parents, ya'll know everything...please help me edit my list!!

Parent Cafe
61

<p>I suffer from crippling indecisiveness.</p>

<p>Not really, I know I could change that. I do, as immature as it may be, spend a good ten minutes trying to decide to eat at the restaurant where I work, even though I know what pretty much every single dish tastes like already. </p>

<p>Your confidence that I will gain admission to some of these places is overwhelmingly complimentary. When my chances were posted in the "What are My chances?" thread, I did not receive NEARLY the same number of complimentary posts. </p>

<p>However, I still am very insecure in my ability to gain admission to a number of these prestigious institutions. My parents don't really know much about college...my dad thinks that I will get in everywhere because I make straight A's and my mom thinks I am going to be disappointed in April because I'm setting my sights too high.</p>

62

<p>j07 -</p>

<p>I really am not kidding you, and am not trying to flatter. I wish I had bookmarked the site that breaks down SAT scores by race/ethnicity. You really have no idea how rare you are. Your "market value" is huge. (add another 50 to your math score, and you're untouchable.) Most of the folks who respond in "What are My Chances" are other high school students who have never actually looked at the race/ethnicity data. (In Texas, in 2006, the median SAT scores for college-bound Mexican-American females were 450/456/450.)</p>

<p>I do some consulting (with LACs, mostly regarding homeschoolers). I don't know a single one that wouldn't fall all over themselves to get you. Now much of the work will be in your court to put yourself out to them, and decide what it is you really want.</p>

63

<p>We visited Middlebury, Bowdoin and Dartmouth. Feel free to PM if you have any questions re impressions. </p>

<p>Middlebury is a bit bigger in population than some small LACs and has perfectly beautiful buildings and facilities to endure the snows inside of as do most of these northern colleges. For a smaller LAC, I have to repeat my promotion of Bowdoin though for its truly outstanding Government and poli sci programs. We are Virginians and felt Bowdoin was a very welcoming place..in fact a Texan gave us our tour. </p>

<p>Depending on how much guessing at your major would impact your decision. Consider prelaw and go to the related major and minor pages at your favorite schools and get a glimpse of the culture of departments that might capture your upperclassmen years. You can literally major in anything but if you know you want Econ or History or Gov't..that is another way to locate a college that is a fit.</p>

64

<p>I'm starting to become mildly stressed out about the fact that I can't seem to narrow down my list. Everyday I think of new schools that I might want to add, but I can't pick any that I want to take off of my "new and revised" list. Today I am thinking about adding Vanderbilt and maybe Rice to the list. This is getting crazy...I have to start working on applications and I surely cannot afford the time or money required for 14 or 15 applications (in addition to the fact that it's pretty ridiculous). I know that ya'll are probably tired of seeing me around this forum but could any parents help me start cutting DOWN my list?</p>

65

<p>It's a matter of willpower. Choose Dartmouth over Middlebury, drop Clemsonl and so on.</p>

66

<p>If you want, you can use your own criteria. "marginal focus on undergrads" - get rid of all public universities except Texas (which is a fine one). Get rid of all schools with large graduate school programs - Harvard, Duke, Stanford. Get rid of non-east coast, non-California - Notre Dame.</p>

<p>If any of this feels uncomfortable, your criteria aren't your real ones. (You need to make some visits!)</p>

67

<p>Stanford
Princeton
Dartmouth
Duke</p>

<p>Vanderbilt
University of Virginia
Pomona or Bowdoin
Emory
safety? Texas</p>

<p>Why go to school in large oversized classes when you are 18 when you can have intense small courses that will change your life and stretch you more..my prejudice is for schools that offer at least some years of smaller courses.</p>

