She is like me in a lot of ways (and completely her father’s daughter in the most obvious ways) – I adored UF with every fiber of my being, not that I was a social butterfly or into the greek scene or anything - I loved the anonymity of it all, the sense of life and the hustle and bustle, even though I didn’t partake in most of it. It’s why I fell in love with NYC when I first came up here.
She has that attitude about the big schools, I think.
Add to that her flair for the dramatic and leadership tendencies and that she is much more comfortable being in social settings than I ever was, and it’s pretty obvious that her tribe is pretty much all tribes, preferably all together at a rave or a football game or a tug of war. She’s that happy-go-lucky about Big.
I’m the one worried about her getting lost; she’s not at all.
Hey there! Just jumping in after reading this thread for a while. S19 definitely falls into this category so I’m holding my breath that this year is stellar! I think I’m way more nervous than he is about keeping his gpa up, especially this year, but I’m trying really hard not to show it.
@Gatormama I have a son that is social but awkward (like his father) and I worried about that, too. My son went to a HS of 2300 and hated every college that was 5000 students or less…kept saying “this feels like HS”. So he focused on large schools and we actively talked about finding your community. He is at a large school (McGill) and does seem to be finding his spot and is really happy…though the worrier in me still worries (though silently in my head…typically late at night). But that’s what I’m supposed to do, right?
@twoinanddone tell me more about Univ of Utah. S19 has about a 3.5 GPA but ACT/SAT will be low due to test anxiety. We went on a family vacation this summer that included Zion and Bryce. Later when talking with our son about options for college, he surprisingly mentioned Utah (we are east coasters) as a school he might want to look into. Its recent move to D1 lacrosse (whose new head coach has many ties to our area) as well as its decent football team/schedule are a plus for my son, a 3 sport athlete who wants to go to a school with a decent sports presence. What makes it a hidden gem to you? I’d love to know more.
I’d also like more info on Utah and, if you know details of the Dakota schools, them too, @twoinanddone …
Interested in whether you think there’s liberalism aplenty there, like most college campuses (campii?) … or whether there is any danger to, say, very liberal gay kids…
Wyoming - as much as D and the whole family love Yellowstone, and as much as she is all about the park ranger/enviro career path, I think the uni there is simply too remote for her. Plus, Wyoming & Matthew Shepherd are inextricably linked to me.
My daughter attends Wyo (which is not remote at all as it is 2 hours from Denver and really no different than UMass being 2 hours from Boston or Penn State being a million miles from civilization) so I know more about it than Utah. Wyo does feel more cowboy or country than say Boulder, but it is a very easy life. Everything on campus is included in the price. Everyone is very nice at Wyo. I’ve never had anyone tell me they couldn’t help or that I had the wrong department. There are a lot of fun things going on on the campus. Your student ID gets you into all sporting events, movies on campus, cheap rental for mtn bikes, kayaks, climbing trips.
My daughter wanted a small school, but now thinks Wyo at 10,000 students is a little small. She likes the big lectures where she can either sit back and listen or really get into the subject at the discussion sectional (every big class has one day of discussion with about 30 kids. Matthew Shepherd was many years ago and just like a lot of events that happen in a place, they don’t define the place (Boston marathon bombing, Columbine shooting). My daughter is pretty liberal, as most college kids are, but does have a lot of republican friends. I think that makes her more tolerant of both sides of an argument, not just the liberal side. She chooses to vote in Colorado because she thinks it means more.
Utah. Have to admit I don’t have first hand knowledge, but I too have been following it because of the D1 lax addition (and I think will add women’s lax very soon), the fact that they WANT you to become a state resident after the first year and pay instate tuition, have good merit for first year students, have a really good theater and dance department and a good engineering/gaming program. It’s in the Pac 12 for sports. It’s not going to be as liberal as Mich or Wis, but the university campus is liberal leaning. It is so clean and nice.
There are a lot of Mormons at both Wyo and Utah, and in the surrounding communities. There are a lot of Catholics at Notre Dame. Up to you to decide if that’s an issue.
The University of Utah seems like a great school from all I’ve heard with many excellent departments. Salt Lake City is a liberal city (by itself, the city would have elected Clinton in the last election) in a conservative state and seems like there is a pretty large LGBTQ+ population. If you’re a skier, you probably already know that SLC is easy to get to, because it’s a Delta hub with lots of direct flights, and the University of Utah is not very far from the airport. It is about 5 hours from Zion and Bryce, however, @4kids4us, but yes a hidden gem.
Wow, I’ve been following the FSU accepted/rejected thread for the last couple of days and it seems like applications were way up this year and cutoffs for acceptance and merit also increased. Sigh. By the time our kids apply, it’ll be a madhouse.
@Gatormama I’m also following the 2018 Parent thread. I’m terrified. These kids are getting turned down everywhere. Merit scholarships that were expected are not happening in many cases either. I don’t know the answer.
For the Florida instate kids, the increase (or potential increase) in Bright Futures may be driving kids to stay instate, and at the top schools because they can now afford them. My kids went to a Florida high school and most of those going to college did stay instate, but they applied to all the state public universities, and it seemed that equal numbers were going to the big three - UF, FSU, UCF - and many more to the next group of FIU, FAU, USF, etc. It wouldn’t surprise me that everyone is moving up a notch, so all those FAU kids are applying at FSU.
