I’m trying to get D23 to look at West Chester University in PA - to me, in NJ, it just seems like a nice all round kind of school. She wants more urban but has a friend who will be attending next fall - I’m hoping she visits and likes it. It’s a nice distance from our house (not TOO far) and the price seems reasonable. PA friends tell me it’s not all that, but that’s how I feel about our NJ state schools so I think it’s just the nature of the beast to take your “home town honeys” for granted and glamorize the schools you know less well. We need to visit more schools but I don’t know when we will be able to do it.
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D23’s GC recommended West Chester for her. The only thing I worry about is the shortage if housing that has been mentioned on CC. I actually don’t know if Millersville has the same problem.
Shippensburg offers the instate rate to everyone. That’s a little further out. Maybe I just have a soft spot for the Lancaster area because my oldest went to Elizabethtown.
Have to check if Millersville is close to a train stop. Etown was great that way.
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We’ve visited West Chester, Bloomsburg and Slippery Rock and done drive-bys of a couple others, including East Stroudsburg.
West Chester is by far the best of the bunch, in terms of stats of those accepted. It’s close (enough) to Philly. My kid really liked it as a safety; she went to an open house thingie in the fall and texted me afterward, “Is it bad if I really love my safety?” lol. There seemed to be lots of school spirit and enthusiasm. If you search for the “passhe school” thread, you’ll find lots of comments about it.
It doesn’t offer much, if any, aid, especially not to in-state. Not sure about OOS.
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This sounds perfect!
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Slow here! D23 got her driver’s license and is off into the world. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Planning for her to take the SAT’s in August but I have not signed her up. I should do that today. I am pretty sure she will apply test optional, so part of me feels like it’s just a waste of time and $ and energy? But I guess we should give it a whirl.
Happy to hear the nice comments on West Chester University. D23 really wants to get up to Boston but I just don’t know when we can do it, and maybe it would be better to go in September once school is back in session?
I have gotten her to consider U of Tampa, because she wants to be in a city, she has always said her dream job would be working for the Rangers and in Tampa I think she could probably get an internship with the Tampa Bay Lightning/their arena. We have a house about 45 minutes away so I could visit. Tampa is neat. It could be an option. U of Tampa is not inexpensive but compared to other private schools it’s not outrageous. It could be a contender. The only thing that I am not sure about is that D23 is kind of intense and I suspect their student body is more social/less serious. (I am more social and less serious - that’s not a judgment.)
She really likes Suffolk University in Boston - which is expensive but looks like a great option for a B student who wants to be in Boston? I suggested Simmons but she is turned off by all-women. As mentioned above - I actually think she might fit Simmons profile a little better. She’s serious/earnest/sarcastic/hardworking kid.
Ah well, more to come. I better book that SAT.
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How is everyone holding up? For us, summer has been a welcome break after an eventful junior year. Academically, fall semester was really bad for my son. Recovered some in spring. Just got back from a small trip (7 days) to Europe. He had a particularly awful teacher for two classes. Ended up with bad grades in both classes. Confidence was pretty low. AP test scores came out this morning and those went better than expected. Seems to have injected back dome confidence in the poor kid. It is kind of scary to look at the main forum to see all the superstar kids. I hope he has some good options down the road.
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Glad your son has his confidence back. Agree about some of the main forums. Our kids will be ok in the long run. I wonder if all those “superstar” kids are truly happy and enjoying their time as teens. Too each his/her own.
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Summer has been busy here; dance classes, solo workouts, working on common app essay and getting time to spend with her friends is taking up most of D23’s days. D23 also registered to vote and voted for the first time in the primaries. She was really excited to do it, she had wanted one of those stickers since she was itsy bitsy.
After saying we were done with college visits we wound up visiting two more somewhat accidentally, one of which moved to the top of the pack for D23. I think her list stands at 3 or 4 total colleges she is planning to apply to - it will either be 2 safeties and 1 match or 2 safeties, 1 match, 1 reach. I think it is going to depend entirely on how much she wants to answer additional questions once she starts filling out application in earnest. The reach school may very well fall off the list, and we could not care less.
