<p>Plans for “the list”: I wouldn’t expect others outside our situation to do this, but she’s planning to have a final target list by May 2015. Apps in early by October 2015. Then, adjust as necessary as rejections or acceptances come in, which might mean new apps by deadlines for regular decisions in spring 2016. This timeline is needed because she’s aiming for Tuition Exchange schools, mostly, for either BSW or Psych majors. And, if her stats and our financials don’t work, she’ll use the early part of a gap year to try again. She has a plan for a super-duper safety for academics and financials, but it doesn’t have the major she desires, so if that’s the only school she winds up with, then she’s looking at a two-year MSW rather than a one-year. Of course, we could be ill-informed and wrong-headed. Natch. </p>
<p>Re “list” - we started a big list already, but are now narrowing it down. For example, I’m not sure that Vanderbilt or RPI add anything to the list that we don’t do better with some of the other options (e.g. Tulane and CMU).</p>
<p>Yesterday we saw Johns Hopkins and it was ok. The student ambassador person told two stories that rubbed me wrong:
(1) she did badly on a test and went to see the professor and he was so accessible! And raised her grade!
(2) there was a class with an exam scheduled the Monday after a special campus weekend activity was to take place, so the class held a sit-in until the professor changed the exam date.
However, there were plusses, like their neat Chinese STEM study abroad program (DS16 studies Mandarin and wants to major in some kind of STEM), and their intersession time in January.</p>
<p>Today we saw UMD at College Park and we LOVED it. I was surprised at how much I really liked all the aspects of what we saw. I think the size and sheer possibilities with that many kids, really impressed and reassured me. The tour guide actually said something that I’m sure is cliche but I had never heard it before: you can’t necessarily make a big school out of a small school, but you can make a small school out of a big school…</p>
<p>BTW before I ask over in “Merit Aid” - does anyone know the likelihood of merit aid at UMD-CP for someone with my DS’s stats? (DS16 has all A’s and A-'s, all 5s on APs, takes hardest AP/Honors classes when available; 800 on SAT-II Math-II; 35 composite ACT so far (might stop here actually re ACT/SAT, interested in advice there as well.)</p>
<p>The Hillels at both JHU and UMD-CP were amazing, by the way.</p>
<p>I do not think we are ready to talk lists yet. I think we will need to have SAT and ACT results in order to have a realistic picture.</p>
<p>UMD CP does not seem to have any automatic merit scholarships (ones that are given based on national merit/SAT/ACT/GPA etc with specific cut offs). They do seem to have merit scholarships, some with full tuition, room board etc.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.admissions.umd.edu/finaid/MeritScholarshipsForFreshmen.php”>http://www.admissions.umd.edu/finaid/MeritScholarshipsForFreshmen.php</a></p>
<p>@dragonflygarden – With all the caveats that come with rankings, undoubtedly you’ve seen this:
<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?;
As you wrote, you’re lucky to have some great in-state options. UVA is a simply fantastic school, and could add a whole lot of interesting pieces to econ/business.</p>
<p>@fretfulmother – We were so interested in UMDCP for S14 that he did a three-week summer program there between his junior and senior years. He ended up not applying, but I was very intrigued by the school, in particular the honors colleges/programs (I thought that he might have been a good fit for Digital Cultures and Creativity). In the old CC format one could easily go back to the decision threads for each of the schools that would run at the appropriate time of the year (i.e., when EA, ED, and regular decisions were released). Those threads contained a lot of kids individual stats and their merit awards – very helpful stuff. There may be a way to search and find these threads, but I’m not able to do it. For UMDCP honors colleges you have to apply by the ‘preferred’ Nov 1 date, and I believe decisions came out in late January. So if you can search the UMDCP forum for a decisions thread around that time you may find it. I do remember that in the Class of 2013 applicants there were a lot of OOS merit scholarships. . . If STEM is your son’s focus they have some great engineering depts. Finally, with a 35 ACT why would he bother with further ACT/SAT testing?</p>
