The Clarkson honors interview went really well, I think. D didn’t chase me out of the room (phone interview) and I thought she did a good job. I don’t know how competitive the program is, but for the honors programs with interview portions, this is the only one where she made it to the interview. An interesting side-note: she was interviewed by an honors prof and honors student together.
At least she knows what state she’ll be living in! And good that she already has a lot of cold weather gear.
@MSU88CHEng, Albany sounds like it was a really good visit. So would your S drop honors for 3+3 law? Seems like the way to go if you don’t want to stay in school forever.
@eandesmom, sorry Goucher didn’t work, but visits are good for ruling out. It sounds like E has some more insight now on what he wants, so that’s a plus.
@CoyoteMom, I agree – it’s great to have this supportive community going through this together. I think D has already left HS behind mentally. She’s still doing all her work, but she’s pretty laser focused on “going to college.”
@techmom99, ah, that is a new one to me. Funny that your story brought oldest D’s fiance to mind immediately, but I’ve thought he’s on the autism spectrum (undiagnosed). H’s family has a lot of dyslexia and ADD. Oldest D has nonverbal learning disorder and many NVLD kids are dyscalculic or I would not have heard of that either!
@curiositycat333, sorry to hear about the Cal Poly disappointment. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for good news from UC’s over next two weeks.
Love hearing about the visits! Most of them aren’t the types of schools S17 applied to, but they are giving me a good view of things to think about for S15 who will also likely fit this thread.
@snoozn --I’m enjoying watching your D’s process to narrow things down. I wanted S17 to look at RIT, but he didn’t want to. He stayed away from anything with “tech” in it because is has a preconceived notion that have no basis in reality at some schools. Worked for me because it was a way to narrow things down. :">
S17 was also rejected at Cal Poly SLO (OOS mech. eng.). He’s not disappointed. It was a school we wanted him to add because we thought he’d love the town, the vibe, etc. S17 was leary of the reputation for it being difficult to change majors. He doesn’t like to not be in control! @curiositycat333 --so interesting to see so many high stats kids getting rejected from there. Many 3.8+/ACT 30+ getting rejects from CS and Engineering. One kid was rejected at Cal Poly but admitted to Stanford. Go figure!
@eandesmom --love the ever-evolving ranking. Can’t say your S isn’t thinking about this!
Some good news here as well. S17 was accepted to CU Boulder into his major. That got the biggest reaction from him of any of his admits. Before this he didn’t appear to be giving much thought, and figured he was in the camp of “I’ll figure it all out when all the admissions decisions are in”–or so I thought. He said that this is now his first choice. He loves to ski, likes the mountains and it has a very strong aerospace engineering program. I know, however, that he’s also very conscious of the cost of school, so it will be interesting to see if the price tag of CU brings it down once everything settles in. We haven’t been able to visit many of his schools. We planned to go to the “Scholars of Distinction” day at Washington State, which is today. It’s for top 10% of admits–and National Merit kids, which is where S17 fits in–but son realized after (of course!) I made all of the travel arrangements that Junior Function (like junior prom–his girlfriend is a junior) is tonight. Tried to get him to see that school is for the next 4 years but girlfriends come and go, but he said he’d told her yes and couldn’t back out and didn’t want to. I’m happy he wants to keep his commitments, but sorry not to see the school with the high stats kids because it looked they were rolling out the red carpet. Now we plan to see it at the end of March at their OOS admit day. Hopefully we’ll be able to fit a couple of other trips in in April.
Our school doesn’t rank, and doesn’t weight classes. It offers loads of APs, but for GPA the grade counts just like any other class. As I understand it each school provides colleges a school profile along with the transcripts. Our school’s profile gives the percentage of students in each quintile of the class so it’s pretty easy to see generally where a student’s GPA falls. And our school is another one that has most of the GPAs over 3.5.
Was your son admitted into Engineering at Boulder? My son applied for the CS in A&E, for several reasons one being I think it’s the best fit for him. But his admit info said nothing about major. I am perplexed.
I still haven’t gotten S17 to consider visiting. Everyone I know thinks it will be a good school for him. Although it’s the most $$ on our list. My belief is it will come down to if he gets into the UC’s we are waiting for. If he doesn’t get in then he will consider Bolder a bit more closely.
@MSU88CHEng Cal Poly isn’t a UC, although it harder to get into than some UC’s particularly in some majors. It’s part of the Cal State system not the University of California system and admission is based on stats (GPA/test score/rigor). There are no essays, not letters of rec, needed. All Cal States admit by major.
