Please please please- for the sake of family sanity- define up front what “some sort of a scholarship” is. Actual dollars.
The veterans here cringe at the idea of “some sort of a scholarship”. We will have a flood in the next two weeks of kids who have gotten “some sort of a scholarship” to most favorite college- 5K, 10K- and parent was thinking 20K, 25K, and is now urging, encouraging (forcing?) the in-state public which will be less than half the cost of even the most generous offer.
I get that having to do this much math so early in the game is painful and deflating (takes all the romance out of the process, right?) but you will be saving your son SO much mental anguish by defining the rules of the road ahead of time.
We can all suggest colleges which would love to have your son, and throw 5K at him because he’s so special- but if that number doesn’t work for you we are all wasting our time.
This is how we did it for our older kid and it worked ok - she was personally offended at the 5K “scholarships” from some schools, haha, and chose a place with more merit aid. The kids know what we can afford, and that they’ll have to make up the difference with scholarships and loans… but that we won’t let them take out giant loans that hobble them for the rest of their lives. Another thing that helped with our first kid was that she didn’t have an absolute favorite … I think that makes things harder. Thanks for the advice!
Hard to beat UNC. Chapel Hill has a very strong UF culture and several of the kids on the UNC UF teams grew up in Chapel Hill. I know one of the kids on Darkside (well, I know his mom, I doubt he would know me anymore). They are a really dedicated crew.
Tulane, Florida Tech, Christopher Newport, and UNC-Asheville are all midsized schools that I saw on some of the men’s lists for ultimate frisbee over the years.
thank you for helping me and my son to create a list of sorts when I wrote back in March. Just thought I’d reply now that he has focused his looking a little more and see what you think of his list/strategy.
SAT came back very very good, and he’s on an internship now at our flagship univ with a physics professor and doing well. So - though nothing is for sure (at all! I know!) we at least hope he’ll have some options. He has now decided he’d be okay with colder weather, but the frisbee still has to be there - or at least nearby (he says big cities tend to have good teams around he could play with). He is also interested more in experimental physics than theoretical, so looking to make sure faculty are involved in that sort of research.
U of AZ
CU Boulder
Cal Poly
UMD
Berkeley
MIT
Case Western
William & Mary
GA Tech
UNC-Ch (this is purely a frisbee choice)
Rice
Princeton
Miami of Ohio?
I am suggesting he also look at Franklin & Marshall, Texas Austin, Hamilton, Wake Forest, UChicago.
I think his “strategy” (if he has one) is to go to UMD unless he gets into one of the other really reachy-reaches and they give him some money. I’d love your feedback on his list. As always, please be kind. We are just figuring this all out!
But when I hear reachy, reachy, I hear Rice, Princeton, etc.
So - if he wants UMD over all the others, you can probably cull the list.
I also have to look back at your budget situation. Edit - I see full pay but also not super huge and you have many of those. You also say no west coast and have those. Back to budget - it sounds like you want money. An AZ if you have strong grades (unweighted) will be far more aggressive than Boulder.
It’s a lot of schools - nothing wrong with that as long as one will be a definite and affordable.
I only saw a PSAT - can you update stats since it’s 5 months later. Gpa, etc too and obviously some desires have changed given the list but it’d be helpful to see those too.
I have a feeling your list can be reduced based on what the student really wants.
How important is frisbee? If that is going to play into the decision at all, I’d add Brown - an outstanding academic choice with an excellent frisbee team (S22 has a friend who plays on their “A” team).
Chiming in to say that even though a college team might not have high level ultimate, many cities do have such teams, and he could try out for one of those. My daughter now plays on both her college team as well as a competitive women’s club team in the nearby city where her college is located. It’s made her summer on campus a happy situation, as the campus itself is full of high school students attending summer programs. Both types of teams offer excellent social support, but the nod goes to her college team which is an incredible community and where her best friends are. Don’t discount the social aspect of ultimate teams, as it makes it easy for these kids to find like minded peers, especially in a large university setting.
On the financial side, run NPCs on all the schools you are interested in and make sure they’ll be in range for what you can spend. In terms of loans, students can only borrow around $6500 in their own name, anything else needs a co-signer. There is no sense spending a lot of time applying to schools that won’t be in budget.
I think being told an SAT came back good (what does that mean) - and having no real info - and a list that somewhat contradicts the initial criteria - it’d help to get a reset with actual #s - and current desires including budget situation.
While I read full pay, I also read - would be hard to pay OOS tuition.
So I think we need a current descriptive of who the student is stat wise and what they seek to balance vs. your list.
I don’t know your budget, but if your son would be happy to attend U. of Arizona, then I think that’s a great safety as it’s very strong in physics and would give generous merit aid. I didn’t notice it in the top 25 ultimate frisbee schools list as mentioned in the source linked above, but if it’s on your list, I imagine it makes good sense.