<p>My college professor sister strongly encouraged us to look at honors colleges at state flagships, including (even especially) OOS schools. Many of these honors colleges are residential, and provide access to smaller honors sections of courses. They do blend the benefits of a small school with those of a big school. For those who are unfamiliar with this site: <a href=“http://publicuniversityhonors.com/”>http://publicuniversityhonors.com/</a>
There’s all sorts of interesting stuff on various pages on this site.</p>
<p>@fretfulmother, I will be watching your college list with interest. My d16 studies Mandarin as well, and has an interest in STEM, probably engineering. I’ve been looking for schools that offer both options. Visits will be difficult for us, as we are not in driving distance from many schools.</p>
<p>Asleepatthewheel - awesome public university link! It is good to see another perspective. </p>
<p>@29happymom26 Dennison looked a bit expensive–have you checked into the merit situation at all?</p>
<p>Just booked the tour of UC Berkeley for next week. Why do they ask for other schools you will be applying to? </p>
<p>@asleepatthewheel she would like to study food science. :bz </p>
<p>I think we’ve got the shortest list: MIT;-), OU (Honors College) and Texas A&M. I doubt she’d make the cut for MIT and the only reason A&M is there is because it’s an in state safety.</p>
<p>Florida State has an awesome program with Tianjin University in eastern China. I know a couple of people who’ve done that particular fellowship (niece and family friend). As far as STEM, I don’t know their reputation. Niece is applying to law school.</p>
<p>@cakeisgreat – This is what I love about these threads. I learn so much. I was totally unaware that there was such a thing as a ‘food science’ major, and (after doing some reading) it turns out to be not what I might have expected. Out here in CA there was recently a recall of peaches and nectarines that were likely contaminated with Listeria during transport. KCBS radio interviewed a guy from UC Davis whose area of expertise was the safe packing and transport of fruits and vegetables. Now I know that he was from their Dept of Food Science. . . It looks like a great area. Filled with rigorous science, but useful and practical. And likely also exploding in new technologies like everything else. . . It appears that a lot, but not all of the programs are at public universities. How have you/she ended up with the finalists on your list? Was it because of the specifics of the program/dept or because of the school. ?Geography. There are some pretty interesting schools that offer food science that are not on your list.</p>
<p>@kandcsmom – Denison gives out merit aid to a whopping 88% of the students, with an average merit award of around $16,000. And FWIW, Denison is one of the CTCL schools.</p>
<p>@3scoutsmom – Not only do you have the shortest list in terms of numbers (i.e., three schools), but:
– as you noted, it could drop to two schools (!!)
– given that the first two on the list have only five letters (MIT, OU), you have the shortest list in terms of total letters, nine, if you shorten Texas A&M to TAMU. You could do a word jumble contest using the letters of the acronyms of the schools’ names!</p>
<p>@AsleepAtTheWheel I don’t thats enough but we still may give it a try. </p>
<p>We don’t have any scores yet, not even PSAT, but we do have that list. The list contains schools that would accept even the lowest scores to schools that would demand ones in the mid- to upper 20s for ACT. So, when the actual scores come in, we’ll have a sense of DD’s chances at the various schools on the list, which have been chosen mainly for the major/degree she’s seeking. </p>
<p>@AsleepAtTheWheel - thank you so much! BTW - why in particular OOS state flagships? I know that in our case, UMD-CP has the best Hillel (followed by U Mich Ann Arbor), but likely if we weren’t concerned about that, our in-state (U MA Amherst) could be a better choice financially…so I was curious why your sister recommends OOS? Or, maybe she means, if you don’t live in a state with an excellent state flagship?</p>
<p>@texaspg - We’re definitely hoping that DS would get merit aid. I think otherwise, UMD-CP isn’t much better than our EFC would be for a private college. Yes, it’s aggravating/stressful that it isn’t automatic, so who knows, right. That’s why U MA still has to be on our list.</p>
<p>@AKFirefly - Thank you! Please also send your ideas here. So far the leading contenders are still MIT and UMD-CP, with JHU and Princeton close behind. I think if we had gotten to see Penn, that would have been good, too. I don’t know if you are considering midwest schools, but UIUC is also supposed to be good in those fields. I grew up in UC and really am tired of the midwest, but lots of people love it, of course! 
