<p>Hi zoosermom!
Thanks for the warm & fuzzy.... I needed it.. I'm not usually a lunatic who sounds like she is living vicariouly through her son, just sometimes mother lion instincts takeover. Anyway, thanks for being nice!</p>
<p>"Hi zoosermom!
Thanks for the warm & fuzzy.... I needed it.. I'm not usually a lunatic who sounds like she is living vicariouly through her son, just sometimes mother lion instincts takeover. Anyway, thanks for being nce!"</p>
<p>Hey, listen, you never know when a conversation may provide insight for someone like me who doesn't know what they don't know. Oh, and lunatic? Nah. You should see the political threads in the cafe.</p>
<p>Interesting thread! Details shouldn't worry and her H sounds like a very fine teacher. </p>
<p>I sympathize and have told this story before. My eldest didn't get his first choice but went to a strong second choice. In October of freshman year, he emailed, "If I could have known how happy I'd be here, this would have been my first choice all along."</p>
<p>My son had great scores and a great GPA, well-rounded course selection, but nevertheless his application screamed "I am a computer nerd!" He figured it was up to the schools to decide if that was what they wanted. He got rejected by some top schools and accepted by others. Like detail's son, it turned out fine - he's very happy where he is - which was not his number one choice.</p>
<p>I have no problem btw with tailoring an application to the school. My son was far too lazy/unimaginative to have done any such thing. :)</p>
<p>Wes is a fine school, but another difference between it and Vassar is size. This has an impact on student/prof relationships that are easier to develop at smaller schools. Neither one is better than the other. My son went really small--others would feel claustrophibic in a smaller school. He preferred Vassar to Wes, where he didn't even apply. We know quite a few people who have gone/are going to each school and all report high satisfaction.</p>
<p>Well, Vassar has around 2450 kids and Wesleyan around 2800. It's a difference but not much. This isn't Haverford (1150) or Swarthmore (1500), or even Williams (2000).</p>
<p>Regardless of size statistics, if I recall our tours correctly at both Weleyan and Vassar, nobody could feel claustrophobic in a Vassar dorm! The hallways are 20 feet wide, originally to allow two ladies with hoop skirts to pass by two other ladies with hoop skirts. If you admire the intelligence of Meryl Streep, she's a Vassar grad (undergraduate) before Yale Drama School. </p>
<p>My perceptions: Wes looked very strong academically and athletically, had the ethnomusicology gong, and great for film studies. I know someone who lefta prized NYU Honors to transfer to Wes. She was much happier at Wes than in the heart ofr NYC which she thought was for her. </p>
<p>Vassar and Wesleyan are two wonderful schools, as Mythmom says, lateral academically. A friend's kid, accepted both places, went to two overnights and found nuanced differences in social atmosphere that made him prefer Vassar, atlhough his folks wanted him to go to Wesleyan, I believe for the DivIII sports but I'm not even sure why they pressed him on it. He chose Vassar based on feeling "right" there, but perceived them equally academically.</p>
<p>WesDad: I believe the larger size of Wesleyan is something that Wesleyan enjoys. Calls itself a little university and has some grad students. </p>
<p>Like Williams and Amherst, people are usually pretty sure if they are Vassar kids or Wesleyan kids. (And if acceptances don't go their way can probably make the necessary adjustment.)</p>
<p>Some of the difference harken back to days as boys/girls school. I fell in love with Vassar's interiors, teas, etc. I don't think S cared that much about these things, but Vassar certainly does have some gentility from those days. I don't think Wes students would admire that.</p>
<p>Both are great, as are Williams and Amherst. These schools are really more like relatives than competitors.</p>
<p>S knew he preferred Williams; I knew he would. We went to both info. sessions. Both schools were pipe dreams because we didn't have his SAT scores yet. I said, "I know which would be better for you." He said, "I know, Amherst," staring sadly at ground. I said, "No, Williams. He whooped for joy, not having the faintest idea if he could be admitted to either.</p>
<p>I really don't completely understand this because I love the consortium and Northampton. But there it is.</p>
<p>Vas and Wes are kinda the same, though as details demonstrates, sometimes allegiances are forced to change.</p>
<p>details - if it's any consolation, rumor has it that the same thing happened to the child of a very well-known, best-selling author alum. He never forgave Wesleyan for the borne identity crisis. ;)</p>
<p>A few hundred students doesn't sound like much of a difference, but I'm told that around the 3,000 student mark is where a school starts to become one where personal relationships with peers is more the thing than with profs. Some students prefer one thing, some another. I like mythmom's description of these schools as relatives.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Therefore he refuses to label them as such,so as not to limit "how" he teaches.