For one of my kids, the BF money was nice to have, but not a deal breaker at $2500-$3000 per year. Now, at $7000 per year, it would be a much bigger factor in the decision.
@Gatormama and @homerdog – we are following the 2018 students here locally (Virginia) and are more seriously targeting in-state options not only due to $$$ but due to OOS competition. Even so, what we are hearing for EA results for the tippy top in-state options is simply scary. I am not saying much to D19 as I do not want to further stress her out, but I am pretty concerned about kids in this GPA range for admissions next year.
Keep following those results everyone. I’m interested to see if things settle down after RD and kids make decisions. I know that last year we targeted several school EA and got nice offers but they were definitely back ups. That said, I’m doing exactly what you are doing. My youngest is still firm on his two top choices. His number one school is by far the least expensive but also is the one where if he gets in it will be by the skin of his teeth. (Who invented that phrase?) School number two (University of Vermont) I’m highly confident he will get into but the real question will be aid…we are out of state and it is only affordable if they offer him what they offered my son last year. That said, I’m going to buy a MegaMillion and Powerball ticket tonight. Both are at my minimum prize level…$100 million.
So I stumbled across this beta site - edmit.me - and I’ll be interested to see what results y’all get …
The owner/founder posted a link in someone’s thread about financial costs and transparency and NPCs – the owner/founder was a brand-new CC user with edmitme as their username, and the post suggested going to the website to check it out, and the post was taken down almost immediately.
But I saw it - mwuah hahah.
Anyway, it requires four stats - gpa, test, zip and high school - and calculates your tuition cost after grants/scholarships - NOT loans.
It consistently comes in way lower than what I’ve been bracing for.
Obv. won’t be able to judge its accuracy until this time next year…
@orangefish I’ve been watching the VA admissions, too. I can’t believe some of the kids getting rejected from UVA! They are rejecting kids with 4.6 GPAs and 1580 SAT scores. I thought they “only” required a 4.3 weighted and around a 1500 SAT.
I think my kid will definitely be looking mainly at schools that accept between 50 and 75% of applicants and will probably have to just submit more applications than he actually wants to submit. I need to get on the ball and find some true safeties.
@Gatormama I just played around with that website - I’m loving those fantasy numbers, but I really doubt that my S19 can attended U of Delaware and pay $8000 tuition! They don’t have a $23,000 scholarship and we don’t qualify for aid.
Jumping into this group as I’ve been reading it off and on since November. S19 is taking the ACT in February (he’s not a great standardized test taker, got 1090 on PSAT, so he’s been taking a prep class for the past 8 weeks) and has a GPA 3.35/3.47W. We live in Colorado and he’s very interested in Univ of Colorado, Colorado State, U of AZ, Montana State. He’s an outdoorsman loves to ski, hike and fly fish He’s just starting to get excited about college, but isn’t the best self-starter. I finally got access to his Naviance account which provided some great information (but he was pretty much clueless on what it contained). Feel like I’m going to have to take the reigns on the whole college process. I’d like him to look at some medium sized schools in the West, too so looking at schools like Gonzaga, TCU, SMU (DH is a Texan). Anyway, looking forward to continuing on this journey with you all.
Welcome @nukesmom ! Best of luck with the ACT prep.
@eh1234 – the UVA results are incredible! I’ve had some conversations this weekend with parents of kids that attend our school system’s science and tech magnet and several of THOSE kids were denied (not deferred) and we’re talking extraordinarily high GPAs and test scores. (Gulp.) My thought is for next year there will be more applications further down the in-state VA college food chain, making it more difficult to get in to VT/JMU and perhaps GMU. What are your thoughts about CNU?
@Gatormama umm…yeah. I wish that website was accurate but I don’t trust it one bit. For example…my less than perfect Missouri kid can go to Kentucky for FREE
COLLEGE University of Kentucky
PUBLISHED TUITION help $24,268
EDSTIMATE help $24,268
NET TUITION help $0
oh and they spell Estimate wrong in multiple places
Welcome @nukesmom! My older kid is a sophomore at Colo State and all of her male friends there love to ski, hike and fly fish! (She actually has a group of friends she calls her “fish boys.”) She is in the natural resources college and had pretty much exactly the same GPA as your son. It’s a great fit for her academically and she loves it.
@orangefish I haven’t looked at CNU, but my son’s stats are a little high for this thread (he’s not exactly weighing the pros and cons of Ivies vs. Top 10 LACs - he has very good test scores, A-/B+ grades, meh ECs and I don’t have high hopes for teacher recs or essays)).
I’m not too worried about him being admitted to less competitive majors at VT but the mean GPA for engineering is 4.1 for white males! That’s not happening. Other schools under consideration in VA would be JMU (probably only if he decides to pursue music, but they’re program doesn’t offer a B.A. and I doubt he would want a B.M.) and GMU.
I wouldn’t be too worried about the in-state competitiveness driving up the stats of accepted applicants for arts/portfolio-based majors, which I know is your D19’s interest. It seems like a lot of NoVA kids who get rejected from the top 3 often go OOS, even if they submit an application to GMU and JMU. These schools still need to admit students who actually want to enroll.
I think I’m way more nervous than he is about keeping his gpa up, especially this year, but I’m trying really hard not to show it.