^ and therein lies some of S19’s issues.
D got her ACT scores from April (finally!) and we’re pretty pleased. She did better than on the practice tests and the score is in line with her SAT’s. She takes the SAT for the second time on Monday, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed for at least a little nudge up. She’s doing the essay and says she will not do any more essays (ACT or SAT) no matter what her score is. Well, I guess we’ll see…
@eandesmom, Good point about the self-selecting applicants at some of those smaller schools. Perhaps I should pay more attention to scores and GPA at those rather than acceptance rate. Looking at Naviance comparisons I feel a little better admit-wise, but of course I have no idea where in the “blob” students are receiving good merit.
Your list is a good way to divide up affordability (or lack thereof). I think D will be applying to at least 10 schools, so it will be a busy summer of supplemental essays. Someone on another thread recommended starting with the likely schools, so only the reaches will fall off if “essay fatigue” sets in.
I feel so bad about your FL issues. This is a tough area for D as well. Due to some of her challenges, a real FL would be a nightmare. She took two years of ASL (which she was moderately interested in), but the teacher was the worst one she’s ever had in her HS. Or in any school. By far. D was miserable and refused to take a third year. Only one of her colleges requires three years FL, but of course it’s her first choice! We’re in the process of seeing which of her colleges have FL as part of their core reqs.
@“Queen’s Mom”, Is this your D’s first SAT? My D’s school recommends taking both SAT and ACT three times. Some kids do way better on one test than the other. And apparently 3 sittings is the “magic number” where scores tend to go up each time before getting to a point of diminishing returns. Particularly for math I’d recommend practice on Khan Academy which should have a link directly from the score report. As for tuition, yeah I think that’s depressing for all of us. Sigh.
@snoozn, it’s her second SAT. She likes the format better than the ACT, so she won’t be taking it. I agree with 3 being the magic number. She’ll take it last time in the fall. She’s on Kahn academy, but she isn’t studying enough.
@snoozn love the new avatar 
It is so hard to know what numbers to focus on. In theory a safety “should” be on where your kid is in that upper quartile. Except for me, I don’t care for schools where that is where he fits. At all. Does that mean he doesn’t have any safeties? I don’t think so but if you measure it that way…then I guess he doesn’t. Naviance does make me feel better on some, especially those with a larger pool of applicants.
I am a bit disappointed he is not taking the ACT next week but I really do think it is for the best and he has a better chance of doing well (moving it up) in September. It is interesting, we hear everything from taking it up to 3 times, to not bothering more than twice…ugh. Hopefully the 3rd time is a charm but I feel I have a bit of an immovable object who is convinced it can’t go higher than a certain point and is pretty down about it but honestly he has not put in the studying recently to say that in my opinion.
Very glad to hear the April scores were good, I can’t believe how long that took, was that through the school?
I am finding most of the LAC’s require language. Some allow you to test out, some will take an AP or Subject test score versus their own test but some require regardless and only use that info for placement. It’s a bit of a battle zone around here regarding that particular grade and freedom but reluctantly agreeing to in class tutoring and doing zero extra studying that I can see at home isn’t my idea of working hard to turn it around. It may be amazing if we both survive the next 3 weeks, teen hormones in full swing and the broken wrist certainly doesn’t help things.
At any rate, we have such a long list of LAC’s to wade through I figure we can cut the list down for other reasons first, then go back and dig into curricula items such as PE requirements and FL. Given that a current #2 requires 2 semesters of FL and he hasn’t blinked at that, it shows me it is not a deal killer. That could change though!
@eandesmom, I totally hear you on the safeties thing. We have yet to find a true safety based on the criterion you provided. My D is either at the low end (very low) or somewhere in the middle of the 25%-75% range of the schools on our list at best. Ugh. On a positive note, D took the SAT again yesterday and she thought it went much better–didn’t run out of time in any of the sections this time. Keeping fingers crossed that her scores will improve. She’s not thrilled about taking the ACT again but is resigned to taking it in Sepember. But hey, if her SAT scores do go up, maybe we’ll just stick with SAT and forget about taking another whack at ACT.
