BTW, @momprof9904, if your son’s friends put down UMD again, I’d have him remind them that Sergey Brin went there (for CS). It doesn’t seem like he’s done terribly badly.
It’s actually the case with my HS as well, which always sends a decent number of kids to Ivies/equivalents each year and some of them have become famous, but the ones who have done the best financially actually went to our public flagship, which is also strong in STEM.
@momprof9904, I’ll PM you.
@PurpleTitan When I was a math grad student at UMD, back in the prehistoric era, UMD was more of a party school for the undergrad kids from NJ/NY. Somehow people still hold on to these perceptions - and pass it down to their kids. I tell the Sergey Brin story to my kid - his father was a math professor (now retired) at UMD. Another maligned state university at our high school is UMass (aka zoomass).
Another type of disappointment that is happening more often now: DS1’s high stats friend used UMD as a “safety” CS school and was then shocked that they did not get into that program (applied after the priority date, figuring “no problem cuz I got great stats and so a safety for me” ). The high school GC’s are somewhat clueless - they still think these are safety schools, according to DS1. I think the issue is that the students get into the university but not into the specific program, so the data they use still shows a lot of acceptances.
Oh, yes, UMD takes the Priority Deadline VERY seriously for honors/merit money. Disrespect it at one’s peril!!
Yes, specific majors or divisions may be much more competitive than others, and admission stats based on the entire school can mislead.
It would help if more public universities published admission stats by major applied to, such as these examples:
http://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/impaction/impactionresultsfreshmen/
http://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/impaction/impactionresultstransfer/
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/transfers-major
@momprof9904 - two of my son’s closest and most intelligent friends are going to UMD (not necessarily same campus, though? I’m not sure) Anyway, I now wish we had looked at UMD. Would have been nice to have that option now. Tell him to ignore his friends. They don’t know what they’re talking about.
Here’s the profile on the current engineering school page for entering freshmen (HS Class of 2018) https://eng.umd.edu/facts-and-figures.
– scroll down page to Incoming Freshmen. The fact that they list the percentages of Honors and College Scholars is VERY significant. You need to apply by the priority deadline for consideration.
If you consider this a safety, proceed at your own risk.
Incoming overall freshman stats for UMD, HS Class of 2019:
For the Fall 2019 freshman class, we received nearly 32,000 applications for a class of 4,300. For students admitted for the Fall 2019 semester, the middle 50% of SAT scores ranged from 1320 to 1480, and 30-34 on the ACT. Admitted freshmen also earned an average weighted GPA of 4.33.
Something that I have been thinking about. Others may have written about it before, and if so, I analogize for repeating it.
Kids and parents spend way too little time is selecting Safety Colleges. Nobody seems to actually believe that they will be going to their Safety college, and so they make little to no effort in learning about the college. Sometimes it seems that whichever college is close by and has a high acceptance rate is tossed in as a Safety, and they’re done.
The same care should be taken when searching for safety colleges as are taken for match or a reach. In fact, it is probably worth putting even more effort into searching for the “right” safety college. If the kids cannot see themselves going to their safety and being happy there, I do not think that they should not be applying to it. If being accepted to a safety college means that a kid will take a gap year rather than attend, why are they even applying?
I know that GCs often have a student add a safety just for self esteem. so that a kid won’t feel that they were only rejected. However, after seeing so many kids here who feel that being accepted by “only” safeties is the same as just being rejected, I question the wisdom of that course of action.
There are so many options for safeties, especially for high stats kids. There are at least 25 flagship universities which have programs for kids of all academic abilities. UIUC, OSU, IU, UMN, Wisconsin, U Arizona, Rutgers, Iowa, UFL, just to name a few, are excellent places for any high stats kids, and they should take these universities as excellent options, not as places for “losers”. There are excellent LACs and regional universities where one can also enjoy all the benefits of an excellent education, even if one feels themselves to be of a higher order, academically.
Kids should choose one or two, and find things which they love there, and be excited about possibly being there. There’s geography or unique activities. Large colleges have an amazing array of things going on, and social groups. If you’re going to a place like OSU, you can bet that there is a group which is engaged in your most obscure hobby, and if not, there are enough kids who are interested that you can start such a group.
Even “prestige” only means what you decide it means. There are many many more alumni from public universities than there are from private ones, and they are just as proud of their Alma Maters. Your next boss is more likely a graduate of a state flagship or regional comprehensive than of an Ivy.
@MWolf, I think that kids are shaped by their HS too much. Being young, most just haven’t seen much of the world yet. Being teenagers, they feel they know better than old fogies behind the times; that is, anyone over 30 (definitely parents; I was the same way at that age).
In big HS’s will tracking, the best classes have the best students and often the best teachers so they think it’s the same in college, so they pay a lot of attention to overall test scores and prestige. Some times, the best programs aren’t easy to get in to either and they want to feel special (it’s the rare teenager who is secure and self-aware enough to be goal-focused rather than focused on signalling factors) so they seek schools with low admit rates and prestige or at least schools where the bulk of their peers aren’t going. And many don’t seem to realize that the admit rate for certain majors isn’t close to the overall admit rate for a college.
Another factor, at least among immigrants, is that many come from countries where college prestige does matter a lot and what uni you go to at 18 could determine the path your life (unlike the US where there are many paths to almost any goal).
