@amom2girls, yes we are PA residents as well. DD applied earlier this month as well, but hasn’t received any notice from WCU yet, which is why I inquired.
However, her guidance office is notoriously bad, so it might take weeks before they send out transcripts, if they send them. Just trying to get an idea of the timeline in case she needs to follow up; hopefully she will hear something soon.
My son is also interested in Chapman University. He thought that the students seemed happy, and he liked that one of the professors stopped to say hi to our tour guide. The campus and housing look up-to-date and Orange County has many job opportunities.
A couple of colleges I saw mentioned that I can comment on are Whittier College and Occidental College. I know a graduate of Whittier College who majored in business, and now has a great job. She was drawn to their equestrian program and she received a partial scholarship. Occidental University is very small, but located in an eclectic city, Eagle Rock. Lots of great restaurants and things to do close by. The campus could use some updating, but it is pretty. Around 2,500 students attend, and its claim to fame is that Obama attended for a while.
@lisabees Hi! I’m a current senior who just applied to Beloit and even though I’ve never visited, the people who helped me with my application and interacted with me through the process were incredibly warm, kind, and caring. I haven’t felt so well cared for at any other school; they really seem to look out for you! To me, that’s really special.
My son currently has the followings stats:
3.33 GPA
1480 SAT
He scored a 1450 on his PSAT and got in the top 1% nationally (got letter of commendation no NMSF)
He is attending one of the top magnet high schools and never really fit in well with most of the people there and didn’t enjoy school as much as he used to. Even though I told him sophmore year switching schools was an options he chose to stick it out for the rest of high school. is looking forward to a fresh start in college
He is applying to the following schools
Georgia Tech (Reach)
Purdue
UMD College Park (in state, top choice)
UMBC (in state)
UT Austin
Virginia Tech
EC’s:
Cross Country (4 years)
Indoor Track (3 years)
Outdoor Track (4 years)
Science Olympiad (4 years)
Engineering Club (2 years)
Piano (8 years)
Chess Club (4 years)
Internship over summer of Junior Year for dean of engineering at UGA
His desired major is engineering, does he have good chances? Especially with his top choice (UMD College Park), if he gets in he is 100% going.
@PepsiMakesItOk Engineering will be difficult to get into at all those skills. The stats for engineering majors are generally higher at all universities than their reported averages. You son may also not be directly admitted into engineering. So, even if he is admitted at some places, like Purdue, he will have to compete to get into his major. You should still go ahead and apply, but if you are willing to pay out-of-state tuition, you should also consider some private universities. Check out Rose Hulman-Institute of Technology. If you search on CC, you can probably find threads with other good engineering school recommendations for his stats.
@taverngirl it will be interesting to see how the 2018 cohort plays out but for 2017 many of our students were offered additional/increased monies as it got closer to the deadline, on top of solid initial offers. Their tuition is also a bit less than some of its competitors so overall, it came out ahead for most of us.
@PepsiMakesItOk, I feel you! My kiddo also set on UMD with similar stats to yours. His EC’s look good, and he’s had an internship- I think there’s some hope there! It’s so hard when they’re measured up to their oh-so-very competent peers. Has he reached out to his UMD admissions officer to introduce himself? That can’t hurt.
This has been such a difficult week for my daughter. She had a wonderful fall dance performance on Tuesday evening, only to find out that 2 of her 16 year old guy friends were shot and killed in south philly that evening. It is all so tragic and sad and stupid. Even though we are in a large city, by high school the kids have all interacted in some way (k-8, sports, church, volunteering, dances, socializing, etc.) She knew one socially and the other had been a volunteer with her at the library for 18 months. She is devastated by how it all happened and their deaths.
I have come off to her as the unfeeling mom because this is her last week to get in her final application and she has supplemental applications to finish. Grades close next week. She needs a head-shot and resume and lor from her dance teachers done. We have her first audition next weekend. In-laws are in for the weekend and I’m loosing control. she is completely checked out and angry every time I mention deadlines. And I do understand all of the reasons why she and they other kids are devastated. We allowed her to attend the vigil and the viewing is tomorrow. I’m just stumped with how to proceed.
@eandesmom thanks for the info. Allegheny’s one of her top choices so it would be great to see a nice package. This is our first go around, so we have no idea what happens next! Do schools send out decisions on a rolling basis? Allegheny’s EA deadline isn’t until 12/1, but dd couldn’t wait to submit it. And do acceptances typically come first, followed by financials? Trying to figure out what our expectations should be.
@amom2girls that’s horrible! What a tragedy for your daughter to have to deal with. Hoping she can navigate through everything as best as possible.
@taverngirl thanks! I’m just struggling with how to get her to focus and move forward while grieving. Not doing too well on the mom advice.
