<p>My daughter is a straight A student but only a freshman. She goes to a very small Christian school and loves computers and math. She is already thinking of college but says she really wants a small school. She is a huge introvert type A person who loves Dr.Who, Warehouse 13, Buffy ect. I really have to push her to do activities because she thinks getting good grades should be enough and wants to spend her free time in her room on her computer and watching her shows. I really would like some suggestions of schools that have good CS/IT programs where the kids are nerdy like my DD. Thank You very much.</p>
<p>seems we need a new USNWR ranking: nerd quotient.</p>
<p>but seriously it is a bit early to be selecting colleges because we don’t have enough information about your D’s academics and interests. Your D needs to continue her focus on her coursework and you can probably help her with her socialization. Explain to her that IF she is to go to college, she will need to help pay for college. Good grades are helpful, as are high SATs, but extracurricular activities are essential. Tell her the truth: colleges want to see all three skills in the students they reward with good financial aid. Start her off with encouraging her to volunteer a few hours a week helping people at nursing homes, hospitals, daycares, etc. Then insist on a regular bedtime when all electronic devices get shut off and/or confiscated; she’s going to need more sleep as she grows up. Next, if she really is into CS/IT and it’s not simply her favorite obsessive compulsive activity, encourage her to pursue her CS interests this summer at a local high school or community college. The goal here is to help her to find interests outside of her room and outside of her self. This will not be easy to do because she’s become comfortable with the status quo. Unfortunately, the status quo will limit her college options. As a parent, you will need to turn more and more of this effort over to her as she gets older. Keep holding the goal out there in front of her and allow her to find ways to reach for it. This might not be easy.</p>
<p>It is way to early to look at specific schools. Your D might change and grow a great deal between now and senior year. When the time comes, I’d suggest visiting schools to find ones where she will fit in. You might want to consider some more technical type of schools as well as LACs that have engineering/strong science. Again, it is just too early.</p>
<p>However, I would strongly suggest that your D get involved in some type of extracurricular activities she can enjoy either at school, at church, or in the community as colleges look for students who are active and involved in addition to being strong students. Doing this could help her socially as well as providing important college credentials.</p>
<p>Your daughter sounds like my daughter’s friends (I find it funny because my daughter is totally artsy/humanities oriented, but her friends are all mathy STEM kids.) My daughter loves those TV shows too. Colleges her friends are looking at include: MIT, RPI, WPI, Harvey Mudd, Bates, Tufts, and others. </p>
<p>I agree that it’s too early to start making an actual list, because you don’t know what her GPA and test scores are going to look like, hence what realistic schools will be, and you don’t know how her passions and interests will evolve. However, I don’t think it’s too early to be thinking about college in general (my D was) and looking forward to it. It can certainly be a good motivator when you’re faced with a boring class you don’t feel like doing the homework in! </p>
<p>I think it’s tough to find the right balance these days between working towards college and just being a high school kid. For certain, there are a lot of kids who worry way too much about college applications too soon… they load up their schedules with a bunch of meaningless EC activities they don’t really care about, take more high-level classes than they can really handle, etc. So that’s no good. But on the opposite side of the spectrum, it’s a shame when kids get to senior year and really want to get into a good school, and realize that some decisions they made for no real reason, like dropping out of a club or sport or not taking that extra class they were actually interested in, make them less desirable to the school they want to go to. The whole application “game” is unhealthy, I think.</p>
<p>It really makes the most sense, I think, to look at your high school decisions mainly from the standpoint of doing what is TRULY interesting and also CHALLENGING to you. Ideally, if a student actually does that, they wind up with a transcript that perfectly matches what their ideal college wants: something that shows they challenged themselves at their appropriate intellectual level, and that they spent their free time pursuing things they were actually passionate about. But, yeah, it probably helps to know what colleges are looking for as far as grades, classes, and ECs, and keep that in the back of your mind as ONE factor when making academic and EC decisions in high school.</p>
<p>My daughter started identifying what she wanted in a college around spring of her sophomore year. To give you an idea of how much kids change, though, as an early sophomore she was certain she wanted to go to a large university in a big bustling city. She was sure she’d be in NYC or Boston at least. By one year later she’d realized that what she REALLY wanted was a smallish liberal arts college with really smart, nerdy, intellecutal types in a more rural environment. HUGE change! What helped her narrow that down? We did a very casual “college tour” during spring vacation her sophomore year. We drove around New England and down to NYC and visited a very wide variety of campuses. We didn’t take tours, just walked around and got the “vibe”. By fall of her junior year she was narrowing her list.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Thanks for the advise but I’m just trying to think of colleges we might visit the summer before junior year. This summer is already completely booked up with family plans so trying to figure out possible places to visit next year. We live in central MN so except for some schools near Minneapolis we have to travel. While I know things are never set in stone this child puts herself mind on something and rarely changes (sometimes that’s a bad thing) and will do everything she can to see it thru. So far she is interested in visiting Rochester School of Technology but was hoping for some input from parents that more about schools than I do. In the meantime I will continue to work on her to get out more but she is very stubborn. </p>