@curiositycat333 --Yes, son was admitted to Mechanical Engineering. He plans to take lots of classes in aerospace but thinks a mechanical degree may weather economic cycles better than an aero degree. He may also try to do the 5th year to get a masters, and if he did would likely get that in aero. Son’s admit info (portal) first page says “Congratulations! You have been admitted to the to the Coll Engineering & AppSci UGRD as a/n Mechanical Engineering major for the Fall 2017 term.” Maybe A&E does it differently???
My S has also applied to UCs (OOS), but unless there’s a surprise there I think (without knowing) that he’d choose CU over them. He really loves skiing and the outdoors.
I’ve been wondering why the California publics have such a different approach to admissions than most other publics . . .
I’m not sure if I should think our school is incredibly academically challenged or if it’s just not inflated!
NHS requires a UW 3.75 freshman year to get in and a UW 3.5 to stay and a significant amount of community service. It is not generally treated as a joke at all.
While we do not rank, or weight, and do not provide deciles (so you really cannot tell where you fall) the average GPA for last years senior class (of about 288) was 3.027. About 50% go to a 4 year school, 30% to CC and the rest is a mix. So obviously not super competitive but no one is handing out ice cream either lol.
@snoozn was it the Ursinus price tag that had her go Boulder or was it the wrong dance focus (thought that was Goucher for some reason). Glad to hear the Clarkson inteview went so well!
@CoyoteMom Allegheny wasn’t obnoxiously fratty. At UVM we walked by a frat house where there were boys tossing a football and literally, pounding each others chests and doing chest bumps. S17 just shook his head. Not his scene.
This was more…“basic” as he put it. Not bad and definitely a strong academic intellectual vibe with focused really nice kids, but less individuality than he wanted.
@tacocat333 congrats on the Presidential Scholar, it’s still nice!
@MSU88CHEng Albany sounds like a good visit and worth cutting it close for the game. Glad he made it ok but sorry H was cranky!
@curiositycat333 sorry about SLO. Even if it’s not a surprise it still stings a bit.
@Hankster1361 Congrats on Boulder and direct into Engineering, that’s wonderful. It may be just as well on the visit to WSU, I know we’ve had a bit of snow off and on for the past weeks which means that side of the mountains may well be a mess right now. End of March should be better. I hear they do a wonderful job of wooing students these days, the kids we know who have gone over have loved it.
Frequent lurker with 2018 and 2019 in this GPA Range. I love reading the trip reports here.
@eandesmom I graduated from Ursinus. So glad your son liked it. The town is cute. Many professors live in walking distance and there is definitely lots of interaction. Having a West Coast guy come from the Claremont Consortium to Ursinus as President definitely change things. He is only the 2nd or 3rd president to not have graduated from Ursinus and he brought a West Coast/LA vibe.
Disappointed to read Goucher is a bust because I thought it be a good fit for my daughter.
Can you compare Ursinus to UPS?
My BIL is a WWU grad. I think your son has some great choices.
Goucher was a bust due to the program. A different program might well net a very different result. It was a freezing cold day and the energy could have been reflective of that. So many people have liked the school I wouldn’t toss it out based our program experience. And I will say the new freshman dorm is stunning even if we didn’t see the rooms. Lots of construction and improvements going on.
Comparing Ursinus and UPS is tough to be honest as I think they are pretty comparable in a lot of ways for overall culture and vibe. Ursinus felt slightly more urban to me…less Patagonia, which is funny given that both students we met with were varsity athletes. Yet, unlike the Allegheny athlete tour guide, kids S could see hanging with, especially the student we had lunch with. For S, the program in his area at Ursinus is significantly better, that might be the main thing and their performing arts center facility was certainly newer/larger but the one at UPS is quite nice. I do wish we had explored whether he could remotely audition for their music scholarship or not. I had thought it was for majors only but think I missed the boat on that one which is a bummer. That said, it’s not a big program at Ursinus but in a school that size, nothing is. 3 faculty, about 60 kids in the program specifically so you really get to know folks. But we loved the faculty we met with (PhD was at Oregon so he got the west coast, which helped) and he presented some interesting things for S to think about. UPS didn’t have that depth, my H was a bit appalled at what he found in the bookstore related to the subjects. We didn’t do the bookstore gander at Ursinus but might have found something similar, I am not sure but it definitely seems solid enough.
We have known this about UPS though, it’s been on the list for overall fit and in the general liberal arts category if he goes in upfront knowing he is really unsure. Over the course of the week he became much more sure and UPS moved down.
Which doesn’t mean if they toss a bunch of music money at him, that it could move back up lol.
