Parents of the HS Class of 2014

Parents of Class of 20xx
5661

<p>I don’t feel so bad about no visits for youngest. Many of the (eastern) schools people have mentioned we’ve already seen with older brothers (Alabama, Furman, Va Tech, Pittsburgh, WUSTL, U Rochester (middle goes here) & more). In his case, it’s just because he wants FL or HI schools. We haven’t seen any in either state.</p>

<p>Cost is a definite factor in our house. We eliminated schools without merit aid. High stats kids often have many good financial options including some VERY nice schools. “VERY” nice often depends upon the major desired, not USNews general rankings. It’s worth it to do some research on the schools and to sit in on classes to get a feel for differences.</p>

<p>This is my first to go into the process without high stats (has a nice GPA, but not super test scores). I’ll admit to worrying about the finances. Fortunately, his “top” schools aren’t top with USNews, so it could work out. Time will tell.</p>

5662

<p>Our DS’12 visited some colleges when his sister was visiting (DD’12). He is a different kid, so he visited some additional schools this year. There were 2 duplicates. He likes some that he visited two years ago, but we can’t afford to send him to see those again. There are two schools that he is interested in that he has never seen. We told him to apply - if he gets in and the FA works, then we will pay to send him for a visit.</p>

5663

<p>Apollo6: My older son, the Alabama graduate, recommended Ole Miss to his kid brother. Beautiful campus. Friendly students. Great school spirit – he’s been to a football game there. We’ll see if his kid brother wants to take a visit there sometime this summer.</p>

<p>Creekland: My older son also recommended the U. of Florida to his brother, but he admits getting in and getting some merit money will be tough. We also eliminated schools without merit money. My younger son does not want big debt, nor does he want to be a huge financial burden to us.</p>

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<p>We did this for the reach school my S actually ended up at, so it’s definitely not a horrible plan to save the visits for after acceptance. :wink: In our case it was because he added the school to his list a week or two before the application deadline, but there was another reach school that was inconvenient to visit that we decided to wait on as well. (He was waitlisted there, and because they have a reputation of giving little or not financial aid to waitlist acceptees, and had other acceptances he was happy about, he didn’t bother accepting a spot on the waitlist. If we’d visited and he’d fallen in love, he might have wanted to take the waitlist spot, but honestly I’m glad we didn’t have to ride that roller coaster! Then again, if he’d visited, maybe the demonstration of interest would have pushed him over to acceptance. Who knows. He’s happy where he is, so it all worked out in the end…)</p>

5665

<p>Seattle_mom: Of all the colleges we’ve visited, both casually and formally, Oregon State is still D’s favorite. She dismissed U of Oregon as “too urban” and thought Corvallis was the perfect college town. Happily, that is one of D’s two safety schools and we’d be thrilled if she chooses OSU (gotta love that easy 4-hour drive straight down I-5). Later this summer, we’re visiting four Big Ten schools and three schools in NY. It’ll be interesting to see how OSU stands up against some bigger names…
Cheers!</p>

5666

<p>Anyone get the postcard from American University? It has a shot of a young woman photographed from chin to waist (she’s wearing a red t-shirt) and superimposed on her breasts are the words “KNOW AU”. </p>

<p>I wonder if 17 year old women got the same postcard…</p>

5667

<p>momofwon, I’m looking forward to hearing what she thinks! U of O is not on my son’s list because they do not have his desired major program. There are certainly some larger midwest schools and smaller technical schools in NY/NE that do.</p>

<p>I tried to tell him it would be hard to write the “why this school is for me” essay without visiting, but he is SO enthusiastic about his field that he plans to write about those opportunities anyway. It’s hard to argue with his point.</p>

5668

<p>^^Classof2015, ICK! I guess AU is trying to “fix” their 59/41 gender ratio. That oughta do it.</p>

5669

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<p>While this is easier to do after visiting, it is definitely possible to do based just on specifics about the program, school size, location, and the other details the school “advertises” as things that make them stand out. </p>

<p>Remember that that essay (like all the others) is not really about the school, it’s about the kid. They don’t want to hear why their school is great – they already know that. They want to know what primarily what it is about the student that means he or she is especially likely to succeed with the great stuff they know they provide. </p>

<p>I think that essay should basically go – this is what I want, this is WHY I want it (based on who I am), and this is how I see school X fitting into my wants and needs.</p>

5670

<p>We’ve been to UPenn, Webb, Lehigh, Lafayette, Swarthmore, Rowan, and Bucknell. It’s back to Lafayette Monday for the engineering tour and the interview then Philadelphia U. Tuesday to learn about their engineering and honors program. We still need to look at Pittsburgh. S is a Rensselaer Medal Winner, so there’s a special day for them in the fall. We want him to do overnights at Rowan and either Bucknell or Lafayette during the fall term and <em>hopefully</em> get a fall interview at Webb.</p>

