Thanks! I did get notified that the application processed, so that’s what I did. I’m not sure it really matters for us, as the only aid we’re going to get is going to be loans. Another question: if you’ve filed FAFSA, can you still say you’re not applying for need-based aid in the Common App?
@klinska I could be wrong but I think you have to select need based aid to have the federal loans offered as part of a package (and file FAFSA/PROFILE).
Not a stupid question at all. The idea of deleting schools and then adding would make me very nervous.
So…after all my big talk, I am going to BTS night tonight. For a few reasons. 1 being that S17’s grades are freaking me out. He has totally pulled it out before, we’ve got 5 weeks left in the quarter and a solid 3 before the play stuff starts but…I’m freaking out. He isn’t. Some of it is due to certain grade categories having zero entries UGH! Or only one quiz so far and bombing that. It’s definitely fixable but BLEH. I’m just over this grade roller coaster! I am splitting my time between S19’s classes and S17’s. I also do want to see if S19’s H English teacher is as crazy as he says.
It does make me VERY glad we are going for EA at all his schools. It isn’t the reason why but in his case I think it helps big time, at least at the moment. I don’t think any will want/need the quarter report and I do feel confident he can get it where it needs to be by semester end at the worst. I am really hoping not to have to intervene and force him to cut activities, work or restrict social activity. He doesn’t have much time for social as it is so there isn’t a lot to restrict.
I am also really really glad I’ve been riding him on getting stuff in early. It looks like he will be able to meet with 4 of his schools in a couple of weeks. Having all his stuff done before that will be very good as he will lose working time to attend sessions and interviews.
We will be having a deeper discussion about the state of his grades and activities on Sunday though, he is going to be put on notice. Which I hate to do but it has worked in the past. Notice meaning basically grounded until they come up. So he’ll have through homecoming to move the needle and if not, he will be restricted. As a social creature that is usually pretty motivating to him. He also needs to move the needle if he wants a decent letter from one of the teachers. He is NOT leveraging their new dashboard system as he should and I need to be on him about that. It’s a bit of a frustrating system as it will not show gpa, only % by class so in his case he’s not really “seeing” the overall impact.
On the hopefully more fun note…he is bringing a girl to our house tomorrow night after the game to ask her to homecoming. He had planned to go to her work this week but he’s had a conflict every night. He despises the whole ask in public thing, apparently she’s basically already said yes but wants the sign and flowers. As a girl I can’t blame her (she needs her instagram photo after all) but I can’t blame him for not wanting the whole public aspect either. As a parent I’m happy he’s comfortable just having her over to do the ask lol! I’ve never met her, know nothing about her so this will be nice.
Plus it meant he cleaned his room.
On another fun note…he’s putting together a Marxism Commune Club versus Republican Club debate at school. They are advertising it and the Digi Club is using this for some media work (posters and video). Should be entertaining.
D and I are on the college visit train this month. Weekend after next we go to CSU Explore Engineering day. We already went to one of their general Explore CSU days and had a good experience. D has an attitude now of “CSU would be okay.” I’m hoping the engineering visit will kick it up a notch. We’re headed to Gonzaga and WWU the following weekend and then a local reception with OSU. I guess this is safety/strong target school month. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that she’ll get excited about some of these more likely schools.
@kt1969, good report. That matches up with the experience D11 and I had when we visited.
@klinska, I would agree that Goucher didn’t feel particularly “crunchy.” Our experience was that there were enough artsy/quirky kids that my D would fit in, but there were also plenty of “normal-looking” kids. My D was looking at quite a few “crunchy” colleges, like Hampshire, Sarah Lawrence, Oberlin, Pitzer, so maybe we have a different bar for crunchiness.
@GoingGrey, my D is also a dance major and we thought Goucher had a top-notch dance department. It was too ballet-focused for my D though (good for yours obviously!) She noticed they were one of the few schools with aerial dance equipment and found that very exciting as she has a decent amount of experience in aerial dance. Has your D tried any of those classes?
