@mageecrew I’m not sure which colleges WPI considers peers but mentioning that you got this and that from Pitt and that there is an 8K gap in COA between WPI and there and if WPI can reevaluate her aid package. My D worded her appeal by mentioning how Columbia was an academic and social fit and could they make it more of a financial fit.
Also I just happen to read this article a few minutes ago:
@magecrew - I would only discuss “peer institutions;” i.e., schools that are on the same “tier” in the rankings, and only mention merit if the schools you are appealing FA at offers merit.
Yale did not give a hoot about a U Chicago offer (I was specifically told…“Well, perhaps if it were Harvard, or Princeton, or Stanford…” I felt like reminding her that UChicago and Yale were tied for number 3 in the US News rankings last year…). It was not until I produced a FA offer from Princeton that Yale was able to reconsider FA.
And none of the ivies care about merit. A school that does give merit might be inclined to up their offer, unless they’ve maxed it out. Or they might give summer stipends.
@thshadow do you think being a female in CS had any impact? My D’s bf has a 4.3 gpa, as a whole very strong, yet he did not have favorable results at all. Rejected at Purdue, though he applied by their regular deadline and not priority deadline.
@thshadow – I agree about “not playing the game” to a large degree but rather to pursue interests and try to engage in activities that are aligned to interests - once identified. But there are things that may send positive messages to engineering / CS oriented programs in colleges that the student has interest and an aptitude for these rather rigorous subject areas. Students who do take these steps are often students who truly want to do so - whether or not they realize a college may care or take notice. I do think females have a bit of a edge bc the numbers in engineering and CS at many schools are skewed pretty heavily male.
After months of applying, waiting, rejoicing and crying, my S17 has decided on a school. He is now part of the Class of 2021 at the University of Minnesota! Thanks everyone for all of your guidance and wisdom on this thread! Now all the actual work begins!
@RightCoaster - FIRST or VEX robotics are very helpful for both engineering and CS. Lot of schools have programming clubs also. may be taking one or two classes in summer also good.
@RightCoaster Your friend’s son has very similar activities as our older son did (who also is ME). We were surprised t the time by some of his waitlsts/rejections, but in hindsight we now see why in most cases. Regardless, he got into a couple of really good schools and it seems UMass is also a good result for your friend’s son. The rejections may be a result of just shooting a little too high.
Your son has activities like our younger one, robotics and math club, and he was accepted to a couple of schools the older one wasn’t for ME. I would think that your son’s robotics experience will help him for ME.
@soxmom - my friend’s son was deciding between Dartmouth, Middlebury and Swarthmore (last year). He ended up picking Dartmouth, but is taking a gap year this year. It was really hard for him to choose.
Congrats to everyone whose DC have made a decision. I am just grateful that Spykid is going somewhere. It was touch and go for awhile. He was very particular about where he applied and somewhat unrealistic. I insisted he apply to at least one school that he was sure to be admitted. Thank god he did because he could’ve easily been shut out.
Spykid has a 2230 ACT, 4.2 uw/ 3.8 w gpa. More than 400 hours of community service (I’ve lost count), club leader, school ambassador, plays a sport, and has a few strong ECs. None of this manufactured. He did what he enjoyed. Yet he was wl at American University, Denied at U Southern California (his dream school), denied at Columbia (no surprise). It came down to honors college at Arizona State with a scholarship, Occidental College with merit or Cal Poly with a small scholarship.
It’s been a similar scenario for his BFF, who had a 1530 SAT (new score) 3.9 gpa. He didn’t get into Cal Poly, or Tulane. He’s going to our state school. Spykid was pretty devastated when he discovered a classmate was accepted to USC with an SAT score 300 points lower. Max and I never thought USC was a good fit for him and are relieved and thrilled he’s going to Cal Poly.
@Agentninetynine my daughter’s boyfriend has been so sad to see kids with lower stats get into his top choices when he was denied, we keep reminding him he chose that major and the results are worth it if CS is what he wants to study. I wish he’d gotten into slo!
