He decided on Arizona in the end. Although it’s worth noting that ASU has a similar number of both astrophysics undergrads and graduate students as Arizona (ASU’s BS is called Earth and Space Sciences whereas Arizona calls it Astronomy), if you exclude the planetary sciences grad program at Arizona.
The tie breakers were better ADHD support and fewer general ed courses at Arizona (fingers crossed, a 3 in AP Latin gets BS students out of the year long foreign language requirement).
He might look again at UCSC if there’s waitlist movement.
For anyone who might be interested in the future, here’s a report giving the number of astronomy majors and graduate students at different colleges:
Thanks for sharing the decision making criteria that helped arrive at the decision. It can be so important for this group of students to have the right things to help them realize their potential!
Hi. I’m a 3.2 unweighted student and wanted to leave my experience here. I am not a recruited athlete, nor am I applying for film or some niche major.
So far, I’ve been: REJECTED from UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, UCLA, UC Irvine, UIUC, UMiami, University of Washington, Syracuse, LMU Los Angeles WAITLISTED at UC Berkeley, Reed College, NYU ACCEPTED at UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, UC Riverside, CSUF, SFSU, UMich Ann Arbor, Fordham, Tulane, Stony Brook University, SLU, and Babson College.
I might be able to share my experience with my applications, so I would love to help somebody in the future
Can you expand upon your 3.2 - which on paper is low. What type of school are you at? What kind of rigor? What kind of test score (for the non CA schools, etc.).
On apper, you applied to a lot of reaches - so there’s obviously wonderful attributes that you have. It’d be helpful to share with others - including ECs.
Public NorCal HS has around 600 graduating seniors.
12 AP Courses, I got mainly B’s and took 8 AP exams (3’s mainly)
I had one D from my Chemistry course.
For my SAT, I had a 1340. I applied test-optional to most schools.
I believe that my extracurricular activities/essays were what made my application remain strong.
Very confused about your post here compared to previous posts. In other posts you have said your SAT was 1580 and that you took 14 APs or 17 APs and reported a lot of 4s and 5s…
A success update for one DS who fully represents this group of high school 3.5 to 3.8 GPAs, who did not always fully apply himself, who survived some bad grades during Covid remote college, and who found connections and interests during a summer internship: He has been offered a job that he is excited about that combines his major and minor and he will start a couple weeks after college graduation in May!
This journey has not been easy for any of us. The balance of parenting and not parenting, of not saying anything and saying something, of wondering and worrying - exhausting!
But so proud of him! And it was great to hear him be proud of himself.
Advice for helping these ones:
Let them know it is okay to change majors, change career paths, and that it is even okay to try and fail.
Figure out when you need to step back and when they might need a nudge.
Be there when they are ready to make that turn to adulthood. They will all of the sudden ask your opinion and realize you may know something about navigating life.
So now, two months later, he’s got off the waitlist at UCSC. Definitely very hard to think about a change at this stage. Closer to home and $10K less per year are appealing, on the other hand LD support is much better at Arizona.
Perhaps an executive function/ academic coach could be hired with the cost savings, if the
UCSC services are not sufficient. https://lss.ucsc.edu/programs/index.html
But if you’re all set on Arizona, I’m sure it will be fine.
I had zero guidance as a teen.