Thanks @AlmostThere2018
We first heard about WPI when watching BattleBots. WPI seems to pretty consistently do well. Google âwpi battlebotsâ for info. Also, theyâre known for sending kids out into the world for onsite engineering projects that help improve communities. Good luck!
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If she was thinking of applying in the first place and you donât know if theyâre truly soliciting her of just marketing her in general, perhaps she can ask them to waive the application fee and then she can go for it. Then at least you donât feel like youâve spent the $75-100 on a wasted application, and knowing your experience you would also be able to advise her not to get her hopes up based on him reaching out.
My son has been marketed incessantly by schools like no tomorrow and ones that keep saying merit money, merit money, yet the EA deadlines are so far past. I donât get it. Weâre also not talking low levels schools. I laugh but every so often I wonder if itâs legit or spam mail. They come from actual people but I think they are form letters. I canât tell in your daughterâs case if hers is unique to her and perhaps you should check with your school what they think?
My son took the ACT in September of Junior year and did not check any box intentionally, so not sure where they got his info from. Some come to the email he set up to apply to colleges and some come directly to his school email.
If she is actually interested in the school, then she should go for it! No harm, no foul.
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@AlmostThere2018 Jeez, so many pretentious people. How bout each kid go to the school that is the best fit for them? I donât see the point of bad mouthing other schools, itâs just immature.
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@HMom16 â yes, the global engineering projects are one of the things that drew my son to apply to WPI! They give every student $5k to do an international project which is really cool. Heâs very interested in global issues, esp. global health.
Thanks so much for adding the info about BattleBots â I wasnât aware and will pass it on to him!
@rbc2018 â I assume you read the DC moms & dadâs engineering thread, lol? Yes, it was crazy and makes CC seem tame by comparison. 
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Congratulations to all those teens with acceptances! So nice to log in and read such good news. For those who were deferred, they will end up at the colleges that are just right for them and this time next year they will have trouble imagining themselves anywhere else.
I listened to the Dean of Admissions at Harvard and at Boston College on the radio yesterday. They did a Q&A about this yearâs admissions cycle. For those who would like to listen, it is now up in podcast form - search for Nightside with Dan Rea, December 14. Note it is actually two podcasts, one that says 8pm and one that says 9pm (the session lasted two hours).
Takeaways- test optional truly hasnât hurt anyoneâs chances, apps are way up (didnât say by what percentage), last yearâs gap year students will not negatively affect the admissions rate for this year (at either Harvard or BC), and Fitzsimmons (Harvard) said they looked for how applicants adapted their essays and extracurriculars to the COVID-19 disruptions. Which is different from what some other admissions officers have said, so it just goes to show you (IMO) that there was no one âcorrectâ definitive answer as to how to approach that COVID question/essay. I truly do not believe any admissions officer is going to have a negative view of any type of answer to that question at all, as long as it comes across as matter-of-fact (and not poor-is-me dramatic if the only impact was missing the big game, etc).
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@AlmostThere2018 Haha, yes thatâs what I was responding to. Iâm so tired of successful people with fragile egos. Iâm like âyou do you and quit criticizing others to reduce your insecuritiesâ! This applies to so many people in so many situations actually.
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@rbc2018 truth! There is a college for everyone and the path to success can be found anywhere. I have known people who went to Ivys who could barely function in the workplace and people who went to a âlesserâ university who are rock stars in the workplace. It isnât where you go itâs who you are as an employee that matters. Do prestigious universities open doors? Yes, but itâs not going to keep you employed.
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@skkm0906 I completely agree. And personally I find pretentious people intolerable, and unfortunately there tend to be more of those from the âupper echelonsâ of universities, professions, whatever. To me, the most lovely thing is a successful person who is humble and generous.
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I keep thinking about the people who say their kids have been contacted by dept heads and/or profs, urging the kid to complete a partially completed application.
If itâs true that the kid did not have prior contact with that dept head or prof, this communication is really surprising to me.
First: If it were my kid, I would say DEFINITELY complete the application (assuming theyâd like to go to that school). And I agree with srparent15 that you may as well request a fee waiver! Thatâs one way of assessing how interested the school really is, for one thing.