@klinska Just following up…Got the early aid estimator from Wooster today, and it was similar to the one you got–Dean’s Scholarship merit award of 26K. D17 was a bit wowed. Hopefully will make her a bit more enthusiastic…she has an interview coming up next weekend and an info session at her HS the following week. Haven’t visited but like everything I read about it. Anyone know how accurate these estimators tend to be?
@kt1969, my D is also interviewing for Wooster next weekend. If I recall correctly, they were at her HS yesterday, but I don’t know if she stopped by. I’m guessing not if she didn’t mention it to me. Oh well. I think the scholarship did impress my D as well–I hope the interview goes better than the OWU one did.
This weekend we’ve got an interview for Lawrence on Sunday. Then we go to Clark for a tour/info session on Monday. D asked me (about Clark): “If I don’t like it, do I have to apply?” She really doesn’t like that it’s only an hour away from home and that it’s in Worcester. She’s never been to Worcester in her life (but, admittedly, that is a hard sell, at least in this part of MA). It looks so good to me on paper, I hope it ends up living up to my expectations–or at least, exceeds hers.
I think D is getting a bit fatigued with all the interviews/tours. There are still a few schools on her list where I think it would be a good idea to interview, but I’m hesitant to bring it up–but I think the window for interviews is shrinking. If a school has demonstrated interest as “considered” on the CDS would you feel that it’s important to set one up?
She has a meeting with her English teacher on Tuesday to go over her personal statement. That means she’s going to have to put a draft together by then.
@klinska Where do you live? We are an hour from Clark also, probably we live next door to each other and don’t know it. 
D17 also wasn’t interested in Clark or anywhere in Worcester–combo of “Worcester, ick” and too close to home, same as yours.
I am trying to have her cover the places that list demonstrated interest and/or interviewing as “important”. There are only two on her list that have interest as important [Wooster and Denison], but 7 [including those two] that list the interview as important. Unfortunately, a couple of them [Knox and Juniata] don’t seem to have any way to interview if you can’t come to campus–no info about alumni interviews or anything. Hoping to set one of those up with Denison, though. If it just says “considered” I am not going to worry too much about it.
Duh! I don’t think I looked at whether the interview was considered important, just if demonstrated interest was. Need to go do that right now!
Also, @kt1969, I PM’ed you!
oh these make me so sad Wooster doesn’t offer Environmental Science! And that Clark was somehow affordable.
@kt1969, it looks as though Knox does phone and internet interviews. https://www.knox.edu/admission/apply-to-knox/transfer-applicants/what-we-consider
@rosered55 Oooh, thanks, not sure how I missed that! If Knox stays on the list I will definitely have her do that.
@eandesmom I assume you know that Wooster has an Environmental Studies minor…? Guessing your kid wants an actual major.
D is determined to submit her applications for WWU and Rose-Hulman this weekend. Of course it’s 1pm and she’s still in bed. At least it’s a long weekend.
For others looking at WWU: D has started the application and was looking at their AP info page. Unlike most schools, they actually give credit hours for an AP score of 3 (if I’m reading the chart right). Most schools I’ve looked at require a 4 or 5 for credit, while a 3 might allow to “test out” of a class. She has a 3 on AP Chem and I’d be surprised if she doesn’t get 3 or higher on Calc BC and Physics 1. Between AP’s and DE I think she could start WWU with over 30 credits! That would definitely allow her to do a semester abroad even as an engineering major and still graduate in four years.
@kt1969, wow, congrats to your D on that huge scholarship!
**Marketing fail **
Got an email from UVM indicating an event and causal meetings at a location that would be quite convenient. Which let me get past the fact that there were spelling errors in the email itself (we will be in YOU area, instead of YOUR) and the subject line. Go to click on the “register” link, takes me to a general listing of area of events…and the one mentioned in the email doesn’t exist. I know they don’t track interest so it really isn’t that big of a deal but really???
Score send fail?
Although we’ve not submitted any apps yet, S did set up his portal at Ithaca. We sent 2 ACT’s as they superscore. They show only one as received even though the tests were ordered on the same day. Zero response as to whether or not the portal should list both (I assume so since the test date is noted) or if it limited to just one from a “view” standpoint for some reason.