<p>well, you could do a tour of several types of schools within a couple hours of home: one LAC, one medium uni, one large state uni. She could get a feel for the different vibes at such campuses. If you’re quite remote from colleges, your family and a girlfriend’s family might tag team the college tours to cut down on time and expense. Having a girlfriend along might help her to imagine herself away from home and living with peers. Or not. Hang the prospect of going away to college in front of her and let it lead her out of her room and into ECs.</p>
<p>You have quite a few colleges within a day’s drive: have her compare UMN-Morris and UMN-Twin Cities, Macalester, Hamline, St Kate’s, Augsburg, St Olaf, Carleton, St Cloud, Mankato, St Mary’s in Winona, and if you can drive a bit further East, UWI Oshkosh, La Crosse, Beloit, Ripon, Lawrence (very good for physics, great R1 program that matches R1 researchers with students); driving west, South Dakota School of Mines (very good STEM school) and Augustana; driving south, Grinnell, Luther, UDubuque, Wartburg. All of these are very different in vibe and selectivity (Grinnell, Carleton, Macalester being highly selective, St Olaf very selective, all 4 meet 100% need.)</p>
<p>Now, tech schools in the East: how about she fills out “request info” or “join the mailing list” for
RIT, RPI, WPI, Stevens, NYU Poly, Smith, Barnard (combined program with Columbia), , Bryn Mawr (for the 4+1 with Penn). Plusd U Rochester, in addition to RIT - URochester is not a tech school but it’s very strong in the sciences and has a lot of “science” types.
<a href=“Engineering | Smith College”>Engineering | Smith College;
And if she’s really exceptional, MIT, Princeton Engineering, Swarthmore, Columbia</p>
<p>Have you got at least enough money set aside for her 4 years at your state flagship? I’d suggest running the
NPC for a few schools to get a sense of how much you will need and also to see what kind of financial aid is available if your daughter continues to have straight As and SAT/AP scores to match.</p>
<p>This summer I was planning on taking her on the private school tours for our state. Will visit Macalester for sure, St.Thomas, St.Kats and St.Mary’s for sure. I need to check into South Dakota School of Mines to see if there is a program she wants to explore then will visit. My DH needs at least 6 months notice to get time off from work and he wants to take DD on college road trip thus trying to come up with a general idea where we might like to visit and how long of a trip to take. Bradley in Ill. also sounds like a good school for her at least on paper. With my oldest DD I thought Earlham would be the perfect fit but when we visited it was a solid no! After this DD takes her PSAT in the fall I’ll get a better general idea what her possible ACT or SAT might fall in line. Thanks for all the advise.</p>
<p>I guess I should also explain that we qualify for zero financial aide so another reason we want to start a list of schools so we can weed out the ones that we consider too expensive. CC is a wonderful resource for us to get information on schools we might not otherwise have heard of.</p>
<p>While I agree it is probably too early to ‘make a list’, I don’t necessarily think it is too early to stop and look at campuses as you drive around. Whenever we would travel for vacation or anything else, I made it a point starting about my son’s Freshman year, to make sure we at least drove around the campuses we saw so he would have some sort of ‘image’ of what the school looked like. In the end, it made it a little easier for him to vocalize what kind of school he wanted when the time came. </p>
<p>OP, all we did at your stage was visit some nearby schools, for the feel, when we were near. We started with two biggies (one for rep, one near there for size.) and most of the rest were medium to smaller. No pressure. We didn’t initially go by fit, but to let them feel the atmosphere. What’s this sort of campus like, what’s the cafeteria about. (Ha, what D1 really cared about was a look at the libraries- impressed when full of kids.) Their decision points can change a lot up to late junior year, they can sway even more in the final 6 months. </p>
<p>Two tips, keep it low key for now or they get overwhelmed. One or two is fine right now. And do not let her get an idea some school is her dream, so it colors every other reaction. In fact, I was worried when, early in the game, I took her along on one of my trips and thought about showing her one of my favorites, a gorgeous school she would adore. I worried other schools would pale, in comparison.</p>
<p>My son is sort of like your daughter, and we decided there are really four types of schools strong in computer science/engineering:
- Large state flagship schools – our state school is our son’s safety, though he would prefer smaller. State flagships will mostly offer little merit aid out-of-state students, so unless your EFC is around $60k a year anyways, they could cost more. But if your EFC is around $50k or higher, I think they can be cheaper than private. They also are very much weed-out programs, in my opinion, and tend to have huge lectures.
