@notinoz is the program offered at the school the driver? Or is it just the location. If it has both it is a hard one to fight especially if the price seems right.
I am hoping that the better programs offered at the other state schools or the better over all fit for size/structure and feel offered at the liberal arts colleges outweigh what he likes about this one. Thankfully at the moment it isn’t his number one, and since I don’t plan to have him visit it unless he is allowed to apply (LOL) visiting might not even happen. It is both a financial and academic safety, but it isn’t his least expensive option. There are two that would cost less and are much better schools. At least in my opinion. The challenge we do have is that he does know one kid who goes there who loves it and that kids father also went there and loved it so they’re singing it’s siren song to my son.
@“Queen’s Mom” that would freak me out a bit, having only one financial and academic safety. Hopefully you or her GC can get her to add at least one more.
@eandesmom The true drivers for him are the price (it’s by far the lowest) and the ease/comfort of living at his dad’s. The school has the majors that most interest him, but they’re not unusual and not a strength at this school. While I agree that it would be great for him to be with his dad and attend college at that price point, I would rather spend more of the college fund on a school with a greater emphasis on undergrad education and more in the way of a residential community. In my case the siren song is “low price tag + live in comfort with family instead of strangers + GET A CAR!” Tough to counter that combination.
I will be interested to see how your situation plays out! You’ve inspired me to devote some time to hunting for better options at a lower/similar price, too.
@notinoz I imagine the living with dad may be a huge factor. If S17’s bio dad was at all in the picture and remote he might be really swayed by that, to try and have a deeper relationship even if he doesn’t realize it. That’s a tough one. To me though if they are living at home, CC for 2 years is even cheaper (and might free up enough money for a car lol).
Different kids want different things. We have one who did some living at home while in college (though he was never there, basically moved from couch to couch) and three who want the full on campus with other students experience.
Part of not wanting that can be fear. Our kid who didn’t is much more introverted than the others and rather picky about his circle on a kindred spirit kind of way. I am not sure allowing him to live at his moms was at all the best choice.
He graduated last June and is still there. It’s easy. I can’t really blame him but I don’t like it. Best of both worlds for him but it doesn’t inspire him to really take ownership of his life and career with any kind of urgency.
I wouldn’t worry about the graduation rates so much if the school is a good match. Some schools have students that have to take off a semester or two to build up funds before returning to school. My own daughter will be contributing to the ‘4+’ rating at her school. She took a semester off to do an internship (not through the school) and now she wants to do a semester abroad. She changed her minor to a major/major to a minor, and she has some of the basic classes to take for the new major. I can easily see this heading to 5 years.
We’re done making our list unless visited schools get dropped (5 visits upcoming). 14 schools – yep that’s long, but no extreme for a merit chase list. Plus two of the schools are free to apply.
Three auto-admit affordable safeties (so glad!)
Four low-matches where enough merit seems pretty likely (high hopes in this area).
Four matches where admit with merit seems possible, but differing levels of probability (first choice school is in this bunch)
Three reaches where I’d be surprised at admittance and shocked by getting enough merit.
@brindlegreyhound, have you managed to get your list above two? I have to say, that would scare me a bit at this point.
@HappyFace2018, I haven’t read the book about having a college hook, but I think my D has a decent one that would go over well with some colleges but not others. She’s still not sure what approach she’s going to use.
@mdcmom and @“Queen’s Mom”, Eww, lice. When I was a teen I was in the hospital for nearly a week and had lice when I came out. That does not embolden trust in overall hospital cleanliness.
@notinoz and @eandesmom, I feel for you on the non-starter school issue. I was lucky to avoid this and only have a school I would not want her to attend on the reachy end. So, probably just a waste of app money. Do you think visiting these schools would make the situation better or worse? Maybe it’s worthwhile to find some visit reports and if they’re overwhelmingly bad, let your kid visit!
@twoinanddone, Yes, I’ll raise my hand and admit my 6th year senior is probably not beloved by admissions at this point. There are a mix of “good” and “bad” reasons for the situation – I remain hopeful that the current plan will work.