I am happy to see WWU is actually offering academic sessions for the admitted student days, that should help. S is really trying to convince himself at this point that he should just go to WWU. Program wise it will give him what he needs, the difference is he will have to work a lot harder we think to get decent internships and research but those opportunities are there. The risk of falling through the cracks is higher there. But the question becomes, it it worth twice the price for the rest? I don’t know. My H seems to think UVM is but I don’t blame S for wanting the debt free option. If we can get Ursinus down though…that could be a total wild card. I figure we have nothing to lose by asking. But when push comes to shove, the adventuresome boy may simply not want to go as far away as he originally thought. Which in some ways makes me want to smack my head against the wall as that was a lot of work to just end up at WWU but on the other side, it also means no “I wonder if” or “If only’s”. He can be secure in his decision and I might have spent $2500 to save 70-80K. LOL!
Are you looking at Juniata for your D? S couldn’t get past the location but it’s a top choice for a friend who likes a similar vibe.
Nothing much going on here. I’m glad we have no stress regarding upcoming decisions. D is a bit more zen now about the fact that she’ll almost certainly have made her choice some time this week.
@Hankster1361, aerospace is probably CU’s most well-known engineering department and when we visited they had the most cool stuff (that’s an important factor!) If HanksterSon ends up there, I’d say go for whichever department he finds more appealing. Since the intro classes would be the same he’d have time to dig around see which he prefers. (Also have to say that “tech” in the name made colleges more appealing to my D!)
@eandesmom, my memory is a bit fuzzy, but with Goucher it was a “no” after she went back to audition for a dance scholarship and found them to have a very “conservatory” atmosphere and a really strong focus on ballet, which she hates (doing – doesn’t hate watching). I didn’t go on the Ursinus visit, but she said it just didn’t have enough going on to make it worth the extra cost. If they’d given her a better offer she might have ended up there. Ursinus was in budget, but still more expensive than CU. It’s all for the best now since she loves the CU dance department.
After my experience with her search, I get you on “Why did we do all this just to end up at a local public?!” But I agree that it’s worth it to visit if it’s not a financial hardship. There will always be some what-if’s, but making a solid effort in the search definitely increases confidence in the final decision.
I was sad when WWU fell off D’s list. (And not just because of the WUE!)
For those following the Presidential Scholar/Honor Roll discussion of last week, with awards program in hand I just counted up the Principals (not Presidential; my mistake) Scholars (4.0 GPA or higher) from TacoSon’s class – and it’s just under HALF the class. And most of the rest of the class made it onto the regular honor roll (no grade lower than C-). Welcome to Lake Wobegon High School, where EVERY kid is above average. =D> Haagen-Dazs should probably broker some kind of agreement with TacoSchool if it hasn’t already done so.
Here’s something I’m wondering from the group – what’s the first official college tour (meaning – sat through a session, was led by a guide) you and your '17 kid took, and where did that school end up in the desirability rankings?
(@eandesmom, you’re excused from naming the rankings if you wish; E1’s list must be like an electoral college map on Election Night.)
@snoozn Yes, he would probably drop honors college before he dropped 3+3 law. He’s said that if he doesn’t get into 3+3 law, it’s probably a deal breaker for Albany…
Our first official college tour was last May to MSU. It’s currently #1 or #2 on the list (which is now a 2 school list, down from 3 applications and 5 that he initially considered) depending on the day.
Just a note on Goucher–we did get to see a dorm room in the new freshman dorm when we visited, and it was very nice. Our tour guide basically hijacked a student coming in and asked if we could follow her up to her room and she said yes. Not huge rooms [actually were told that the kids in the other [old] freshman dorm have bigger rooms], but they were nice, nice bathrooms, kitchens on each floor with lounge area, etc. Coed by room I believe.
I guess since I’m so used to the CA systems. I’m not quire sure what difference of aproach you are referring to? I see the CA states scores as being normal? And others as confusing. Isn’t it much easier to have a well published list of how to calculate the GPA.
My guess is it has a lot to do with volume. And that volume of application goes up every year. UC are trying to make it possible for first generation at university and those who attend schools which don’t have the same level of rigor the ability to still get into the system.
Lol on the electoral college comment. That’s a riot.
E1’s first tour was UC Boulder. He liked the school much more than expected but did think it was likely far too large for him. It never really made it on the list as it didn’t have the potential to come into range cost wise.
@tacocat333 first official tour was RPI, and he did not end up applying. Could have been the gray and rainy day, but he just didn’t click with it as much as he did some schools we toured later.
