Please help me find a college for my daughter!

Parents Forum
1

Hi everyone - I’m a long-time lurker and have used CC’s great advice to help my oldest three choose the right schools. Now it’s time for the baby. (And, it occurs to me that perhaps I am no longer “too young for this!”

My youngest is a junior and we need a good, solid list of reaches, matches and safeties. Spring break is near and we need to schedule some visits! Unfortunately, her guidance counselor has not suggested a single school - but she is new so she just may not have the experience to do so.

Here are her details:

Highly-ranked public school in the Northeast
GPA: 3.95 (weighted - our school only provides weighted GPAs)
ACT: 31 (FWIW, very uneven, with scores of 35 and 34 in English and Reading and scores of 28 and 28 in Math and Science)
Will take a couple of SAT 2s in the spring in case she needs them - probably in Lit and History
Takes about 3/4 APs and honors this year, and will take all AP and honors next year.

Founder and president of a very large club at school, manages one of the sports teams but does not play, has a 15+ hour per week part time job (full time in summer), and reads to students in a low-income school for an hour each week. Started a small business where she sells homemade goods and uses profits for donation to various charities - has a website to support the business and take orders but it can get a little crazy trying to keep up with them sometimes.

She thinks she wants to be a high school teacher (she isn’t sure what subject yet, possibly history, English, or language) but she also has this interest in marketing - however, will not apply to a business school because she thinks her math isn’t strong enough to get into a good business school (which is ironic because she is currently taking calculus as a junior - but one of my other kids is a math whiz and I think she compares herself to him - and he did get a much higher ACT math score than she did). So, a school that has options and maybe doesn’t have a big core requirement (so that one can experiment) might be good.

She wants a medium-sized to large school with spirit - it doesn’t have to have a football team but should have lots of cool student traditions and just general fun happening on campus. She does want Greek life, although she is not one to go to a bunch of HS parties and drink a lot. But she also loves to learn and wants to be somewhere where the other kids love learning too and take it seriously. Location doesn’t completely matter, but she doesn’t see herself necessarily going as far as California (but is willing to look at Chicago or Wisconsin, for instance).

She is not shy but is also not one to toot her own horn, sometimes to a fault. For instance, I think the business she created is awesome, and I asked her if she mentioned it to the teachers whom she is asking for recommendations. She said that she thought the teachers appreciated that she was nice, respectful, a hard worker, and not a grade grubber, and telling them about the business would be like bragging. We live in a fairly small town, and some kids would probably call the local newspaper and get it publicized, and she would be mortified by that.

I hope this is helpful and thank you in advance for helping me with a list

2

Cost restrictions? Home state? Does she want to teach in her home state?

3

Thanks. She doesn’t know where she wants to teach and doesn’t want to let that drive the choice of school. No cost restrictions for now but with four kids, it’s always good to have financial safeties on the list of course.

4

Each state has different teacher licensure requirements. I was licensed in MA and then had to take a whole other year long program to get licensed in MN. When I moved to Canada, it took over a year to get licensed here. I would really recommend that your daughter think about where she wants to live before she decides on a school. The school will help with the licensing process in its state.

5

It’s probably a bit ambitious to expect that she will know where she wants to live at the age of 17. Some kids don’t even know what they will major in! You never know who you will meet along the way, where you will move, etc. Also, if she chooses a school in another state, she will possibly end up liking the state enough to stay there. So…leaving the education piece out of it since she is likely to have to get a master’s anyway, what schools would be good reaches, matches and safeties? Thank you!

6

You may need to double check this, but I am from NY and my understanding has always been that it’s very easy for teachers with degrees from NY and CA to teach in every state, but it can be difficult for teachers with degrees from other states to be able to teach in NY and CA. Like I said, you would want to double check, I’m not a teacher and my info could definitely be outdated (although I do have a neighbor who who moved here a couple of years ago and had a degree from either Massachusetts or Maryland and was peeved that she couldn’t easily teach here in NY)

I have friends whose kids are graduating seniors who are going to SUNY Geneseo, Nazareth, and St. John Fisher for education or business. Other schools they strongly considered were Keuka, St. Bonaventure, SUNY Cortland and SUNY Fredonia.

