Sounds like you have a competitive kid!
Schools in TX will offer in-state if you receive a certain amount of merit. I would definitely target those. A&M and Tech have great CS/Engineering programs. UT Dallas is excellent.
@1dadinNC - the answer is YES - schools especially UChicago are known for huge direct mail campaigns. My kids opted out of participating based on test scores - but our mailbox still seems to have at least one postcard or mailer daily for one or all 3 o my kids. (2x 2021 and 1 x 2022) The schools run the gamut from UChicago and Columbia sending a lot to the military academies, state schools no where near our home state to catholic schools - and we are not catholic. I would not put any cred in those mailings at all. Schools move up in rankings when they increase their rejection rate - these mailing, no additional essays and free apps have proven to be great ways to increase applications.
Also, I don’t know about Tulane - but UChicago went test optional several years ago and saw their applications go up a lot - and I read somewhere that they still only accept approx 10% of kids without test scores.
@Johnny523 congrats to your D!
Question for all. If your school uses Naviance have you created a resume in it? I’ve been helping my daughter enter her information in on her EC’s, work and volunteer stuff. It gives the option to enter an objective and summary. All the examples I find are for if she is applying for a job, should we just not do one to pull the resume into the common app?
My son had also gotten mailers from those same schools and he definitely doesn’t have the stats to get in (nor can we afford them lol) so they just went in the recycling bin lol
1 Like
My daughter has received mailings from Vanderbilt and emails from Chicago. She is a half day vo-tech, half day local high school student with more Cs than Bs and As in academic subjects. Since she hasn’t taken the SAT or ACT (and has scored poorly on standardized tests in the past), I assume they got her information through her club soccer team. There’s no way she would get into Penn State (instate), let alone elite schools. The marketing is crazy.
My son just got his license (17 here in NJ plus covid and hurricane delays). Turns out use of the car is a great way to motivate work on his applications! 
My son (class of 20) received all kinds of mailings from UChicago and he had zero chance of getting in. They just want to pump up their number of apps to look more selective.
Since we hadn’t known to set up a special email account for college apps and S21 was driving me crazy with not really checking his email, I broke down and asked him for his email password so I could see if any fee waivers came in to his email. I can report that indeed he wasn’t opening any of the college emails, but having gone through a good amount of them, we weren’t really missing application fee waivers from any school that we are currently considering. S21 has been so uninterested in the whole college search process that I wonder if I’m really the one who is more excited about this than him! He is on the young/immature side too as he is 16 because he skipped a grade, so maybe I’m expecting too much?
@kethra i feel your pain. I feel the same way with my D. She is also young, won’t be 17 until October, so maybe that is part of it. She goes in and out of talking about college but getting her to work on the application and essay has been torture. My hope was she would have most of it done before school and dance start in September. Unless she gets busy that won’t happen. She has her list of schools and started it but hasn’t gotten very far.
So DD’s ACT scores came in from July – 25. Up by 1 point. I suppose studying ~1 hr a day while listening to K-Pop is not the way to get a higher score…lol! Lots of tears but lesson learned hopefully.
She has decided against re-taking, not that there are many openings for fall and will go test optional for NC State and UNC-CH. I am willing to bet UNC will accept ~10% test optional kids that have reasonable GPA/ECs. And if lucky, might be 20% for State.
So this is what it looks like now:
UNC-Asheville – match
UNC-Wilmington – match
NC State – reach
UNC-CH – high reach
I am pushing UNCA because it is a smaller school with liberal arts focus. Hopeful she will do better than in UNCW, which is larger and more of a party atmosphere.
@1dadinNC we had UNCA on S21’s list for a while - there’s a lot to like about it!
I have a D23 who loves K-Pop, so I get it! 
@kethra I think it’s a boy thing! S17 had 0 interest - I drove the entire process. I picked schools that would come in budget, he went on a few tours, after acceptances came in he did a few accepted student days before making his pick (my alma mater, which he didn’t want to apply to after touring on a 100 degree day!). It was a great pick - he absolutely loves it!
D21, on the other hand, is OBSESSED. Loves making spreadsheets comparing everything, spent yesterday doing NPC. She would tour every school in America if COVID would get outta her way! I’d swear they weren’t related if I didn’t know better!!
@1dadinNC we had Wilmington on the list for a while, but D decided not a fit. We were supposed to be visiting App State, Wilmington and ECU next week, but now that won’t happen.
@NJWrestlingmom thank you so much for making me feel better! I could totally see that will be S21’s path that he will apply to the schools that I’ve researched and that he will decide after he gets accepted (hopefully).
My son didn’t even know which state a school were driving to visit was in (it was PA, but he thought we were going to CT). And on another visit, he didn’t even know the name of the school. That’s how checked out he is with the process.
It’s not a male/female thing, my S20 couldn’t wait to submit all his apps on August 1 last year. Some kids are just more interested than others.
D21 is now thinking she needs to apply to some sort of competitive/reach school just because. She settled on Michigan, but I ran the net price calculator and it would be over $50k. We can’t afford that. So unless she comes up with some scholarship money somewhere, it’s probably not an option. And since the app has two essays, it’s probably not worth her time to apply.
@Johnny523 I had that exact conversation with D21 - she was insisting she had to have a reach and is convinced U Mich is her dream. But I told her OOS no way it would be in budget, so she cut it. Then it was BC and she cut that because she didn’t like the essay prompts! We’re back to just Bucknell, which is a more reasonable reach anyway- and we actually got in a visit there so know she likes it!
@NJWrestlingmom We were talking with her today about it today and trying to tell that she doesn’t need to apply to a reach school just because she feels pressured to. But she’s now convinced she’ll be “wasting my potential” if she doesn’t. We’re trying to explain to her that we just didn’t want her to not apply to competitive schools because because she is afraid of “being the dumb one at a smart school.” Trying to explain the difference hasn’t been easy.
We’ll be happy if she goes to any of the schools she’s already applied to, which are all noncompetitive, and she’ll get a nice education at any of them.
@1dadinNC - We moved to NC in May of this year and have been doing self-tours at all the schools to try to figure out where my daughter would feel most comfortable. She got a 25 on the ACT last fall and hasn’t been able to re-take it - and after studying for two tests (one in CO in April and one in NC in July) that were both cancelled, she has decided to stick with the 25. She has a great GPA and solid recommendations (from CO).
Is your daughter doing test-optional for all NC schools? We thought the 25 would be fine to submit for App State, UNCW, UNCG and UNCC… She didn’t like the feel at NC State or UNC - thought they were too big.
Her current list:
Elon - reach due to ACT, she loved Elon but we are concerned with cost
Roanoke - match, she liked Roanoke a lot and loves the attention they are giving her
UNCC - match - will go do a self-tour on Saturday
App State - match, likes the campus, not thrilled with old dorms
UNCG - like the look of it
UNCW - beautiful campus but she’s worried she won’t fit in with “beachy/party kids”
Would love your thoughts as we are new to the NC system. My son is at school in Chicago, had a very different application/search process with him - he wanted top school in a big city and was very motivated throughout. My daughter wants a smaller school, closed campus feeling and is more stressed with the entire application process.
Yes - studying engineering at a small to mid-sized school has been a good fit for him. The professors are accessible, tutoring and study centers are available as part of the program, and they encourage students to take advantage of the resources offered. Newsletters are emailed weekly, and I’ve been very impressed when reading about what various students and alumni are doing with internships and careers.
^^ Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University