I do like Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo for him as I think it hits a lot of his desires.
These are some other schools that you may want to consider. If I mention that they’re punching above their weight, I’m generally referring to this data on the number of undergraduate alums a university produces that go on to earn their doctorate. If I specify punching above their weight in physics, then I’m talking specifically about people who go on to earn PhDs in physics. Though the source has data going back decades, I only include data from 2000-2018 (the most recent data available on the site). This post also explains more about my use of the data. All of these schools were ranked in the top 25 for men’s ultimate frisbee (D1 or D3) at some point over the last 8-9 years.
Alabama-Huntsville: About 7200 undergrads, generous merit aid provided.
Colorado State: About 26k undergrads, and much likelier to give some good merit than CU
Duke (NC): About 6600 undergrads
Harvey Mudd or Pomona (CA): About 5k undergrads in the Claremont consortium, though the individual schools are smaller
Missouri S&T: About 5500 undergrads…this is a heavy hitter in the STEM world
Truman State (MO): About 3600 undergrads, another school that punches well above its weight overall, including in physics.
U. of Mary Washington (VA): About 3500 undergrads and punches well above its weight in physics
U. of Southern California: About 21k undergrads, and it’s one of the few Top X schools that still gives some good merit aid out
Washington University (MO): About 8100 undergrads
If he does suffer from bad rheumatoid arthritis, then I would definitely encourage him to carefully consider the climate of any school he’s considering.
Thanks all - Yes he needs help cutting down the list for sure. I think in terms of that he should apply Princeton OR MIT, for example. There are too many reaches on there so far.
He decided that west coast and colder weather is okay (the sunshine of Colorado and the outdoorsy stuff is very appealing). Case or Rochester would be harder, but I was trying to help him find “fits” for his stats that have good physics and frisbee.
Yes we are full pay. Yes Princeton and Rice are reaches - as are so many of these schools. 1560 SAT. Thanks for the idea of Brown… it’s maybe more left-leaning than he’d like, but he has mentioned its frisbee.
He just said the other night - I need to love the place too, in case I get injured and can’t play - so he’s pretty level-headed/clear thinking. But the community of ultimate is so so awesome… I can see why he loves it!
UMD is not his favorite, but it’s a school he thinks he can get into and it has good frisbee and good physics. I told him he needed to find a safety that he’d be happy to go to, and UMD is that.
Thanks for helping me think through this. I feel like I didn’t help my older daughter make a coherent list, so I’m definitely trying to do better this time.
Are people applying to 12-15 schools these days? That seems like so many! My older kid applied to 9.
In an article with testimonials from recent graduates of Hamilton’s physics program, the former students discuss their range of interests, which includes experimental physics:
And
Note that the basis of this article arose from national recognition by the American Physical Society of the featured professor’s contribution to the field of physics and his mentoring of students.
From an admissions standpoint I think your son has a good mix of reach, match and safety. You have not shared your budget (which is perfectly fine ) - it’s up to your family to figure out how much you want to spend. Has your son been able to visit many of these schools? As long as he has an affordable safety or two that he would be happy to attend, it’s perfectly fine to take a shot at the reaches.
From what I have seen, a lot of kids are applying to 15 or more schools. My S22 applied to a total of 8 schools EA and 1 ED. He had another 5 that he would have applied to if the ED hadn’t worked out for him. The only other thought I have in addition to looking into research availability, do a deeper dive into course availability and distribution requirements. There is a world of difference between the open curriculum of Brown and the core curriculum of University of Chicago. Public universities are going to give more credits for AP classes, which may enable him to get out of general Ed requirements. (Which may or may not be a bonus depending on the student)
I’m still a bit confused - what’s his GPA? What’s his rigor. What’s his SAT breakdown - I ask because it’s 25/75 split is 780/800 at MIT.
We can’t talk about target and reach until we know about the student as a whole. There are kids and parents who “over rate” their kids - they have a 1550 but a 3.4 and that won’t get into a UMD, for example.
You say UMD is not his favorite. Depending on his GPA, Arizona can be as inexpensive - and it’s a top physics school So what school like UMD can be his favorite. @AustenNut brought up weather - does that matter? You are now talking about Hamilton, a small rural school and F&M, etc. You’re full pay but earlier said it’s hard for you to pay full pay OOS (emotionally I’m sure). Many are full pay but that doesn’t mean you’re willing to pay in full. Many full pay families set a limited budget.
So there’s too much going on - but we still don’t have a complete picture so it would help if you can share.
As for how many colleges to apply to - it could be 1 if he fell in love - let’s say Arizona since it’s a top physics program - or it can be 20. Each kid is different.
However, in the over four decades since the inception of the Apker Award (the preeminent national recognition for undergraduate research in physics), the University of Arizona has yet to produce a recipient.