@milgymfam your DD is far ahead of most on essays!!!
D20 is at University of Denver today for their Friday at DU program which goes from 9 to 2.
We are staying in Cherry Creek and she insisted on taking the public bus this morning. She took some homework with her and will stay on campus for a couple of hours afterwards working on it there then return to our hotel by bus. She likes to get a feel for campus and the area around it that way.
We fly home tommorrow. This week we did official tours of UNM, Colorado College and unofficial of Mines. She liked UNM the best and CC the least. We shall see where Denver falls.
@VickiSoCal can you give me some feedback on UNM?
UNM is a little gritty especially around the edges of campus but they have tons of the blue lights and police are there in 90 seconds or less. A lot of students commute from home. D would apply for Regents which is tuition, room and board and a lot if mentoring and other opportunities. There are 30 selected per year and they live in honors housing. She sat in on a math class and the prof included her in the problem solving session and was very welcoming, hoping to see her back. If she gets Regents it will be top of her list. She sees the benefit of being top of the class and a little grittiness does not bother her.
@milgymfam My Dd hasnāt tested yet, either. Her brother is getting married the end of May, so the June test is incredibly inconvenient bc we will be just getting back into town. I told her the Aug test is not optional or the decision to attend the local CC instead has been made.
@VickiSoCal, D spoke with an admissions rep for UNM at a recent college fair. It wasnāt on her radar but now it is because of its generous merit $. Weāve never been to NM so we may have to visit.
@VickiSoCal - thanks - was wondering if it felt like a commuter school - that would be my biggest concern.
The Regents is definitely very competitive. In previous years they have required a short video and you can find some old ones on YouTube. Might be useful to see.
Even without Regents, UNM is extremely affordable for us but we need to investigate further whether it has that commuter feel on the weekends which would take it out of the running. (I attended a commuter school and eventually transferred out because of that issue.)
Nice to hear your D liked it so much. Need to get down for a visit at some point I guess but may have to wait till fall.
We.were.not there on weekend so hard to say on that front. The honors dorm has a lot of out of state kids so that would help.
Yeah very affordable even without Regnts and mine would enter as a near junior due to generous AP credits.
āAs a result, only Georgetown, Yale, Carnegie Melon, Barnard, Rice, and Syracuse remain as colleges that still definitely have an all-scores rule for the purpose of determining admissionā post #83
Reading farther in the thread it looks like Cornell requires all ACTs but not all SATs? And I am not sure about the whole story for California schools. It goes without saying that people should double check the policy before applying but I think the trend is to not report all scores, to superscore and to self report.I have to say I like self reporting and it looks like most of my Dās colleges do accept self reporting. Saving some money is good!
For the record, U South Carolina also requires all test scores to be reported:
āQ: Should I only report my ābestā ACT and SAT scores? Why must I report all test attempts?
A: Undergraduate Admissions will use the test scores that give you the greatest advantage in the admissions process, which is why it is necessary to report all test attempts on your record. Failure to report all scores may impact admissions or scholarship decisions.ā
Rice just requests from their website: We hope applicants will report all scores knowing that we will recombine the sections to get the best possible set of scores for each candidate.
Just finished our college tour in Boston area.
Visited Brandeis, Boston U, Harvard, and MIT. S really liked Boston University - had a tour and info session with the School of Music, went to a SoM concert, and had a meeting with science department undergrad advisor. Campus community feeling is so unlike others as itās spread out on a 2 mile stretch of Comm Avenue. Lots of research and music playing opportunities. Also liked Harvard - a beautiful campus. MIT was nice but maybe too techie for S. We were impressed w Brandeis and the city of Waltham - nice cozy campus and surrounding area with easy access to Boston. Music department may be too small for S.
IMO, colleges should require you to submit all national standardized test scores whether you take the ACT, SAT, SAT subject tests, AP exams, etc. this way the adcoms can really see the separation/difference of top students from all of the other very good students who take multiple tests, among different exam types. For example, I know a kid who got a perfect score on the PSAT and ACT, both on single-sitting which is more impressive than a kid who takes the ACT say 5 times to superscore to a 36 or who didnāt do well on the ACT and decides to take the SAT instead and take it 5 times to get a high score. In my mind, all things equal there is a difference between these two students that should be acknowledged.
