<p>DougBetsy - I am the one pushing the college visits at this point. H agrees with me, but has no real interest in visiting the colleges himself. D wasn't the least bit interested in visiting schools this summer, but I had a conversation with her explaining why we needed such an early start - she has a huge number of commitments during the school year which will make visits virtually impossible. She knows there are a few schools she'll want to visit during the school year - schools that she's interested in and where she has friends, so I want to save her little bits of free time for those schools, when her friends will be there and she can get a better feel for how she'll like the school. I think I got through to her. </p>
<p>Youdon'tsay - glad the advice was helpful. What a great jump in scores! Congratulations!</p>
<p>D has some interest in the college shopping, our recent trip was because we were in the vicinity of one and I added on a second one to give her a comparison point. Younger D is away so it gave us an opportunity to go with just her.</p>
<p>She is also working on her girl scout gold award and one thing you can do for the career portion is college visits.</p>
<p>We went on a whirlwind tour of colleges last month. I initiated the tour. Whenever I heard grumbling I just said "OK. I'll cancel it." He didn't want that. The tour was very productive because he now has a much clearer idea of what he wants -- an LAC and not a university. Originally he said he didn't care if the college offered his sports or not. However, when we visited one without either, he decided that wouldn't do. He became very sensitive to class sizes and student/teacher ratios. When he meets with his college advisor this coming year, I think he will be able to say what he wants, and give some examples of colleges he likes and why. Originally, I was going to have him look at a few more after the colleges start and before his school starts, but I decided not to do it. At this point, we'll wait to see how 11th grade grades develop, SAT, etc. and what his advisor suggests.</p>
<p>He was thinking about taking the SAT II math 1&2 in Oct. Bad idea? Did you know that starting with the class of 2010, the students can select which test scores to send, even for the SAT II?</p>
<p>Math Level II has a much friendlier curve than Level I. S2 is not a big fan of math, but did very well on the Level II -- as in he kept refreshing the screen when he saw his results online, thinking there HAD to be a mistake!</p>
<p>I wonder if colleges will know if a student has chosen to send only selected scores vs. "print all."</p>
<p>D was not interested in college at all until I dragged her to a college fair. Then she asked to visit "some schools, someday". That was enough for me to plan a long trip.</p>
<p>RPI-this is second hand info from H and D. They did not particularly like the campus. The two kids giving the tour were unusually attractive and both psych majors. D thought that was interesting in an engineering school-like they were playing hide-the-nerds. The admissions talk was par for the course and they were really trying to sell the school a lot more than the other colleges. The engineering facilities looked absolutely incredible. D was not overly impressed overall, but it is still on her list. It is academically a match for her while her two top choices are clearly reaches (unless we get pleasantly surprised by next year's grades and SATs) and she is interested in engineering though the LAC environment suits her personality better. If you have questions, I will ask D for more specifics for you.</p>
<p>RPI's campus I thought was okay, but somewhat awkwardly laid out. I don't think it's so much "hide the nerd" as that the less nerdly are much more likely to volunteer to give tours. The new art center (is it finished yet?) should attract some more arty people. We have a friend whose daughter went there - she didn't love it (she'd wanted to go to Cornell), but did very well there, (she did some sort of ecological bent biology), she got additional merit money without asking, graduated early, and she's going to her first choice PhD. program (Cornell - got in this time.)</p>
<p>S2 and I had planned to do some one-day trips to area colleges this week, but he was kind of burned out from the seven-colleges-in-five-days driving tour with DH last week. He got some good info and found a couple of schools he really liked. Also found the campus tours irritatingly similar, and would like to wait until he can visit classes, talk to people and stay over. (Makes sense to me.)<br>
We've told him there is just not enough time/$$ to see 25 schools, so the next part of his research will be online. Now he needs to identify WHY and WHAT he liked/disliked about those schools, then to find more similar to the ones he liked, but a little less reachy. There's something he particularly liked about his favorite ones, and he's not going to find out what it is by reading the admissions propaganda.</p>
