@jumpermom Welcome! We are a friendly bunch. Congrats to your D for being all done and happy with her decision. We are in “wait and see” mode around here…9 EA acceptances and waiting on 3 RD decisions. Temperamental D17 seems to have ruled out most of the 9 due to distance/weather, even though she was SURE she wanted to go far way back in the fall. Sigh. So, we’ll see. But it’s frustrating. Hi to all.
Oh no really? Most of the 9? What’s left?
@jumpermom welcome!!! Our D14 was a recruited athlete and although she didn’t end up being recruited by her school of choice I know the process and boy, it is it’s own ordeal! Congratulations to your D!!!
@tacocat333 I always intrigued by the volume of SWAG Pitt seems to send, it seems they spend as much on the packaging as they do the SWAG itself! Flash cards? Huh.
@MSU88CHEng congrats on Buffalo. Kids are so funny with how they react to the acceptances, I can never predict and it’s been pretty low energy for all truth be told.
Still waiting on one school here and should hear next week. S is quite annoyed that he has two scholarship apps to get in to the school before he hears. First is “due” today, the live audition and then the theater tech one is due weds. Very annoyed that it’s a snap mail one as the LOR writer for it didn’t have it ready yesterday and of course S doesn’t have his part done either. I need to take care of the headshot so I guess we’ve all flunked lol. So, it begs the question.
Do I risk mailing it on Monday if I get it out before pickup or drive it down to the school (hour drive) on weds. Website doesn’t say “postmarked” by…
I may ask today while we are there. Had really hoped to just drop it off.
I think we both are all over the board in terms of favorites right now. Each school is so different it’s an apples and oranges conversation with pros and cons to all. Hoping the visits give clarity.
@curiositycat333 I am surprised U ofO’s program seems to be winning over OSU. Where would Boulder fall?
@eandesmom Not much…Redlands and Lewis & Clark and Knox too far away, UVM and St Mike’s too cold. That leaves St Edward’s in Austin [which I’m not in favor of], Goucher, McDaniel, and College of Wooster if I can convince her that Ohio isn’t too far away. Then her RD schools are Smith [not getting in there I’m sure], Muhlenberg which she still likes, and Denison which is maybe too far away, we’ll see. Sigh.
Well that’s still 6-7 possibilities. S is completely overwhelmed with his choices right now and has no clue. Narrowing it down is good.
@jumpermom --Congratulations to your D! I was a scholarship athlete in HS, and my S’s experience in looking for colleges is VERY different than mine was. So glad she found the place that fits for her.
@endesmom Last Sunday I spend a bit of time comparing the two CS programs. OSU would be less expensive, part because I do expect him to get at least 3K in merit. (The only merit I expect from anywhere.) And OSU is less expensive to begin with.
First place S17 seems to have liked UofO better. He likes the music program and their marching band. Second he has talked about being interested in taking Linguistics and OSU doesn’t even have a Linguistics dept.
As to OSU vs UofO CS programs. If you look at “rankings” online they both fair about equal in all lists I’ve found. If you compare the two programs.
OSU
CS is in the Engineering depts. BS degree…
– He would have to take Physics with Calculus. (instead of his current Physics class counting)
– And more Calculus (not a problem…just an extra class)
– A few extra required 'easy" classes before getting into the major such an an ‘into’ & web design course.
Plus He is admitted pre-CS & would have get around ~3.5 GPA is all his classes to get fully admitted into the program for junior year.
UofO
CS is in arts & sciences program.
Choice of a BA or BS degree. But oddly the only difference is if you are required to take a foreign language. (BA degree) More typically BS degree’s ask for more math & science usually physics. But not at UofO.
DS’s AP courses would count the most at UofO. He’d be done with his science rec, his Calculus rec, and 1st CS class. (Assuming he gets a 4 or better on his AP’s this year.)
Room in the schedule to double major or minor is music or linguistics.
He is IN the degree, although there is a minimum of a B- in his lower level required courses for the major. He wouldn’t need to be admitted to the program.
Basically UofO is more “liberal arts” and OSU is more Engineering. Similar to one of the UC’s vs Cal Poly. I think he’s interested in more the liberal arts direction.
Not sure about Boulder. I can’t get DS interested in visiting. Maybe after an acceptance comes in he will change him tune. He applied to the CS program in A&E… instead of Engineering. Partly becuase it’s very unlikely he could get into their Engineering program. And partly because the difference is as I said above more room in your schedule to double major or minor. Has a good linguistics program & music program. Students take classes from the same teachers, but it’s lighter on the math & physics.
I think Boulder & Davis are the ‘top’ ranked programs on his list. But not sure it makes that much difference. I like the BA CS program at UCSC fits his interests the best. (There is just no marching band.) It’s heavily linguistics based just in design. I think it’s more rigorous program than UofO. Most students don’t skip the first CS class, but take a “accelerated” honors version.
I can see why U of O wins for program, that definitely sounds like the better option.
The program options at S’s schools are sooooooo different it’s overwhelming even me!
If S17 was still interested in Engineering… UofO has no engineering program and it would be off the table. OSU was the top of my list if he was still talking ME. It would be a risk with getting into the program, but he’s the one who would need to push himself to get top grades at OSU. He should be capable if he’s motivated enough.
What I really liked about OSU was that you didn’t HAVE to decide before being admitted. But now that he knows what he wants to do… That is less of a draw.
Even in techson’s chosen field, the programs are different. Some have MT components and others maybe do a musical every year or two. For him, it doesn’t matter because tech is tech, but I think he prefers musicals and I know I do. Some have more gen eds than others. We have the 8 semester print outs and he has compared a bit, but we need to wait on money.