<p>Pomona and Bowdoin offer peaceful unpretentious but nationally drawn students who are earnest and happy in coastal states. You will get totally wonderful small classes with intimate relations with professors and a family like experience on campus. If you do not have this kind of parental insight re colleges and support, there can be something compensatory and great about spending four years on close terms with faculty instead of in a big setting. Bowdoin has a fantastic track record in Government/Poli Sci. Merit money is however scarce. You may pay your EFC at many LACs.</p>

<p>Vandy, Emory and Duke have more significant merit money to offer you and you will be a contender for their big ones. All three schools have lively student bodies with national draws, school spirit and venues to hone your confidence in oral debates or classroom debates. I have lived in Atlanta four times...and Nashville twice. For a prelaw type student it is perfectly grand to see the Georgia and Tennessee Capitol buildings down the road from your school, to have many gov't internships to poke around in, and Law schools to peek in just to make sure you are going in the right direction. The Carter Center is close to Emory which is decidely a diverse city experience..not sporty students though! Vandy is underrated as is Nashville for the same reasons...active internship jobs all over town, great law school on the premises, great quality of life, school spirit, great economy. Fifty fifty Republican/Demo now in student voting patterns so good opp for in school debates and getting practice in a political scene where the red state/blue state thing is about dead even. Prelaw students would do well in Atlanta and Nashville settings. Lots of things going on under your nose. I guess this is also true at Georgetown.</p>

<p>Duke and Dartmouth are remarkable for drawing in really spirited student bodies even though Durham is no Atlanta and Hanover is sleepy. The diversity in race, religion, background and geographic origin are what you are there for and both schools have a lot of energy.</p>

<p>University of Virginia. I post it as a wonderful public school experience. I have never met a graduate who did not still swoon when referring to their years in Charlottesville. I don't know why..classes are too large in year one or so but the student body is special as is access to Beltway and Richmond internships. Quality of life is great there and if they offered you Echols you would have creative freedom.</p>

68

<p>Emory does expect folks to come down and visit, though -- so you may want to drop them a line about special visitation. They want you to "show them the love!"</p>

69

<p>You listed the following - and I will be the all knowing parent with responses as I live where 70% are Hispanic and have a freshman in college, hence I know something about how to use the Hispanic issue to use:</p>

<p>Amherst They actually will love you (this may not be a reach as they are attempting to berid public perception of being whitebread school for northeastern elite -- which it is not -- by emphasizing the minorities)</p>

<p>Bucknell More known for engineering and your scores depict more of arts and sciences person, may want to think elsewhere</p>

<p>Clemson This is not a reach</p>

<p>Dartmouth This is a reach, really a computer junky school. Texas/Hispanic character and the lack of representation of each will be focus. Go to <a href="http://63.135.109.195/hernandez/ai_calculator.cfm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://63.135.109.195/hernandez/ai_calculator.cfm&lt;/a> and plug in your numbers. If you look good, go for it. THIS WAS PREPARED by DARTMOUTH ADMISSION PERSON</p>

<p>Duke Hispanics from my area do very well in being admitted. Visit the campus -- you either hate it or love it, there is no in between.</p>

<p>Harvard Go to that website for Dartmouth. Unless there is something extraordinary in your resume, you have very little chance. And, I am not sure this is the best place for a reader/writer. I think the undergraduate education is overrated. And I lived in Cambridge 4 years -- get the idea? If you don't believe me read these books: "The College Admissions Mystique" by Bill Mayher and "Looking beyond the Ivy League: Finding the College That's Right for You" by Loren Pope and "Colleges that Change People's Lives" by Loren Pope. They are experts which are not to be taken lightly. I have no problem if you kindly reject my opinion.</p>

<p>Lehigh Not a reach</p>

<p>Middlebury Very hard nowadays. Even for the reader/writer. If you love foreign languages and rural northeastern environment, this may be for you. You will learn to read and write here -- maybe as well as anywhere.</p>

<p>Princeton Same as Harvard</p>

<p>Stanford Hispanic will do nothing for you here. Same as Harvard. </p>

<p>University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill Not a reach for you</p>

