@MotherOfDragons - Our school is not into TSA. Science Bowl and Science Olympiad are twin 800 lb gorillas @ their school 
After those comes Speech and Debate, FBLA etc… Another option is Chemistry Olympiad. My S took local exam recently and waiting for results.
@mcdmom given that he has rigor in the math track, unless he’s angling for STEM it doesn’t seem AP bio would be worth the risk unless he really wants to take that over Forensics. That was our strategy with opting out of APUSH (and in theory AP Lit although he changed his mind at the end). I’d let him pick whatever appeals to him more.
I will say, AP World killed my S17s GPA and your concerns are valid.
@mdcmom For calculus you might want to have your ds consider taking the CLEP exam. Quite a few schools do give credit for cal 1 via the exam.
@eandesmom re Portland State University: D liked it. Certainly urban, but entire city blocks of green. D is OK with lots of commuters. Urban honors college with urban honors living community.Not a sports centered university which fits D. 4 year degree guarantee if you start knowing your major and don’t change it. Definitely a possibility.
@brindlegreyhound I’ll check out their honors program, that may have some potential. Thank you!!!
The only thing about forensics is this, from the handbook: “This is a non-regents level
science course and may not meet the admission criteria of some four year colleges. Please talk with
your counselor about the appropriateness of this course.” So it doesn’t really count as a lab course, and the only pre-req is passing a basic science course with a 75 or better. Will this look bad to four-year schools, do you think?
^^ I don’t know. I do know that for our state (Georgia) it’s on the list of accepted classes for the HOPE and Zell Miller scholarships.
Certainly the AP Bio is going to have more rigor than Forensics, and you probably won’t have any issues with admission criteria. I think depending on what colleges you’re looking at will probably tilt you in one direction or another with regards to choosing.
Younger D gets monster scores but meh grades, so I know we’re not looking at super competitive colleges for her because that’s not what motivates her, so Forensics appears to be a good choice for her because she wanted it, talked to people about it before she signed up for it, and knows where her strengths and interests lie in this area, so it was a good match for her. (world record run-on sentence there!)
@mcdmom we have several STEM class options that don’t count as either science or math credits from a college app standpoint, just elective credit. I suspect it will vary by college. In general most we are looking at are 3 years science required (1 lab) but 4 are recommended. I’d dig into it at the SUNY schools for sure and maybe a couple of others that are on your radar to see if you can find out if it will count. I would hope your GC would at least know the answer for the SUNY schools. Sounds like our issue with English and creative writing.
btw we have a SUNY on our radar. SUNY ESF.
@CT1417 , you are absolutely right. There is no money in Ivy sports, but it might be your ticket in.
One kid from our neighboring district is going to swim in Cornell and he is top 5 in his events at state meet. He is also commended , so he is good student. One girl who went to Cornell (also to swim ) last year already quit the swimming team now. If you are not getting any money, why do you spend more than 20 hours a week on a sport?
@SincererLove – we have a significant # of recruited athletes at our HS, and almost all of them end up at Ivies or NESCAC, and many others in the Patriot League. A few end up at Stanford, Duke, Berkeley, etc but I do not know if those students are paid to play. It seems that we have a student (or four or five) recruited for every sport every year, and some as early as 9th grade. (Can’t think of a sailing or volleyball recruit but just about everything else from squash to field hockey to football.)
As to why students would continue to play w/o being paid…I would guess for the love of their sport? My boys do not come close to being recruitable athletes, but they were both varsity athletes so I have watched this from the sidelines. And, yes, absolutely it is the ticket in, at least from my suburban HS. Our Naviance scattergrams are massively skewed b/c of athletic recruiting.
The team pool at Cornell is quite a hike from the freshmen dorms, so I can see how she gave up already. Winter is a long season in Ithaca! While your local students had to be in the running academically, there is a great deal of leeway in calculating the academic index for athletic recruiting, but they do need the cut times or they would not make the team. More leeway for helmet/revenue sports than swimming. Some athletes with a high AI find themselves sitting on the bench, as their AI was used to bring up the team’s AI.
