I’ll be visiting RPI with my son on Admitted Students Day on April 8th.
@mageecrew The housing situation at Bama is a bit different. I wouldn’t let that hold you back if the school is otherwise appealing. A lot of the rooms are 4-person suites, but a student can only “pull in” one roommate when they select their room. If your D should decide to go there, it sounds like from what I’ve read that she would have a good shot of either finding a roommate who has an earlier room selection date or taking her chances on available bedrooms in partially filled suites. The honors dorm overflow is a living learning community called Blount that is also a good option, and not all honors students choose to live in the honors dorms for one reason or another.
I’m just trying to help you past perceived obstacles – not sway you to Alabama if the finances or the campus are not appealing to you. It’s not for everyone, I’m sure, and your daughter already has great options.
Now that it’s nearing decision time (one still to come for us), trying to change S2’s top choice would be like trying to turn an aircraft carrier around. UCLA is going to be so competitive GPA-wise that I sometimes think he might be better off being a big fish where his brother goes to school, where I think he could really get a much higher GPA than UCLA. But he’s pretty adament on where he wants to go and isn’t flinching when I talk about how low the curve supposedly is. Either school would be great, he just might have a chance to stand out more at one. I’d probably lean in the same direction he is though too. I have to say, I admire his fearlessness. Anyone else wondering if their kid’s choice is going to be too tough or whether being a big fish in a smaller pond might be more advantageous?
Hey @youcee I’d like him pick UCLA if it’s what he wants the most.
My wife and I went to big universities and I can assure you we did not finish near the top of the class at either institution. I don’t think it’s held us up during our working careers. You have a bright successful kid. He’ll figure it all out no matter where he lands. You just have to believe he’ll push onward.
I doubt that my son will be a stand out academic student at NEU. He’ll be there with some very smart kids. I told him he just needs to be ambitious and get involved once he is on campus, and to take advantage of the opportunity he has been given. He could’ve gone to a smaller school where he might have been a bigger fish, but that wasn’t his dream. We’ve encouraged him to take ownership of his decision and move forward with no regrets.
@RightCoaster Good advice. We’re all excited about it - I’m probably the only one questioning it since I over analyze everything. Thanks for your thoughts.
@thermom Such different schools, and all great in their own ways! Does RPI still approach 70% male? Caltech used to be like that, and they said that for girls, “The odds are good, but the goods are odd.”
@Fishnlines29 and @Mom2aphysicsgeek Flexibility of majors and decisions: He doesn’t want to start this pros/cons thing until after having all the answers after Thursday and Friday, but I guess I can! I want to make a decision spreadsheet, but he isn’t ready. Next week!
He essentially wants one of physics or CS as a major with a lot of the other option as far as classes. Much of physics experimental research requires CS to make it work. It’s not as true the other way around, I’d guess. So, if he can combine them, it’s not so much a “2 roads diverged in a wood” situation as one might think.
Caltech: They admit generally and one can major in anything so long as it’s STEM. (OK, technically there are some humanities majors, but they are primarily there for double majors.) Physics and CS are both strong, but more theory-based on the CS than most would recommend for a career in programming. He enjoys the theory/math part of CS, so that’s OK. Getting classes appears to be easy and the faculty are involved in advising. Basically, he needs to go to the accepted students days and decide if he wants to commit to 4 years of that intensity and to definitely not being a big fish as @youcee mentioned. That’s not until April 20-22, though.
CMU: We don’t know as much about CMU at this point. He needs to visit there too. I would suppose that a CS major could take as much physics as they have room for. He toured the physics department at CMU and, well, he was much more impressed by all the CS and engineering things at CMU than by the physical sciences.
Berkeley: Probably the most restrictive college option about getting CS classes outside your major. He would probably have to double major in order to get the CS classes he wanted. Regents might help with that, though. He could change majors to CS in the College of L&S, since everyone is a pre-major for at least a year until they finish the prerequisites.
UCSB College of Creative Studies: He’s accepted for physics. They can ask to double major after one quarter, and he might do that with CCS Physics and CCS Computing. The unit cap at the UCs could be a problem for him, though CCS may have a way around that. (Also, it’s probably too close to home and not enough of a change.)
Don’t actually have a choice yet, but son has a full tuition+ offer from a much less-selective (top 60) LAC than others (top 5) he has been accepted to. I go back and forth, but do wonder if the less-selective (and cheaper) school might offer the opportunity for him to handle more exploration…such as double majoring/minoring, getting involved in a variety of research and activities, etc…with less stress than the schools where the academics might have more “need to weed” and where he’ll be competing against all the other ‘top’ students for research-type opportunities and professor’s attention.
Ultimately, it will be up to him - which school he feels the best at - but I don’t think the choice is necessarily obvious to me or him (although to many people it probably would be, either due to price or ‘prestige’).
@ynotgo I graduated from CMU way back when with Mech eng degree. I do know that they CS department is fabulous. The campus is beautiful, as well as some of the surrounding neighborhoods. I did go to downlown pittsburgh when I was there. (moreso as an upperclassman). I wish my S19 could even have a chance of getting in. Your S has so many wonderful options!!!
