<p>Planning an east coast trip to look at schools and realizing that we need some match/safety schools for our rising senior son who is a bit quirky. Pertinent info:</p>
<p>He wants to be a physicist
Dislikes english/soc sci courses and would be happy if he never met another one in his life<br>
Standardized scores at least average at top tier schools, good gpa
EC are weak other than being a nationally rated fencer, good for Div III, marginal for Div I
Underrepresented state where cows outnumber humans by a good margin
FA not an issue</p>
<p>His dreams schools are Caltech/Harvey Mudd/MIT, but beyond that??? </p>
<p>We've looked at U of Chicago (not sure he'd survive the Common Core), and we'll look at Brown, but we're in severe need of match/safety schools. He wants a strong physics program, prefers smaller schools that are not too hilly or have too many trees (did I mention quirky?), not fond of big cities, and not in the South. Unfortunately, when you fall in love with a dream school, everything else pales in comparison.</p>
<p>It doesn’t agree with your last paragraph - it is in a big city (which you don’t even notice really if you stay on campus) and it is a decently big school. And it’s technically in the south (though Atlanta, while situated in the south, does not have the “southern” thing going for it).</p>
<p>On the other hand, everything else matches. It has an excellent physics program, only requires a couple of english and soc sci classes, and has an awesome fencing club. Oh, and we’re all “geeky” here =)</p>
<p>Let me know if you have any questions about the school… and best of luck searching!</p>
<p>Consider Carnegie Mellon, University of Rochester, Case Western, Johns Hopkins, SUNY Stonybrook, University of Maryland CP - merit aid possible at some.</p>
<p>Well, it’s on a hill but I’ll still recommend RPI. My SIL, who is quirky, geeky and wonderful, majored in physics there many years ago. Two of my BILs went for Engineering. They all have fond memories. </p>
<p>I think it helps to either play hockey (at any level) or like to watch it!</p>
<p>I was going to suggest RPI,Lehigh, WPI, and Stevens Institute of Technology, but RPI and Lehigh are very hilly, and WPI and Stevens are in cities (Stevens has an amazing view of Manhattan). Are these really dealbreakers?</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions. Some names I didn’t know about to research. That’s great. Not sure how much of a problem hills are. I know Berkeley and Cornell both fell off the list based on size and hills. And to think the kid has lived all his life in the shadow of Rocky Mtn.</p>
<p>If your son would consider a small liberal arts school, you might consider Grinnell College in Iowa. Although it’s a liberal arts school, there are no requirements except for one freshman seminar–so, he can take what he likes. The school has amazing science facilities, many built with donations from an alum who started Intel. </p>
<p>^^^ Yes, I’ve been thinking about Grinnell, but hadn’t looked into them specifically. I think they’re rapidly becoming more popular due to ready availability of merit aid, and hence more difficult to get into. We will put it on the ‘explore’ list.</p>
<p>Batllo: Apparently trees are not a problem in and of themselves but ‘too many’ trees (a la UC Santa Cruz) are a problem. They remind him too much of his camps in MN (which he enjoyed, BTW) and the apparently horrible vacations we made him go on in the various National Parks. It would be funny if it wasn’t my kid.</p>
I believe this is because of his attitude, not his ability (based on his test scores and GPA). His dream schools require 8-9 courses in humanities/social sciences to graduate. At least 1 class per semester is needed. I hope he can change. Humanities and SS are taught differently in college and they can be an advantage for him.</p>
<p>Actually, he’s willingly taking all the honors/AP english/history courses that his school offers and taking his (only) B’s in them. He has a good attitude but doesn’t enjoy them. I think he’s far from unique in this respect among math/science nerds. He’s aware that he is most likely going to have to take some and is very accepting of that. I put that line in to indicate that something like the Core at U of Chgo (which I went thru), is not his cup of tea.</p>
<p>Dislikes english/soc sci courses and would be happy if he never met another one in his life </p>
<p>This was my son! He entered Case as an engineering student and unbelievably is entering senior year as a dual degree student in engineering and a humanity. He is as shocked as parents and former teachers are. I swear somewhere along the line neurons fired up on the other side of his brain. He is finding the humanity courses a relief from problem sets and truly enjoying them. Go figure. An advantage of Case is this is a school where it is very easy to do dual majors and degrees. Many of DS’s hard core science/engineering friends there have ended up doing just that. Case has a one door admission policy, so applicants do not apply to the engineering school or sciences (such as at Carnegie Mellon).
About the stairs-those “elephant stairs” are aptly named!</p>
<p>second spring: that was actually me in college. Went in as a science major, came out as a science major, but then got a Masters in a Humanities field afterwards for the love of it. Making a living in the sciences though. I was hoping my son could attend U of Chgo and perhaps undergo the same ‘awakening’ but the more I looked at him, the more I realized it was just not him and he would be unhappy. I’ve made peace with that: he is who he is.</p>
<p>Caltech won’t remind him of his camps in MN. Carnegie Mellon is in a residential neighborhood so perhaps it won’t be too city-like, but it’s definitely in a city. (If he has 5’s on humanities and social science APs he can get out of most of his distributions requirements.) My son had to take freshman English, a technical writing course and one semester of world history - that was it. Everything else is comp sci or physics. </p>
<p>WPI and RPI are both in decaying small cities but the immediate neighborhood is nice. While both campuses are on top of hills - there’s not much up and down on campus that I can recall, and they are small enough that nothing is a huge hike. We didn’t look at it, because it’s hard for us to get to the midwest, but I’d look at Rose-Hulman and also Case. Brown and Vassar don’t have distribution requirements, but I’m not sure that you need another reach for the first, or that the fit is good for the latter.</p>