Everyone here is a bit quiet? It’s that waiting we are all doing.
My S17 got an email from his safety asking for 2nd semester grades. This is a school state school that gave him a yes in less than 2 weeks. I wasn’t expecting it at all. He decided on his own he should look through his portals and see if we need to send any other transcripts while we are sending them. He says he gets so much junk email from these schools it’s hard to tell what is important. (Our school uses a program called Parchment, no need to go through the GC.) The only one I would except would be Boulder.
I told him to keep an eye out if either of the Oregon schools says anything about financial aid on their portals. Sure wish I had the portal passwords.
Our HS is sending out 7 semester grades to all schools that you marked accepted to on Naviance unless you specifically tell them otherwise.
We have to request mid-year reports be sent. Most of them seem to be due March 1st. We’re hoping for good news tomorrow night before we decide to send them out to everyone!
I just has this conversation yesterday as I was at the school for something else. While not one of S17’s have asked for a mid year report (and in looking, 6 out of 7 do say they require them) our school auto sends mid year reports which include the transcript to any school that has been applied to in naviance automatically. Apparently they will go out next week. So the good news is that we don’t have to manually request them at all, the bad is that I wish that Calc grade was better. Sigh.
Last decision is out tomorrow. Of course it is a school that has a scholarship app due today…that was finished last night (thanks to S not nagging diligently enough on a tech specific/tailored LOR). Which means overnighting. Not happy about paying $22 to send something where we might find out tomorrow he didn’t get in or was deferred. I suppose in theory we could wait until tomorrow and I could drive there but that 1) assumes portal updates are in the am and 2) assumes I want to spend 2+ hours of my day in the car. LOL! Not.
It is a sweet LOR though so that was nice to see.
TacoSchool automatically sends them to all schools as well. @eandesmom , sorry about Calc grade. The sisterhood of the Struggling Sons sends sympathy and empathy.
TacoSon’s IB HL History paper was due today. And can I just say that his “I’ve got this, Mom” was music to my ears? His school does not give a lot of guidance to kids not in the IB diploma program about writing a research paper, so his 10th grade paper was a disaster and 11th was good with a lot of guidance from home. With great pride and a touch of difficulty I am trusting that he does indeed have this. (The fact that he left it at home this morning and needed it delivered might be a familiar song to some of us here.)
I don’t remember where I saw this article, but I really like it. http://time.com/3767996/how-mit-rates-applicants/. The best line is at the end: “… elite universities are looking for human beings who can do the academic work and contribute to the community and not academic automatons.”
The majority of D’s are California State schools. Those usually don’t ask for them, that is unless they do. So our school doesn’t regularly send them out. We handle transcripts through this 3rd party application. They want more $$ to send out these reports. What the school might do automatically is send out the mid-year report the CA requests. But only one of D’s school is CA, and that is was only school I expected to ask for mid-year reports.
I’m very surprised for this particular request for 7th semester grades. Honestly we are making the decision between getting the report and clicking “no thanks” on the portal.
@tacocat333 yes, we are having the great “to AP test or not” debate here on that one. He is getting help at school but is resistant to adding more help than that. I cannot think that the B- will hurt him at any of his accepted schools but it also will not likely inspire anyone to toss more money his way, which would have been nice and opened up his options more. The B+ kid at full pay EFC is just a painful place to be. It also made his chances of hitting the magical 3.5 UW number by graduation much slimmer. It is not impossible but probably unlikely. Sniff. Not that I think colleges up the offer after you’ve enrolled lol. But that would be nice!
It’s a fine line. He is definitely not an automaton lol. But one wonders if colleges really want the kid that is “more concerned with personal and intellectual growth than GPA”. LOL It’s good thing he isn’t going for “elite”.
You’ve got me all wondering now. I have no idea is S’s schools need/want midyear reports or if our school automatically sends them. I have to call the school later anyway so I guess that’s another question to ask.
In this house, “I’ve got this” usually means I don’t want you to nag me anymore but I’m not really going to give it any more attention than I have been. Although occasionally it really means he’s got it.
Struggling Sons of Calculus happy news - after an “I’ve got this” study session in his room with door closed (smh) he actually got the second highest grade on the last test. Happy DANCE!!
Struggling Sons with Girls news - his brother asked him about prom plans and he laughed. Said he wasn’t wasting his money - even though he knows we’d pay if he’d go. Heck - his calc teacher offered to pay for him to go to Homecoming because they wanted a calc class pic of everyone dressed up (he offered to take her money though)
That’s usually what “I’ve got this” means at our house too. Lol!
I assume he is going to prom but should ask.
“I’ve got this” can be a bad thing here too (see: Calculus) but he seemed confident and at ease about history. I am grateful that this is a course he is doing well in, plus if he does bomb the paper and his grade suffers, it will be a Q3 issue, not a semester grade!
@smakl70 , I’m absolutely loving that the calc teacher is also invested in working on the girl/social events issue!
@eandesmom , I’m with you 100% on the high EFC/B+ thing. I am heartened to find that many of TacoSon’s schools do seem to have that holistic approach to admissions because stats alone don’t tell the story of any kid, especially our sub-4.0 group. I think that’s the advice I’d give to those just starting the process – don’t let the scattergrams dictate your kid’s application choices.
SO…we are in full Calc melt down mode here. Beyond the struggling son into I need to drop the class.
I’ve a call into his GC. I believe he has until Friday to drop and if so, it simply won’t show on the transcript. What I don’t know is what that would do to his acceptances.
He is a mess.
UGH!!!