@packacards Wooster is really a wonderful school. Between my son and daughter we looked at all of those OH LACs mentioned. Woo, Oberlin, Denison, Kenyon, OWU. They are all excellent academic institutions. But there is something about Wooster that seems special. A certain friendliness, accessibility, and level of caring or something. We all felt it; and I’ve heard the same from many others as well. You should definitely check it out in person!
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I think two boys from my son’s middle school class of 24 might end up being freshmen at Wooster next year (my kid took a mid-high school gap year, so he is indeed class of 2022). It does sound like a great place!
I am following along with this thread, but rarely get in here to comment. My son is doing virtual tours, but I feel like it is really hard to get a feel for places. For example, he didn’t like Wooster, but I suspect it is a actually a good fit. I am feeling discouraged about the fact that we won’t be able to see any schools in session, which was so, so important for my older kid. So far he seems to be liking mid-size universities and places that do a good job at signaling that they are highly intellectual. Anyone have any schools that fit the bill for us to consider?
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We are heading out for an impromptu trip to see William and Mary this weekend. Campus is open for self guided tours and we hoped that students would be out hanging around in the nice weather so D22 could see a representative sample of the student body. It will be the first non-local tour we have attempted, and is much larger than the small LAC she has been looking at so far. My hope is it will help clarify how strong she feels about size of student body and distance from home in finalizing her application list. She is actually very excited to go, though I’m not sure if it is because she needs a break from the local environment or she is excited about beginning to tour campuses!
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Funny you should say you’re going to tour W&M…I was going to suggest that @christinelin check it out.
Love that school and hope you have a wonderful visit! 
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It is on the list! Thanks!
Hope the trip still can work for us. Our elderly cat became ill and we have an unexpected vet appointment early this afternoon. It’s about a 5 hrs drive for us, so we can still arrive later tonight and spend the weekend, but if he requires medication or is really sick, my D22 will not want to leave his side. They are best buds.
So sorry to hear about your cat… I hope that you get good news at your vet appointment and it’s an easy fix for him to feel better!
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Fortunately, our cat had no serious issue: he just needed tweaking of his thyroid medications, so we did end up taking the trip to Wm and Mary. We had a lovely weekend and enjoyed the warmth and beauty of campus. Many students were out on the Sunken Gardens playing frisbee and generally looking chill and we saw as much as we could from the exterior of buildings. D liked it but wasn’t in love. It was the largest school we have seen to date, and also the farthest from home. She will probably apply, but she is learning that she prefers a small LAC over medium to large universities, and that 5.5 hrs is a long car ride. So it was a good fact finding trip on many levels.
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Time to start the process with my second daughter! My first college search was for a BFA MT college and boy was that a year off my life! Now I feel I am about to lose another one with my second daughter. She is currently feeling she wants to enter college as undecided at this point. She knows she does not want a small school and is really interested in a larger school that has its own campus within a city limit so she can get the college feel, but does not want to feel like she is in the city 24/7. Please help this mother out on good universities/colleges she should look at that would offer her guidance and programs her freshman/soph years to guide her to choose a direction for a career. Thank you!
Welcome back! If you want to get suggestions from the CC knowledgeable ol’ timers, I would recommend you post this as a new thread so they will see the question. These parent threads tend to have a higher percentage of newbies to the process. 
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@MTVTmom, what state do you live in? How are your daughter’s grades and scores? What is your budget?
@Sweetgum we live in Vermont and we will have her apply to UVM as a backup school, but it is not her first choice, she wants out of her state if she can! She holds a 3.85 GPA unweighted and has taken 3 AP courses and many honors courses at this point and will end up taking 1 or 2 more AP courses next year. We are awaiting her SAT scores back. We have one daughter in school already so that will help us financially, so keeping options open at this point.
Gearing up for our trip to New York with S22, starting Saturday. None of the schools he’s interested in are doing formal tours, but a friend of ours is a law professor at NYU and will give us a personal tour on Sunday, along with her S21, who’s an admitted student there and just committed. Pratt happens to be doing a virtual info session on the 23rd, so S22 will do that from our hotel. We’ll get a feel for the exteriors of that campus and Cooper Union (some of which I might miss myself, since I’ll be working).
Got a little evidence that S22 is doing his own research – he told us yesterday that construction management is one of the more lucrative specialties in the realm of architecture/contracting. Asked if he’s interested in it for himself and he shrugged, his usual answer. Baby steps!
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D22 is taking the ACT this weekend as a benchmark. Had an assessment that said she tested much better on the ACT vs SAT, so I am hopeful for a slam dunk (ha ha). She hasn’t done any ACT prep as she is quite busy with homework- they seem be layering a lot of assignments in advance of finals. Fingers crossed.
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My D is taking her first ACT this weekend also. She is doing a “crash course” with a tutor and also hopeful that it goes better than the SAT. She seems to think so. Good luck to anyone else that is testing this weekend! And here’s hoping for fast turn around of scores!
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Good luck to all ACT takers. I have one tip from my son for the Math section. (FWIW, he scored a 36 in that section.)
Questions 41-60 are generally harder than questions 1-40. So he did 41-60 first and attempted to do so in about 30 minutes. He did 1-40 in the remaining time and said he had a couple of minutes to check a few answers on which he wasn’t completely sure. He hit upon this strategy during his last few practice tests. Of course, you need to be careful about bubbling responses in the correct ovals.
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Today was the first day in California that 16-17 year olds can get the COVID vaccine. Of course, appointments everywhere immediately booked. But managed to snag an appointment April 27 at a location about an hour outside San Francisco. During the school day, but seems a good reason to miss some classes.
Bigger issue? Second shot is three weeks later, which falls on the same day of his AP Computer Science A exam. We’ll figure it out.
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Have you used vaccinefinder.org or the facebook page, bay area vaccine hunters?
I used the Stanford pediatric site. My kids’ pediatric practice is affiliated with them. Kept trying repeatedly, when a whole bunch of Pleasanton appointment opened up on April 27.
COVID-19 Vaccine - Stanford Medicine Children's Health?
S22’s third-period report card is in. Good improvement overall from the first period, when he had two A’s, an A-, two B+'s and a B. Now it’s four A’s, a B+ and a B. All honors classes except French IV advanced (above honors) and AP Chemistry. Best trend was in precalc: B → B+ → A. Worst trend in chem: B+ → B → B. Definitely want to see him turn around the latter. Proud of him overall. Not tippy-top stats, but as I’ve said before, he’s an ordinary excellent student.
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