@coffeeat3 Yes, need to do this. https://clark.com/health-health-care/college-students-legal-documents-hipaa-power-attorney/
Here is a summary of trip to Saint Louis University and University of Alabama. Flew from Pittsburgh to St. Louis Sunday afternoon. In order to try to be safer I used AA miles and obtained First Class seats in the front row for each leg of the trip. Definitely felt safer as we were able to be the first on and not lined up to get to the seats. No one seating in front of us as well.
In St. Louis we stayed at The Hotel at Union Station. I should mention the hotel is only about a 20-25 minute from the airport. The hotel is an old train station so hotel lobby area and bar is huge and I mean really huge. The hotel is connected to the St. Louis Aquarium and a huge ferris wheel. Also a couple of large restaurants with outdoor seating which allowed us to eat outside. The hotel is pretty much equidistant between the downtown and SLU.
As for the tour on Monday morning we both had to download an app called Campus Clear and verify that we had no symptoms, had not been exposed to some with covid etc. We then proceeded to a parking lot where they had a name at each spot for each prospective student. There was one tour guide for each prospective student. So each person got a private tour. As with all these tours and particularly when it is one on one a great guide can make a great tour a bad guide can make a bad tour. Our guide was okay not bad not great. Rather perfunctory.
The campus itself if nice. Although situated in the city it very well defined and when on the campus you donāt really feel at all like you are in the city. Not a large campus and some green space but not a ton. As the tour guide described it the campus is essentially 4-5 city blocks long and 2-3 block wide. Mixture of old buildings and some new dorms and a new science building. At the conclusion of the tour my daughter who has complained about the middle of no where places like Miami and Clemson said āI donāt know how I feel about not having the classic campus and being in the cityā. DD plays it close to the vest but I would be surprised if it is really in contention at this point. But who knows. They have a program where they admit about 150 kids and then in the second semester of your sophomore year assuming you have a 3.65 or better you can interview with the SLU Medical School and they accept about 50 kids into the medical school. Then you only have to maintain your grades. You have to take the MCAT but it does not matter what you get you are in. If she would get accepted into that program it might change her mind.
On Monday afternoon flew to Birmingham Alabama. It was an easy 1 hour drive just about all interstate to Tuscaloosa. We stayed at the Hotel Capstone which is right on campus across from the baseball stadium. Very nice hotel with free parking so walk around campus from there.
We were attending something called University Days for the Nursing School. It was a 3 hour program that besides an hour and half nursing school presentation it included presentations from admissions, housing, financial aid, honors college etc. The one thing I learned about the allegedly TO UA is they do require test scores for the automatic scholarship they award to both IS and OOS students. They do have some additional ones based GPA only but those require a separate application and essay. Even for honors college which requires a minimum 3.5 and 30ACT to apply if you donāt have a test score you have to have a minimum 3.75 and provide two letters of recommendation.
The program was held in a space were everyone totally socially distanced. It was very well done including a panel of current nursing students and professors. And of course every speaker had had to start with āhi yāallā and end with āroll tideā
My daughter and I did our own tour again to try to avoid the crowds. It worked out nicely as we were able walk around at our own pace, get lunch in the student center and buy some swag in the bookstore. And UA checked a few important boxes with a āRaising Canesā and āChick-F-Aā on campus and a Target within 5 minutes
The campus itself is absolutely gorgeous. All classic redbrick buildings. Somehow they managed to avoid the ugly 60ās-70ās āmodernā buildings unlike many of the other large publicās we have toured. They have a couple huge green quads. Everyone seemed friendly and not stressed. Again D21 plays it close to the vest but I think the visit did what I hoped it would do. Namely, help her realize that Alabama is a nice public university were she could get a great education on a beautiful campus for a fraction of the cost of other very similar schools (Miami, Udel, Maryland etc.)
