University of Utah honors is excellent, not commuter and like a small college within a college. New beautiful dorms and lots of personal advising.
@homerdog I have many family members of all generations that have have gone to U of U. For my cousins that are my age, it was very much a commuter school. Now I think there is a large number of commuters but also residential is growing. Living in SLC you can not miss the influence of the mormon church. But I do not think it is a big part of university life. My cousins daughter is starting as a freshman this year and she grew up in GA. My sister works at the University hospital so her S21 is appling, SC major. I think they have a very good Game Design major. As for social life, I do not think it is a big party school, they do have greek life. Utah is a conservative but SLC is much more liberal. When we looked at it of S19 he like that kids were engaged in their classes and not as much social justice warriors, which was his preference. Also, I think sports spirit is a big thing. It is a big school with a wide variety of kids, lots of outdoor activities and a surprisingly (to me) sophisticated city.
D18 has had an amazing experience at Utah as a liberal atheist from California. She has a great group of friends who are all outdoorsy, they went back to SLC for the summer, all found jobs despite Covid (only a 4.5% unemployment rate in Utah right now), and spent the weekends in the mountains, going climbing etc. In term time, the campus certainly empties out on weekends, but thatâs because most students are skiing in the winter and hiking, climbing, swimming etc in the summer (the main exception is home football games in the fall, which are a big deal given the lack of an NFL team in Utah).
Almost all her friends have cars, certainly from sophomore year on, but many even in freshman year, since parking is cheap. She enjoys being in a sorority but it isnât a dominant part of campus life. But I think that it is probably important to most people that you enjoy the outdoors to make the most of Utah, whether you are a student or not. Over the last year theyâve driven to Mammoth (8-9 hours away in California) for the weekend, to Banff in Canada (15 hours drive) for spring break (again for skiing), and to both Colorado and Oregon (8-10 hours) for week long trips during the summer. Even if they donât go away for the weekend, their typical Sunday involves a drive and hike to the hot springs, sometimes they will drive 4 hours each way to a National Park like Grand Teton or Capitol Reef just to hike for the day.
Her twin brother is at UCLA so we can compare the two places to some extent (both of them prefer where they are to where the other is - D chose Utah over UCLA and UCB and a bunch of other places, based on wanting to major in dance, though her merit scholarship was wonderful and perhaps underappreciated at the time). The dorms and overall cost of living are both hugely better at Utah (around half the price of LA), though the food is much worse (fortunately itâs cheap to eat out and some of the Honors dorms are apartment style which makes cooking for yourself very easy). The only time the Mormon influence was really obvious in university life was when a classmate got married as a sophomore in college.
I agree itâs not a party school like CU Boulder (which is where the rich partying kids from our high school who canât get into a UC tend to go). D was the only student in her class of 400 that went to Utah, but since then Utah has become slowly more common, now itâs more like 2-4 per year as people appreciate how much cheaper it is than Colorado for an OOS student. Same reason for the drift away from Oregon in recent years and the increasing popularity of Arizona/ASU.
@mom2adancer may want to chime in too.
If I recall correctly, after a year OOS students can qualify for in-state tuition at Utah â is that right @Twoin18?
Yes, the rules for reclassification are given here: https://admissions.utah.edu/apply/residency/
In summary, you need to be physically present in Utah for all but 29 days in a 12 month period (though modifications have been made this year due to COVID). You also need to change your drivers license and voter registration and not be claimed as a dependent on your parentsâ tax return for the last tax year. The key difference to other states is that you donât need to actually be financially independent, you are just not allowed to be claimed (i.e. the parents lose the $500 tax credit). Instate tuition is very cheap (usually less than $10K per year depending on how many credits you take).
I know, this is a totally different topic from University of Utah, but I really need some help.
My daughter completed her Common App personal statement and supplemental essays , received core subject (Math and Biology) teacher recommendations and is ready to apply to a couple of universities. But she noticed that her guidance counselor did not start on the recommendation and school report. When she called her GC this morning, she was told that the district is re-calculating GPA and Class ranks and her class size has increased. The GC said that she will submit the school report and recommendation to the common app only after the new GPA and class rank calculation. Perhaps the end of next week.
My daughter completed 4 college level courses this summer (2-DE and 2 college credit only). So, if they include the two Aâs from the DE courses from summer her unweighted GPA will go up from 3.95 to 3.96. And this may also impact the class rank, hopefully in a positive way.
Should she go ahead and apply now or would it be better to wait for the new GPA and class rank? If she submits her application now, will she have an opportunity to send her new transcript if it shows an improved class rank? I really need some advise, the schools she wants to apply have rolling admissions. Thank you very much.
Anyone check the Naviance admission page lately? It appears that some class of 2021 apps (for colleges popular with students at the particular high school) have already been submitted. Anyone else seeing this? In recent years, we havenât seen this until summer, or the prior December if we were lucky. Could it merely be students who listed the college in their âcolleges Iâm applying toâ list, or would it only refer to colleges where the app was actually submitted?
