Eckerd College offers a BFA in MT. The program is 2+2 with Circle in the Square. Merit is pretty generous.Eckerd College adds new BFA Programs in Theatre and Musical Theatre - News | Eckerd College
Schedule and teachers received. A couple good ones. A couple âokayâ ones. No huge red flags at the moment. Odd thing is he has a class broken up around lunch. 30 minutes of class. Then lunch. Then return to class for another 30 minutes.
(D25 seems to have more good teachers and has lots of friends in lunch so sheâs happy).
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i was secretly pleased today when we went to school check-in. My D23 switched schools last year - to a small private school from a large urban low SES school. I saw her hugging friends, fist-pounding teachers, talking to the principal and being a social butterfly. Its a good move.
i know theres a few of you with kids switching schools; i truly hope they have a good year and itâs like this for your kids next year!
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HahaâŠyes we do!!! In Texas, for graduation requirements you need 1 PE creditâŠsince weâre on accelerated block schedules, fall semester/marching season is .5 credit of PE and then the Spring semester is Concert Band and satisfies .5 credit of Fine Arts.
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Ok, the Great Schedule Debacle has been straightened out!
So again, we have 4x4 accelerated block scheduleâŠtwo 9 week grading periods in a semesterâŠclasses are either 9 weeks long or 18 weeks long. The next semester 4 new/fresh classes. Each class period is 90 minutes long.
Thing 1:
Fall/Semester:
Personal Financial Literacy (itâs only a 9 week course so will be the first part of the semester) then AP Psych (also a 9 week course so will be the second grading period of the Fall semester)
Dual Credit History
Band
AP Eng 3 (AP Lang I think?)
Spring Semester:
Honors Chem
Engineering Math
Band
Honors Pre Calc
For Thing 2:
Fall Semester:
AP Psych (again, a 9 week course only) then AP Early US History (for the 2nd 9 weeks grading period)
Ap Physics 1
Band
AP Eng 3/AP Lang
Spring Semester:
APUSH
AP Physics 2
Band
Honors Pre Calc
For better or worse, it is what it is!!!
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Got our schedules here and pretty much what we expected except my daughter made a change in Spanish.
Honors Spanish 4
AP 2 D ART
AP EURO HISTORY
AP US History
AP Bio
AP Calculus AB
AP English Lang
She was recommended for AP Spanish but apparently for her to compete in state conferencia she has to be enrolled in Spanish. So she decided to take the easier Honors 4 her junior year and then AP next year. As a mom worried about overload, I was happy to hear about her choice.
We visited Tufts, Brandeis, Brown, Wake Forest and Davidson this summer and will hopefully head up to Kenyon, Oberlin and Denison this fall. So far only Brown has fallen off her list. Still have to visit some NE schools preferably in the middle of winter so this FL girl really understands âseason changeâ!
But first, time to kick off an awesome junior year next week!
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D23 has opened up a bit that she would like to go to college in a city, or have proximity to a city - but probably not NYC. I am thinking about taking her to Philadelphia for an overnight (we are in NJ) and looking at Thomas Jefferson University, Temple, Drexel, and West Chester. Any thoughts on other Philly area schools to look at? I think Catholic universities are out, even if they are not particularly religious. (I know there are some good ones in PA!) Sheâs a B student, so looking at average/not too selective colleges. Sheâs interested in psychology and marketing now but that could change.
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Fair warning, we found Philly so uncomfortable with the panhandlers that it got crossed off my sonâs list. And we live in a city and I have lived in both DC and NYC. Its very bad in Philly right now.
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Good to know, and not bad for her to experience if she wants the city experience for college. Maybe that will make West Chester U seem more appealing!
Updates! D23 and I toured 7 places up in the Northeast where she was for a summer ballet program (one real tour, at Dartmouth, 6 self-guided tours): she loved 4, was meh on 3. We have more tours planned toward the end of the monthâŠhoping at least one willbe a ârealâ one but delta is changing a lot ofplans to re-open tours.
After that there is a southern loop of 4-5 to see sometime this school year, plus will likely see 3 in the midwest, then thats it for out-of-state. We willcircle back to any favorites next summer I suppose. Seeing the layout of the campuses and the surrounding area has proved quite helpfulâit adds a lot of information and âfeelâ to what the virtual tours and info sessions provide.