<p>USC Probably overpriced and overrated -- your numbers will do better (Look to Pomona or Claremont McKenna if you like Ca. If you MUST be in LA -- you will receive a large package for scholarhsip (meit or need based) at Occidental. Not a Pomona or CM, but equal to USC or UCLA.)</p>

<p>UVA Not a reach for you. Have you been on the campus. Southern civility combined with money -- even though a public school -- give this school an air. I like it, some others do not.</p>

<p>Yale Same as Harvard</p>

<p>As a reader/writer (based upon SAT scores) I recommend more LAC's and less name school as you will be able to show off your wares better at such schools, will be more challenged, will be better nurtured, and as the three books above tell you -- you will be better educated. Here is a list to think seriously about:</p>

<p>Grinnell
Carleton
U Chicago
Pomona
Whitman
Claremont McKenna
Williams
Swarthmore
Haverford
Davidson -- special scholarship for Hispanics called presidential scholarship
Bowdoin
Colby
Wesleyan
Reed
Washington and Lee</p>

<p>Less competitve LAC's
Elon
Furman
Univ of the SOuth
Rhodes
U Richmond
St Olaf
Trinity
Pitzer
Occidental
Cornell College -- Iowa
Go to the book by Pope "40 Coleges" for more complete list</p>

<p>This will teach you to ask us nosy parents.</p>

70

<p>Must chime in to say Princeton is not quite the same as Harvard. In my experience the undergraduate experience at Princeton is pretty great. Harvard may also be great I just can't vouch for it personally. Also Princeton has a lot of focus now on the arts - and an integrated humanities sequence that writer types love.</p>

71

<p>Not having experience with Hispanic applicants myself, Father of the Boarder probably has a good point about Stanford. Although mini is right to point out your stats are rare, waitlist is a risk at the Ivies and its peers and many of them have big missions for graduate students in campus. </p>

<p>I chime in to say that I also think you should be targetting the LACs, if you feel you can be happy with a peer class of 500-750 people. Dartmouth feels very very undergrad focused and tight as a community. Emory, Duke and Vandy are bigger and looser settings with great weather and plenty of community venues for service and Profs teach many many courses in intimate settings but there are large intro courses there as well. </p>

<p>If you were my daughter, I would be pointing you to the LAC list Father of the Boarder has posted, but you seem to be very uncertain in your posts about LACs.
I think the next four years are crucial for you, and sense that full professors who know you by name may be powerful for you. College is also about emotional growth and making a new family of friends for yourself and finding adult mentors. You will be ready for graduate school anywhere with a degree from these highly respected LACs, but you need to understand the character of each LAC and what their agenda is for building their class each year. </p>

<p>You need to think about what kind of social and political vibe makes you feel alive in peers. Most of these schools have a nationally based student body but can be characterized with a broad brush in terms of campus culture strengths and weaknesses. No campus has it all.</p>

<p>If you simply can't grasp the difference between a Duke and a Pomona until April because you can't visit to get an instinctual feel for it now, go ahead and apply to at least three LACs. </p>

<p>Law practice requires writing, reasoning and persuasion skills and a certain emotional intelligence in dealing with clients and endless patience re constant roadblocks in logistics, the system and its deadlines. That is why I feel a college with a town, a courthouse, community volunteer opportunities and a political scene can help a student mature more from ages from 18-22 although internships certainly are plentiful and routinely accomplished at top rural LAC colleges.</p>

72

<p>I think we all have opinions about colleges and universities (I obviously do too.) But the reality is that the OP, as one of the top 100 or so Hispanic female applicants in the country, can get into all of them, and can get a really good education that meets her needs at any of them. What she needs, in my judgment, is some values clarification so that SHE can make good choices, and a bunch of visits as soon as possible so that she can see some of the differences for herself.</p>

