My ds20 hasn’t a clue about where he wants to go or what he wants to do. With three kids to put through school and and income that puts us just over the threshold for FA but only a modest college saving we’ll be chasing merit not prestige.
DD16 did well with a combination of private scholarships (just over $10K so far) and National Merit at OU so she’s pretty much taken care of. If she doesn’t change magers she’ll very likely land in fully funded grad school program. DS18 plans to go to UT- Dallas and double major in comp sci and statistics If he make National Merit (very possible) that’s pretty much a full ride so he can use college saving to pay for grad school at UT Austin. I’d kind of like DS20 to go to UT-Dallas too it would make transportation easier and they could share a car for the time they overlap.
If Ethan’s taking college level French this summer why is he only taking high school French 1 in the fall? What to §s and (CTE) mean?
I helped Ethan with college choices. Since he is pretty gifted academically and athletically, I steered him toward colleges that were either academically superior or academically strong with a strong track team. Our hope is that he can do extremely well in high school and receive both academic and athletic scholarships (maybe even the National Merit Scholarship).
Since I struggled taking Spanish in high school, I didn’t want the same for my kids. The college class was meant to be a prep course for high school French.
§ - College preparatory
(CTE) - Career Technical Education
@demonsamurai Take these comments as coming from the perspective of a mom with a 2020 student who hasn’t had a single conversation about “what” college but has older kids who were/are significantly advanced in high school (our current college student took 3 post BC classes and 5 cal+ physics classes in high school. He graduated with 11 science credits.)
I strongly encourage you to not build up to a climax certain schools as **the goal **. If he attends one in the future, great. But what if he isn’t accepted or they are unaffordable and it is what he has been told is the goal throughout all of high school. You are setting him up to be one the kids posting on CC with severe depression that their college yrs are over before they even start.
Fwiw, my advanced kids attend very avg universities bc we can’t afford our EFC and they seek merit $$ over prestige. But, they excel and thrive anyway.
I think the only school on your list that will award any money from the school for National Merit is USC, some of the schools on your list have competitive academic scholarships (like Stamps) but many don’t have any academic scholarships. I don’t want to discourage you, but I do want you to go in this college things with your eyes open. Some schools say they give “scholarships” when they only give need based aid. I have zero knowledge about athletic scholarship other than there are different rules for different tier schools.
Is the French actually a college class? If so, even if it taken at a CC and you don’t use the class for high school credit you still have to send the transcripts for that class along with the college application. Most colleges require transcripts for all high school and college classes attempted. It just might look strange to the college to see the French repeated.
Ethan sounds like an amazing kid but the truth is, many amazing kids apply to the tippy top schools and don’t get in, what’s worse is when these kids get in and then find out they can’t really afford the school because the schools gives little or no merit aide or parents and students take on loans to pay for school and find there’s no money left for grad school (if that’s in their plan). Please run the NPC on each school on your list and look to see what scholarships they really offer. Since you’re in state for CA some of those UC’s may make good financial safeties. Only you know what you can afford, you owe it to your son to run the numbers, please don’t hang your hope on ROTC, it’s a huge commitment and not a slam dunk.
I would agree with your comments for the typical in-coming high school freshman. Ethan is far from typical and so am I. I am a stay-home father and spend a lot of time with Ethan and my 10-year old Lauren. On top of that, my father left when I was pretty young. I am now the father I wish I had.
My life motto I drill into Ethan is “I don’t care if you come in 1st place or last, just do your best.”
I am very upfront with Ethan and have set some lofty goals for him. Even today I showed him a 4-year cost comparison between Harvey Mudd and UCSD (living at home). I told him not to memorize the numbers, just be aware and digest. If he does extremely well in high school, the money will be there. If not, he’ll know that the money will need to come from somewhere else, e.g., ROTC. He needs to know the reality of succeeding in high school or a poor attempt. He will not be telling me in 2020 that “nobody told me.” It’s his choice.
I tell Ethan that he is way ahead of his middle school peers — in the top 1% of preparation and knowledge about college. I support both my kids tremendously at home. College is not a secret. I try hard to expose them and simultaneously avoid overwhelming them. Small doses like the college comparison today.
If he does extremely well, the money is coming from where? As long as it is from you, your conversation is great. But if the implication is that he will be eligible for merit $$ from the majority of the schools you have listed, that is inaccurate. Being amg the top students does not get merit $$ from schools that only provide need based aid.
For example, MIT calls its award scholarships, but they are not merit scholarships. It is need based aid. “At MIT the largest source of undergraduate financial aid is the MIT Scholarship, a need-based grant. These are packaged based on your family’s ability to contribute towards the price of your education.” And it is their definition of your ability to contribute.
Just make sure you run NPC and know that the numbers are realistic for your family. Bc those are the numbers that matter.
“I am very upfront with Ethan and have set some lofty goals for him.”
@demonsamurai, I hope you take what I’m going to say in the spirit that it’s offered. I’m sure you want what is best for your son, but it sounds like you are putting an enormous amount of pressure on him, whether you realize it or not. I think it’s way too early for a college list. I think it’s way too early to be starting testing prep. mom2aphysicsgeek is spot on:
I strongly encourage you to not build up to a climax certain schools as the goal . If he attends one in the future, great. But what if he isn’t accepted or they are unaffordable and it is what he has been told is the goal throughout all of high school. You are setting him up to be one the kids posting on CC with severe depression that their college yrs are over before they even start.