[/quote]
Details, I'm surprised that any high school would give complete control over thsese decisions to one person. The AP designation is a type of control, along with the auditing process, to keep districts up to speed on what select schools are expecting from their applicants who truly are ready to jump ahead a bit & tackle an higher level course from the getgo. AP has its place. THere is a HUGE range of teaching competence out there, unfortunately. </p>
<p>However, the AP English courses are very different than the "survey" type entry-level college courses that the AP history, science, and math classes are designed to mimic. These courses HAVE to cover specific material in a very rigid format. AP English language, on the other hand, is very heavy in writing & understanding literary terms & identifying style elements. Any decent school offering a good honors English course in junior or senior year will prepare a kid for the AP exam. But if a kid's physics teacher skips fluid mechanics, or optics, the kid will suffer. Plus labs are required to have been completed.</p>
<p>my daughter went to a small private school that eliminated all APs two years ago for just the reason JHS points out. It served my daughter fine UNTIL she got to college.... she says some students entered with so many AP credits that they qualify as second-semester sophomores.... which is how they organize registration, so my daughter wasn't able to get into many classes her friends were. I don't know if it changes my mind -- I supported the school's move to eliminate APs, but it was something we had not considered...</p>
<p>Nothing is stopping a history buff, or the music wizz, from taking the exam, either. D's school lets their honors English juniors know that while the course isn't a designated AP, that most girls who decide to take the exam on their own score 5s.</p>
<p>After all those years on CC, I have yet to find a post that could establish beyond all reasonable doubt why a student was ... accepted. And this should be ten times easier than explaining why a student was not accepted. The short and the long of the story is that it is impossible! </p>
<p>Inasmuch as we all want to know the "why and how" behind the decisions made by a school, it's better to accept it and move on. It's also best to stop clinging to notions of "crapshoot" or other terms describing --or trying to describe-- how whimsical the process truly is. The reality is that none of us has a seat on the table where decisions are made --and those among us who do won't shed much light. What we see is only a partial view: incomplete and biased. We do not see the entire pool of applicants and do not pay too darn attention to the need of the schools to build a cohesive class of freshmen. And, last but not least, we tend to refuse that those "insensitive" people might know what is best for us. </p>
<p>All I know is that the system seems to work. You've heard from NewMassDad and his daughter's amazing success (and it's *really *remarkable) at Chicago after tasting the bitter flavor of non-acceptance. In addition, one could write a rather interesting article about the students who were not accepted by Yale in December 2003 and are about to graduate from one prestigious school after another! Curmudgeon, of course, added his own colorful rendition of the ups and downs of admissions!</p>
<p>As hard as it is to accept at the time it happens, it's amazing to see how the "bad news" becomes the best that could have happened!</p>
<p>I realize that this discussion morphed into something different, and that is fine. These discussions help a lot of people. </p>
<p>In case anyone was interested in the original post, I found some interesting information. As I mentioned, dd got a nice scholarship from a competitor school, but was flat out rejected from her first choice. A kind CCer pm'd me and suggested I look up the endowments of the two schools. I did, and found that the competitor school endowment was 8 TIMES the endowment of the first choice school. It has approximately 1,000 more students, but even taking that into consideration, it appears that first choice school has a small endowment in comparison.</p>
<p>I should have known this going in--totally dropped the ball on this one. We honestly figured that schools would accept her based on her stats, and we were aware she might not get a great package. We were willing to deal with it if that were the case.</p>
<p>Hope somebody learns something from our experience.<br>
Chocolate</p>
<p>Indeed, endowment reflects a school's ability to offer institutional need-based grants and merit scholarships.</p>
<p>Xiggi</p>
<p>I agree with you except that curm's D got only good news. She got into all kinds of schools and picked intelligently based on a full-ride and knowing she could get what she wanted there.</p>
<p>It is all grist for the mill.</p>
<p>chocolate,</p>
<p>Good advice. A zillion years ago I used that information when my daughter applied to a very top private school. She was accepted-- with 95% financial aid.</p>
<p>sticker shock,
I'm not sure what you're saying. My husband made this AP choice for his dept (english) not for the school at large. For many years he has consistently had students who have graduated and are attending great schools all over come back & tell him they were WAY more prepared for their college english courses than any of their peers who came from other schools. So I feel confident that his teaching is not substandard. Thanks for your concern</p>
<p>BethieVt, I was alluding to a direct quotation of our dear rancher:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>:p</p>