5671

<p>Go2girl is a senior! Last day of school was Thursday and she’s been getting caught up on sleep and The Bachelorette. So happy to have my smiling girl back! She has a busy summer with a lot of service projects, an online class and a trip to visit a friend. </p>

<p>Last summer we did a whirlwind of midwest schools: Macalester, Carleton, Wash U, Univ of Chicago, Loyola and Northwestern. The LAC’s came off the list but Wash U and Loyola will stay. It helped us focus on midsized universities.</p>

<p>Spring Break we looked at East Coast schools–Northeastern, BU, Penn, Princeton, Yale and Brown. A couple of the Ivies will stay on the list and BU. </p>

<p>At the end of summer, we’re doing a road trip through California and will look at USF, Santa Clara, Stanford, Cal Poly SLO, USD, Claremont-McKenna, Loyola Marymount and USC. I may try to talk Go2Dad into letting us do a few visits in the South if at all possible once the school year begins again. Right now we have four Southern schools on the list and it feels a little funny not knowing if they truly will be a good fit. Two of Go2Girl’s friends will be starting at Duke and Tulane so it may make sense to try to visit when they are there to show Go2Girl around.</p>

<p>The entire family met with the college counselor last week to prune the list and organize them into safeties, shoulds and reaches. Still too many on the list but we’re hoping our CA trip will define it better. The CC was so wonderful and gave Go2girl the encouragement she needs to go through this last hurdle. She read some wonderful essays of students to inspire her as to what a good essay looks like. I had sent over some of Go2girl’s writing samples and she thought one of her pieces could be edited and would make a fabulous common app essay. Go2girl loves to write so I dowloaded the supplements from last year to give her an idea of what specific schools ask for in their supplemental essays. She asked me to pick up a 2" binder for her and dividers so she could set up her own system of organization. Meanwhile, I picked up more file folders. </p>

<p>CC also said she would like her to have blurbs written on all of her activities in order of importance by the time she sees her again in August. She made Go2Girl feel very capable, very in charge of her own process. The stress was lifted and we all feel really good going into this summer. I don’t have to be the nagging mama. </p>

<p>Our strategy will be to go EA, not SCEA or ED. We will need to see the final numbers and even though so many of the schools seem to build their classes from ED, there is no one school that Go2girl is so in love with to make this a usefuly strategy.</p>

5672

<p>It looks like a lot of schools have been visited by the 2014 kids! So much to choose from! Love that Go2Girl is taking ownership in this process! :)</p>

<p>DS filled out his first college app Friday night!! It has been submitted and paid for. ACT’s were sent blindly to that school, so all they need is the HS transcript. </p>

<p>I was looking through the graduation pamphlet from this year’s senior class. A class of around 500 - mostly going to in-state publics. There were about a dozen going to an in-state LAC and another handful going to a mid-size private the next state over and two different OOS publics the next state over. There were only a few schools other than in-state and next state over. A little disappointing that nobody is reaching for the stars! No wonder the parents around here think I’m crazy when I mention looking at schools OOS! I bet 99% of the schools selected are within 3 hours of our hometown.</p>

5673

<p>@ Newfaith–responding to your question and response here as well as in the 2013 3.0-3.3 thread:</p>

<p>@ NewFaith, then the U of M is a match --high safety as an URM. My D has a similar GPA and already met with an adcom that told her as long as her GPA does not go south next year or senior year, she will gain admission. She has a 31 ACT.</p>

<p>We’re in MN–in a NW suburb heading towards St. Cloud. </p>

<p>Have you looked at any privates? My D is bi-racial (AA mom and Jewish dad), and is looking at schools with fewer URMs. Does your D want a large school? We really LOVE University of Kansas. It has all the Rah-Rah of the U of M, but is almost 1/3 the size with good academics and a great college town. With the exchange, it’s a little less than the U of M when one factors in R&B. </p>

<p>Do you have a high EFC? Your D may get great merit aid at a top 100 LAC or private U. We’re pretty much full pay, and our son received a great merit scholarship to one of state’s better private schools, which brought his tuition to less than COA of the U of M. </p>

<p>For D15, we are looking at LACs and small-midsize universities. D will apply to the U of M, but does not wish to attend a school that is larger than the suburb she resides.</p>

<p>If you want to stay in the midwest, then I would look at St. Olaf, Gustavus Adolphus, University of St. Thomas, Beloit, College of Wooster, Kalamazoo, Knox, Earlham, Illinois Wesleyan, Ohio Wesleyan, Lawrence U in WI, Coe College, and Cornell College. If you’re willing to venture into Pennsylvania, then you open the doors to a whole bunch more LACs and smaller universities. There’s a ton of LACs in Ohio that I’m not familiar with as they are Catholic or Christian, and we’re Jewish; however, I have heard nothing but positive comments about the institutions within the CC community. </p>

