@grainraiser. Lol, when you live in TX and you don’t have the top 7% stats for UT or TAMU…! TX State was on her list until this past weekend. DD decided to cut TX State loose when she saw the $75 app fee because she is certain she would rather go to SFA. She will throw her hat in for TAMU but I doubt she will be accepted and she does not want to do Blinn, so SFA it will be if she decides to stay in-state.
@snoozn, So glad your son liked George Mason University! They have a lot of success placing their CS and cyber graduates with area employers. They have EA, so if he applies by Nov 1, your son will have a decision by Dec 15 - which takes a lot of the pressure off. He can also apply for the Honors college which gives him a few perks, but it requires an additional essay.
DD received her first acceptance today to Stephen F Austin State University!
Wow, that’s exciting! Congrats!
We won’t even be starting the application process until August 1. Most of the schools we are looking at don’t accept apps until Sept. Interesting…
Most TX schools opened July 1st when the Apply Texas App opened.
@labegg How exciting! It’s getting real, isn’t it… It must feel great getting that first one in.
We’re slogging through the common app and trying to fit in visits where we can. Still at 15. And school starts up again in less than a month.
On Naviance, between the counselor’s and our picks, we’re at 17. That’s too many, but 3 or 4 of the schools are probably not going to last. UC Davis has already been ruled out.
So far, we’ve toured (in order of preference) UW Seattle, Univ. of San Diego, Univ. of San Francisco, Univ. of the Pacific, UC Merced, St. Mary’s Moraga CA, and UC Davis.
S finishes his CC Art class next week and starts back to HS 8/10. Between, we’re going to see Loyola Marymount, Univ. of Portland, and CSU Sonoma State.
Got to figure out how to visit Santa Clara Univ and UC Santa Cruz before application deadlines.
Although the UC and CSU systems are wayyyyyy cheaper, I kind of hope he goes with Univ. of SF so he’s still close enough to home that we can buzz out and treat him to dinner once in a while 8-> Univ. of the Pacific is a close contender (to me) due to its hand holding policies and its 4-year graduation guarantee.
@rwmannesq It looks like Santa Clara has saturday tours in October… that is an option if your schedule is tight (but I’d sign up for those early, just in case there’s a late rush 
UCSC doesn’t have their visit schedules updated beyond this month, so it’s hard to figure out if there are weekend options before Nov. If you are in the east bay, it can be a trek to Santa Cruz (because it pays to hit 17 early morning before the usual backup over the mountains on weekends) but you can make a day of it. Marianne’s ice cream is fun to snack at, and the boardwalk is good for people watching (my son doesn’t like rides although I do; depending on your son, it could be fun or not.)
Anyone else dealing with kids who are working too much and have no time to prep for the August SAT or visit colleges?
This is D’s first day off in weeks and the last for at least another week and a half. She’s been doing work for next years AP classes.
@chippedtoof: Thanks for the info. Fate may be helping me out. My S20 just joined a travel bb team yesterday and they’ll be having a tournament in Santa Cruz sometime in the next several weeks. Will at least be able to get a drive through UCSC campus for S18 during that trip. Will get some ice cream, too. If everything falls into place, can swing by Santa Clara…though that’s probably overly optimistic.
DD is now at St John’s College in MD for a summer academy and loving it. It has been added to our list. We are looking for serious, intellectual LACs with SATs of only 1210. In need of good merit. Also looking for hipsterish rather than preppy/fratty. Not sure what to think of the culture at the following schools. Anyone know? St Lawrence, Willamette, Simmons, Agnes Scott, Wheaton in MA? Not sure whether to add. So far, Wooster, St John’s, Goucher and Mt Holyoke (reach) are on the list. She is fine with adding Denison.
St Lawrence is a bit preppy/sporty just as a heads up. Lovely school, though it does appeal to a preppy crowd if that matters to you. Willamette very down to earth, not really hipster per se but not preppy. Wheaton (MA) struck me as being more on the preppy side than hipster but I have visited only once. Nice school. D15 has a friend there who loves it.
I would check out Beloit for hipster vibe; even Lawrence in WI (though not hipstery it isn’t preppy/frat either). Also Schools like Lewis and Clark, University of Puget Sound.
Thank you Ir4550! That is exactly the info I need to narrow our list. If a school is known to be preppy or fratty, she tends to feel it right away. I just don’t want to add more schools, as the list is getting long and the traveling/visiting will be too! But I don’t want to miss or skip schools that are more mainstream like a Wooster, which she liked. Lewis and Clark and UPS are off the list - I forget why now - likely money!
Most important to her is the intellectual vibe of the school and its student body. That’s why she is loving St John’s College right now.
@MACmiracle Well, we kept the summer open for working on apps/essays, summer reading (for class), and prepping for his fall sport. Progress has still been slow on the apps/essays regardless of if there’s too much work or not. (The summer mindset is hard to overcome). It looks like we’ll only be getting in two trips before school starts (5-6 campuses + 1 freebee). I think we should have toured earlier junior year.
The other problem is that S likes every school we’ve seen so far, and he’s having trouble ranking them (I do see the tendency of liking the last school the most, as others have reported)… so we haven’t been able to prune our list and “make progress” in that sense. I guess it’s good that the work he’s putting in is for something he likes.
@rwmannesq Travel ball - fun! We were down in socal recently for our D’s team and snuck in a self-guided tour of Oxy on the way back. Only so much one can learn, but at least we got the feel of the campus and the neighborhood.
@htimy2015 Any preference between small/big schools? pantha33m’s list looks good to me. In that league, perhaps Carleton, WUSTL… a lower gpa + high test scores can make things more unpredictable, although to my eyes his gpa doesn’t look too bad Is he not interested in American and George Washington? It might be worthwhile to find a place that will guide him to hone his reading/writing (if that was an issue in his english classes)
just discovered CC and this thread. I must say, you guys are giving me life. thank you!
DD just axed a school on her list that she already applied too…following our visit today she said “I really just don’t like it. I wanted too , but I think I would just be depressed here.”. Sigh, so goodbye to The University of South Carolina.
We are off this week to tour the University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg. From what I can discern the U of Manitoba is definitely the “better” of the two, but they’re close and so we’re going to hit them both up. It has a strong German program, great study abroad options and a decent psychology program as well. Being from MN it’s also dirt cheap because they offer reciprocity. We might also try and fit in a four at UND of NDSU on the way. DS very much wants to go “away” for school and we are really struggling to make that happen and be affordable. For us the state schools work out to be considerably cheaper 
my daughter is back on a schedule prepping for the next ACT. She is working with a tutor. They are using the final 15 minutes to work on essays. This has us thrilled. Our daughter has been procrastinating getting started. I realize it is early, but she is pursuing a BFA and has to get the college application in before she can register or receive an audition space. These auditions start in September and November. We will be on vacation the last 2 weeks of August and then school starts. In addition to the normal application, she needs her dance resume done, letters of recommendation, dance photos, a solo, 2 video for the selection process and the list goes on. Prodding has not gone well, so hopping she will respond to the tutor;)
Son asked to visit Ithaca and Syracuse. The school system where I work starts right after we get home from a trip to see my parents (and visit James Madison on the way), so I won’t be going on this one. Ithaca could be a good match; I’m not sure about Syracuse.
Son has finished 2 applications and have been submitted. Yeah!
Working on a couple of more and 1 hasn’t been opened yet.
We are trying to get as much done before football starts on the 14th. He will retake the SAT on the 26th. He knows he will have very little time once school starts but most schools he is applying to he is assured admittance.
We have one more airplane trip to make to look at the last group of schools and trying to figure out if we can fit that in before the 14, we will see.