After D20, we are less attached to APs at our house. D20 did extremely well on those tests, and was able to use almost none effectively at her college. Yes, she got some elective credit at her college but none of it counted towards anything in her major or minor and most of it only gave her advanced placement in subjects. So she will graduate with way more credits than she needs, but whoopdedoo. Nobody looks at a college transcript and says, “wow look at those elective credit hours due to AP credit”. And those extra credits won’t allow her to shorten her time to graduate.
D23 has taken a handful of AP classes but when she decided she didn’t want to take the AP tests at the end of the year, I totally backed her up on it. At the schools she is looking at, the APs would again have only counted towards advanced placement or elective credits that she wouldn’t need - so why take another test that feels super high stakes when the results don’t really have any beneficial purpose for her goals? Her major of interest is Pre-Physical Therapy and she needs to take all the math and science classes in the sequence they are offered, regardless of test scores. So, we shrugged and moved on. She is applying Test-Optional so I don’t think any school will be surprised by not getting any AP scores.
D23 is hoping to be done with applications by the end of August (school begins in early August here). One of her school’s is rolling admission so hopefully she will get her first results fairly early and she is applying Early Action to all 3/4 of her choices.
I thought this process would be less stressful having gone through it once already but what I realized doing it a second time is that just like each of your children is different, so are their college searches. I am hoping to take that knowledge into our third time at this rodeo next year with S24. That and also the reminder that the process does end and it does work out.
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S23 wont do his essay until after the musical in a couple weeks.
Hes at rehearsals 5 days a week and football practice 4 days a week. And trying to pick up hours at 2 different jobs when he can.
Anyone else willing to share where your “low stats” (aka. normal) kid are looking at applying to?
Curiously, you’ve used the term “normal” before in this thread. Are you implying that kids with GPAs above 3.4 are “abnormal?” That doesn’t sit right with me.
Read the thread name.
My point is that often times online sources for college make it seem like kids less than 3.75-4.0 plus barely have any chance at college. Read through many threads on this website.
Kudos to the kids with great grades. But other kids have options as well. Nobody should feel “less than” because of a GPA.
If your kid has a higher GPA, awesome. I’d consider why someone calling their lower stats kid “Normal” triggers you.
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I disagree. Experienced CC posters often say there are thousands of colleges and a place for every kid—it’s true!—and include suggestions. Read my post. The opposite of normal is abnormal. Like I tell my kid, word choice matters. Average seems more appropriate.
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You dont like the term “normal” and I feel “average” has more negative connotations.
You feel me saying my kid is “normal” somehow means your high achieving kid is “abnormal.”
With your logic, the opposite of “average” would then be “above average.” That to me puts a worse hierarchy than just saying kids in this gpa range are the majority.
You can disagree and thats fine.
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I’m just now reading through this thread. Someone else may have made this suggestion, but VCUArts has fashion merchandising. Just thought I’d throw that out there!
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My son said that he is open to some OOS options so we are looking at schools in TX, FL and PA now. But base list is still UNCC, NCSU and WCU/UNCW. I do not see any point in applying to a bunch of schools we cannot afford to send him to.
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No App State? My D22 wouldn’t apply there because everyone from her high school was going there, but she did apply to UNC-A and UNC-G. I liked both of those.
He is “thinking about” engineering again. Hence no App State for us. His stats are trending upwards so we shall see. His dream school is NCSU. Close to home, lots of known faces and affordable! However, will be tough for him. UNCA will be his safety. Will apply RD, if needed.
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I know a senior at USCBeaufort. The pictures always look nice.
Any kids really impacted by remote learning? I was really hoping his Jr year GPA would pull up his overall but it barely made a dent in it. His freshman GPA is 3.0-3.2 and so is Junior Year but Sophomore year was awful! Resulting in a 2.1 overall! 
. ADHD/Dyslexia and Remote Learning doesn’t mix!
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