- Techie Schools – these are out there for all levels of student, from MIT, Cal Tech, Olin, and Harvey Mudd at the top; RPI, WPI, Stevens, RIT come to mind but many others as well. Admissions will be VERY interested in a girl in a tech field, and the ones below the top group will often offer lots of incentives for girls to attend (and all of them I believe have much higher admission rates for females) because the male to female applicant rate is probably 4 or more to 1. Now before anyone jumps on me, I know these all have a totally different vibe from each other, but gender balance is forever an issue. A few of these are co-op focused, which may or may not be of interest.
- (slightly) Nerdie Schools – these schools have strong tech, but also other strong programs that help balance the genders out. Carnegie Mellon is a good example of this.
- Strong all-around schools – schools good at everything. Be careful here, though because some top schools Princeton, Harvard, etc. may get ranked higher than they should in undergrad technology fields. Make sure the school has strong computer science if you go that way – Santa Clara is right in Silicon Valley and has solid engineering, but CS is almost non-existent. Cornell is a good example.</p>
<p>LACs (liberal arts colleges) My impression is that the LACs (except Mudd) are really not strong in true Tech programs. There may be exceptions, but we blew off this category for being too few of students anyways.</p>
<p>One other thing I would add – a number of these schools park computer science in the Arts and Sciences, and require lots of foreign language studies, which completely removed them from my son’s list: Duke, BU, NYU, and UNC come to mind. Also, the ones where CS is parked in Engineering require lots of math (which was OK for us).</p>
<p>Also, I think you should also have her spend a few hours and take a practice PSAT to get an idea what numbers you are looking at. I am suggesting it because if she has all > 700, versus all around 550, the set of schools on her list is very different. She can certainly study to improve this, but it will change your targets quite a bit.</p>
<p>Thanks. She will study this summer for PSAT in the fall. Also she will attend a Web design summer camp, fun and lets her check out the a little of the field. I want her to have fun and this is the program she was most interested in. So far she likes the looks of RIT but has a lot of time to look and depending on scores a better idea where her chances are. Not looking to send her to super competitive schools like MIT, Mudd, ect… It would be nice to find a good second tier school when the time comes.</p>
<p>If she wants to study STEM, Harvey Mudd is a good school and less competitive for girls, but there’s also the option of applying to Scripps and taking classes at Mudd. Although not one of the 7sis, Scripps is considered to be of that caliber.</p>
<p>FWIW, I feel like CC makes it looks like every student who gets into a top school is hyper-involved with 23,000 activities and is the president of at least a thousand of them, but that’s not the case. Colleges definitely want to see involvement, but focused involvement in a few passions is just as good (and perhaps better, for some) than involvement in a thousand things.</p>
<p>If she doesn’t want to volunteer, she doesn’t have to - a lot of people do not. But if she does, one thing she can do is teach computer skills at the local library. She could also volunteer with the media specialist in an elementary school library - even if they don’t have a formal program, I volunteered in college and they were overjoyed to have the help. Some kids build computers in their spare time without being in a formal club - that’s an EC. Some kids code applications or do white hat hacking - those are ECs, too. Colleges don’t just want kids involved in a vortex of ECs; they want to see thought and passion.</p>
<p>I’m going to buck the trend a little and say that I don’t actually think it’s too early to look at schools, as long as you know that the makeup of the list will probably change between now and senior year. But it’s good to have a carrot, so to speak, to motivate her when she doesn’t want to do anything. In addition to the suggestions of MIT, RPI, WPI, and Harvey Mudd, I also suggest Carnegie Mellon and Colorado School of Mines.</p>
<p>Close by schools in Minnesota might be St. Olaf, Carleton and Macalester. They’re all small liberal arts colleges that are actually located pretty close together.</p>
<p>LACs (liberal arts colleges) My impression is that the LACs (except Mudd) are really not strong in true Tech programs.</p>
<p>Well, it depends. If you want a “tech” program that is true, but computer science is a liberal arts major, and most LACs have CS - and many LACs have excellent CS programs.</p>