Hope you get through the end of the year sanity intact (that actually goes for all of us)!
The safety school issue was a real downer with my oldest D. She did not want to go to her single safety at all (in-state public) and only applied to one private (she didn’t have any other publics) where she was in the top quartile, and a couple of others where she was close. Didn’t get enough merit from the schools she really loved. But it did all work out at the safety eventually.
If in-state publics are affordable, wouldn’t your kid only have to be around 50% to get in? Of course then you do lose auto-merit in some cases. Current senior D (I almost said junior!) is doing better than first D. For privates (which she prefers so far) she’s only in the top quartile for two out of our 14 total schools. Luckily she and I really liked the one we already visited (there are some travel issues however…) But yeah, at most of her favorites she doesn’t look so likely to get enough merit if any.
Apparently D’s ACT scores took extra long because of her accommodations. I’m not sure why because she took it on the regular date in-school. With the SAT she took it a few days later than the official date and the scores came at the regular time. So I’m not sure exactly what’s going on there.
D also had PE issues. She had one semester requirement waived due to a non-school activity. But she was supposed to take the basic PE class as well. When she found out she’d have to be changing in a locker room with other girls she was just horrified. She wasn’t looking forward to the team sport aspect either. Luckily she was able to get a waiver and now she’s taking aerobic walking as an on-line summer class. Whew.
I don’t think she cares about PE reqs in college as long as they can be more fun, individual activities like archery or yoga. But FL could be a serious issue. I still need to dig through college websites to figure out which ones have a FL req. It won’t stop her applying, but if she gets admitted I’d want to contact the disabilities office to see if they might give her an alternative like foreign culture or history classes.
@eandesmom, I hope you and your son and the hormones will all pull through the next few weeks! And yep @klinska I hope we’ll make it to May 1st and then all breathe a huge sigh of relief with a nice glass of wine.
@klinska I am not sure a true safety exists in our case, at least by that criteria. I have been considering safeties where.
He is in the middle 50% or higher based on the schools published data
Our Naviance shows 92-100% acceptance at his stats (even if he is in the lower % for total acceptances). this of course only works if there are enough kids at his stats to make it worth counting…
Schools acceptance rate is 78% or higher.
For some of the schools that fit this, they have minimum criteria that simply don’t go low enough for S to ever fit in the top 25%.
@snoozn our instate publics have little to no auto merit so there isn’t anything to lose. LOL! There is one school that does, that S would qualify for both merit and easy admission but he has zero interest in attending it. It’s not really enough merit to make it worth fighting for though there are programs that would work for sure. I agree it isn’t the right fit for him.
I am glad she was able to get the PE waiver for the online summer class!
S has his precalc final today, with no scribe or extra time (though he doesn’t think that will help). According to the teacher, a good score is high 60’s, low 70’s. No curve in the class and S is doing better than most in there. It is consistent with how S did on the practice test (high 60’s). Unfortunately that will mean a drop in grade, down to a solid B. Which, combined with the FL language grade issues is very likely to mean the overall GPA will dip back just under the 3.4 mark unless he can bump other classes up a tad to compensate. Nothing like down to the wire!
Total bummer but I can’t show it, the kid is working really hard and has really been a trooper with the fractured wrist complication.
@eandesmom, we are having precalc woes, too–I feel for you. D’s grade in the online portal is giving me palpitations, but she assures me that not all of her grades/credits have been added, so I’m just putting myself on a portal diet and staying the heck away. It is what it is. We’re 13 days away from the the end of the school year! She’s showing a lot more initiative with this whole process, lining up teacher recommendations, completing her brag sheet, etc., so I am starting to be hopeful and also trying have conversations about things other than college college college.
