Parents of the HS Class of 2019 - 3.0 to 3.4 GPA

OK, more info from the daughter on her visit to West Chester U.

Two campuses - north and south, and even an “east” which I think is more commuter. South is most of the sports stuff. Shuttle buses. D liked the look of the place a lot. Adjoining town very quaint, lots of places to get a basic retail job, she said.

An older student union at the south campus and a newly renovated one at the north campus, which shows first-run movies about six months after they come out.

Food: Chick Fil A and Starbucks. Buffet style cafe. Other options. We didn’t dwell much on this as D will eat anything.

She talked to the lax coach despite being so terrified she was close to tears. (Powerful goddess-women do that to her). Coach told her to get film and invited her to come to a tourney/camp - pretty standard stuff. It’s a pretty successful program; not sure there’s a place for D there.

There’s a whole department called exploratory studies, which appealed to her, as it’s designed to get her eventually into a major but in the meantime lets her dabble. No Chinese but head of languages was very nice to her and they talked about a study-abroad thing to China that could be great.

They talked to the theater people, and got a weird vibe. My H described them as not…theater-y… Very nice, but more mainstream and I guess not all flailing arms and drama queens and extroverted? That’s the only thing I can glean for it. Anyway, they’re doing Romeo and Juliet and D wants to go back down for that later in the fall. Didn’t see the facilities, as all the theater people were at the area where all the departments and clubs etc were clustered, so she didn’t think she’d be able to see anything (obv., if I had been there, trespassing would’ve been de rigeur…I’m much less bothered by rules…)

She saw both kinds of dorms: older traditional and newer, “affiliated,” which I understand are about $4k more a year. The older dorms have a/c units in the rooms and communal bathrooms for each floor. The affiliated ones are more like what my H described as a Marriott hotel room: you enter into a foyer with closets on either side, then it’s a big suite-style room, with I think a shared bathroom between two suites. Some “pods” for upperclassmen can have as many as four or five single bedrooms clustered around a LR/kitchen, my H said he was told. Both types of buildings have stairs and elevators; the affiliate dorms have ritzy bottom-level gyms and lounges while the traditional dorms have less ritzy stuff.

OK, I think that’s about it. Hope this helps! (Will be crossposting in a PASSHE-specific thread also).

You mean the theater people weren’t sufficiently dramatic? I get it!

Checking in here from middle America. I participated in the 2017 thread with my daughter who was at the higher end of the GPA range and am back with my son who is smack in the middle of it - despite being super smart and “gifted” - whatever that means. He is just pretty lazy and refuses to care about what he considers busy work so his grades suffer. He may end up lopsided as he does test well and he learned from his sister’s search that a high ACT/SAT score might give him more college choices – so he might put time into studying for the tests.

I am willing to look anywhere in the country for him. He is an athlete and is still considering continuing playing soccer at some level – but I don’t think he wants it enough to play the recruiting game. So somewhere with club teams might be of interest.

He is strong in math and science – but has the personality of a salesman :smiley: (very social/extroverted) So I can see him leaning towards business maybe. He is kicking around the idea of engineering too.

We need lots of aid (total COA at or below $15K/yr!) and schools that meet full need will likely give it (our EFC is about 10K) – however when looking with my D17 we found most of those schools are small and very competitive (she was waitlisted at 4). So I am not sure his stats will be good enough – and I really see him at a larger Rah Rah type university. Likely his only real options will end up being in-state regional options or Mizzou (which would be at the tippy top of our budget). I am thankful Missouri has a couple of really good instate options.

Oh - and he absolutely loves Colorado - and would likely do a lot to get into a school there that we can afford. I am searching for some firm data from a school there that I can use as a motivator to kick his rear in gear but have yet to find any :slight_smile:

@Gatormama – out of curiosity, have you looked at UMBC? I have heard good things about their theatre program, and I know they have environmental studies, Chinese, and lacrosse. They also have some good theatre scholarships (Linehan Artist Scholars Program).

@OrangeFish - I’ve been operating under the assumption that UMD is enough like Penn State to make it unaffordable. I’ll take another look, though.

@Gatormama – UMBC is different than UMD. :slight_smile:

@stlarenas have you looked at U Wyoming? I know it’s not Colorado but it’s not that far to Fort Collins for weekend activities and I think is better than most state schools at FA + Merit. Might be worth looking at.

@Gatormama I know what you mean. S17 had a weird experience sitting in on a theater class at Allegheny. Very not theater-ey. Why they put him in that class is another story but suffice to say between that and viewing the music areas…he was not sold on the arts aspects of their program. Not that it mattered at the end of the day since right now he isn’t playing his instrument or doing theater tech (though is doing radio lol).

UMBC might make my mental list for S19. He’ll probably apply to UMCP as a reach (for some reason, it’s easier to get in to than VA Tech for kids from his school), but it’s a bit pricey.