@amom2girls sorry for the grief and stress. I’m not sure there is any way to motivate your D right now. Grief takes time. I wonder if a call to the programs asking for an extension might be more useful?
@Booajo we are going to see how she is after the memorial on Saturday and the weekend with grandparents, however, that is a great idea if we cannot get this together. I wonder how schools would react to that information?
@stardustmom Yes my son knows he may not get into engineering directly and might have to work hard and complete year in letters & sciences with a good GPA before trying to transfer in for UMD especially. Is this viable? Also yes we can afford to pay OOS tuition but we would prefer not to as we already have one kid attending UC Berkeley and we are paying full tuition. My son even told me the two main reasons he wanted to go to UMD was to save money and that UMD had a top engineering school.
@STF4717 I wish your kid all the best with their acceptance to UMD! My son attended the UMD college visit for his school last year and I believe he did introduce himself to the admissions officer, but he was sick and missed it this year. With his app due November first, how would he go about introducing himself and would it still be worth doing?
Since people have talked about Ursinus before on this thread, I wanted to tell y’all that we visited and really liked it. I wasn’t expecting to like it as much as I did after reading some stories of unimpressive visits. But our visit was great. Wonderful vibrant, accomplished tour guide. Beautiful campus and facilities. Lots of opportunities for research. It’s very pricey but D hit submit in her app in time to be considered for their highest scholarships, so we’ll see how it shakes out.
@MACmiracle So glad to hear it hit the mark! Goes to show how a tour guide can really make a difference. While we liked the admissions folks, our tour guide was much the opposite and with others in the mix, Ursinus fell off the list. I enjoy hearing different viewpoints. We’ve heard various reviews of some of the schools for S, some good, some not good, and he’s found he is forming his own opinion. Will be interesting next few months!
@MACmiracle My D is trying to finish her Ursinus application as I type. She plans to submit today. I’m glad to hear your D liked it so much. I think mine was influenced by the weather (rainy and gray, which likely also influenced her impression that people weren’t hanging out in groups anywhere, socializing.) If accepted and it is a serious contender, we plan to visit again. Cost is an issue, so we’ll see.
@amom2girls I am so incredibly sorry, that is heart breaking.
@taverngirl if memory serves, S17 applied EA and they promised notification by 2/1 but he heard on 12/20 and received initial scholarship notification at the same time. He received 2 additional offers later on, a music scholarship and then an additional bump.
@MACmiracle Ursinus was the last LAC standing for my S17, we both really really liked it and it may be on S19’s list. He should have slightly better stats than his brother and that makes a huge difference in their awards. I will say we did appeal the offer there and they did come back with additional monies.
@PepsiMakesItOk go online to the UMD undergrad admissions website, and find out who the contact is. I would then suggest he shoot that person an email, or ask the guidance counselor if they know the rep. It never hurts to reach out, give an introduction and let the rep know that UMD is the top choice. Good luck!
Reporting back after our visit to Whittier this past weekend. In short, it’s a very charming LAC, with a beautiful campus located next to a walkable town area (it’s a suburb of LA). We found that the faculty we saw were very engaged with the school and the students and one of the things they talked up the most was how much the faculty and students interacted (typical of LACs I think). Students all have a faculty advisor and they must meet with that advisor at a minimum of once a semester or they cannot register for classes for the next semester. They have 3 faculty houses on campus where faculty members live directly on campus and as part of their commitment in that living arrangement they host various events to engage directly with students. Another interesting facet of their program is they place all freshmen into living learning communities within the residence halls (there are 2 for freshmen). These LLCs are comprised of students who live together, as well as take 2 paired first-year courses together during the first semester. The goal of this is to provide a close community of people that freshmen are in contact with daily both at “home” and in class to ease the transition. They also offer the opportunity to do a self-designed major, approx. 10% of students do this. They have cleverly placed their career center right next to the cafeteria, no excuses for not stopping by! They encourage freshmen to come in right away to start working on a four year plan, and it would not surprise me if they regularly had their staff stationed outside the doors luring the passing students in! On the academic front we saw a lovely new science building (does every school have one of these now?), an amazing old gymnasium re-purposed, but not remodeled, as a visual arts building, a nice performing arts venue, and also for those interested in education they have a K-8 school on site that serves as a learning laboratory for faculty and students.
In short I think this would be a very nurturing place, where a student could really thrive and would have to try pretty hard to fall between any cracks.
The one thing we really didn’t get a good sense of was the students. The event was on a Sunday afternoon, and the only students we saw on campus were those working the event. These all seemed very bright and energetic, but this wasn’t a great visit for observing the school “in the wild” so to speak. Still, it was a good visit and it’s staying on my daughter’s list, though there are some other schools she thinks she likes a bit better for reasons which are probably hard to pinpoint.
@1822mom Thoughts on Whittier? We just booked our tickets to LA to visit a couple of schools!