Supply chain management sounds really interesting and very relevant right now. There should be a lot of interesting discussions and opportunities to research in there.
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@MommaLue Congratulations to your D24. Hope she will enjoy it.
Yes I also like PI day some how and never realized MIT releases its results on that day until last year when I started paying attention to college stuff. You seem to connected very well to the school and the admissions there. I know we have 2 to 3 kids get into MIT every year but have no clue those kids are.
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Heard back yesterday from D24ās school counselor. Got some more info about the AP Music Theory class. The music theory teacher said, āShe can absolutely succeed in the class without a piano at home. Her experience with choir will be an advantage. The workload is challenging but not unbearable, and the class will be very enriching especially for dedicated musicians.ā
I wouldnāt necessarily call D24 a dedicated musician. But I feel better now having agreed to let D24 take the class after having read that little blurb from the teacher.
Spring break is now over for our kids. Yesterday, D24 brought home this planner worksheet that the counselor had all of them fill outā¦itās meant to help them figure out what classes they still have left to take, planning out which science classes to take in which year, etc. Usually around this time of year, sheās brought one of these home, so itās an annual thing. D26 has the same one, since sheāll be entering 9th grade next year.
So, for example, back when D24 was in 8th grade, her physics teacher recommended that she wait to take Honors Physics in high school until sheād gotten through the math class just before AP Calculus AB. (at their school, the kids take bio, chem, & physics 3 days/week each from grades 6-8). Why? Because the 7th grade physics the prior year was a bit of a train wreck with 3 different teachers, so the 8th grade physics teacher (who also teaches the high school physics classesā¦heās amazing, my kids understand physics entirely because of him) spent most of the 8th grade year for D24ās class getting them all caught up.
ā¦AND he said that in order to do well in the Honors Physics class, you really needed to understand the math, tooā¦otherwise, youād struggle. So sheās taking Honors Physics next year and wonāt be taking AP Physics at all.
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So hereās something interestingā¦
1 of the colleges that weāre going to tour during next school year is Centre College in Kentucky. Learned today that they will provide a $350 visit voucher to go towards travel expenses. That will help with airfare!
Itās a small school (~1400 undergrads)ā¦an LAC. And right now, we donāt know yet if D24 will be more of a ārah rah big schoolā kid or an LAC sort of kid. But sheās super interested in pursuing a biology major at the moment and the school guarantees that every student gets an internship somewhere & graduates in 4 years. Itās in a small town, which appears to be easy walking to from campus, and the Lexington airport is about an hour away. Pretty decent merit tuition scholarships + music scholarships even for non-music majors (i.e., she could audition for 1 for choir, has said sheās interested in singing in a choir in college for fun, but doesnāt want to major in music).
DH is not thrilled about the idea of either of our kids leaving the state for college. But at least from what I can tell so far, this particular school appears to have a really great campus community & is in a very safe area.
I went to a big university for college where classes were enormous (200-800 per course) and it can be easy to get lost if youāre not proactive. I donāt knowā¦you know how you sort of have that parent instinct in your gut that tells you something about your kid? My gut says that D24 would do better with smaller class sizes.
Plenty of time to figure it out, though!
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I was in your shoes about knowing smaller class size would be best for my S22 a few years ago. In my case, DS refused to talk about college because he found HS and homework too stressful. Heās ASD, so that was part of it. So I started looking at all of the UC and CSU options for CS. I rapidly narrowed in on the two Cal Polys over any of the UCs and CSUs for him specifically based on class size, being able to get to know the teachers, and their hands on learning style. It took until late junior year before DS willingly initiated a college conversation with me and asked why Iād chosen CP SLO as his #1 over schools like UCB and UCSD. So I asked him what was most important to him in a college. He chose small class size, getting to know his teachers, and a social life. When I explained the pluses and minuses of all the schools, he agreed Iād chosen correctly for him. Since then heās been all in for SLO and CPP. The social life comment was why I chose SLO over CPP.
Thing that was good about my āknowing my kidā is that there are specific factors that give someone an edge for getting into various colleges, and CP SLO is no exception. So I was able to make sure DS was on track with what classes he was taking earlier than he was ready to really talk college. It felt good when he finally engaged and jumped in with both feet. But it took a while for college to become a real thing to him.