Isnāt the whole point of the standardized tests one measure of the students capability to perform in key areas (Math, Science, English, Writing, etc) under time constraints. And while standardized tests are only one criterion for admittance to colleges, I believe the cream will rise to the top requiring all scores on all tests to be submitted. Let the adcom determine how important these tests areā¦
Reporting all scores being important - meh. S19 (36) and S20 (35) were both one and done with official testing (aside from middle school GT stuff which colleges donāt consider.) They arenāt any smarter than the kids I know that took the tests a few times. Too many non-intelligence factors impact scores. Hence the reason why so many schools are going test optional. I have a feeling that by the time D26 is in HS, testing will be of even less importance. But just IMHO.
Hi everyone. I have a S20, who is my oldest, so Iām new to this process. Iāve been lurking and reading a lot, but definitely will need to lean on the veterans here for guidance and support over the next 18 months.
I had wanted to do a spring break college tour, but had an extended-family trip already planned. We have visited local colleges and some other schools while traveling over the past year or so, but a few of S friends were touring with their families this week and sharing via social media so he felt left out.
Funny story is that he has been collecting college shirts when we tour, but has been hesitant to wear them to school so as not to invite conversation or seem presumptuous because a few are considered āreachā schools for him. I told him vacation is a great time to wear them because no one knows him. The very first day he wore the University of VA shirt we picked up last year, and no less than 10 strangers approached him commenting about the āwinā. And DS is not a sports kid. Needless to say, he was done and the other shirts ended up being sleepwear for the rest of the trip.
@whataboutcollege
What is your concern with him taking it again? That he wonāt score as well as before? Or just that it may look bad (to the other schools) that he took it multiple times? If he takes it again and scores well, I donāt see how that could be viewed badly by the other schools.
TBH, I think one of the big reasons schools superscore is to make their own stats look better. I really donāt think most schools admit or deny a student based on a 1520 v. a 1550. But if they can superscore it to a 1550 in their averages, they want to do that bc it makes them look better.
And, with reporting all scores, I would think theyād be more concerned about a kid who went from say 1290 to 1500, than a kid who went from 1490 to 1470 to 1500.
Thereās a fair amount of research indicates that high school success is more indicative of college success than ACT/SAT scores.
About taking SAT and ACT multiple times and using that as a measure of capability - these are highly āstandardizedā tests which can be coached to score high. They are certainly good as a general measure of studentās readiness to do well in college but taking them as a gospel and trying to distinguish students capability based on single vs multi tests is just reading the tea leaves imho. There are too many variables affecting a students score - including good-day/bad-day; the general impression given by most colleges by allowing score-choice - etc. I can give many anecdotes including one of a family member - this kid is a very strong math kid who qualified for AIME multiple times. Come SAT, he missed couple math questions (maybe overconfident, maybe he just sillied) - with a strict curve he got something like 750-760 (donāt remember exactly). He took second time without much prep and scored 800 as expected. Punishing this kid saying he took more tries to get 800 would be sad and a loss to univ.
Anyway, most colleges now āofficiallyā say that they accept score choice but yet there are urban stories about how they still use single/multiple as a measure to judge students. Donāt know if itās true.
@momzilla2D My original concern was for potential lower score and how other schools would interpret that. We didnāt know most schools no longer require all history. I thought there are good amount of schools require that. I some how got that impression from D17ās application cycle. Maybe I was wrong all along.
āThereās a fair amount of research indicates that high school success is more indicative of college success than ACT/SAT scores.ā
Thatās fine with me, remove them completely but this whole process of kids taking these exams 5 or 6 times to superscore and when they donāt like the results they switched over to the other exam and take it multiple times, at least have them submit all the scores they took so the adcoms can determine how much emphasis they place on them. In general, I see a correlation between those HS students who do well on standardized tests and those who have taken rigorous course load and have high GPAs. Of course there are outliers but they are the exception to the rule IME.