My older child attended NAU with WUE and a job lined up before graduation. Academically, could have attended a more selective college, but chose not to pursue those options. Instead joined its Honors College, which helped gain confidence and opened up some opportunities. It was a great “fit” and experience, and the town is great, too.
My C23 is a different kid. Very laid back, STEM focused, a respectable GPA (not stellar due to not turning in homework), and high test scores. We’re looking for colleges with specific STEM majors (CS, cybersecurity, CE, EE) and ability to change among those majors. … We’re trying to figure what is of personal importance for the non-academic “fit;” right now, it’s ability to participate in marching band and having good coffee on campus. C23’s list has 4 colleges with auto admissions. All would be considered “safeties,” and I think they would be fine. I’m uncertain if C23 will expand thinking into “match”/“reach” colleges or just opt out of the competitive nature of college applications.
Top colleges around the world rely on standardized tests for admission and grade their students largely on the basis of high stakes end of year exams. For example at Oxford you may have up to 9 three hour summative exam papers at the end of your three year course to determine your degree classification (first, upper second, lower second or third). It’s hardly surprising that they want students who perform well in an exam situation.
Colleges in the US rely much more on course work and continuous assessment (often including “participation” points). And those tests that do occur are based on a limited amount of information in a specific course (as opposed to everything you’ve learned that year). Ability to succeed in high stakes exams is therefore much less of a factor in US college GPAs.
It’s certainly possible to argue that the US undervalues the ability to do well in tests. Perhaps even that it undervalues raw intelligence compared to those who simply work hard. There’s evidence (not least in the relative percentages going to college) that the US approach favors girls over boys, especially in high school when girls are generally more mature and don’t goof off as much in freshman year. But that’s a very different point.
Good point about Georgetown’s restrictions on early applications. On LAP23’s daughter’s list of potential schools, Georgetown allows for EA to both Georgetown and Princeton’s SCEA; however, Princeton’s SCEA rule precludes simultaneous EA application to Georgetown, a private institution.
I think you’re referring to this list which shows the cost of attendance, what percentage of students without financial need received merit aid, and what the average merit aid award was: Merit Aid by Institution – College Transitions
As someone who grades college papers over, over and over again. There is a huge difference between an A paper vs a C paper on many levels. Someone who works at a higher standard tends to continue working at the same standard throughout college. For the most part, students are extremely consistent.
That’s very good advice I’d say based on having gone through this once with S21, about to do it a second time with D23. You want your application overall to tell a story that can be summed up pretty easily – an AO should be able to look at it and say “that’s the young woman who [xyz things that sum up her character, activities & academics in a sentence or two].” To those of us for whom the UCs are very important, I’d say this absolutely applies to the PIQ essays and how they interweave with the way you present your activities list. They should dovetail with one another and tell a pretty cohesive story.
You mentioned “anyone with a computer and internet access can prep…” While that’s true, a student who is a parent will have a hard time doing that than a student who is not a parent.
A student who is expected to babysit younger siblings and cook dinner and clean the house will have a harder time spending hours on Khan Academy than a kid who doesn’t.
A student who is working a full-time job to help support his family will also be more tired when adding Khan Academy to their list of things to do.
A student whose grandmother interrupts her during online class so she can watch the kids…
The list goes on.
It takes more effort, more energy, and more initiative for someone with multiple setbacks to do just part of what someone without those setbacks could do.
It’s about more than grit and initiative here.
Case in point: We live in a minority majority area. That left us with a terrible proctor who interrupted the students during the SAT test when their OWN phone went off. In addition to that, the students had to wait an hour in line so the test began an hour late. This is only part of what was wrong with the situation.
The above would not be tolerated in a higher-income area.
The students who took that test and were interrupted could have the same grit and and initiative you referenced yet have way more interruptions than students in a wealthier area with an easier life.
Hello. Our DC23 is very interested in Georgetown. What was your student’s major? What did they like about DC? How was campus/student life? There doesn’t seem to be a lot of STEM majors there at least compared to other majors and other schools we’re looking at. That may be a good thing (i.e. more opportunities/student).
Yes our d was a stem kid, she ended up double majoring in math and physics. The opportunities to research, TA’ing, various prizes, or grants to go to conferences were insane particularly in physics where the cohort of majors was small while the research is very well funded and professors amazing and very attentive to the undergrads as there are few or no grad students. She loved both the town of Georgetown which is a lovely historic town and the closeness to DC - to my surprise she and her friends did go to museums a lot, she jogged through the Mall every day, got involved in protests and other political events etc. Very easy to get to from anywhere on the east coast. She made great friends. The negatives - dorms are pretty bad, though in her senior year she and friends were in a cute house in Georgetown. The requirements were alot - two history classes and two theology (very broadly defined) and one philosophy class were a mixed bag to her. The clubs can be competitive to join (true in many schools of course) and my d is not really the club type anyway. The kids are super bright but the reputation for most having preprofessional rather than academic focus is true. Most of her friends were very high achievers who ended up in med schools, law schools, or jobs (hers a a software engineer). As a mom I don’t view that as a negative! Very cooperative not competitive vibe. Tons of great summer job and internship opportunities. The catholic thing was not an issue for this secular/Jewish very progressive politically kid. If you have more specific questions, I am happy to answer.
Thank you so much for sharing info about Georgetown. I was particularly glad to hear about well funded research, attentive professors, and the ability to double major. We’ve heard so many good things and also about the state of the dorms. What makes them so bad and is the university doing something to address it?
As of now DC will be applying there; we’re just trying to determine if it’ll be early or not. We visited in 2021 and DC23 really liked it. Didn’t visit the surrounding area much but what we did see seemed very vibrant. It’s a really beautiful campus.
I hope they do something about the dorms - they should if only because of the bad publicity! Having said that it was a bit of a bonding experience for the kids. My son went to Columbia and those dorms weren’t that much better.
I agree that the 3.0-3.5 threads added more potential schools for my kids to look at. I find many of the typical threads seem to have many of the same schools mentioned on repeat.
As for weighted or unweighted, I guess it varies if the college looks at weighted or unweighted.
Some schools I have learned about are Roanoke, U of Louisiana-Lafayette, and Baldwin Wallace.
Personally, my kids are at 3.0 and 3.34 UW currently.
Appreciate that. I would definitely like to discover more schools as the rat race my D21 went through was awful. She landed and totally loves it, but I want a less stressful situation for my son and myself. I didn’t know anything going into college admissions season as a relatively new California resident so it was definitely eye opening. At least I learned there are affordable options out of California. We focused on California because we needed the affordability factor.
Have her apply to Wellesley, Smith, and Barnard as well. If she doesn’t want to be around all women all the time, have her apply to Barnard; it’s a women’s college, but dudes at Columbia are everywhere except living in the Barnard dorms.
The only states that don’t participate in any of these are New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Iowa—and, of course, not all colleges participate (especially big state flagships), and some institutions and exchanges have restrictions on majors.