@klinska Portal diet! LOL. I could do that with S17, he is on top of his stuff (well, other than Spanish but he is working on that I know) and is keeping me quite updated. S19 right now is another story, I can’t afford a portal diet. He is shall we say, organizational resistant. Long story but at the end of the day it is nothing to do with ability or the material but rather a very deliberate choice, not of laziness, as to how he spends his time on homework and what he chooses to prioritize. It really is breaking my heart though, I see one kid work so hard for a B+ average and the other kid throwing things away and ending up with the same average. Frustrating! Need to figure out how to get through to S19 and convince him he will not sell his soul to “the man” and turn into some desk jockey robot as an adult if he plots his time out and turns thing in on time.
Very encouraging on lining up LOR’s etc. S17 told he last night he didn’t see why he needed to do apps/essays before mid winter break. “That’s when everyone else does it mom”.
Um, well, for starters, for almost his entire list…he will miss the due dates if he waits that long.
@snoozn I meant to comment on the lack of merit at the ones your D really loved. That is a huge fear here too. I just pray the affordable safety that he likes/possibly loves is in fact a safety.
I just wanted to link this comment
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19287761/#Comment_19287761
in which the poster discusses her hs gc sending home info on merit received by previous grads. (Sounds like Naviance, but you can see merit received as well – wouldn’t that be great!) She mentions a lot of B/B+ students getting into local LACs with significant merit. I’d suggest skimming the whole thread for anyone on the merit chase.
That would be wonderful if you could get that information for your school, pure merit based on stats. I always feel like our Naviance isn’t quite right. As in it doesn’t show all the data reported in the scattergrams…the numbers applied/accepted etc do not match up to the volume of dots. Or schools I know kids got into and enrolled, don’t show as having an acceptance. Which makes it hard to trust the data.
I’d like to believe the NPC’s are in the ballpark and if anything, when estimating merit are conservative. I have done some nosing around on specific schools to confirm what some individuals were offered and that does help but the reality is that significant merit is subjective. If the price tag is 60k and they offer 20k, well yes, that is generous. But it’s still a 40K school. I’ve only kept LAC’s on the list that appear to offer merit at current stats. Still, it’s a crapshoot and I know it. So does S.
The question becomes, at what point is the extra cost worth it and at what is it not? It is also subjective, and we are certainly not discussing ivy/elites here but still, there are things that make a school seem “better” for whatever reason for a particular student. I struggle with identifying what that differential is worth in $$ when push comes to shove (as it may well do).
Last year (and I think for several of the past years) Wyoming offered a free application if submitted in July. It will save him $40 if he does it early. No essays, no recommendations needed with the application (might be required later for scholarships or other programs).
Check one off.
@twoinanddone free is good! Currently there are 4 LAC’s on the list that are free but I figured out today that if S applied to all the schools on the list plus the costs to send ACT scores it would be $1003!
Of course he won’t apply to all or even most but the numbers add up fast.
I will definitely take note of that, I didn’t think any apps even opened up until August. Wyoming is on the list and 40 bucks is 40 bucks!
We need to decide if we want to use free score reports in September or wait and see how it compares to his previous.
Thanks!!! Good info!!!
Quick update. Huge progress in FL for S17 however they apparently had a “terrible” test yesterday that even the top students though they bombed. So…we shall see. Precalc bumped up as well but the final test grade isn’t in. It seems to happen every semester where the grades pop up 2 weeks before and then boom back down. I am feeling better about where he will end up though.
Since he didn’t do the ACT today (which is kind of a drag as in theory we may not have scores from Sept in time for them to arrive with EA apps) we did put it to good use and cut down the list. A lot. I mapped out inflation over the next 4 years for all the schools on the list earlier in the week and had slashed 5 off already. S slashed some more, none of which I was dying for him to keep and we are down to 10.