Being in north Florida (at a large public HS), most of our recruited athletes end up at smaller regional schools. Looking at my dd’s class (2014), I see football at Georgia Southern, tennis at Navy, several to play women’s soccer at Southeastern, Lagrange and Jacksonville University, swim at South Georgia, lacrosse at Asbury, softball at the local CC, track/CC at FAU, Embry Riddle, South Florida and Flagler in St. Augustine.
I know several passed on scholarship offers to attend other schools (for academics or to walk on), like UF, FSU, Emory, Vanderbilt, etc. At these schools, that use holistic admissions, I’m sure the years the students put into athletics was viewed as a strong EC.
Hi everyone! I’ve been lurking for a while and decided to finally make an account to join this thread. My daughter is currently a junior and has begun to look at colleges. Totally new process for us since my husband and I aren’t from America and never went to college. Hopefully this community will be willing to deal with my cluelessness as I try to figure this out!
Anyway, might as well introduce my daughter. She attends a medium sized public high school in the South that has a 99% college attendance rate for seniors. She does really well in school with a 3.97 GPA in mostly AP classes. She also does well on standardized tests (which she is quick to say are utterly meaningless) with a 36 ACT and 1500 on PSAT. I’m very proud of her especially since I never did well enough in school to attend college, so I decided to join this site to ensure she has the options that I feel she deserves.
We cannot afford college at its current prices, so we will be on the same merit hunt as so many of you. Luckily, my daughter isn’t super interested in the top schools. I initially wanted that for her, but she explained to me how our financial situation (we own our own business) makes it very unlikely that we will get adequate aid despite being relatively low income.
I’ve been enjoying the visit reports, even those for colleges she isn’t interested in, and this seems like such a nice, supportive community. I look forward to seeing where our kids will be going come next year!
Welcome @BusyNapping. Your D has a very impressive resume. The thing that jumps out at me is that she is the first generation to attend college. Combined with your scores, I think she may have lots of good opportunities. I’m not familiar with what’s out there for this demographic, but I’m sure others will chime in, and there are lots of old threads you’ve probably already discovered! Welcome!
D and I leave later today for NC and SC for some college visits. So, we’ll try to relay some of our impressions over the coming days.
We’re visiting American U in DC tomorrow for the special School of International Service program. Anyone have any questions for me to investigate?
Glad you can join us @BusyNapping. I agree with @2muchquan that since your D is a first gen and with her impressive scores, she will have many opportunities. Have you tried the EFC calculator to see what aid you may qualify for?
@2muchquan have fun on your trip.
@BusyNapping Welcome! Your daughter will have great options if you target the right schools. The NPC will not be all that useful since you own a business. They work best for those with straightforward income and assets. But still give it a try. Which schools are your daughter considering so far?
@greeny8 Does being first gen help in admissions? Where do you mention it? Is it part of the subjective evaluation that the colleges do?
There’s a section of the Common App that asks for parents’ educational background. I expect non-CA-school applications are similar.
Thank you for the kind welcome everyone!
To answer a few questions, no we have not used the NPCs yet. Colleges often have a disclaimer that they are inaccurate if you own a business, so we have simply been avoiding them. Since this is my first run at the college application process, we have no way to estimate or guess at our financial aid estimates, so we’re just preparing for the worst.
Our college list is pretty underdeveloped as of now, mostly because D doesn’t know what she wants to major in. She has always been interested in international relations (an interest a few of our kids seem to share) gained by following the political relationship between our home country and America, but she has heard a lot about IR not being a great major on the undergrad level.
So, as of now, the only certain school is Tulane since we live only 2 hours away and it has great merit aid opportunities. Other than that, we’re looking at some schools with large NMF scholarships, but she prefers a medium sized school to one the size of a large flagship.
The only school which she absolutely loves is Rice University. We lived in Austin, TX after Hurricane Katrina and she visited Rice once and fell in love. Still, it is a reach and she recognizes that, so we’re focusing on match and safety schools. I am all too aware that we have a lot of work ahead of us.
There are often scholarships available for first gen that are separate from other merit opportunities and can be stacked in many cases so yes, it can be a nice boost for many.