<p>Queen's Mom - thanks for getting back to me about RPI - I'm interested because my D is also considering engineering. Like your D, I think she would prefer an LAC or, even better, a small university. Nice to know there are some non-techies there, and Mathmom's probably right as to why they were the ones giving the tour. At the moment, D is not considering any tech schools, so that's why I was curious about it.</p>
<p>Mathmom, thanks for your input as well.</p>
<p>CountingDown - when your S figures out what he particularly liked about his favorite schools, I would be interested in hearing what he has to say.</p>
<p>mathmom, they are building a new theater center. Is that what you meant? They said that starting for incoming freshmen 2010 (interesting, no?) they are going to offer a theater major.</p>
<p>My son will also be a junior this year. He is finally getting interested in schools. I am finding it difficul because we have found too many schools... Once we stepped below the top tier there are hundreds of schools on the east coast that have biology programs and even a bunch with zoology too. </p>
<p>How many schools are people planning on visiting? How do you decide from a website which ones to visit??? I feel like this is a full time job.</p>
<p>warriorboy648 - I know what you mean. I think different people visit a different amount of schools, depending on the time and money they have available, as well how important the visits are to them.</p>
<p>I want my D to see a variety of schools to determine what she likes and doesn't like. It's going to be hard fitting visits in this year, but we will try to squeeze in a few.</p>
<p>warriorboy -- At this stage, we weren't looking for a final list of school, but rather criteria for selecting schools with a few schools that will probably be on the final list. </p>
<p>If your son's school has naviance, you could request an ID. Take a look at his projected SAT scores and GPA relative to other graduates who got into various schools. I discount these averages a little because I don't think my son is hooked. Otherwise, you could request a list of past 5-year college acceptances from your son's school and see which ones are a good match for your son.</p>
<p>When we went on our college tour, I selected colleges because they were near the route, had good acceptances from son's school, seemed like he might like it and had acceptances possibilities, and added to the mix of LAC/university, rural, suburban, religious affiliations or not, etc. He already knew he didn't want large publics and urban settings without a campus. </p>
<p>Now that he was narrowed his criteria even further, I have a number of colleges in mind, but I think I will hold off more visits until the second half of the year when he has a college gc.</p>
<p>It's a program used by many schools. It tracks college acceptances, rejections, deferrals & waitlists for a specific school. With enough applicants to a college, it charts this info on a grid with SAT scores on the x axis and GPA on the Y axis. You can review the outcomes relative to your child's SAT & GPA. Interestingly, the same company that just purchased CC also owns naviance.</p>
<p>dufay - I don't think I could make it............lol. </p>
<p>D got her exam out of the way today, so that's one less thing for her to worry about. Now she has to complete her summer assignments for her AP classes, but I have a feeling she's feeling a lot more relaxed now.</p>
<p>Yes, D is just starting on her summer AP assignments. She has almost nothing to do for history, but eng lang is brutal: 2 books to read and annotate selected portions as well as 4 articles to read and annotate. She also has pre-calc summer work (that's almost done). School starts in one week.</p>
<p>Queen's Mom - D doesn't start classes until after Labor Day, but she has to be back for sports the last week in August (that's about 3 hours a day, so it's pretty intense). I'm not sure what D's writing assignments are - I know she read one of her English books and has either one or two others to get through. She has a ton of reading to do for APUSH - both in the textbook and another book. No pre-calc or AP Physics - so yay for that. She's done enough physics work this summer, thank you very much.........lol. She was supposed to get homework for AP Art History, but the teacher never emailed it to the kids. Hopefully, she won't do it now as that wouldn't be very fair. She told D it would be something easy, like reading Girl with A Pearl Earring (which D has already read).</p>
<p>D did a practice PSAT test yesterday and did well with a 211 score although I have no idea how valid it is compared to the actual CB tests, I think it was from a Barron's book. Lowest area is writing so she has a good focus for that. I think the college looking has added some motivation. And summer reading is progressing even though she doesn't like the books :-)</p>
<p>naviance- our school doesn't give out the passwords until winter of junior year, I was complaining about this previously but I think I have enough to occupy myself until then so I think I am satisfied on that. Will see how the general searching progresses until then. She is anxious to do some more touring, we will plan to attend one of those info sessions for next month.</p>