On the big fish little pond issue, Malcolm Gladwell has done some really interesting work on this. If you google his name and “google talks” you’ll find a great talk that he gave at Google about whether it really pays to attend an elite college or not. He presents what I thought was some pretty compelling (albeit basically anecdotal) evidence that being a top performing student at a lesser known/less prestigious school is more valuable than being a mediocre student at an elite school.
The only problem, though, is that you can’t actually apply this theory very easily to your own life (or that of your kids). If you could somehow magically know the outcome of your kid attending two different schools, that would be one thing. But of course, attending a smaller or less academically challenging school doesn’t necessarily mean that your kid – even if he or she really is brighter than the other students – will come out tops in the class. Lots of people perform best when pushed by high-performing peers, or go along to get along if not pushed. How often do you see a top athlete, like a tennis player, actually make more unforced errors when playing a low ranked competitor than when playing a top ranked rival? And of course there are just so many unknowns – maybe a particular major is actually a lot more challenging than others, maybe your kid falls in love and loses focus, maybe they have other things going on in their personal life that distracts from prioritizing studying…
@ynotgo Thanks for describing his choices. They all sound good.
Hope he finds a way to a clear vision for the path he wants.
@youcee, i feel you. Thats exactly what i have been thinking and struggling with my son. UCLA is a great school in a great part of Los Angeles. We are actually on our way to visit 2 colleges as I write.
@soxmom Agree. Just hoping he “feels it” at one of the visits. Can’t do much more than give each school due consideration, and make the choice that feels best.
Our kids seems to have some similarities on their lists…S WL at Williams, Hopkins & Carleton, accepted at Midd, Bowdoin, Hamilton, and waiting on a couple tomorrow. Good luck!
@soxmom and @RightCoaster thank you both for your great points they were helpful.
@youcee I’ve wondered that along the way as well (big fish, small pond) and my daughter had more than one opportunity to go that route, but she was adamant about her choice as well. She won’t be the big fish but I also don’t think she will flounder. i* 
I think she will thrive because she put a lot of thought into the program(s) and environment she wanted to be in and hopefully she will be able to navigate the system, seek proper guidance and be proactive about finding opportunities to advance herself and prepare for grad school.
@Ynotgo Nice description, thank you. Hopefully he will gain some clarity by getting the final decisions this week and attending some admitted student days! Keep us posted…
@Ynotgo “The odds are good, but the goods are odd.” Sounds like you’re getting your material from @STEM2017 
Too bad you are so close to UCSB - how great would a double major in Physics and Computing be in CCS?
To a bunch of thoughtful commenters:
I appreciate all the comments about the “big fish” wonderings. I know that has worked out well for S1 so far, although that was the biggest pond available to him. I think sometimes us parents get more worried about it than the kids.
@youcee - You should remove “sometimes” from “I think sometimes us parents get more worried about it than the kids” :))
Yes, we’ve been thinking about the big fish/small fish concept as well as we consider Stanford vs. several smaller LACs or well-regarded public options. But I think that there’s real value to being challenged by your peers, as long as the pressure doesn’t get out of hand. And it’s comforting to know that the university is aware of the adjustments necessary as kids go from being top in their class to being just one of a room full of very accomplished students. From the “Tips for Parents” portion of their website:
*Listen and reassure.
At some point in their first year, many students feel overwhelmed. They may call home, fearing their admission was a mistake. We hear this often. Listen, encourage and reassure. Suggest they talk to their academic advisor, the academic advisor in their residence or their resident fellow. Remind them of the support resources at Stanford, such as tutoring, help with study skills and counseling. *
So, I guess that made me feel a little bit better?
Along the lines of “the odds are good, but the goods are odd.” – my daughter visited a tech school with a similar male/female ratio and the female tour guide said:
Yeah, there are a lot more guys here, but most of them spend all of their free time in their rooms playing computer games so it feels like the ratio is a lot more even when you’re just walking around campus. =))
I guess the moral of the story if you’re a guy at a tech school: stop playing MMORPGs in your room so much and you’ll be surprised how many girls there are around campus.
@stencils LOL!
My daughter made the decision to apply to schools where she will be a smaller fish in a bigger pond regardless (despite my H and my suggestions to look at smaller schools). She would like to be somewhere that is not overwhelmingly female.
D does not know what she will study, maybe English and eventually on to law school, so a larger university will be fine for that. I think my D and I are on the same page (go UVA!), but H keeps saying she should wait to keep her options open–one more school to hear from this week.
H is worried since we only went to 2 accepted students days (but visited all but 1 of the schools she has been accepted to during junior year). We were pleasantly surprised that she was accepted at UCLA (the one school we did not visit). Btw, my daughter is one of very few words so it’s hard to read her. Although, she did give me a framed photo of our family from about 12 years ago at UVA because, as she said,“I’ll probably be going there.”
My finger hovers over that “Accept” button!
Hee, @Ynotgo yes, I believe the ratio at RPI is still about 70/30 or so. My D seems ambivalent about romantic pursuits of any stripe at this point, so I’m not sure if the makeup of the goods—odd or otherwise!—on that count is much of a factor for her. :))