7

I empathize with you TYFT - I also have a kid who may want to be a teacher and there is so much focus on having her decide where she wants to live someday in the future! Who even knows if she will stick with the same major!

There are some colleges that seem to have 5-year bachelor-master programs in education, but we have decided to focus more on whether the college will be a good fit than whether it has that configuration, because she can always major in what she wants to teach and then get a masters’ in education.

So, here are my school suggestions:

Big reach but great education program - Vandy

Other reaches - Cornell, Northwestern, UNC (for out of staters)

Matches - Lehigh, UMD, Syracuse, BU, Texas A&M? GW?

Safeties - UConn, Penn State, Purdue, College of Charleston, Pitt, U Miami, Bucknell?

P.S. I’ve left SUNYs off of here but if you live in NY, they are a great value. SUNY Albany and Binghamton great schools, are probably matches to safeties, and are financial safeties.

8

Usually there is a state U that specializes in education. I would recommend that from your home state as a potential safety.

9

You mentioned Wisconsin, just you know, UW changed their secondary ed program. Now students are required to get their undergrad in their subject area then apply to a graduate program for lincecsure, that adds 3 semesters of graduate tuition to the cost of UW.

10

Cornell does not offer a teacher certification program for undergraduates. http://education.cals.cornell.edu/undergraduate/teacher-preparation

11

TooYoung…do you have financial restrictions? The list in post 6 is a costly list…except for that posters instate flagship.

12

Indiana.

13

“It’s probably a bit ambitious to expect that she will know where she wants to live at the age of 17.” - Y es and No. Although it’s hard to know whether kids that go out of state will come back, often the students that go to in-state schools don’t mind staying put after college.

It’s great if you get some school ideas. If not, don’t fret. Getting “sampler” of different factors is helpful, so it’s OK to start close. Your D probably does have a head start if she’s been on her siblings’ campuses, but now she can start her own discovery process. Good luck!

14

lots of good advice, if it were me I’d be looking specifically at the education programs and understand the licensing issues. Unless something has changed drastically, it was my understanding from talking with a bunch of teacher friends, at least in our state a masters when looking for the first job was more difficult because of the cost to the school, that it was better to secure the job then get the masters (to boost the salary)…but all states are slightly different .Another very good friend’s D graduated from a Big 10 school 2011, taught on an Indian reservation for one school year fall after graduation, then taught at a private school for one school year in upstate New York, and has now secured a job in her originally desired location in Chicago - so made her way to where she wanted to be within 2 years. I, too, would have the 'best" local state public for teaching as the safety and then look at the individual programs to build a list. For instance, I did not know Northwestern had an undergraduate program for gaining teaching certificates, I knew that they had a graduate/professional program so may be similar to Wisconsin…so look carefully at the undergraduate academics to make sure the college has an undergraduate track to obtain a teaching certificate.

15

@thumper‌ - see post 2 for OPs thoughts on cost.

I just thought of another one: Emory. Not sure if this is a reach or a match - anyone know?

16

Ok…with four kids, and no cost restrictions, the schools in the above referenced post will likely be full pay. This will range from the instate flagship cost of just under $30,000 a year…to about $60,000 a year.

17

UVM , solid school, beautiful campus, city and location, not too big, not too small. She will get some merit to knock price into high 30’s more than likely, apply early

18

Bucknell would NOT be a safety…

19

If she would come out west, the University of Oregon has a wonderful school of education, and seemingly everything else on her list.

20

You can calculate the unweighted GPA yourself. It might give you a better sense of what reach, match and safety would be. Do you know her rank? That can also be a helpful yardstick for how she stacks up compared to the rest of her class.

I like SUNY Geneseo - which is a smaller campus and sort of functions as an honors college within the SUNY system. Our elementary school principal liked Oneonta (but I hated the only teacher I know who graduated from there.)

I’ve also had friends who majored in other things as undergrads and did the Pace certificate program when they realized they wanted to be teachers.