I’ve been following the CS/engineering application discussion with some interest, since my D19 is starting to lean more and more toward the STEM-rather-than-fine-arts side of her academic aims. (Quick background for those who’ve forgotten previous mentions of her: She’s been interested since she was very young—elementary age—in the details of creation of products, and so sees a future in industrial/product design or industrial engineering, depending on whether she’s been feeling more artsy or sciency at the time.) She’s falling more and more in love with the math and science side, and is currently one of the first two sophomores ever to take AP calc at her high school, and is one of three trying desperately to set up a mentored “independent study” calc BC class next year, since her school doesn’t offer that.
She plays around with CAD and coding and so on, but it’s all on her own time, since not only does her school have very, very few extracurriculars, but none of them are STEM-oriented. Further, living in Alaska, there’s very little in the way of classes and clubs and such for a high school student interested in that sort of thing (and most of them are in the summer, anyway, and so conflict with our regular travels to the lower 48 to visit family).
I hadn’t thought about her having to document an interest in engineering—but how does someone like her and in her situation actually do that? It’s not like she’s actually written any full-blown apps or anything—that’s not really where her interests lie, it’s mainly that she plays around with seeing how thoroughly she can mess with her Linux box before having to wipe it and start over—so I suppose the question is: What’s a girl to do?
@Agentninetynine I found USC’s decisions more unpredictable than I thought. Excellent stats and depth in a few activities weren’t enough, so I think they are trying to ascertain personality for fit more than other schools that our son applied to. At least that’s my opinion based on about half a dozen kids we know who applied there, a majority of who got into either USC or UCLA, but not both.
@socalmom007 Seems like your daughter’s BF ended up with a good result - a top 10 public school with its own school of computer science. Our high stat older son also had a few disappointing results for engineering, but was very happy with the comparably ranked UC he’s now at and has never looked back. UCI should present great opportunities for CS.
@dfbdfb – I don’t know if you saw @CA1543’s very helpful post, so scroll back if you missed it.
Some of the online things were:
CTFs -capture the flag cybersecurity/hacking competitions–with CMU’s PICO being one of the larger ones but there are many;
USACO – offered a few times a year—three or four hour window during a specified weekend to try to progress from bronze to silver to gold to platinum;
Girls Who Code – I know little since I have a boy, but something to investigate.
My son ‘conducted research’ remotely with a CS prof on some sort of cybersecurity issue. It took some perseverance, but something for her to consider.
@MA2012, thanks for sharing that. I just had a nice discussion with S’s college advisor, who is pretty strongly of the view that S should pick Dartmouth, and plans to express that to him (in a way that I couldn’t as a parent, without him tuning me out). So I’m hopeful that he’ll get to “the right” decision in the next couple of days. They really are all great schools, but the more I dug into specifics that were pertinent to our kid, the more convinced I became that Dartmouth was the best choice for him.
@Dolemite and @LoveTheBard Thanks! Good points. And yeah, I’m not sure who they would see as peer schools among my daughter’s full tuition offers, as they are probably considered the top engineering school of the four - maybe RIT, and maybe Pitt. Alabama and Delaware are the other two.
There’s actually about a $15,000 COA difference between the two, Pitt and WPI, as Pitt would only be around $13,000 and WPI $28,000. Per our current agreement with my D we’d be basically splitting the difference with her.
He had been in contact last summer with a lax coach. He invited him and me to meet with him and the team and take a tour. We did that. He asked my son to sleep over, so he did 1 night in the fall. Son17 applied but did not ED. Just regular decision. Coach asked him to get all of his paperwork in and sign up for college clearinghouse. He did that. He wrote a note in the fall thanking the coach and saying he liked the school. I know the coach liked my son and he was a nice guy But all we heard was crickets. No notes or calls from the coach. Son emailed him in Feb or so, to check in and saying he was still interested. No call or note back. So son17 just decides to move on and select some other schools that were showing him the love.
Today my son gets an email and a group text from the coach welcoming all of the new players and that he needs to get housing all set up and invite over to watch a game and send time with the team. He wished all the kids good luck in their spring season and that he’ll be sending out the summer work out schedule and when they should be on campus or Fall. Ha
Hilarious,
So anyways, son already sent in his deposit to NEU but it’s a funny story of “bad recruiting”. My son may have considered going there if the guy just emailed back. Crazy.