@“Queen’s Mom”, my oldest D was the same. One lone safety that she did NOT want to go to, reaches that didn’t accept her (I totally didn’t know what I was doing at the time!) and matches we couldn’t afford for the most part. She ended up at the hated safety and had a rough start, but is happy to be there now. I hope you can at least convince her to add an extra safety, so that no matter what she will have a choice.
@twoinanddone I agree. One of our top choices has an average grad rate of 4.2 years. One can easily see with class schedule challenges that an extra quarter can be needed. SD14 is doing a summer quarter at the linked CC for her school for that very reason. It may look like 4 years from the schools tracking standpoint but from our wallets perspective it will be 4.33!
@snoozn I am afraid visiting the school in our case would make it worse. He is in love with the setting as much as anything and I would prefer not to feed that beast. It wouldn’t be a cheap visit as it’s hard to get to. If we have to, we can visit after acceptance. And while I don’t expect them to throw money at him, you never know. IF they did well, H and I might rethink our position. LOL! The battle may be with H whether to let him apply at all or not. S is right, he won’t take longer than 4, I do trust him in that respect. However I can’t get past the schools reputation with employers in it’s state and suspect it will really impact employability and starting salaries. Bleeding heart liberal kid doesn’t care about that but…I do. I suppose it is a better option than the in state CTCL darling that employers here feel the same about that I think we’ve successfully dropped. In that case, touring may well help as allegedly the buildings are really ugly and S would not like that.
@snoozn D still has two schools plus she knows she is expected to apply at an in state directional school. She has hated all in state directional schools so far: too close to home, too much winter, too much sports culture etc. Maybe she’ll like the next one we plan to visit in a few weeks.
The rest of what I was trying to say:
Her two schools have high acceptance rates and our expensive in state flagship makes them look relatively affordable. S 12 applied to three schools and it turned out fine. Life is long; things may change
Two schools would terrify me. You never know what can happen. I’d prefer to hedge my bets a little. My 2016 graduate applied to a LOT of schools and I was shocked where she got rejected. One in particular should have been a safety and she showed interest and applied early. She was deferred and then rejected.
Looks like I found my thread. My son’s GPA fits right in the range. He’s an underperforming gifted kid in a intense top ranked public high school, who gets good grades in AP math/science and so-so ones in regular English/Social Studies classes. Just got back his May SAT scores and the multiple choice part he got excellent scores. (First time, didn’t really study much) Essay only so-so… I’m actually worried if his high SAT scores will hurt rather than help him. I heard one admissions councelor on a college visit over spring break mention this can be a red flag. Anyone else have a child in this situation? Ever heard of a students high SAT scores hurting them.
I do have some concern over the SAT Essay grade, but only about half the schools he is taking about ask for it. I would rather he focus next fall on improving his grades, than retaking the SAT just for the Essay part.
Current plan is for him apply to a variety of in-state & out of state, large public schools. He GPA is on the low-side for most places he’s considering but within range. Another concern is he isn’t talking about enough schools. Current list is only about 6 schools. I figure with his stats… he should apply more broadly and see what sticks.
@curiositycat333 That was my son last year. I hadn’t heard about the high SAT/low GPA thing hurting the kid (red flag) until affter his application season was over, and I suspect it’s true. When all was said and done, he increased his school’s naviance SAT and decreased the GPA for practically all the colleges he was accepted at! I think your instinct to apply broadly is a good one, because you want to find a school that will allow his SAT overcome his GPA. One thing working in your favor is he’s applying to large schools, which my son had ruled out, so your son’s chances will be improved by that.
@Momofmrb I’ve been trying to get him interested in looking at small private schools. But can’t really find one that matches his criteria. Partly that’s because one thing he is interested in is Engineering. (The only smaller schools I can find w/ Engineering are way beyond reach for him. ) We are looking at schools that don’t have Engineering but do have decent math, computer science, or physics programs . We did look at one small private school this spring which is strong in science but he didn’t like it. The school didn’t feel real to him. Too much of the tour was taken up by dorms & activities and not enough about classes, departments and such.
