@mommdc Thanks for the suggestions. We actually looked into Messiah, my SIL graduated from there, and Misericordia. DD won’t consider any school that has a theology/religion course requirement. She goes to Catholic school as a non-Catholic and refuses to take another theology course after high school. We came to the social work major as a possibility after she’d applied to 7 schools, thinking she’d go for psychology, fortunately 3 have a BSW option if she wants to go that route. She’s also thinking about secondary school certification in social studies though she ultimately wants to teach English overseas. She hasn’t really come to a conclusion yet; it’s frustrating but understandable.
@mstomper Wow, that’s fantastic! Way to go for your S! B-)
@liveonboca Congrats to your S too! An ED acceptance sounds wonderful!
@stardustmom OSU! Our family went to one of their football games around here and they seem to have a lot of spirit and fun. Many of their fans were walking around wearing handmade beaver tails (made out of cardboard) hanging out of the backs of their pants… they were even nice enough to offer them to our kids but we declined 
Their EE dept has a couple of rockstar profs (circuits); it sounds like you found them to be pretty solid throughout their STEM fields.
@chippedtoof OSU was not on our radar until some family friends raved about their daughter’s experience there and urged our son to apply so we looked into it. My son wants the university experience (big games!) and it sounds like Corvallis is a nice town, so it could meet my son’s needs. I have heard about their graduates being actively recruited for certain fields too. >:D<
Acceptance #2: Ithaca, Park School of Communication. I thought he’d get into Ithaca, but not Park. His essay must have really impressed them. The scholarship was 15K, so he’ll need a grant for the same amount for it to be affordable.
@mstomper congrats on Ithaca and Park!
I posted a while back in this thread that my daughter was considering universities in the UK and it was rather a last minute decision. Here’s a bit of an update. Now she’s definitely going as she’s not even applying to colleges in the US! Where she will go is not yet decided as she’s waiting on one more decision but she already has three offers (and one rejection.)
Some thoughts on the process.
- The UCAS, essentially the UK common app, is a used by all the universities. Only a few universities ask for additional information and this will be requested only after the UCAS is submitted. (Some specialized courses also ask for additional information as well and some such as law require an additional aptitude test.)
- The decision making process in the UK appears to be much more clear cut and focused on academics but not on GPA. In fact UCAS doesn’t even ask for GPA or a transcript, although a few universities may subsequently require it. What is required are SAT or ACT scores and AP or IB grades. Since you can look up each university's entrances requirements for each course (in terms of AP scores required), you’ll have a fairly good idea of whether you are likely to get in.
- UCAS does ask for a personal statement as well as a single teacher reference.
- You can only apply to at most 5 universities which also reduces the amount of work.
- If your child has a poor GPA but has good AP’s and SAT/ACT, they stand a decent chance of getting into a very good university in the UK. Perhaps not Cambridge or Oxford but almost anywhere else.
- There is very little in the way of financial aid or merit scholarships. But if you are going to be paying out of state tuition and don’t qualify for financial aid or any sort, the UK seems quite a bit cheaper than many colleges in the US.
Anyhow I thought I’d post this in case it opens up options for anyone else. UCAS submission deadline is 15 January and all applications received by this date are treated equally.
Unlike her classmates, my daughter is pretty stress-free at the moment. For the last month or more, whenever her college counselor has bumped into her, he’s been asking, “What are you still doing at school?” (Perhaps this is not a good thing as now she’s asking the same question!)
I should have added to my post above:
- UK degrees tend to be very focused. So if you apply as a history major, you could choose to studying nothing but history for your entire degree. Many universities do allow some flexibility (such as dual subject majors) and liberal arts type degrees are offered but in general it's still much more focused than the US. So your child does need to fairly sure of his or her choice.
@HedgePig thanks for sharing
S18 only applied to one school as it turns out (never finished the safety app), but WE ARE DONE! He was accepted to George Mason, his first choice, and now he’s bugging me to send the deposit. Who knew college apps could be this easy? (They weren’t in 2011 or 2017.)
Interesting there are so many kids with the big verbal/math split favoring verbal. My two D’s are opposites on this. Oldest has a learning disability NLD, which is actually characterized by a large gap on IQ test with verbal being MUCH higher. She got through her college math classes thanks to tutoring by her then BF (now husband) math/physics major. (so @me29034 's D is on the right track there). D17, like many on the spectrum, is the opposite. She did the inverse of @MACmiracle 's D and took all her STEM (plus English) classes AP/honors, but everything else regular track. Also, I love the idea of a philosophy minor with any major.
@Gatormama I majored in psych and cringe when I hear kids mention it as a major – I’d say even “worse” than English in job prospects. College is expensive and sometimes you have to remind kids that the main point (for most) is so they can support themselves later. I agree civil service is a good path and have recommended to my kids as an option. One of my closest childhood friends is still with the National Park Service – for a number of years she was a smoke jumper!
@HedgePig that’s great your D has decided she is going to a UK college – and already has offers!
Congratulations on George Mason @snoozn… Awesome that your son is done!! Our daughter definitely has the high verbal/math split on ACT. She favors verbal over math. I mean a huge split.