He’s actually agreed to visit a school or two during a 4 day weekend in early November. I can’t get him to offer an opinion about which schools. Possibilities include Delaware, Temple, Pitt, maybe a LAC in PA. Does anyone have an opinion about Open Houses/preview days vs. regular tours? We only did the latter with D16, so I’m not sure if I’m missing out.

This is the first week where junior year is hitting hard for him - 2 big tests (AP Physics, honors Pre-Calc), 3 make-up tests from the never-ending strep episode, Physics lab due, regional orchestra audition last night, rehearsal tomorrow, probably 4 days worth of pre-calc homework to do today (teacher collects at test time), plus the usual reading for psych. Oh and he’s failing English because there are only two grades (a 95 and a 25 because he forgot how to do annotations after being in regular English for two years. Yikes. ). I think he did Physics homework for 10 hours on Sunday!

@eandesmom thanks for the U Wyoming suggestion. Looks like NPC estimates $24K (with about $4K of that being travel and books) for us without any mention of merit. I don’t see any automatic merit listed on their website - so that is a wild card. So it might still be a stretch but may be worth looking into.

@stlarenas http://www.uwyo.edu/admissions/scholarships/non-residents/rms.html

@Kardinalschnitt THANK YOU! that right there might give him the motivation he needs. A 30 ACT and 3.4 GPA is definitely doable if he stays focused.

@stlarenas Glad to help. My dd18 has a lot of affection for the school. She’s waiting on a decision.

@eh1234 – on your question about open houses/preview days vs. regular tours – we have had better one-on-one time on regular tours supplemented with a prearranged faculty member visit for larger schools, but for smaller schools (SLACs) we have found the open houses/preview days work better for one-on-one time. So I guess what I’m saying is it depends on the school.

D is registered to attend an open house this Saturday, and we are contemplating skipping it and instead meeting with the admissions officer at a college fair on Sunday. D emailed her faculty member contact to see if a separate meeting can be setup in the future.

@orangefish Thanks! One thing S19 does not want right now is any type of “one-on-one” time with a college faculty member. He’s a bit too lost/clueless about what he wants at this point in the process to hold up his part of a conversation and isn’t much of a talker anyway.

I think we’ll stick with regular tours for now. I guess I was wondering if open houses provide a more extensive look at the school? Or are they just tours/info sessions with bigger crowds? I did notice that there are a lot of mid-October open houses but I don’t see us going anywhere until November anyway. (The hope this Saturday is to do something about that pesky SAT coming up on Oct. 7).

In our experience, the “open houses” in the fall for the bigger schools are cattle calls.

Ah, that’s what I assumed. I guess we’ll definitely stick with the regular tours in that case.

@stlarenas @Gatormama – have you looked at U New Mexico’s Amigo scholarship? https://scholarship.unm.edu/scholarships/non-resident.html

Thank you so much for starting this thread! I have been a CC “lurker” for over 5 years, and have gotten so much wonderful information from the wise people that post here! My daughter is a sophomore in college now and was a very high achiever - we used CC an awful lot when she was in HS. My son is now a a HS junior and here I am again. Two very different kids - two very different college searches. My son has a 3.63 UW GPA and just scored a “22” on the September ACT. Taking 1 AP class this year and “Honors” Spanish. (He does not like Spanish at all, but foreign language seems to be a requirement for most LACs and in his HS, junior year foreign language is an “Honors” level. Already proving to be a challenging class). The “22” ACT score was devastating for him because he put a lot of time and effort into studying over the summer. I was so proud of him and quietly shared his disappointment - he is taking it again in October. His sister is a tough act to follow - she graduated HS with a 4.2 and had a “32” ACT - school was very easy for her; she is just “one of those” people. I know he is trying to compete with her (sibling rivalry I guess) - despite my encouragement and speeches about “how we all have different skill sets and everybody has their own path”…I am settling in for a long junior year. We are talking about mid-size “test optional” schools, but I do have a concern about how the admission folks really look at “test optional” applicants. I have asked at several info. sessions, and while most say their approach is “holistic” I would love to hear from people who have actually not submitted. :slight_smile: Again, so happy to have finally joined - thank you all for the great information and advice!

Forgot to mention that some of the schools he has an interest in so far are Providence, Loyola and St. Joe’s in Philly. I liked Fairfield very much but he wasn’t that “into it.” He likes the Catholic schools even though we really haven’t been to church in years. :slight_smile: We live in NJ and he wants to go to a school that is near a city and with lots of school spirit. I think we are looking at reasonable schools for him, but I know a lot depends on this year.

@5050100 do you think it was a timing issue or content issue with the ACT?

Has he ever taken a SAT practice test, did he take the PSAT?