First college visit was Seattle U. We did a trip not for the specific colleges, but to get to as many schools as we could to see big urban/small urban, big rural/small rural, private/public, etc. Saw lots of schools. S17 didn’t like Seattle U because he said it felt too much like his current school (which is built on an old college campus). S15, however, really liked the school–because it feels like his current school!
@snoozn --that sounds like a good approach for CU. We need to find out how easy it is to change from ME to Aero once there, and whether the 5-year masters programs allows ME undergrad/Aero grad degree.
@curiositycat333 --re CA publics, it took a lot of work for us to figure out the recalculated GPA: which classes count for which requirements? How are differently named classes supposed to be counted? for OOS, honors classes don’t get the additional bump up, unless the school has gotten the class pre-approved, then trying to figure that out. And then the bumps up for the various social things. You can retake a class for the GPA calculation? What effect? Don’t count D’s, but there’s an exception if you take an additional class in the subject . . . etc., etc. It was hard for someone brand new to that process!
I had to laugh about the Lake Woebegone reference as that’s what my H calls our HS.
Techson17’s first college tour was SUNY Purchase; his sister took him. He was accepted to the BA theater program but never finished the requirements for the BFA in theater tech so I don’t think he’ll be attending. I haven’t signed up for an accepted student visit because I am not going to bother visiting when he isn’t eligible for the program he wants.
CoyoteSon’s first official college tour was at George Mason (which is about 20 minutes from our house), which we took in June of his sophomore year, but he has also attended video game summer camps there - very familiar, logical and compact campus layout; it has stayed on the list and is one of his acceptances - but as the school search progressed, decided that a small LAC will be a better fit, so Mason and UVM are now both at the bottom of his list.
In fall of junior year, we had a trip to Boston already scheduled, so we added the college tour/info session visits for Northeastern and Tufts to see two models of urban campus/urban edge campus - neither were ever in serious consideration. We also saw Goucher early in fall of junior year - that really settled CoyoteSon on the LAC model as a good fit, and set the tone for the rest of his search (although in the end, didn't apply to Goucher either).
I totally empathize with eandesmom after their big trip: we spent a lot of time to visit many different campuses - it would be ironic if he wound up at Mason - we could have skipped visits to more than a dozen campuses in seven states- but I think he will wind up at an LAC - and I think the whole visiting experience allowed CoyoteSon to start to picture himself really going away to college (and not just starting his "13th year" of high school, which was what I saw as the big downside to Mason).
@Hankster1361 - Congrats on Son’s admision news for CU Boulder - sounds like a great fit.
@eandesmom - thanks for the extra tidbit on the “basic feel” of Allegheny - I think that “individuality” is something CoyoteSon needs for best fit - not so much for the PHF directly, but more because my son gravitates towards others who, like himself, are not nuerotypical – which hopefully means the other students will be more tolerant of him!
@curiositycat333 and others - sorry about the rejection from a reach - which still stings, even if expected. I will remind CoyoteSon when the time comes to 1) not take it personally, given that the colleges often have way more qualified candidates than spots, and 2) that it means he took some risks by aiming high.
I’m still catching up, been under the weather… .@snoozn Glad to hear your daughter is feeling zen! That’s so nice to be narrowing it down. I guarantee the “what if’s” will soon wash away especially once she actually commits!
@tacocat333 Interesting question about the college tours. I feel like the earlier ones went down on the list and the later ones stayed, but not entirely and I think it’s a function of once they start narrowing down the feel of a place and what the want, it does make it all worthwhile.
My D wanted to go to college in NYC since she was 10 years old - my brother went to college in the city and now lives in the city with his family, so we visit all the time. She’s just always loved it there.
D visited Arcadia (in PA) with her dad, first I think. She loved it at the time - she loved the fact that travel abroad was a priority with them. She thought the campus was pretty. they also have a 3-2 program with Columbia which she thought was cool. However, it quickly became to small and isolated in her mind. 2nd campus was Rutgers - I made her go (and apply as back up) - she had no interest and the tour was the worst of any we would go on - the campus was scattered, the dorms and classrooms seemed dark and dreary. The third was Stevens Institute of Tech which has a fairly new Music Tech program which was pretty cool and it seemed like they were very flexible with majors/combining them, etc. She liked it when we visited but in the end, she just felt it didn’t have the variety she was looking for. She did not apply to any of these (well Rutgers, I made her) and she became laser focused on going to college in a big city. She picked her cities: NYC, Boston, LA and Washington DC, in that order i would guess (after we visited them all) and then narrowed down schools based on wide range of majors, diversity, program design and “feel”.