Classes are setâAPphysC, BCCalc, ApUSh, APEnglishLit, HonorsBio, HonFrench and an arts class. It will be an easier year than last yr but definitely still challenging.
The rest of summer is SAT and ACT prepâshe âd love a one-and-done on at least one of those but the bar for that has been set quite high(by school, based on the no-prep 10th grade scores).
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Would love to hear more about the tours that you did with your D. My D23 is having a hard time deciding what type of school interests her and so we enjoy reading about the tours people are doing.
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Without typical information sessions and tours it ishard to give a comprehensive review.
Amherst & Williams: a little smaller than ideal for her , but nice campus layouts and nice towns. Amherst has the five-colleges options which expands the courses, especially arts options(important to her). Williams is just very isolated.
Harvard: the classic campus-in-a city environment: she loves Boston and ideally wants a college near or in a city. Will definitely come back for an official tour but overall loved the feel and layout
MIT: quirky campus and lots of construction, plus the self -guided information was not as helpful as other campuses. Will come back for an official tour, because the virtual and email/mailings she has been getting definitely indicate it is a fit as far as the students and curriculum .
Smith: very hodge-podge crowded campus that just did not sit well with her. Probably off the list.
Brown: amazing! Great mix of arts and hard sciences, loved Providence and the surrounding areaânot quite as exciting as Boston but very close.
Dartmouth: Beautiful campusâno big city thoughâwith some great curriculum options (learned way more about this one as it was a ârealâ tour by a student) loved the flexibility of the quarter system which includes summer options, unfortunately the campus is a bit remote. The town is very nice though and the size ofthe undergraduate population is ideal, as well as the presence of graduate studies/University rather than LAC which it seems she may prefer.
(Her safeties are in-state so out of state we are only looking for reaches and some matchesâŠshe is a highly competitive student but many of the schools on her list are âreaches for everyoneâ types, which makes it tricky)
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@Poochie21, lots of great options for a B student in or close to a city. For Philadelphia, while itâs Catholic consider touring through St Joeâs, great location, and a great school for marketing. There is a great vibe of school spirit when you tour you might be swayed. Some others to consider outside of your list are Ursinus and Arcadia.
Another one might be a school like Quinnipiac or Marist, their both close to smaller cites but close enough where you can head into the NYC for the day.
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@Poochie21 Iâll chime in and say my D17 that just graduated as an EE from Temple loves the city so much that she looked for a job in Philly to stay there. She found a great engineering job across the river in NJ, but is still choosing to live in the city proper and commute out, so to each their own! She regularly took SEPTA (the Philly subway) to center city to go shopping, dining, Trader Joeâs etc. â even last spring during the pandemic, since they added a lot of outdoor dining seating in Center City and Chinatown.
I donât know about other Philly schools, but thereâs almost no panhandling right on campus at Temple during the school year. Maybe because all of the students are poor too, so whatâs the point? 
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After a wonderful week of college tours, beautiful mountains and a lovely musuem we are home from touring Wesleyan, Williams and Amherst. We also did a drive through of U Mass and a walk around outside of Yale, you were not allowed inside the campus due to Covid and security was posted to enforce this.
Generally impressions, it was very hot everywhere except the top of Mount Greylock, highest peak in Massachesetts. Tours in 90 degree plus heat with masks arenât fun. The twins may have enjoyed their hike in 90 degree weather but I think I made the better decision to visit The Clark musuem.
Wesleyan - Prior to tour we had a fantastic lunch with BBQ briskets and boys discovered school was very near an excellent mountaining biking park so hopes were high. The tour guide was excellent, very high energy, made the open curriculum sound great and easy for double majors and campus was pretty. At least one of the boys left the tour thinking they would apply. There was a distict lack of diversity on the tour. Information session (outside in a tent) talked a lot about being a test optional, need aware school that met full need of admitted students. Even though Wesleyan offers very good aid and recently went no loans the campus just did not feel like it was economically diverse or would be a good fit for a high need student. I talked to an admissions officer about my concerns and to calm me down, she told me this story, first she said the campus was very welcoming and all the students got along well. Then she said some students had parents who could write checks for 100 semesters at Wesleyan (about 80K per year) without missing the money. Followed by the story of a student who was in a panic because her semester bill was $700 more than she had expected and she thought she would have to drop out. I expected the end of the story to be she went to the Financial Aid Office and they found a way to help her. Nope, a professor stepped in and paid her bill because she was told no to anymore aid.