Let your son explore his interests. Let him lead the way on this. Four years of high school is four years of his life. I hope he doesn’t spend all of that time just looking to the next four years of his life. They are equally important.
@demonsamuai I really agree with @suzy100. But that is my parenting style. My kids get where they do under their own steam and by their own innate abilities. I guide and provide, but I do not drive.
I know you are super proud of your son, and that is awesome. Just keep in mind that for every really atypical kid, there are many other atypical kids…too many to populate just elite schools.
@demonsamurai I know your child isn’t average for his high school but when he is in the pool of kids that apply for Stanford, MIT, Princeton he becomes average because all those kids are in the top 1% of their schools.
As much as I personally obsess over test prep, I really think your son’s time is better spent following his passions, doing internships, research, community service- you don’t want him burnt out on testing before it really counts! I really like the idea of going to Korea to to pursue a level of Martial Arts that’s not available in the states, you might want to make sure that happens before senior year so it’s something that he can include in his essays.
Many of those schools don’t give merit scholarships or much in merit. Have you run the Net Price Calculators on the websites?
I’m not sure you understand what the National Merit scholarship is. What do you think it is?
Do you or your spouse own a business?
Army ROTC is not a backup plan. Who knows if he’d get accepted for a scholarship. These things have tightened up. And who knows if he’d be interested in serving in the military at that point.
Wow, interesting reaction from @demonsamurai! I remembered one time I went to a PTA meeting and one father (son was upcoming 7th grader) raise his hand and questioning the school principal on what did she do to promote the high school and network with Ivy League? How come this prestige high school only sent less than a dozen to the top Ivies?? He said his son needs to go to Harvard medical school but he questioned school’s ability to provide for his outstanding son. I was speechless because he was a 7th grader.
LOL I got here too late. @demonsamurai you will soon learn around here that Ethan is pretty typical on CC. Having just gone through this with my son and the class of 2016 on CC, I can tell you that having a group of parents whose kids were similiar to mine (valedictorian, super high SAT, got into top UCs and some great private schools, tons of merit aid, etc) is nice. If you are looking for a place where your kid is better than everyone else’s, this is not it! You are just one of the gang. Maybe that is a good thing?
To bad you decided to leave. Once the craziness started, I really needed my CC pals around to deal with the stress.
As for middle school, you don’t know what high school has in store. My S16 was pretty good in middle school but I had no idea that he would choose to excel so much in high school. At the same time I watched middle school superstars crash and burn. I am hoping for the best with homeschooled S20. Yesterday he learned that he could study politics and comparative religion in college. His eyes got big and I could see the wheels turning. I kept telling him that if he did well during his high school years, he would have choices when he graduated, and that is what is important.
So @2muchquan did you just want us to tell him to sit back and relax because there’s no way his snowflake wouldn’t get a full ride based on merit to Stanford or MIT based on his kid’s performance in middle school
Personally, I’d really like to know more about that college French class - that one may really bite his kid - I wonder if he knows that there’s a college clearinghouse and that if he doesn’t report classes that show up in the clearing house his kid could get rescinded at the last minute.
I just know what I’ve read here on CC. What I understand is that all colleges submit a data base of all enrolled students. This way a students can’t fail out of one college and then enroll in another without reporting the transcript from the first college. This not only includes classes taken and grades, but disciplinary actions and holds for non-payment.
This is a way for college to protect themselves from student evading payment or falsely representing themselves. Grad schools, especially medical schools look into these clearing houses to make sure ALL college courses attempted, no matter what grade level, are included in their evaluation of GPA.
We have actually had kids attend a university for DE where the clearinghouse is where their transcripts are paid for and requested to be sent out from vs the actual unversity itself. The university’s website does a redirect to it.
My 2020 D is nothing at all like my 2014 S or 2017 D. Those 2 are my high performing kids. Both had 7 high school credits completed prior to 9th grade. My S was beyond alg 2 before high school. D was in alg 2 in 9th but was also in her 3rd yr of language for 2 languages and added a 3rd language in 9th. Both have an unusual # of credits on their high school transcript, 38+. No way I thought they were in the top 1% of anything other than my little slice of the world. They are great kids, but we have been around enough gifted kids to recognize that they are at the bottom of a mountain with a heck of a lot of really, really high performing kids everywhere up ahead. I can’t even fathom the kid at the peak! (Glad, too. Just keeping up with these 2 was exhausting!)
I am actually really glad my 2020 D is low key and following a more typical sequence. Gives me a chance to slow down and breathe. She only has 2 credits from middle school, alg 1 and Latin 1. Her classes for 9th are
Physics
Geometry
Latin 2
English
American history
American gov’t
Drama-- maybe. Well, I know that there will be lots,of drama. I just don’t know if it will be the for credit kind.
Near the end of 10th we will start working on test prep and talking about colleges. College searches begin in earnest in 11th. And since my kids have a minnow budget in a whale sized budget college world, it is easy to filter out a lot of schools! But it would not surprise me if this D wants to live at home and attend locally. The local university offers a major in what she has been talking about for the past few yrs and she is super low key.