The revised list breaks out like this
11% Private University
22% State Directional University
33% Liberal Arts Colleges
44% State Flagship or Land Grant University
4 Safeties, 6 Matches. Of these at the moment we really both “like” 6 of them. The other 4 are staying for largely backup/financial reasons but there is something about each that either one or both of us really isn’t crazy about.
This is a workable list. I plan to be DONE researching more at this point. I’ll be looking instead to see if we try to see a few at the end of summer when the schools start up in other parts of the country. 2 in particular may make sense to go see and could be seen on the same trip.
Financially we are now at
30% affordable as is
40% affordable with a bit of a stretch
30% unaffordable unless things are interpreted a certain way or S gets music money.
This is also workable
Admission % wise
Safeties 77%-98%, average 84%
Matches 67%-85%, average 74%
This is also livable I think.
It’s a list with a lot of compromises, no one clear winner but several I could definitely live with. The only real bummer? It still stands at 11 essays!!!
@eandesmom Great update! My D still has two colleges on her list.
@eandesmom I’m glad to hear things are working out well for your son. I have to say, I am completely in awe of the research you have done. I think you may be the most thorough individual I have ever encountered. You are a good mom!
That said, I totally hear you about being done with the research. We are also done with our due diligence and I have to say, generally speaking, I feel pretty good about where we are. An unexpected, yet happy surprise is our boy has taken charge of the entire process and is doing a very credible job. Absolutely amazing. I am very grateful his girlfriend was a senior this past year and he had a front row seat to her experience. She has older siblings who have been through the process before and she was very organized and smart in her approach. I couldn’t have written a better role model. It has been a blessing.
There are 8 schools on his list. I love 5, 2 are good/acceptable, and kid doesn’t know it yet, but 1 is a nonstarter. It is incomprehensible to me that he is even considering the nonstarter. I am not going to say a word at this point in time. I know better. Hopefully it will fall off all by itself without intervention. It is a bit of a worry though.
Great update, @eandesmom! That sounds like amazing progress! Sorry you’re still white-knuckling it on the FL and precalc–I definitely feel for you!
Your mix of schools sound very sensible, and it sounds like you and S17 are pretty much on the same page. You’ve clearly done due diligence and I would think you can expect an excellent outcome.
Just a question about the essays–are you not doing Common App for these schools? I just went through and identified whether the schools on our list accept the Common App (they all do), and whether or not a supplemental essay is required (a few do, but not many, and they generally are either short answer or no more than 250 words–one is a “why X college?” that is 47 words. Need to find out what the significance of the 47 thing is). Not being 100% sure how the common app works, I am wondering if D does need to tweak the personal statement depending on the school. There’s another thread about how long it takes to complete an application and there’s a lot of discussion about really needing to tailor the essay to the school, but that seemed to be for the super-elite schools. How are you and S17 approaching the essays?
@brindlegreyhound 2 would stress me out! To be fair there are only 6 that we both like. It will be interesting to see how that list of 6 holds up.
@oldbrookie oh the non starter! I have one of those, although it is partially my fault as I introduced the idea of that school without doing enough homework first. I am hoping it dies a natural death. You are doing a much better job than I of keeping silent although I am trying very hard. That is great he is taking charge. S17 isn’t quite at the taking charge stage but is very clear that it will be his decision and is owning the list. That said, it’s not like he has gone out and found colleges on his own for the most part. Ones he has suggested initially have fallen off fairly easily by his own choice.
@kinska 5 of the schools use the Common App. 2 of those have a supplement. One supplement is an essay related to why you are interested in your specific academic area and others that interest you. 250 words. Another asks for a recent analytic or research paper and I have no clue what S would use for that. The Common App essay is only 600 words max, none of these are all that long, it’s volume and differing thought for each. I wouldn’t underestimate the time needed for a 250 word “why xxx” essay.