@homerdog My D did the same as yours. She has a reference from her physics teacher which is her only B subject. Dās physics teacher talked about her being the only girl in the class, how she asks the question everyone wonders about but doesnāt ask, her leadership and her determination to master the material, etc. Itās kind of like, āhereās a kid who would prefer to take no science class at all but here she is in IB Physics and these are the qualities I see.ā I think it shows strength and adds dimension to have a reference from oneās weakest subject, especially when balanced with one from the strongest subject. Anyway, just had to comment because her friends thought she was crazy and your D is the only other one Iāve heard to have done this. Best of luck to her!
@JanieWalker My D21 is getting fatigued as well. I hope she can complete the rest of her essays without me having to nag too much. Usually a threat to write them myself motivates her! ?
It will be interesting to see what happens with the kids with high ranks and high GPAs with no test scores. It seems like if a kid is proactive enough to take AP classes and/or honors classes and make good grades, they would be proactive enough to take the ACT/SAT prior to March of their junior year. So when they donāt submit their scores, maybe the colleges will be suspicious that they tested and didnāt test well.
How do you know what the recommenders wrote? S21 didnāt get to see his letters, the teachers loaded them to common app.
@burghdad I cannot WAIT to see where your D chooses to go to school!! Do you think she has a favorite at all? Or is the favorite a pricey option and youāre hoping to find other options she can like as well? Iām sure I should know the answers to these questions but I donāt remember!
Well, for us, I know both of Dās teachers who wrote her letters. We do teacher conferences here and, during these conferences, they both told me what they would write in Dās recs. We donāt get to read them of course but we feel good about them.
There are plenty of proactive kids whose sports and other ECs are far more intense in Fall than winter. D21 does 3 sports but her Fall sport by far takes the most hours and is the most exhausting, so she didnāt take the ACT until February. In her case, she registered to re-take it but it was cancelled twice as recently as mid-Sept, so she moved forward with what she had but due to lopsided scores, did not submit them to all schools.
D19 took the ACT once in September of her junior year and was one and done, but it was around her sports scheduleā¦and most kids do their best in one shot.
So I hope the colleges are not āsuspiciousā of all the kids who did not submit scores and assume that they are not āproactiveā. This doesnāt even begin to account for all the excellent students who have little guidance from school counselors to take the tests early, or whose schools didnāt give them the opportunity to take Algebra 2 until junior year, which is really necessary to maximize oneās ACT score.
@Aguadecoco Weāre the same as @homerdog, the teacher told us during conferences what he wrote but we didnāt get to see the letter. Teachers have to submit their letters to the college counselor for approval and he uploads them to the common app.
Thanks for explaining @GoldPenn and @homerdog. We donāt have teacher conferences at our school unless you request one, so I have never met any of S21s teachers.
Do people send the teachers a little thank you gift for writing the recs?
@GoldPenn @homerdog we also normally have conferences, but not this year. I wish we could have! One of my Dās rec letters is from a current AP teacher who she also had as a freshman and I think (hope) it will be strong. The other one is from her AP Stats teacher from last year. She teaches in person on the opposite cohort as D this year, so D hasnāt seen her in person this year at all.
@Aguadecoco D wrote thank you notes and gave a small gift as a thank you to both.
I donāt think AOs are going to be suspicious of anything. Itās not about being proactive when it comes to APs and dual credit and honors, itās about taking the course that is appropriate for oneās level of ability. Taking the SAT means scheduling the exam on a Saturday which, for my teens at least, means missing competitive tournaments that take place all year round on Saturdays. Miss one match and your year long standings are jeopardized. D21 is champion in her division in five states, a title she would not have had she missed matches to take the SAT more than once. She did well, but we were hoping she could take it again, but between COVID and her tournaments that was not able to happen. She has a good score that she submitted to most of her schools, but she went TO for her lotto schools. Had she been able to take the SAT one more time, I think she would have had a score that would have been fine for the lotto schools - she isnāt that far off with what she has. So for many, it is about scheduling and balancing everything. I think AOs are experienced enough to know that.