@evergreen5 Our Naviance shows students submitted apps for 2021 too ? I wonder how�
@NJWrestlingmom , my daughter was interested in SUNY Geneseo until something turned her off recently. I think it was some ranking she saw online about inaccessibility of faculty or something similar. Iâm hoping she changes her mind though. Will check out Susquehanna. She hasnât decided on a major but is thinking of sociology or political science or international relations.
@havenoidea , thanks for your tips! Glad to hear good things about Lafayette & Richmond. My daughter is definitely not preppy/sporty. She is more SJW but still appreciates a diversity of opinion. I tried to get her to consider womenâs colleges, but we visited Mt. Holyoke and she disliked it and that was it for that idea. I think West Coast is probably too far away and too expensive to travel to.
Now University of Utah sounds intriguing!
Anyone have a child at Grinnell? Or did you visit? D is threatening to cross it off her list but it sounds great to me.
@marshmallow We visited Grinnell twice with S19. He stayed overnight for admitted student days. Do you have specific questions? I can try to help!
How important is class rank at the schools she is applying to? A lot of HSâs donât rank, so more and more colleges are more interested in what percentage the applicant is in.
btw, I think GCs are absolutely buried and they are struggling to shift to college applications.
Hi @Momof0ne , is it possible for your daughter to email the admissions counselors at the rolling admissions schools and ask for their advice?
@Marshmallo My D20 visited Richmond, Grinnell, Wooster, CWRU, Denison and Kenyon, and applied EA to Lawrence, Clark, CWRU and Wooster. She planned to apply RD to Grinnell, St Olaf and Richmond but didnât bother after being accepted to her #1 choice (Wooster) with very generous merit awards.
She really liked the size, campus and location of Richmond, but was turned off by the prevalence of Greek life. Dennison and Kenyon seemed too preppy to her, although I didnât get that feeling from Denison at all. Her 2nd choice after Wooster would have been tied between Grinnell and CWRU.
Iâm happy to try to answer any other questions you might have.
@AlwaysMoving ,she is an auto admit to one of the schools and the other does mention class rank, but not sure how important it is for admission.
@JanieWalker , I think that is a very good suggestion, thank you!
Thank you very much once again.
I just saw on CB website that my S21 is scheduled for an in school SAT later this month. School hasnât announced it yet.
You can check out section C7 of the common data set for the school and get an idea of how important class rank is to them. Here is UT Austinâs as an example: https://utexas.app.box.com/s/dg7br334l4bpx26l9qzz8ciws0nh7rol
I do wonder if class rank will get a bump in importance because of test optional policiesâŠ
@marshmallo You and your D might find this write-up of a recent Grinnell parent helpful http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/22919694/#Comment_22919694
Grinnell was high on my D20âs list. She may have gone if admitted students weekend hadnât been canceled. She loved the mix of students and the vibe which didnât seem East Coast preppy or extreme SJW like Oberlin. I was reassured by their healthy endowment, no small thing these days.
She is currently ranked 26/763 (3.41%) and yesterday the GC said that her class size grew. We know that there is a slight bump in the GPA due to the high Aâs in the two DE Courses (Federal Govt and TX Govt) she took over summer. So, I am not sure what the .01 GPA bump and the increase in class size will mean to her class rank. Will it increase it by a lot? May be not. But as you said, we are not sure how much extra weight will be given to the class rank especially in a school like UT Austin and that too she is interested in Biomedical engineering. So, even the slightest bump could possibly make a difference, but everything is so fluid this year.
I hope her ECs will come to the rescue though. Varsity golf all three years, qualified for regional both years , State once (regional tournaments cancelled in junior year), Lead scorer on team all 3 years. Plays violin in school orchestra, Superior ratings in solo and ensemble all three years . Did not try for region due to scheduling conflicts. About 450 hours of volunteering. Nominated for presidential and congressional volunteering awards. Research paper on stroke rehabilitation currently going through peer evaluation, expecting to be published either in October or November. Leadership positions in a 2 of the school clubs and member in a couple more.
@homerdog I basically say âdittoâ to all that @Twoin18 said, minus the sorority. DD is not Mormon and that has not been an issue at all. She has Mormon and non-Mormon friends. Big parties werenât something she was needing at college but there are parties if you want them. She prefers smaller groups of friends to hang out with. She also takes advantage of the outdoorsy activities that Utah has to offer. She made some good friends while living in the dorm freshman year, as well as in her department. She lives off campus now but doesnât feel isolated in any way. Plenty to do in SLC. Despite COVID-19 she stayed in SLC all but two weeks in early June rather than come home to CA.
@mom2adancer @Twoin18 Are you Dâs both majoring in dance? I know itâs a very strong department. Do you happen to know what other majors are strong there?