?</p>
<p>MaryAnne - does your child have any other hooks for PC? It is becoming very difficult to get into. I would still apply, but consider it a reach.</p>
<p>So, we are on our southern trip and having a great time. The first school we visited ended up being quite an experience. The kids and parents did everything seperately. My ds went to a class while I went to an info session, then we had seperate campus tours. Well, I was sure that the school was the best fit yet for my son. Two great tour guides, lots of intellectual discussion etc. We meet up at lunch and although my son liked the class and the campus, it didn’t seem intellectuall enough!!! I was shocked… what school did he visit??? It turns out that his first tour guide was very quiet and he couldn’t hear anything she said and the second one told stories about raiding the library and secret passages. So i told him all the great things that I heard. His response…if I heard that I would think that this was the perfect school for me… He will apply and then do an overnight if he gets in.</p>
<p>Second visit was today. Beautiful, intellectual school, but our tour was all the outside of the buildings. (no classrooms, labs etc) All the information was good, but not enough to say yes or no. </p>
<p>One more visit tomorrow then my son is going to make up a somewhat final list. The GC wants to send out his transcripts in one grouping if possible. </p>
<p>He wants to visit a larger school since all the schools we have visited are under 4,000. He thinks that we should visit Ithaca. It’s probably a good idea, but I’m not sure I cam manage another trip. Anyone visit and have any thoughts???</p>
<p>warriorboy, I have visited, but I do not know what you’d like to know. Ithaca has high rise dorms. That kind of through my son. That is when he realized this school is larger than some of the smaller LACs that he looked at. Some buildings are connected so you do not need to necessarily go outside and freeze. I think that you need to go outside when leaving dorms to go to academic buildings.</p>
<p>northeastmom - The thing that my son is looking for is an intellectual “feel”. Also, does Ithaca do a good job of selling itself? We visited a great school yesterday that didn’t give us any new info than we already had…</p>
<p>It appears that my son will have a higher GPA when it is reweighted by many of the schools on his list. This may move him out of the bottom 25% for GPA at some of his top choices. He has such a top heavy list that he needs all the help he can get.</p>
<p>Does anyone have a preference between attending an Open House and just doing a regular info session/tour? In the beginning I didn’t like the Open Houses because they took up so much time, but now I’m seeing that we get a lot more info out of an Open House.</p>
<p>warriorboy, my son did not sit on classes, so I cannot comment about “intellecutal feel”. Ithaca seems to have some connections for students (just stating this based upon a few students we spoke with). If you want to call that good marketing, then yes. I would think that connections for jobs and internships are stronger within certain majors over other majors.</p>
<p>I’ll give you my opinion about intellectual feel and Ithaca. I see Ithaca as offering more practical majors than many other small schools, and being strong in the arts. If you want to major in art history, philosophy, geography, or physics perhaps this is not the best choice. You need to do the research because I have not done mine with respect to this because my son is not going to major in those fields. I do know that if you are interested in communications, theatre, advertising/business majors, this school seems like a very good option for the B-B+ student.</p>
<p>MaryannC, last time I checked, PC was NOT considering test scores. They were planning to go 4 years without any test score data as part of the admissions decision, then comparing the success rate of their graduating students (graduation rates, gpa, etc) to their incoming test scores (which they are gathering AFTER admission for this purpose). At least that’s what it said on the letter they sent to S when he applied 3 years ago. </p>
<p>Is the 3.2 weighted or unweighted? If it’s unweighted, with a challenging courseload and some excellent ECs and recs, than PC might be possible. I’d consider it a reach but not ridiculous.</p>
<p>warriorboy…can you explain what you mean when you say:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How does a GPA reweight increase an already weighted GPA? (Did you son have very low grades in things like gym and band which would get removed?) What would your son’s “reweighted” GPA be afterwards? (When we looked at various schools’ reweighted GPAs, my son’s already weighted GPA seemed like it would go down! Although I don’t know of too many schools that actually tell you exactly how they do it… )</p>
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<p>My feeling is that a college puts its best foot forward to show itself the best way it can at an open house. If you come away with a good impression, then plan a second visit for a regular day when you can see what it looks like normally. I agree, information was more readily available at open houses. If we were not impressed with the open house, it came off the list. That happened twice - once for each of my kids.</p>
<p>We also did it the other way around and went on a regular visit, liked what we saw, and then went back to their open house.</p>
<p>Warrioroby, a friend’s son graduated Ithaca. He liked it, but was not at all intellectual. Northeastmom’s description matched his mom’s exactly.
Of course, reactions and experiences can vary tremendously–one peson rejected Ursinus as too filled with drunken frats, while our tour had the most intellectual feel of any school we saw (my son came away thinking the school was too pretentious about its pre-med success, etc).</p>
<p>If you want renewed appreciation for the folks on this thread, look at the thread about schools crossed off after visiting–95% of the posters name Ivy and similar schools. I suspect this is their way of bragging to the CC world that their kids can flip off such schools because so many similar schools will take them.</p>
<p>Bragging? Oh I don’t think so yabeyabe2. That presumes that all the Ivy’s are end all be all and they are not for many, many people even those qualified. They are for the most part unique and if it doesn’t fit or feel right kids won’t go unless their only criteria is “Ivy League.”</p>
<p>Momof3, I agree with you about the Ivies; having gone to one for college, in retrospect a smaller school would have been a much more personal experience. But I am more cynical about the posters’ motives. If the thread remotely approached a mix of “I did not like Penn State/Wittenberg/Southern Florida” insted of Yale/MIT/Tufts, I would reconsider. This is especially true as the OP was a foreigner seeking input on specific list of schools–which was not an Ivy League roll call.
If these parents were posting after acceptances, instead of visits, I would be less cynical.
Of course, I may be biased by having so many parents at my HS go out of their way to let you know their kids did not like various prestigious schools, lest you think their child was not admitted (Me: “Hi! How is soccer season going?” Them: “We just got back from a trip to Columbia and Cornell, but he was not impressed.”).</p>