Both boys realized socio-economic diversity was more important then they thought (something I have been saying for years) and are probably not applying. On paper the school looks diverse with great aid, but something about being on the campus felt different.
Will write more later.
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I think I saw you at Brew Bakerâs a week or so ago (a mother with twin boys) and I remember thinking, âI bet I know them from College Confidential.â LOL. Frankly, I canât recall ever seeing so many guided tours at Wesleyan this deep into the summer. The place is deserted; maintenance and renovation crews are everywhere. Earlier in the Spring, you might have been on a tour guided by one of several African-American students and reacted as I did (âDoes anyone else do tours besides the Black kids?â).
Not that your impressions arenât valid. Wesleyan is a very expensive college and more than half the student body come from families who are somehow able to cover the full cost of tuition, board and fees (perhaps, some more easily than others.) That has consequences for who can afford unpaid internships, or can afford to volunteer their time for virtually anything. Or, remain on campus over the summer.
It wasnât us, we ate at Taino Smokehouse. And yes we saw lots of lawn mowing and loud trucks.
So to continue the trip, this part probably proves further that you canât trust tours and I expect the boys opinions to evolve and change. Is it possible to love Williams and hate Amherst (or was it just the tours).
Williams: Both boys are head over heals in love with Williams, the biggest downside is itâs impossible to get into. One was disappointed it wasnât more isolated, I recommended he look into Kenyon (I donât think they expect a town). The tour guide was excellent, the weather was very hot, didnât expect a somewhat main road to be running through campus. You instantly forget the main road when you look past it and see the mountains, hear about tutorials and the $500 million spent to move library from one side of campus to other and expand it. We spent an extra day in Williamstown, twins hiked and I visited The Clark. During the tour, the guide discussed Mountain Day. He specifically mentioned other options for people who did not want to hike the mountain as well as the option of being driven to the top of the mountain so students who couldnât hike up wouldnât miss the festivities. One twin was very interested in junior year at Oxford. Tour guide also said Williams was hiring a lot of new Comp Sci profs and the program was getting stronger ever year. Seeing what Williams did with their library, Iâm sure the CS program will be great in a few years.
We arrived a few hours early to Amherst, so we had lunch, got a parking ticket, drove around Hampshire and UMass. Amherest was more suburban strip mall then expected. Hampshire felt like you were enterring another world, obvious that they have financial issues (a lot of deferred maintenance), seems like a very unique experience for the right student, I hope they survive. Math/Comp Sci son really liked UMass, not sure if it was the very tall library, the airconditioned honors housing or the excellent AI prgram, but it was the 1st safety I have seen him get at all excited about. That in itself made the trip worthwhile.
I honestly donât think a review of Amherst College would be fair. We left after the tour and before the information session (have only done that one other time with 4 college searches). It could have been the young tour guide, the heat, the very strict Covid guidelines set out prior to visit that where randomly enforced or just being tired. All three of us just wanted to leave (along with about 1/3 of our 50 person tour), I donât think we got a very good feel for the school . Econ twin will likely still apply based on reputation and learning during this trip that he is very interested in LACs, Math/comp sci twin will not apply. When a student asked about the divide between athletes and non-athletes, guide answered âofcourse there is, just like at every schoolâ. While likely true, probably not what tour guide should be saying, also couldnât really discuss any STEM programs or say anything that made Amherst sound special or academically challenging. The visit to Amhest was definely worth doing, boys got a feel for the area, one got excited about a safety and both learned that tours can give a faulty impression of a school.
Iâm glad we were able to start visitting schools before junior, it helped them focus on schools and gives them time to re-examing some opnions.
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If you left after the tour, you pretty much saw all of Amherst. Itâs not that big. Interesting side note on Williams: until the library move, they were the only NESCAC without a central quad, just a lot of evenly spread out buildings - and, of course, the two lane black top running through them. Easily the most unabashedly rural college in America.
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What parts ofYale could you see? Are you allowed on the grounds/quads at all?
My second son graduated from Grinnell, I think they also have a strong claim to unabashedly rural. Sterling Clark agreed with you.
@2devil Not allowed in quads or grounds at all. Took a 3 block walk around one edge and drove around for about 15 minutes. It was just too close to Wesleyan to not try.
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