Likewise California schools. I understand that Stanford is probably the best at combining those languages with STEM - but the Hillel isn’t strong enough for my DS.</p>
<p>Places that we are also putting on our list for later are: Emory, Tulane, Wash U, U Mich Ann Arbor. And we are visiting Cornell tomorrow and U MA Amherst on Friday. I think I mentioned that we probably are eliminating Yale and Harvard.</p>
<p>We saw CMU today and were left unimpressed. DS16 and DS20 both thought that the students didn’t seem as proud or happy about being at CMU as they had at all the other colleges we saw (the tour guide was almost resigned, sarcastic during the tour, “ok, here’s the part where I’m supposed to name drop about who went here…” and “so, yeah, I guess that’s basically everything you would care about” - things like that). And I felt like the adults were kind of proving themselves the whole time (“Don’t think about MIT! Don’t think about MIT!” but more subtle of course 
) However, they do give merit aid, and they do have many extremely well-regarded programs, of course. I think sometimes you get duds for the programming, I guess. The one guy I knew back in the day who went to CMU, was really sweet and smart, FWIW.</p>
<p>One thing we have been thinking is this: If it’s not MIT (or, for anyone who doesn’t care about Hillels, I would add Caltech and Georgia Tech), then is it really worthwhile to sacrifice what you lose by going to an engineering school per se? For instance - CMU does not offer any classes in the Classics, like Latin and/or Greek, etc. MIT doesn’t either (or you have to go to Harvard/Wellesley to take them or something). DS16 really wanted to minor in Classics, or at least continue his studies. He might be willing to give that up to go to MIT, but left CMU feeling like he wasn’t sure he would want to make that trade-off.</p>
<p>@AsleepAtTheWheel I agree! I am constantly learning about many things by reading these threads! Food science is so much fun…she has always made various concoctions in the kitchen citing she wants to create new flavors and got so excited when watching a clip about the science of chocolate…melting it at various temperatures changes the chemical composition and taste apparently. She especially wants to work on flavors to make medicines taste better…but she will be very happy working on any food and sustainability as well.</p>
<p>My friend is a food scientist for Kraft foods and that is what first intrigued her. We have been looking mainly at east coast colleges that are approved by ift organization (don’t remember what that means lol) and Purdue. Thinking about u of Maine and u Maryland college park. But she is already so happy with Purdue rutgers and Delaware that she isgood with any of them if she gets accepted.</p>
<p>She is mostly looking at the program within the colleges. We have studied each colleges syllabus, how excited they are about their agricultural and food sci dept etc over comfort, size of school, beauty of campus etc. she is very mature about the whole process. I’m impressed!</p>
<p>Wow, cake, she’s really on top of things. I feel sometimes as though I have to pull mine into discussions of college kicking and screaming. I’m not sure either of them is in any tearing hurry to grow up and leave the nest sometimes. </p>
<p>Thanks @petrichor11! I know what you mean…I am pretty lucky that she is on top of things…I think it makes her feel a bit more grown up…she can’t wait to live on her own although she does have it pretty darn good at home lol. She just wants to be in charge of her life and destiny…she doesn’t like people telling her what to do…she was a tough kid but she is so chill and cool now…definitely channeled it into all positives. thank God!</p>
<p>@kandcsmom My older son applied to denison and was accepted. His award was 22,000 a year which is probably half tuition. S will have higher test scores and the goal would be full tuition unless he wants to take on a an unsubsidized loan in his package.
Even with two in college, we will be full pay everywhere so I only look at merit scholarships.</p>