The other 5 do not use the Common App and each has their own application. 3 don’t require an essay at all. One school asks for 6 100 word answers for the following: Leadership, Creativity, Adversity, Community Service, Systemic Challenges, Goals. The last school has 2. One does allow you to use your common ap prompt if preferred but also offers 2 college specific prompts and I suspect S will pick one of those. It then has an activities section that is different than the common app so will take a bit of time to put into their format.
As for approach, like you I am not 100% sure but my understanding is this (and maybe someone else knows “for sure”). The essay can be saved in draft form and worked on as long as you like. I believe you can submit as desired to the schools so if you want to tweak it for school #2, just go in and edit before sending that application. As far as needing to tweak, I don’t know. I would think it would depend on the prompt chosen and the actual essay. I suppose in all of the prompt options they could be tweaked to turn them into a “why” statement, why the kid is a good fit for that school or what they bring to that school but I have to admit I am not a huge fan of that strategy. It would seem to be that the common app essay should stand alone, say enough about the child to be applicable to any college without being specific. Schools that want a “why” essay, ask for them. To turn the common app one into a marketing ploy/plug for a specific school doesn’t really seem genuine to me but maybe I am missing something. I have definitely heard of kids doing that though. I can’t see S being bothered though lol.
Strategy wise the plan is to do the common app essay and common app, over the summer. Ideally he will also do the essay for the non common app school that has its own prompts at a minimum. As for the rest, the 2 that have supplements are schools we now plan to see the last week of August/1st of Sept. Writing those, or figuring out what paper to submit will be dependent on those visits but they’d be next in line although he likely wouldn’t start those until after the Sept ACT.
Last would be the one that has the 6 short response sections. That one will take some time given the format. I expect him to apply there but we won’t visit it until October and I won’t ask him to start those until after the visit. It is a RD only school though so that will be fine.
My personal goal is that we have all EA and Common App schools done and submitted by about 10/15 (after the 1st quarter report card). No later than 10/31. I’d like everything else done by 12/1 (okay really, 11/1). This may be a battle but we need to be first in line for any money.
Is the 47 words Lawrence? I remember seeing that one somewhere but am not sure if I have the school right. I thought it was odd as well!
My D is a Class of 2016 student who applied TEST OPTIONAL to American University and The George Washington University. While she completely a full IB private school program (GPA 4.16) she did not do well on the ACT/SAT.
She was admitted to both American University (School of International Service and Global Scholars 3
Year BA/MBA) and The George Washington University (Elliott School of International Affairs- University Honors Program- Presidential Academic Scholarship).
If your kiddos are having heartburn over test scores please consider test optional schools at
http://fairtest.org/university/optional
@HappyFace2018, the main issue with test optional schools is the GPA and course rigor count more. Last year, D15 considered test optional schools but with a 3.2 unweighted GPA and 3.7 weighted GPA, she (and I) realized that approach would not work for her. D had the rigor but not the GPA. If your child has a high GPA (say, 3.7+ unweighted / 4.0+ weighted) but lower than expected test score, then test optimal is the way to go, but lowish grades (this is the 3.0-3.4 thread) and lowish test scores may not be the best strategy with test optional schools.
One school (New College of Florida) was explicit. An admission officer said if the student’s GPA was on the low side, the school wanted to see higher than expected test scores; and, the other way around. The school wanted to see academic potential. LORs also went a long way to influencing their decision.
In the end, D opted to do a lot of prepping and practice for her ACT and significantly raised her score. I took the practice exams with her. My scores didn’t matter, but this ‘competition’ made D take practice tests on a regular basis. fwiw, we were competitive - I was better in Science and English and she outscored me in Reading. We were tied in Math, but then she studied (!) and her math went up.
D also chose schools based on her unweighted GPA and old test scores. A couple of schools that were reaches became matches and schools that were match moved to safety based on her new test score (but her GPA remained below the median for the more selective schools - so they weren’t true matches). Maybe D could have gain admission to “better” schools but she is happy with her school (Cornell College in Iowa with the One Course at a Time block structure) and she receives a nice amount of merit aid.