@curiositycat333 where are you looking geographically? Some of the Jesuit colleges have excellent engineering and can be matches for kids with our GPA range. I’d also look at the land grant schools versus flagships or less populated state flagships. Strong engineering, less expensive as a general rule, a bit less competitive for direct admit if offered. My S is debating engineering or not, all of his engineering options fit those descriptions, two are safeties and the others matches.
He is more consistent with test scores that line up with GPA (and we would love to get the ACT up) but I would still think your S would be a match based on your description without knowing the specific scores.
West Coast… and preferably not in a large urban area. (His choice not mine) Not sure I know understand the difference between a land grant school vs. flagship. We are looking at more than just Flagships but I don’t think of any state schools in my area as land grand schools. What I’m trying to do is get him to look a bit wider geographically…
@curiositycat333, my older daughter, with a GPA of approximately 3.4 and ACT of 35, got into approximately 12 schools (of the 16 or 17 she applied to). This was in 2009 but I think that there are still many schools that won’t be turned off by the GPA-test score disparity.
Look at Gonzaga, Colorado State, Washington State, Central Washington, Oregon State, University of Wyoming, Montana State, University of Montana, University of Northern Arizona, University of Nevada-Reno, Western Washington, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Oregon, UC Irvine.
I can’t speak to the California options very well. University of Portland and University of Seattle would also be good but are obviously urban.
All of these are good matches for the B/B+/A- student and have a variety of engineering options so it really depends on the kind of engineering that is of interest and then other programs that are good fits. High test scores may bring more merit. Some are WUE but not all.
Land grant is generally considered the secondary school to the flagship and originally focused in agricultural areas. So for example UW is our flagship, WSU is the land grant and Western Wa is historically the teachers school. Many locally would put WWU above WSU but ultimately they really just offer very different things. By that same token Oregon State and Colorado State are the land grant schools for those states respectively.
Maybe having the flagship and the land grant school the same institution is more common in the east? Thinking of MIT as Massachusetts’ land grant school, and Cornell as New York’s. Also, Rutgers is both the flagship and the land grant school in New Jersey.
@mdcmom great info! I’ve never actually looked it up, it’s often the description used for the “secondary” state school around here but it is quite different in the east so I’ve no idea.
According to Wikipedia there are 73 land grant universities, designated by a state to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890.
*The Morrill Acts funded educational institutions by granting federally controlled land to the states for them to sell to raise funds to establish and endow “land-grant” colleges. The mission of these institutions as set forth in the 1862 Act is to focus on the teaching of practical agriculture, science, military science and engineering (though “without excluding … classical studies”), as a response to the industrial revolution and changing social class.[1][2] This mission was in contrast to the historic practice of higher education to focus on an abstract liberal arts curriculum.
Ultimately, most land-grant colleges became large public universities that today offer a full spectrum of educational opportunities. However, some land-grant colleges are private schools, including Cornell University, the University of Delaware, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.*
@eandesmom Thanks Large state schools in the West I do know a far amount about but not all you suggested like Gonzaga. But few of these are already on his list & we have visited the Oregon schools and liked them. I can speak to the CA ones well (we are in CA) , and UCI is not one he is likely to get into (GPA average is a 4.1) nor interested in. His current reach is Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He plans to apply but it’s doubtful he could get in for Engineering.
@curiositycat333 I may have missed it, but what’s your son’s weighted GPA? I see he took some higher level classes, so presumably that will help. I have to admit, I feel like some schools fudge when they put GPAs on their CDS and actually put weighted, as I can’t believe some of the schools that have an average GPA of 3.8. Since you’re focusing on the west coast, I don’t have any ideas for you other than U Colorado Boulder, which was mentioned upthread. My son applied there but ultimately it was too far away (we’re east coast) and too big for him. I thought it looked really good and encouraged him to apply. I discovered them from an NPR segment talking about their engineering department personnel’s entrepreneurial ventures (something with batteries I think) and felt like that added an MIT flavor to the school. My son’s weighted GPA was 4.19 and he was easily above our school’s naviance scattergram plot points.