<p>I wonder if the city and it’s attractions are a matter of perspective. We live outside of a small town of 5,000 people. Worcester is very much a big city and an hour to get to Boston seems pretty close to me. We don’t have any public transportation where I live unless you count the three times a day bus that goes through. According to my son’s friend, who gave us our WPI tour, Worcester is the second largest city in New England outside of Boston, having just passed Providence.</p>
<p>I’d love to take my son to visit WPI but he says he’s only interested in Purdue so there’s probably no point in dragging him to another college visit.</p>
<p>My SIL are planning our next round of schools and this time we’re heading South to North Carolina. We have official visits at High Point and Guilford, a casual tour from a student at Queens (thanks to her CC Mom!) and a peer in the windows look at Elon. I am disappointed that Elon and Queens don’t take advantage of the break that we out of state people have and at least keep admissions open on the Saturday before Easter. Between the High School schedule and trying to visit when classes are in session, it’s extremely hard to find time to visit any College that is more then a day’s drive away. For Colleges that are openly courting out of state students, you would think they would take a second look at the logistics of the how we can visit.</p>
<p>Anyway - Opinions about any of the above colleges? We’re also hoping to at least look at the campuses of UNC- Greensboro and UNC - Charlotte since we’ll be right there.</p>
<p>kathiep - would love to hear your impressions of the Carolina schools. Can’t find the time to go down there.</p>
<p>D filled out the form on collegeboard designation colleges to send SAT scores to. The confirmation email indicates that collegeboard will send out all SAT scores (including SAT IIs) to the four colleges she named. Does anyone know if you can prevent a specific set of scores from being sent? She doesn’t care right now - but with score choice, I thought you would be able to pick and choose the ones you wanted sent.</p>
<p>D1 scheduled visits to Pomona and Pitzer for next week. The former will probably fall off her list; it would be a very high reach and her admissions strategy is to be very highly risk-adverse. I wish she’d reach a little more, but that’s her call, not her parents’. </p>
<p>The college counselor sent home packets with the juniors to start setting up their files for the GC to write her recs for the students. Peer evaluations, parental evaluations, self evaluations, evaluation by a teacher (NOT a rec), all to be used as source material for the counselor. Plus, first shot at The List. There’s a big admonition on the form that students should only list schools that they actually want to attend.</p>
<p>kathie: ditto here; we also originally planned on Elon for that Saturday; changed it to Friday the 2nd…can you do that? or otherwise engaged?</p>
<p>The reason they do not have the Saturday session, btw, is because they are closed on Monday the 5th and are anticipating kids leaving for the Easter weekend…</p>
<p>Rodney, I would have sworn that when we looked a month ago that there wasn’t even anything available at Elon on Friday. Hmm, do you think we could just show up? I remember when I looked at it with my daughter several years ago their information sessions were large groups.</p>
<p>wow…just looked on the website; “all tours and info sessions are at capacity”…never saw that at a school before; I hate big groups…oh well…</p>
<p>given that…I would imagine that you could “tag” onto a tour but not an info session; have you attended a local one near your hometown? maybe you could do that in the fall, but tag on to a tour on the 2nd?? from what I remember, I think there is an 11 and a 1:00 tour that day…</p>
<p>I’m thinking that the other way around might be less noticeable and less of an inconvenience to the school. At the info session we would just be a few more people listening and we could do the self guided tour afterward. Boy, I’m glad I mentioned our trip!</p>
<p>Well.</p>
<p>We attended the local college fair last night with schools from Mass to VA/WV. Ds did not want to be there AT ALL. We ran in to several of his friends with their mothers. All the boys said they were there to humor their mothers… He didn’t want to talk to any of the reps, just grabbed info from the tables (it was crazy crowded). I overheard him telling a friend that he didn’t know why he was there, that he probably will attend State Flagship, etc------so I pulled ds aside and told him we could just leave.</p>
<p>On the way home, he told me that he didn’t think he wanted to go into engineering after all, that he really wants to “do good works” and that he might want a career in public policy or politics. (Where is that eek emoticon??!!) I told him that lots of kids have no idea of what they want to study in college when hs juniors, that more change their major once in college, and that even more don’t end up in the career they studied for (that would be me 
). I suggested a larger school to explore options, yadda yadda yadda.</p>
<p>I think he is stressed because some friends know EXACTLY what they want to study (one architecture, one a specific subtype of a science) or what they want to do in real life (one hs history teacher/coach, one an electrical engineer).</p>
<p>He asked me to research some options but I have no idea where to start. Poli sci, history, environmental science/policy, what? Prelaw? I told him that law school= no undergrad debt, which he absolutely understands. His gifts are math and science, yet he doesn’t enjoy the applied math in physics as much as he thought he would. Writing can be very painful, especially if it is a topic he doesn’t find interesting. He enjoys informal debating/discussing. He is the only social liberal in his Social Justice class this semester and has come home “hot” after defending his views re poverty etc.</p>
<p>Course schedule for next year:
AP Stats (only math left)
AP Physics C E&M (school splits Physics C into two one-year courses)
AP Environmental Sci
AP US Govt (guess this will help him solidify his feelings??)