73

<p>I'm confused by Father of the Boarder's comments. I know colleges don't blatantly parade their practice of AA, but since when does the fact that an applicant is Hispanic not considered/helpful at all in an application? The Harvard Undergrad Minority Recruitment Program has contacted me personally by home phone before...I know this is not in ANY way a guarantee that I will get in and I know that my chances are slim-to-none (as are everybody else's), but why would a Minority Recruitment Program even exist if being Hispanic didn't help? I'm not saying that the only thing that I have to offer to a college is that I'm Hispanic...but I have never seen this opinion before.</p>

74

<p>Your chances are H. approach 100% (how close, no one can say for sure) - the number of Hispanic female applications they have with your SATs and grades is likely in the low double digits. (which isn't to say you should go, or that it is the best choice for you.)</p>

75

<p>j07, Father of the Boarder is merely giving you his impressions (Harvard is debatably not the ideal undergrad life for people who might thrive better in a tighter community is an opinon, but an opinion from someone who has lived in Cambridge, so he shared it.) It stands to reason that a college in California will receive many Latino American applicants, but you might be at the top of their list anyway. However, most LACs are not getting enough Hispanic applicants and would be thrilled to have you in their classes and might line you up with their most scarce Merit full rides.<br>
Mini wants you to take wing and go for it and know some great doors will open.</p>

<p>Some famous LACs however are also famously giving out only need based money as their philosophical stance. Does money matter a great deal to you or are you prepared to pay your EFC? </p>

<p>I piped up about schools with merit money in cities where I have lived and done graduate work...Atlanta and Nashville, and where my S living in Durham. These colleges offer a surplus of internships, much more to do on a Friday night than what is offered on campus, a shot at merit money instead of just your EFC. There are more schools with merit money that would want you than the ones I mentioned. Rice would substitute nicely for a contrast to UT Austin in your head, but its big City setting makes it different than an Amherst. </p>

<p>We are all trying to give you personal perspectives which is what we thought you were asking for on this thread when you posted your rambly list of colleges and universities. We know you must be extremely busy with school and work and it seems your parents don't have an agenda in mind. </p>

<p>Why don't you narrow your list to ten schools and then open up all the applications, make a Word file per school, copy their Supplemental essay questions, let them sink into your brain and start to ferment, and see if any of the Supplemental essays just flows for you..maybe that school is indeed a school you jive with.<br>
When my S was shifting his list down to seven schools, he opened an Excel document and started mapping out the deadlines for all the paperwork, including soliciting relevant references. You need to develop your list now in order to give your references some idea of why you would fit at each school on your list--some brave soul references actually personalize each letter with some cutting and pasting if you inform them of Why for each school.</p>

<p>My S had a short chart..one page with comments next to each school about why he picked it and how he might contribute to their college culture...this was given to each reference. He did a Word document file for every supplemental, and somehow getting closer to actually doing an application essay helped him eliminate and hone his list. </p>

<p>I believe Brown's and Chicago's just made him tired..ha. They are among the colleges that expect a lot of essay pizazz but he was a procrastinator and waited too long to comply.</p>

<p>You know that Talking Heads album Stop Making Sense..you don't??? did I say ALBUM? You mean that was thirty years ago...oh. Son ended up with some things that did not make sense on his list, too...Zero Frats vs Hugely Fratty LACs, large publics. At some point you just have to Love 8 or so schools for who they are and go for it. Just like you like 8 different friends of yours even when they are disparate.
OK. I guess I want you to stop worrying so much about making sense and stop soliciting admission guesses and get to work on your applications. The process of doing the applications will push you to email your reps at colleges, and to Privately PM some of the parents who are alum at various schools and to read headlines in each college newspaper till you can see where you might be able to fit. It really doesn't have to all make sense. You will likely get invited to some paid weekends but also have to visit a couple places in April. When you have some lovely invitations in April, we will all be truly so pleased for you. </p>

<p>You have to choose and instead start to court the schools on your list and gather information and start sketching out your Why College X essays.</p>