Had a long weekend. Went to NYC on Thursday evening to stay over for daughter’s Fordham/Ailey dance BFA audition. This is one of her hardest auditions. They have a prescreen and had over 800 applications and 300 dancers passes the pre-screen. After the audition process they will offer about 45-50 places to make a class of 30. She loved everything about the audition and the program so now we wait.
On the snowy ride home she received an email that she passed Elon’s pre-screen with an invitation to audition. Very happy with that, too.
Also received word from Drexel (one of 2 strictly academic applications…just in case) that she was admitted with a $29,000.00 award.
All in all a very good weekend. Thought she and my husband came down with a stomach virus last night that kept me awake cleaning for hours:(
@snoozn My D asked to do another SAT and despite rather debilitating post concussive symptoms, she went ahead with it.
Unbelievably, we got the scores back on Friday and she closed the math/verbal gap by beinging up that math score 100 points. I don’t know what happened because she really could not prepare since she was supposed to be in brain rest. The only thing I could think of is that her calculus teacher did a major review at the beginning of the year.
She also has a history of hypoglycemia and tends to east very healthily, and to be honest, I think that created a problem on one of the earlier tests, like she did not have enough carbs to get her through. But the morning of the December SAT, she ate a lot of lean protein and complex and simple carbs. Her blood sugar did in fact drop by the end of the test and her brain could not process any of the easy math on the experimental section. But at least she got through until then.
Who knows what happened…a miracle for MACmiracle? We’ll see how it helps with scholarships.
That is amazing @MACmiracle …congratulations to your daughter. Whatever came together for her that is amazing.
Hi everyone It’s been a little quiet in this corner of our world… I hope the 3.0-3.4 crowd is still alive and kicking! Congratulations to all recipients of good news!! It really has been exciting to read about the successes and the fortitude around CC.
S18 has been slogging through finals and we’ve been steering clear of portals and opening envelopes, but now that he’s officially on break, we went ahead and checked everything:
Accepted: Clark, Wooster, Lawrence, Willamette, and Puget Sound (with some solid merit for each)
Denied: Boston College (This was a late addition and I think we made it tough by doing poorly on the “interest” front)
Deferred: Santa Clara
It was enough to bring a big smile to his and his parents’ faces. I think I read each acceptance letter 2 or 3 times
I hope this group has more to share! I remember reading last year’s results and I still can’t thank them enough for sharing their results and keeping my hopes alive for a worthy school for my S.
S accepted at McDaniel with big scholarship, at Ithaca’s Park School with not big enough scholarship (waiting to hear about FA). Rejected at Fordham (which would have, IMHO, been a horrible fit).
S accepted to Drexel, Michigan State, Temple (Tyler School of Art) and Carnegie Mellon ED!!!
He will be attending Carnegie Mellon School of Art (BFA with a minor in Game Design) in the Fall.
My twins are starting to get acceptance letters. D has 3.25 UW 3.66W. She has been accepted to Mechanical Engineering programs at Gannon University ($16K scholarship), Widener University ($26K scholarship), York College of PA ($8K scholarship), and University of Toledo (do not know merit yet but from site estimate $12,500). She has applied to some more selective schools also but won’t hear until Feb/March for most. She’s also applied for additional scholarships at all 4 schools (some invited, some open). Still need to visit a few but we are hoping to match a good FA package with a school she really likes!
So DD18 has decided to attend Elizabethtown College. We have heard back from all but two of the schools that she applied to and we received award letters from a couple as well (E-town was quite generous). We talked and she was planning to overnight at a few of them but, after further discussion, she disclosed that she wanted to do those visits to make sure she wan’t missing out on anything (near impossible to know) even though she felt E-town was a great fit. I told her she could definitely visit but I’m wasn’t sure she would discover what she was “missing out on” from just an overnight and she also stated she wasn’t quite sure what she would major in at the other schools (she plans on studying Social Work - going for her BSW at E-town). Rather then spending the money for me to stay in hotels while she overnights at some of the other colleges she thought she’d check out again, we will use the money for an overnight to New York City. I’m happy that the decision is made and the money is deposited. Now she can focus on all the other things she wants to do her Senior year - like trying out for a musical (completely out of character for my anxious girl, very exciting!) and some other events with clubs and friends.
An interesting fact about my DD’s choice of E-town, it was the last of the college visits we did and she was positive she wouldn’t like it (as she was pretty impressed with Goucher and a number of other colleges we already visited).
Congratulations on your daughter making a decision @AnxietyMom! Now she can enjoy her spring semester:)
(I think I gained 5lbs from holiday feasting since the last time I posted…)
@mstomper
That’s great to hear, McDaniel and Park School look like great options to have! Good luck on Ithaca’s FA!
@itsreallymia
Congratulations to your S on CMU I’ve known the school for its engineering but just two nights ago, my cousin-in-law was explaining to me how solid they were on many fronts. (and my nephew would be quite jealous of your S’s major…!)
@mamaocto
Wow, nice merit amounts My son is in a similar situation in terms of more selective schools being in the RD round. But having wonderful options already under the wing is a nice feeling
@AnxietyMom
Congratulations on Elizabethtown! I’m glad to see some decision-making processes go so smoothly… I’m a little worried about my S’s decision since he is attached to each school in some way. But a worry-free rest of senior year for your D sounds great
Even though he started his apps back in summer, my S still has one more to turn in, pending a review from his GC… I’m sure it’s so that we could “enjoy” the process that much longer 