But beyond that, the situation just seems so odd. Like others, I did not know that schools were aware when a kid included a school on the Common App website. That seems intrusive to me. Do they also know when a kid adds a school to their CA list? Or what other schools are included? I always assumed schools knew you were applying when you applied. Thereâs more data sharing going on than I even suspected.
Second, if this outreach from dept heads and profs truly is just a higher-level form of marketing, I find it sort of sad. Itâs one thing for a prof to reach out to a promising candidate, someone whom theyâre personally aware of and interested in having as a student. Itâs another for a prof to take part in broader trolling for increased applications. From the discussion here, I canât really tell whatâs going onâsounds like at best, it may be a little of both. If thatâs the case, I hope faculty are at least being compensated in some way for their admissions work, which I didnât think was part of their typical duties.
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@rbc2018 and @almosthere2018 I just read that thread on Engineering schools and the CS stuff and they are right about a few things and wrong on some others.
Harvard CS - correct. Not known for CS. Harvard is Harvard for sure, so the name speaks for itself, but it is not on the map when it comes to CS. UVA is a great Engineering school, so not sure what the f the person is talking about. MIT for CS and difficulty getting jobs or any field in the real world 100% true. My son (my 23 year old son that is) who didnât go to college but worked at a startup in Silicon would interview for his company and they often had MIT to be grads and he said they never hired them. They could never solve the programming problems they were given. Something about how their minds work or are programmed or whatever, just was never a fit for their company. So, there is some truth to that. But that first list and some of the others, are just off and not right. There are so many top schools not on there for engineering so strange.
Yes, there does seem to be data tracking on a larger scale than at least our family thought.
For us we realized it when schools listed on Sâs CA started emailing S asking if he needed any help completing his app, or encouraging him to finish it, and etc. It felt so Big Brothery.
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Right and here we all thought facebook was so bad about our privacy!!!
There are so many acceptances flowing in, itâs hard to keep track! Congratulations @homerdog @kanfly @momtogkc @tellis6653 @solstice155 @seoace. @AlmostThere2018
Hope I didnât miss anybody.
@AlmostThere2018 OMG, I checked out that thread and then poked around the DC parents site a bit more and some of the comments are savage. Check out the WUSTL thread if you want to raise your eyebrows permanently!
@2Devils @textbooked Regarding being contacted by random department chairs - I am wondering if it has anything to do with those incredibly long surveys the CB asks students to fill out before taking PSAT/SAT - projected grades, choice of major, etc.? I also wonder if the emails attributed to department chairs might be batch emails sent out to prospective majors? When my older kid applied to college, she got a few of these, but only after she had applied through common app, not before. Or like @DramaMama2021 said, it may be that they have information from registering for a tour or participating in a virtual session, asking for info, expressing possible interest on Naviance, etc.
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@srparent15 I donât even care which of them are factually correct, itâs the snarkiness thatâs completely ridiculous. People need to get a life.
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Totally! I just had someone flat out ask me what MY stats were in the ED group. Like wth?
All because this person has a 36 ACT that theyâre banking is their ticket to getting them into the school and thinks that is all the school cares about more so than rigor and grades and everything else. SMH.
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@AlwaysMoving& @srparent15 -thanks for the feedback!
She is definitely applying, just has to finish supps after she gets through this crazy exam week(she is in person). This is one of her top 2 schools. Her school says yes, they can get major and other info from Common Apps that are started, and yes they already have her teacher recs(school sent already) and her SAT score. She definitely is not getting her hopes up especially as many here are leaning toward it is not likely too important. She already emailed back. School does say they have conversations with this ivy and other schools on applicant pool each year and the school definitely knows she is applying since they already have recs(just the way they do it).
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Wow. Thatâs interesting that your Dâs school confirmed that colleges can indeed get major and other info from CA before they are even submitted. I have been naive.
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@textbookedâAgree! In this case there was no contact w this dept until nowâbut as I put in another post, it is now clear the school does have the LORs (and SAT). Very nebulous on anything else they may know but in any case no harm in getting more info on dept. We are full pay and planned on paying this, so wonât ask for a waiverâfeels wrong to me --that should go to those who need it or if it is an extra/unexpected app, which this is not. But that is just me! As an ivy , I seriously doubt they are overly interested in her and her hopes are appropriately in check.
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