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Exactly. You had a gut feel about your DS and when he was finally ready to talk about college, you had the information available for him to consider.
Weāre in the Phoenix area, so ASU is literally the closest university to us. DHās ideal situation is for both kids to live at home and drive to ASU. During rush hour, thatās a 45 min drive.
Is it do-able if one HAD to? Sure.
For D24, is it an ideal situation? I donāt think so. She needs to live on campus freshman year, be around other college students all the time where itāll be a lot easier to form study groups and all that.
The ASU total undergrad student enrollment in 2020 was about 63,000.
63,000 PEOPLE! Thatās more than the total population of the Tucson suburb city/town we used to live in a few years ago!!
The Barrett Honors college at the Tempe campus has an enrollment of about 6000. Ok, so she could end up having a āsmaller collegeā experience maybe through the honors college. But I know from my own honors college experience elsewhere that honors students donāt end up taking ONLY honors classes the whole time. You may have SOME honors-only classes, but the vast majority of your classes will be with the general population of all the other undergrads on campus. So, for example, if youāre at UC Berkeley, for example, studying computer science, then you could end up in introductory freshman year classes with hundreds or sometimes over 1000 students in a single lecture class.
Hence, itās easy to get lost in the crowd if youāre not a Type A proactive go-getter all the time. And my kid is not Type A go-getter all the time. At least not right now she isnāt. LOL.
Will she get into ASU? Yes. Will she get into the honors college? Maybe. I donāt know what the honors college admission criteria are.
So Iāve been telling my DHā¦we need to consider additional options. Therefore, Iāve been searching for smaller schools which also are affordable for what our budget allows.
For exampleā¦
- Univ of Alabama, Huntsville - ~8000 undergrads. 12% the size of ASU.
- Univ of New Mexico - undergrad enrollment of ~16,000. 25% the size of ASU
- Univ of Mississippi - ~16,000 undergrads. 25% the size of ASU.
- NMSU - ~11,000 undergrads. 18% the size of ASU
- NAU - ~25,000 undergrads. 39% the size of ASU.
- U of A - ~ 36,000 undergrads. 57% the size of ASU.
And then there are the tiny schools Iām looking at, all of which are in the 1200-1600 undergrad range:
- Austin College
- Southwestern University
- Centre College
HS graduation is 2 yr away and my DH is already having a hard time letting his little girl go. 
Given what you mentioned about your son, I totally understand why you leaned toward SLO and CPP. Definitely good choices given what your son needs!
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I know every kid is different but I could not agree more with this. I feel like living at home and commuting will feel just like high school, and I know for me, my closest friends ion college all lived on my hall freshman year. It is really hard to meet kids if you are a commuter. One of my good friends who lived on my hall had to go home almost every weekend (that was her parentsā compromise to allowing her to live on campus) and she missed out on so much. It just isnāt the same experience.
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When I was a freshman in college, some friends down the hall befriended another student in 1 of their classesā¦she was renting a room in someoneās home in the town nearby about a 15 min drive from campus. They quickly became close friends, so weād see her often in the evenings and on weekends in our hall. She couldnāt afford to live on campus, but ended up only using the room off campus to sleep.
I know that especially for D26, who is VERY shy (and, as a result, has a hard time making friends), itās going to be essential for her to live on campus. Itāll just be way easier for my kids to make friends that way. Thereās so much spontaneous stuff that happens when you live on campus.
This is a concept that my DH just doesnāt understand because his experience through college didnāt involve any dorm life or even living in on campus apartments.
I sort of see the dorm experience as like Adulting with training wheels. They have way more independence than they did in high school, but theyāre not entirely thrown to the wolves yet. For example, thereās a meal plan, so you donāt have to think about meal planning if you donāt want to. And everybody living in the dorms is in this new situation just like you are. Thereās an RA who you can go to for help with roommate issues, or the overhead light wonāt turn on, or you need to borrow the vacuum in order to vacuum your room, etc., etc. Thereās organized social things to do with other students in your hall. Etc., etc.
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My friends did this for me so I always felt like I lived on campus even though I took the bus 45 away. We couldnāt afford for me to stay on campus. I never felt that I wasnāt part of the campus environment other than I couldnāt do all the late night dorm shenanigans. I am very grateful to my college buds still for that
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I commuted to college and never stayed in a dorm there but half the students where I went to college were commuters and no one stayed in the dorm after first year so it did not feel like I missed out. I did go to a boarding school for 11th and 12th grade and that was a great experience and some what made up for the the lack of dorm in college.