<p>I definitely would have your D apply to Grinnell as a reach!</p>

<p>I’m sure if you ask in this thread or the one for 2014, you’ll get a lot of answers. Actually, I’m going to cross post this in the other thread as well. </p>

<p>NB:
Oh, did you know that as an URM, NDSU & UND BOTH have diversity waivers that brings the tuition down to roughly $1000 or LESS per YEAR for URMs from MN? They also each have a higher graduation rate for URMs than the UofM. We told our D if she went to and graduated from UND or NDSU, we’d pay for grad or medical school. </p>

<p>Also, please check out U of M- Morris. It’s in a rural area, but is a public LAC.</p>

5674

<p>I love reading the senior destinations edition of the school newspaper. As expected, the largest chunk of kids in the class of 2013 will be at UVA. More than a third of the graduating class will be going to public Virginia colleges. But 52 are going to Ivies, 11 to MIT, 8 to Stanford, and 7 to Cal Tech. The destinations are geographically diverse, including 2 students going to McGill. </p>

<p>DS will miss a lot of these seniors. The school is so unique in focus and academic rigor that real bonds form among the students. Droves of alumni come back and visit during breaks (DS has said that there are literally hundreds of alums on campus during college winter break, visiting teachers, counselors, and old friends). And next year’s incoming freshman class will have the school’s first legacy, and a double legacy at that!</p>

<p>But DS is forward looking – he and his friends are already planning their Beach Week. Gotta have those priorities straight!</p>

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<p>This would be pretty similar here except our graduating class is about half of yours. I’d venture to say that 95% of our graduating class that is attending college (not all are) will be going within a 4 hour drive whether that is in state or OOS. It might be higher than 95% as otherwise I’d need to come up with a dozen names going farther and I can only come up with half of that right now (but I don’t know ALL the seniors). I did glance at a list of acceptances/scholarships before school let out.</p>

<p>We encourage ours to go farther from home and experience a different area… so far, one is 12 hours and the other is 6 hours. We discouraged their looking within an hour… wouldn’t have forbid it, but we really want them to go elsewhere.</p>

5676

<p>Our closest in-state public is 3 hours away. We have a real mix, all the in-state publics, neighboring state flagship, local and nearby privates, local cc, and a smattering of schools with name recognition.</p>

5677

<p>Hey all! Sounds like everyone is still doing what we’re doing - kicking around all the schools hoping the holy grail pops out.</p>

<p>D had her one and only interview on Friday. They both came out smiling and I figured when they’re talking about the honors program with her, it went well.</p>

<p>I feel like we haven’t found ‘the one’, which we did with my older son. But, I have to remind myself, she’s completely different, extremely outgoing, friendly, engaged and involved so she really will be okay in many, many places. </p>

<p>I feel like I know every single school out there now :slight_smile: Since I pretty much did the initial research and she toured a lot of schools and pretty much knows what she wants, I told her that her job this summer is to find at least one school on her own to apply. </p>

<p>What she wants, she probably isn’t going to get in, where she’ll get in comfortably she feels doesn’t have that school spirit, energetic vibe. sigh</p>

5678

<p>Dropped off Son '14 for Boys State. He reports that the school VA selected to host the event will not be among those schools where he will apply. Just does not appeal to him, he said. He’s running for some office, he told his brother, but added that it’s kind of sad that a lot of the guys want to brag about their GPAs. That could be a real turnoff to a lot of people. </p>

<p>The cross country coaches sent out an e-mail regarding workouts, summer camp, etc. Son '14 already is working out. He’ll take a break when he needs to have the wisdom teeth pulled.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, Fathers Day was also my anniversary. Husband was out of town, so the oldest son offered to hang with me. We went out to dinner and watched TV.</p>

5679

<p>Happy Anniversary, momreads!</p>

<p>I would love it if S ended up at a school 3 hours from home. D was delayed getting home Friday night and I vented on the Cafe and was amazed at some of the hostile responses I got. Good to know I know where the nice people are! There’s no place like home :)</p>

5680

<p>I’m curious. My son has started to receive recruiting mail - both emails and post - from highly selective schools (i.e. University of Chicago). His stats are fine, but probably put him in the “reach” category for these schools. Why are they doing this? They are already oversubscribed, have low acceptance rates and, while my son is going to be a great college man somewhere, he probably would be, at best, “middle of the pack” at any of these schools.
I know he would certainly get in some of these schools, but why are they reaching out to students who are more likely to be rejected than accepted?</p>