<p>I suggested you choose a mixed bag and include at least a couple super LACS along with larger campuses.</p>

<p>There is no doubt that you will be recruited as a very desirable Hispanic applicant, so don't fret about that now. This is a hard task! We know! You have to decide what atmosphere will stretch you but also keep your spirits up. Sporty? Fratty? Red State? Blue? Urban? Rural? Small classes or large with TAs doing the study group leaderships and labs?</p>

76

<p>I don't know how to even start off this letter that I am sending to...admissions offices (?) to ask about visits. Also, I know that I should include most of my stats, but how should I do this? It seems strange to write "Well, I got a 2250 on my SAT...," so should I use some kind of format?</p>

<p>Also, which colleges should I send this to? Will state schools (UVA and UNC for example) even have the time to read a letter like this? Do they even have paid visits? Should I send the letter to very very selective schools (Ivies), or do they have plenty of overqualified applicants (an oxymoron?) and don't need to worry about recruiting?</p>

77

<p>Some LACs have funding to help students with need travel to campus for visits. I know Whitman does this, especially in support of their effort to draw a more diverse field to applicants to their location. You would be a candidate of interest I think for several reasons. Just ask...</p>

78

<p>You can send the same cover letter to each school you are considering.</p>

<p>Something along the lines of:</p>

<p>To the Director of Admissions
xxx College
College Address</p>

<p>I am very interested in xxxx College. I am particularly interested in studying xyz and participating in xxx activities. I believe that my GPA of yyy and SAT scores of zzz should make be eligible for consideration. I am enclosing a resume [if you already have one] with more details.
The desciption of xxx college on its website makes me think that I would fit in very well. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to visit because of financial constraints. I wonder if there is a program that would subsidize visits for low income URMS. Please let me know as soon as possible so that I can arrange a visit. Thank you very much.</p>

<p>Send the same letter to all the schools you are thinking of applying to (don't bother to guess). You can send it by email and attach your cv for extra speed, rather than by snail mail.</p>

79

<p>"Father of the Boarder is merely giving you his impressions (Harvard is debatably not the ideal undergrad life for people who might thrive better in a tighter community is an opinon, but an opinion from someone who has lived in Cambridge, so he shared it.)"</p>

<p>Speaking as a Harvard grad who had a Harvard intern last spring for a week, I think Harvard is what it has always been. Uneven. Pick the right majors and be sufficiently outgoing and you can have a wonderful experience where most of your professors know you and you'll hardly see a TA. (This was largely my experience.) </p>

<p>In my experience the houses and the tutorial system both produce tight communities.</p>

<p>What Harvard has more than anything else is a student body that is always up to something interesting. Aristophanes at the Adams House pool anyone? directed by Peter Sellars who went on to win a McArthur grant...</p>

80

<p>Jo7:</p>

<p>My S's suitemate is a Hispanic from a very very small town in TX. He seems to be very happy at Harvard. </p>

<p>My S has classes ranging in size from 10 to 280+. In one class, a brand new one, the estimated enrolment had been 60. 170+ students are now enrolled. The instructor scrambled to find enough TFs to avoid having to cap the class enrolment and was successful. My S so far loves that class and is very happy with the others as well, including the 280+ one.</p>

<p>LACs can be wonderful. But I note that my older S, who attended one, was shut out of classes he needed because of the emphasis on small classes (and lackof TFs). This happened several times, including in the second semester of his senior year and he ended up taking a class that was not a good fit. There simply was no other class in that field which he could take to fulfill the requirements (not a problem at larger schools where there are hundreds of courses offered every year). He would have much rather had been able to attend a larger class than one he had no interest in and in which he struggled. The point is there are pluses and minuses to both larger and smaller schools. </p>

<p>You may want to post your queries on the college specific board. On the Harvard Board, xjayz is a student involved in URM recruitment.</p>