Homecoming
The kid has a date! This is a first. Pretty cute, he’s been burned a couple of times and has been risk avoidant as a result. Apparently he was quite sure she would say yes but hates the public “ask” aspect of it all (can’t blame him). She did make it clear she wanted the big poster and flowers for the ask (can’t blame her either lol). He opted to invite her over to hang out at our house after the football game last night and ask her here. Two firsts in a night. A successful ask and a girl hanging out at our house for several hours. Kind of exciting.
Late assignment new policy vent
The school has apparently implemented a SCHOOL WIDE policy on late assignments. Max 60% credit. In principle I don’t have an issue with it, that’s life. But it’s been class/teacher specific S17’s entire life and this is taking some adjustment. It is making for some scary grades. They had homework in Jazz this week, in 4 years that is a FIRST and the kid spaced. Late. So really…now he has a C in Jazz? ARRGH! And we have a new online system, pretty cool in the sense that kids can literally snap a photo of homework and send it in. Not so cool if the app crashes or they sign out before the submission goes in. So we have one class with a missing assignment int hat boat. I am hoping he will get full credit but we will see. For both of the missing even at 60% he should come right back up but it’s a bit stressful to see ones that should be high and a no brainer having issues…while he struggles with the ones we expected him to. I know they will level out but UGH. I think he’s struggling a little bit with reconciling that yes these senior grades are just as important as the junior ones but I am hopeful we can get past that quickly.
@snoozn that is so funny, I was just adding up S’s at WWU as well earlier this week (since the app asks you to estimate how many you will have). It may be a bit misleading as they are on the quarter system so you need 180 credits to graduate. Even with that I figured he already has 15 credits and could have another 12. What I can’t tell for sure is if they really do get a second partial credit on AP Lit if they’ve already received credit for AP Language. But the 3+ factor does make me want to have him take all 3 tests. 27 credits is almost 2 full quarters paid for and a lot of the GUR requirements out of the way. And I agree, allows for study abroad without penalty which is huge.
@kt1969 the reality is the kid really has no clue what he wants to major in. He’s been pretty consistent about the overall area of interest so we are focusing on schools that have enough depth that a few paths seem very doable. Wooster just doesn’t seem to have enough for that. Plus it’s in Ohio which I can’t convince him to look at (which is ridiculous but whatever lol). We are trying to reach out for schools directly if they don’t have something scheduled in our area but so far it is a bit of a mixed bag.
I would really recommend NOT testing out of chemistry for an engineer if the AP grade is a 3. I’d recommend not testing out if there is any question about having covered every single concept of a core class. My daughter took Calc 1 (first time) in college and a lot of the kids had already had it, and a few of her friends tested into Calc 2. They all struggled, but daughter had no illusion that she already knew the stuff and studied like crazy. Her friend in Calc 2, and who also took Chem but thought she knew it all so spent class time texting and not paying attention, dropped out at Halloween.
There are a lot of opportunities to study abroad for engineers, at least at daughter’s school. They have a ‘Maymester’ for a 4 week program, and they have a several summer programs. Some students do their summer internships abroad. Others actually do a ‘true’ study abroad program and take a lot of the required social sciences or math classes.
Also, those 30 AP credits might be able to be used for the ABET required classes, but there aren’t 30 required. I don’t think your daughter will be an entire year ahead of the other freshmen engineers.
@snoozn Thanks, but it’s not a real thing until she actually applies and gets admitted and offered it for reals.
I was doing some digging around on D’s “late add” schools that we don’t know much about. Rose-Hulman was looking pretty sweet. She’s not over their 75th %, but I think she could be a strong candidate. They’re very generous with merit. They have one of the worst male/female ratios with only 22% women and EE is even lower. But looking at Niche, they may be a little too conservative for my lefty D. Then again, the data was from 22 responses so it could be way off (in either direction). I checked Princeton Review to see if R-H showed up on any lists that would imply a conservative atmosphere. The only one was “Don’t Inhale” which is fine with D as she has no interest in “inhaling” and would prefer a non-party school. They were also on a lot of really good lists like pays you back, best run, career placement, accessible professors, etc. Well, I’m probably getting ahead of myself since we have no idea if she’ll even be accepted!