[quote=ā2ndthreekids, post:10439, topic:1875994ā]
Our district had a college night last fall and told all of the parents students shouldnāt be taking the SATās until March of their junior year. I tried to persuade many of S21ās friends that this was not good advice for active students and to take it earlier, but unfortunately they did not.
Kids who have very busy schedules need to take it as early as possible if they want to have multiple chances to take the test. We learned this when my D18 needed to take them. We had S21 take it for the first time as soon as he finished Algebra 2 then he was able to practice and take it a second time before March. He is an extremely active kid and only had 1-2 dates per year that he was able to take it.
On to S23 - He is scheduled to take it as a sophomore for the first time.
Re gifts to LOR writers, my S wrote his own thank you notes but I delivered flowers to the school with a thank you note from his dad and I to the teachers (luckily before we returned to remote).
With S19, we waited until he knew where he was going to college to thank his teachers. He wrote them thank you notes on Bowdoin stationary and gave his male rec writer a Bowdoin t-shirt and his female rec writer two stuffed polar bears in Bowdoin sweatshirts for her two little girls and chocolate with Bowdoin logos for her. We will do something similar with D21.
D21 has decided to go all virtual until 3rd marking period. She only goes in 2 - 1/2 days anyway, itās a far drive, and numbers are spiking. Only 2 of her good friends go in the same days, so she decided itās not worth it. We can reassess in late January and she can switch back to her hybrid schedule then if she wants.
She has 5 acceptances! All apps are.in, so just waiting. She was accepted to her in state safety last night, but no merit mentioned in the letter. My son is there, but didnāt get merit, so I donāt know if it comes later so sheās not getting any! She has already said itās a hard no without merit, so fingers crossed itās coming! Sheās already reached out to her admissions rep to ask.
Busy weekend of essay writing for her - JMU scholarship and App State Honors College both due Sunday. The end is near!
@GoldPenn that recommendation sounds wonderful! I do think recs will have to play a bigger role this year.
My son didnāt pick a teacher from a class where he got a B but did surprise me by picking his French teacher for his main recommendation when he wants to major in math/statistics. He really liked her and had her for two years so she does probably know him best. I made him also ask a STEM teacher for schools that will take two recs.
@burghdad I loved reading your thoughts on SLU and Alabama. I have a niece who did the direct entry PT program at SLU and loved her time there and had no problems getting a PT job after school.
Isnāt Alabama a beautiful campus. You and I are on the same wavelength. They completely avoided the weird ugly 70ās modern building phase. I have no idea how that happened. I have another niece who just graduated from Alabama in May 2020 (Marketing) and is happily working full time (remotely from her childhood bedroom for now because the office is completely closed) for a large advertising firm in Boston.
Alabama is in my daughterās top 3 schools. The money is a huge help, but sheās not just following the money. She knew her cousin had a great experience, but our visit absolutely sealed the deal (and we went before they offered tours, couldnāt go in any buildings, etc ā just a one on one tour with her cousin). My husband, while trusting of my gut, is still a little iffy on it (he just doesnāt understan what she likes about it, but I told him, he has to visitā¦ thereās just something about the campus. Feels like collegeā¦}
I donāt think it will be seen as suspicious. Most students are told a basic timeline to take SAT Spring of Junior year. I wonder if going through this will get schools to change their recommendations.
It was fortunate that I took S21 to a preparing for college event at W&M when he was a sophomore. There I attended a session about testing and the person from a test prep company said she normally sees the private school students show up summer/fall of Junior year and then the public school students in winter/spring. The private school students get better advising and/or have more proactive parents so they know itās better to start testing early in junior year so you can get in 2-3 tests before senior summer. Public schools tend to tell kids Spring is fine. So, we took the advice to start early and fortunately S21 got a great score in Dec. His school did manage to offer an in-school SAT just for seniors a couple weeks ago but he opted not to take it since itās been so long since he was in test-prep mode. And his score is already >75%ile everywhere heās applying.