AP English Lit
AP Psych (because this is considered an easy course at his school and many friends are taking it…)
required senior religion class</p>
<p>We are in the mid-Atlantic. College choices need to either be within a day’s drive or in a Southwest city (we use either PHL or BWI airports) He prefers a college with 5000+ students, sunshine most of the year (snow amount doesn’t matter—it’s definitely a sunlight issue),where the male:female is about even, and where everyone isn’t ultra-competitive. Those are so far his only requirements. Oh and he doesn’t want a “Catholic” college though Jesuit is ok ;)</p>
<p>Stats so far: currently top of his class of 200+. SAT won’t be taken until May (since he was abroad during the planned-for March test date) but PSAT was 209 without studying (he will be prepping for SAT during Easter break—he knows the difference in possible merit aid between 2000/2100/2200/2300) Not NMSF level since our state has a reeeeeeaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllyyyyyyyyy high cutoff. Working on his Eagle project. Music extracurriculars. Very very well-spoken. A nice kid :)</p>
<p>We will need a combination of merit aid and need-based aid unless he attends State Flagship. EFC from the forecaster thingie about $12K—we could swing $17K at most without loans. Two kids following so we prefer no loans for undergrad.</p>
<p>Any suggestions???</p>
<p>KLucky, you should start a new thread in the Parents forum with the above. It’ll get more eyeballs, and more responses. That said, I’m a big fan of kids who are strong in math and science going into political science and public policy. They’ve got different backgrounds and skill sets, but he’ll need to have the writing thing. Have him take a look at programs in Science and Technology in Society and see if that interests him. You can get :eek: by typing : eek : without the spaces, by the way. I think we are all going to need it a great deal. :)</p>
<p>Would he be interested in the DC area for school? American is not a science school, and University of Maryland College Park is too big. Perhaps George Washington, if he’d be willing to look at a less traditional campus? Pitt is generous with merit money, but may be too big and possibly to gray for him. Tulane can be generous.</p>
<p>I mistyped above-----he’d prefer a school with MORE than 5000 students. Whoops!</p>
<p>Yep, going to noodle about online today and this weekend to find things for him to read. He should finally have some free time Wednesday after this third quarter finishes----a nice long break before the madness of AP review. I can’t wait for early June for this year to be over. I’m beginning to be happy he doesn’t have a job this summer, so that he can focus on college and Eagle stuff…</p>
<p>Thanks for the input :)</p>
<p>KLucky-
If sunlight is his thing
–what about Emory in Atl,
or some of the schools in FL…Rollins for one
plenty of sunshine there…
and lots of schools…</p>
<p>My other thought is HE should be doing some of the research–especially since he was so unresponsive at that fair… 
</p>
<p>Oh yeah, he sure will be doing research asap (ie Easter break) Because he missed 2 weeks of school on the Austrian exchange, he’s busy making up quizzes and tests and problem sets. Wednesday is the end of the quarter, thank goodness. As part of the make-up work, for Junior Advisory he has to have a list of schools with majors/programs of interest by Tuesday. The guys actually were supposed to attend the college fair to work on that list! Since he had was unresponsive, he’s got to come up with schools, thus why I’m trying to get something of a quick list.</p>
<p>Our flagship has a school of urban affairs/public policy, with a large concentration in environmental policy 
One for the advisory list!</p>
<p>Klucky - one option you might want to consider is some sort of summer program to get his interest fired up. My son’s public school is pretty strong in liberal arts, but teachers in science are pretty ineffective. Like your son his natural talent is more inclined towards science/math - he enrolled in a summer science program and now wants to do physics as a major after doing an astrophysics course ! If he is really inclined in public policy maybe a summer program in DC may solidify his interests. There’s still plenty of time - but the more critical decision is whether or not he gets on or off the science bus. It’s always easy to switch from science but really not easy to get back on that track … one more thing. Agree with SlitheyTove … have him understand that THE most critical skill for law school or Public Policy is WRITING . The other option ( really way too early but a career suggestion to get his thinking going) is consider patent, copyright, IP law - nice combo of science and legal skills.</p>
<p>Well, the South Floridians are up here in the Boston area, freezing our tushies off! Arrived on Wed and navigated our way to hotel in Waltham where we are staying til Wed. </p>
<p>Yesterday we visited WPI. My S felt it was a great fit. About 3000 undergrad, nice compact campus, no tall buildings, very nice students who balance academics and lots of activities. Very project based. Instead of two semesters, they have 3 7-week terms with time off between each. Take 3 classes per term meeting MTTHF, W are labs. Major project yr 2, 3 and 4. Credit given for AP/IB.</p>
<p>S loved the intensity and only taking 3 classes at a time. He has taken Precalc & Physics in summer school (6 weeks, 4 days a week) and loved that. Biggest surprise…NMF get min $17K annual scholarship!! Woo hoo. Dad was flippin’.</p>
<p>S went to two classes - Stats and Engineering for the Disabled. Very relevant since I use a wheelchair to get around. Many thanks to Barbara Hassett in Admissions who did a super job setting up schedule. We all had lunch with students in cafeteria. Food was GREAT! Went to info session, took tour (brrr) then went to Shabbat services at Hillel. </p>
<p>We could not have felt more welcome or comfortable. WPI is a keeper. Any questions, just ask.</p>
<p>FLMathMom, We visited WPI last Saturday when the temperature was about 65 and it was beautiful. We had a friend of my son’s show us around so missed all the official talk, but he also really liked the school.</p>
<p>I believe there are a bunch of parents in the College 2013 thread with boys at WPI You might want to check in with them.</p>
<p>I’m planning to take my daughter to visit Beloit, Macalaster, St. Olaf’s and Carleton this summer on our way back from picking up younger brother at Concordia Language Villages. I know it won’t be ideal since it will be in the middle of the summer but I figure it will at least get her thinking. Beloit offers automatic scholarships for former exchange students and she had an ACT composite of 32 as a sophomore so she will probably have the stats for any of these schools. I haven’t actually contacted the schools re. visits yet. Any advice for summer visits?</p>
<p>Does this become the de facto Parents of High School Seniors page on April 1st?</p>