<p>We are at a point of making a list for D2 as she is a junior in HS now. D1 is graduating from Cornell this year. D2 has some more desirable hooks to those top schools than D1, so we are considering some of those schools on OP’s accepted list.</p>
<p>We have visited Stanford because it was D2’s top choice for a while. It’s off the list because it was too beautiful and too sunny. D2 is a darker person, she likes rain/snow/cloudy days.</p>
<p>We were just recently at Princeton. She didn’t like the eating club concept, even though those houses were beautiful. She also said every kid she didn’t like got accepted to Princeton and is going there. </p>
<p>She visted Yale last summer through a summer program. She liked the vibe and the physical setting of the school. </p>
<p>Before anyone jump all over me, D2 has a nice list of matches and reaches too. </p>
<p>D1 loves Cornell. She likes the size (13,000 UG), Greek life, academic, and diversity of the student body. As mentioned by others, Cornell has other schools beside Engineering and A&S, it maybe a turn off for others (lesser Ivy), but for D1, it is what she likes about Cornell. It has more of a public school feel than other elite schools. It is easier to find like minded friends. D1 went to a private school where most kids were alike. As much as she appreciated her private school education, she was ready to be “with the masses.”</p>
<p>I know my posting has nothing to do with academic, and the reason is at any of those schools your D will get a fabulous education. I think what it will come down to is where your D will feel most comfortable. I hope she will go to few parties and hang out at the “student union” or cafeteria when she is visiting to get a true sense of the school. When D1 visited Cornell, it was a Sun morning around brunch time, there was a group of girls (obviously just rolled out of bed with their sweats and hair up in a pony tail) walking to the cafeteria. D1 looked at them and said, “I think I could hang out with them.”</p>
<p>Darn it - wrote a post and it disappeared. I’m glad your daughter loved Rice. Both my kids attended and loved their time there. Downsides: not a lot of spectator sport culture. Hot and humid August through October. Not well-known to the general public outside of Texas. Upsides: huge and fun participatory sport culture with club and inter-residential college and pickup sports. Great faculty mentoring. Inclusive and supportive residential college system and faculty masters that are there for your kid if she/he has a medical or emotional emergency. Beautiful campus in nice part of Houston, located literally next to one of the worlds largest collection of medical hospitals and facilities, and a zoo. (DD walked 5 minutes to get to a hospital medical translating internship and 5 minutes to observe the primates in the zoo… ;)) Paid research opportunities abound. Student population of just under 6000 - including grad students. Terrific facilities.<br>
Given that students can get just about anywhere from any of the schools your daughter got accepted to, since all are well-known in the academic world, I would encourage her to visit all and attend the one that she enjoys the most.</p>
<p>CoolRunning,
Now that almost everyone on this thread has dismissed Rice, let me offer a somewhat different view. If your daughter is a scientist Rice has more opportunities than any school you’ve mentioned. The campus is located across the street from the Texas Medical Center, which I believe is the largest medical center in the world. It is comprised of many different specialty hospitals and undergrads, including freshman, are able to work with researchers there on cutting edge research.</p>
<p>I do not have a child who goes to Rice. I do have a child who was accepted to Rice, and his decision was down to Rice and the school he eventually entered. We were “blown away” by the opportunities there. His decision not to matriculate at Rice had nothing to do with the academic opportunities.</p>
<p>His high school college counselor previously worked in admissions at Columbia. The counselor told me that when a Columbia rep would travel around the country making presentations with a number of high end schools including Rice, that no one wanted to volunteer to speak following the Rice presentation, because the Rice facilities blew everyone else out of the water.</p>
<p>Your child has an amazing array of schools to choose from. Virtually everyone else will tell her to pick something from that list other than Rice. If she is a serious scientist, she should think seriously about Rice.</p>
<p>x-posted with anxiousmom! Another Rice fan!</p>
<p>Thank you all for EXACTLY the kind of information I was seeking! You cannot find experience on the school’s websites!</p>
<p>Each of the schools she selected had exactly what she was looking for in the quality of the science education, research and internship opportunities. As I said before, she will visit and get the vibe. What you are giving me (thanks again) is what to specifically check out for the feel.</p>
<p>Oh, about the “Ooops” in the thread title: I certainly meant no disrespect, nor did I intend to offend. For those that took exception, I’m sorry. What I meant was that it was unexpected, and unintended. In our house, we know how competitive these schools are. DD hoped she could get into at least one, so she threw a wide net and “accidently” got nine. The result is that she “took the spot” of some eight kids in the other schools. We are sensitive about that, therefore the “ooops”.</p>
<p>^ I understand the title “oops”, though I agree it is insensitive at a time when many are licking their wounds about multiple rejections.</p>
<p>I spent 2 years brainwashing my kid about how competitive and capricious the college admissions game is. I fully prepared her (in fact told her to expect) multiple rejections from all her top schools. I insisted that she focus on safeties and match schools. The high school counselor did the same to the extent she was embarrassed to approach him with her final ‘top heavy’ list of colleges. </p>