My son also does not want to be in a commuter and wants the dorm. I donāt know how things will evolve over the next couple of years but so far wants to go few hours from home and be not too close.
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All the kids tell me that they love their freedom in college, no matter which school they attend :). I want my kids to have that experience and sometimes itās so annoying that my son doesnāt take advantage of speakers or activities that his campus has. But then again, maybe college kids donāt care about visiting guest speakers. That, I always thought was an amazing perks of staying on campusālate night free movie premiers, visiting stand up comedians, etc.
Agree Freedom is the key word here :). I understand you being annoyed at kids not using all that is available to them. I have this conversation with my S24 all the time. What I think is important is not the same for S24 sometimes and I have to stop myself and remember what it was to be a teenage again
Iāve realized that from now on, I am just going to get anxious around the bigger admissions day each year. Iāve loved this enough where my sense of empathy runs so deep. Today was also Match Day for physicians. Iām waiting to hear the official word but I think the school I support for an extremely high match rate.
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Ah good old Match day!! My DH is a physician and we were in two different cities while we were dating. I remember both of us so anxious praying heād match in my city. He did- actually at the hospital where I practiced. I still remember him calling me right after they got their match letters and both of us crying on the phone! Wow- memories! That was in 2002.
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Dang. UC admissions have been cruel. The kids I helped got themselves into a solid UC for sure. One got into UCLA so my streak is still alive. Keeping my fingers crossed for them to have more options with UCSB and Cal. There was a lot of waitlists. I cannot believe the crazy app numbers. Any number over 100k is crazy but 140-150k!
And the more difficult it is to get in, the more schools students will apply to. This especially holds true for the UCs and CSUs where you just pay an additional fee to send your application to multiple schools. We used to see kids apply to 3-4 UCs, then it increased to 4-5 and now there are many more students applying to 6+ UCs.
@lkg4answers Iām going to have to have D24 apply to UC Riverside and UCSC because why not? Itās a UC. I wonāt do UC Merced because Iām confident she will be top 9% so Iām here to save money on the app fee 
. But for sure expand the private school options.
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May as well spread the love amongst the CSUs as well. 
My oldest applied to SLO but I sent the application to SDSU and CSULB just in case. He rolled his eyes at me but I didnāt want to look back and have regret because I misestimated his chances at a UC.
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College advertising mail has started showing up. Most of it is because D24 checked the āyesā box to receive communications from colleges when she took the PSAT last fall, but a few are from colleges that sheās actually purposely signed up on their mailing list.
Anyway, she opened 2 pieces of college mail today and, for the first time ever, actually looked at it and read it. Just a couple of weeks ago, D24 was rolling her eyes and dramatically sighing whenever anything remotely related to college came up.
But then today, she said, āHey Mama, did you know that this school here (she was holding up the mail) has a student-to-teacher ratio of 17-to-1? What is it at other schools?ā So I told her what the comparison is at something like a big state school. Then she said, āOh wow, thatās a big difference!ā Then I said, āNext year in 11th grade, we can go on a tour of that school if you want,ā and she said, āOh ok! That sounds good!ā
She got an email from senior school counselor today that went out to all the high school students inviting them to participate in a dayās worth of lectures & workshops from physicians in the area, the purpose of which is to talk to high school kids about all of the different fields of medicine that you can work in (itās being hosted by another HS campus in their group of charter schools). D24 totally wants to go, but none of the HS kids at her school can this Saturday since they all have practice AP exams on Sat. afternoon. So D24 was a little bummed about that and thereās nothing we can do about itā¦BUTā¦the fact that she CARES that she canāt go meansā¦wait for itā¦my 10th grader is slowly going from āI just want to be a couch potato and watch Youtube for the rest of my lifeā to āMaybe thereās some cool stuff to learn about and do in that big wide world out there.ā
THEREāS HOPE, PEOPLE!
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I think GumbyMom (if your kid is applying to UCs in the future, sheās a national UC expert treasureā¦and she refused my offer to buy her Starbucks/Peets coffee last yearā¦I assume sheās a she with the mom in the handle) shared this. This Fall 2022 entering class app data is also included.
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