I just read a book called “Harvard Schmarvard” about how non-top-tier schools can be just as good as the Ivies. Yep I knew that already but I was at the library browsing the college section and took home four books – I just can’t help myself. Anyway, the author (a Harvard graduate of course!) had a list at the end of the book of 100 hidden gems. These included WWU, Goucher and Alfred U, all of which I’ve seen mentioned here. I’m sure there were others that kids on this thread are applying to but I’m not going to list all 100!
Right now I’m part-way through “The Price of Admission” which shows the complete unfairness of admissions at the top tier colleges. According to the book (written in 2006), 60% of the student body at Harvard is made up of legacies, recruited athletes and children of very wealthy potential donors. Even though Harvard-like schools don’t affect my family, it really makes me angry that these often less qualified students (which he backs up with data) are taking up spots that should be given to more deserving students. From what I’ve read so far these practices happen at “regular” colleges too, but not to as great an extent. It’s an eye-opening read.
@eandesmom, very exciting that your S has a homecoming date! I don’t think D has any interest in homecoming, but she does plan on going to prom for the first time and bought a dress at Ren Faire. I’m curious now so I’m going to ask my kids if these “big asks” are common at their schools.
I’d be pretty pissed if D’s school started a late policy like your S’s school. I think it shows a lack of trust in the teachers. There are so many factors that could go into an individual teacher’s decision about how to grade late work: type of class, difficulty of assignment, how late, reason for lateness, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if the policy doesn’t last, but unfortunately that won’t help your S.
And thanks for pointing out the quarter system – I thought that seemed like too many hours!
@twoinanddone, I totally get your point. D hasn’t decided yet whether she wants to skip intro Chem (whether through credit or testing out). She did find that class more challenging than Calc BC and Physics 1 have been. The final in Chem was actually an old AP test and she got a 4 on that. I’ll pass along your suggestion to her.
I do hope she can be a semester ahead. What we’ve heard from schools so far is that study abroad ranges from extremely challenging to nearly impossible for an engineering student who wants to graduate in four years unless the engineering department has a program designed so that those students won’t fall behind.
@kt1969, oops I guess I didn’t read closely enough. I hope the acceptance and scholarship do come through! :)>-
@snoozn funny about the list of 100! Nope, not surprising. I was actually at a race this morning, a charity event for a work organization and chatting with one of the volunteers, also in the field. His D was applying to 14 schools or something crazy like that but WWU and Goucher were 2 of them (and Smith which I know is on your list), She had several women only schools.
Alfred is sort of on the list in my mind still. I think it’s a solid RD backup that he should likely add and the price really is right. Kind of hope to get a fee waiver and then con the kid into submitting the app as there is no supplements required so it would be a no brainer. But haven’t gotten a peep out of them which is a bit annoying as it was implied mailing list sign up = fee waiver and I know we signed up.
It is a bit fascinating to see who the real stalker schools are, they definitely go in waves! In general I’ve heard for engineering, testing out of anything is not ideal, so take the calc 1 or chem 1, what have you even if you had it in HS and did decent on the AP test. You can use those credits for other requirement fulfillment at many schools, typically gen ed stuff. At a minimum though your D should save a full quarter at WWU.
I think the ‘tech’ schools like Rose Hillman are going to be more conservative or even a-political just because of the personalities of the students they attract. More of a ‘let’s get the work done and then we’ll party by playing video games or making a robot.’ My daughter is more social than a lot of her friends, but she still wants a quiet environment overall.
As far as the male/female ratio goes, I think I notice it a lot more than my daughter. I notice it in pictures of the RA’s (there are 3x as many guys as girls), the number of fraternities, the sports teams, etc. Daughter doesn’t seem to notice at all and never comments on it.