<p>And then the multiple acceptances come in and suddenly you the parent look a little bit like a liar and a doomsayer, and what is more, you and your kid are unprepared for this situation. Great news, of course, but there is a little bit of “Oops” in there too.</p>
<p>Guilty on the brainwashing here too. I flat out told DD that there was a 0% possibility that she would be accepted to Stanford, and I really meant it too. She received the fat package in the mail about an hour ago (it gave her another reason to say I was wrong). LOL!</p>
<p>Yes, my D had a similar reaction. And after a dreary winter in New Haven she still thinks that year-round balmy weather would just not be a good environment for her to do college work.</p>
<p>I wasn’t trying to be intentionally antagonistic, I just thought your thread title was unnecessarily rude. You may have meant it one way, but it came out a whole different way.</p>
<p>As for the schools, congrats. I’ll be applying to Y & P among others this fall, and could only hope I’ll get the same results your daughter did.</p>
<p>That being said, I have gone to both Yale and Princeton multiple times for national debate tournaments, and I must say I prefer Princeton’s campus. I don’t know if she is taking campus into account, but if she is, you’d be hard-pressed to find one more beautiful than Princeton. The surrounding town is convenient and beautiful as well. While Yale was certainly beautiful as well, after walking about 9 blocks out from the main campus, the neighborhood gets a bit dangerous. In fact, this past September I was there for a debate tournament, and after one of the rounds when we headed back to the hotel next to campus, we had to walk a different route than the easiest one because apparently someone had been shot there the night before (according to the cops we saw).</p>
<p>This is not a problem. It’s a choice among four great alternatives. It’s like shopping for party dresses and finding four in your price range that look terrific on you. You can’t make a bad choice.</p>
<p>@japan, why would you choose in this order? D has a similar dilemma, except substitute Harvard for Cornell. She’s struggling with the decision. She has already visited 2 and will visit two in the upcoming weeks, but I’d like to know why you place them in this order.</p>
<p>momof3sons, it is very difficult to take anything that you have stated seriously after reviewing this comment that you have made regarding opportunities in science for an undergraduate student at Rice versus two of the best funded top science and technology research universities in the world, Stanford and Princeton. Hard to understand why you would even make a comment like this.</p>
<p>D2 looks at eating club as being very snobbish and exclusive. She likes the social, girlish bonding aspect of sorority life. From what D1 has described to D2 about Greek life, it doesn’t seem that exclusive to D2, so she thinks she probably would want to join a sorority someday. She could change her mind once she is in college if she finds the sorority girls to be too snobbish. D2 is more into social justice and she likes under dogs. </p>
<p>Yes, our 2 girls are very similar in some ways and very different in other ways. D1 likes everything sunny and pretty, and D2 is a bit darker with more angst.</p>
<p>oldfort, so let me see if I can understand this</p>
<p>at Princeton, only about 33% of the student body is a member of an Eating Club since only Juniors and Seniors can join. A full 6 of the 10 eating clubs are NON-SELECTIVE and a student is guaranteed a spot in one of their favorite eating clubs, yet your daughter thinks that this is “snobbish and exclusive” and prefers Sororities, which are 100% selective, leading to potential students that will be shut out of the Sororities membership at the school. In addition, the Eating Clubs are only for eating and socializing and not for sleeping, so the members will mix with the non members in one of the 6 Residential colleges versus the Sororities, which immediately separate the students from the rest of the student body since they also live at the facilities…</p>
<p>further, the 4 selective Eating Clubs average about a 50% acceptance rate, so if you desire to join one of the 4 selective eating clubs, there is a good chance that you will be admitted to one of the four.</p>
<p>In addition, sororities immediately eliminate about 50% of the undergraduate population by not allowing boys to join the sorority - creating another level of this extreme selectivity. Princeton’s Eating Clubs are all fully coed.</p>
<p>somehow, I am not following the reasoning of your daughter, or could it be that she is a little misinformed of the Princeton Eating Clubs?</p>
<p>Kids cross off schools for unbelievable reasons. DD crossed a school off because she didn’t like the pink petunias that were planted outside of the college gate.</p>
I’m glad your daughter loved Rice. Both my kids attended and loved their time there. Downsides: not a lot of spectator sport culture. Hot and humid August through October. Not well-known to the general public outside of Texas. Upsides: huge and fun participatory sport culture with club and inter-residential college and pickup sports. Great faculty mentoring. Inclusive and supportive residential college system and faculty masters that are there for your kid if she/he has a medical or emotional emergency. Beautiful campus in nice part of Houston, located literally next to one of the worlds largest collection of medical hospitals and facilities, and a zoo. (DD walked 5 minutes to get to a hospital medical translating internship and 5 minutes to observe the primates in the zoo… ;)) Paid research opportunities abound. Student population of just under 6000 - including grad students. Terrific facilities.<br>