The idea that a school like Arizona (which takes in almost everyone) has some departments that are among the best in the country and a good number of majors that are easy to get in to yet lead to high-paying jobs would blow their mind.
“I think that kids are shaped by their HS too much. Being young, most just haven’t seen much of the world yet. Being teenagers, they feel they know better than old fogies behind the times; that is, anyone over 30 (definitely parents; I was the same way at that age).”
I definitely think peer pressure can be part of it. It also works with parents as well. Someone mentioned the “lunchroom” talk that occurs. It just doesn’t take place in the lunch room. It takes place among parents as well who should be able to discern what is value and what is merely “keeping up with the Jones”. When a student has their peers and their parents pushing an elite school education what chance does value really have when choosing their education opportunities? I think the media and people in general focus far too much on where they attend than why they attend. There was a poster on a different thread who indicated it really bothered them that the school they were choosing wasn’t more selective. The school was a terrific school for what they wished to study. I felt sad for the student because in my opinion the priorities were wrong and it seemed they felt diminished by their selection.
@Ivvcsf, attitudes seem really region-dependent as well (as well as dependent on country of origin among immigrants).
Here in the Midwest, while the Ivies/equivalents are held in high esteem, some parents are quite proud of the full-tuition/full-ride scholarships their kids got.
And I’ve mentioned before that parents from countries where where you go to college determines the course of your life put a high emphasis on rankings, Canadians find the American obsession over where to go to college/where you went to college to be downright weird.
Well, we make college seem like it’s the be all and the end all and we make it seem so fun and amazing. I mean look at college sports: the tailgating, March Madness, the Bowl games, homecoming, all the alumni who deck themselves and their houses and cars in the school colors. Some states even offer license plates that have the mascot of the state flagship. We make going to a college like joining a tribe. I know USC (univ of southern cali) alums who go to every game. My niece has a USC themed room in her house. My D lives in Reno and she sees so many University of Nevada license plates and whole families who’ve gone to UNR. In Southern California USC is like Gryffindor in Harry Potter!
I know kids who want to go to USC or UCLA just be part of all the rah rah school spirit. At USC they say you’re part of the Trojan Family. A friend of my D’s, her family has an RV in Texas A&M colors, and they tailgate at every game. To a lot of kids that looks like so much fun…
I’m not saying this is bad, but it might contribute to kids being upset when they don’t get into certain schools. It is FOMO and being hurt because you can’t be part of that tribe…
I personally don’t like to concept of a “dream school.” I thought the whole point of college, was to study, get a degree, and make your dreams possible later on. Isn’t college the stepping stone towards your dreams? The thing that makes your dreams come true? College is just four years of your life…
@natty1988 I could not agree with you more about “dream schools”, for exactly the same reasons - a college is not a goal, but one of the ways in which you can achieve your goals, or even just figure out what your goals are.
@MWolf very true!
My D is only a junior but I can already see the disappointment coming next year amongst some of my closest friends. They have kids in the same HS and are have started their college visits. Their kids have very similar stats to mine and they all seem to be looking at reaches or as I call some of them “no chance in hell”. They think their kids stats align with the acceptance stats when they are barely in the 25% range and their rigor is one or two AP’s or honors. When they ask me why my D isn’t looking at higher ranked schools I simply say that we are trying to find somewhere she’ll be happy. Our HS is public but considered “prestigious” so they all think this is going to give them some big bump in admissions. From what I’ve heard it does help but it’s not going going to get you in if you are at or below the 25th percentile at any school.
Sometimes I get so frustrated with them because I feel like they are doing their kids such a disservice. One of them went on a spring break trip and saw 7 schools. I’d say 2 were a high match and the other 5 were compete reaches. Seemed like a complete waste of time to me but they somehow seem to think they are matches. I guess I just need to bite my tongue and worry about my own D. They are all successful college graduates but don’t seem to understand how the landscape has changed in the past 20-30 years at all. I’m sure my D will be rejected at some of her match schools and probably at any of her reaches (if she applies to any) but we’ll make sure she has somewhere that she’ll be happy to attend.
So I totally see where all the disappointed threads are coming from. Most of the parents & students I know are simply not doing their due diligence.
The personalized plates are fundraisers for the universities. In the case of UCLA,
You can similarly buy breast cancer plates, Snoopy plates, Nat’l Parks plates. The proceeds from the special interest plates support different organizations from the Coastal Commission, Yosemite, Tahoe, firefighters, veterans, etc. https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/online/elp/elp
@lkg4answers I know and I think that’s great. But, I can see the appeal to high school kids!
Finding a safety to love is not easy, but every student can do it. Those who can’t aren’t trying hard enough and/or are limiting their search to a small fraction of the school’s in this country.
Some students may have trouble finding safeties, but they are usually not the ones posting here with top end stats, parents with plenty of money to contribute, etc… The ones with trouble finding safeties would be students in rural areas not in reasonable commuting range of colleges, from low income families in states with poor in-state financial aid, and with academic stats that are not sufficient for the few automatic full ride merit scholarships that still exist. But most of the disappointment threads are not from the latter kind of student.
But then some students with top end stats apparently think that anything that could possibly be a safety is “beneath” him/her. Hence either not applying to any safeties or feeling disappointed when getting into only safeties and not wanting to attend any of them. (However, it is also the case that many post-college or parent posters who frequent the forums have strong pro-elite-college and pro-private-college tendencies, sometimes moderated only by cost limits.)