<p>OP, if I were you I would have her apply ED to Columbia and EA to Chicago. End of story, probably. She would be admitted to a school that she would love, and would know this in December. But you can have some of these other apps ready to go in case there is a deferral.
The GC might “split up” the ED applications from her school so that the students are not competing with one another.</p>
<p>How do GCs “split up” ED applications? Talk them out?</p>
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<p>That is a very sensible plan. i like it. I think she needs to visit Columbia again though and also U Chicago. And yes – probably start talking with her GC as soon as she gets home from summer program (mid-August).</p>
<p>I just have a sneaking suspicion that an LAC might be wonderful for her and she’s never even visited one. I want to make sure we give her the opportunity to really ponder the options and there is so little time. The year went so quickly! Where did the time go?</p>
<p>OP - Rice is a great school. Houston has the advantage that its a southwest airlines hub city and so there are lots of cheap flights (great for your D and for visiting parents!). I assume you live in NJ form your posts; flights from Newark to Houston Hobby cost ~ $170 (each way) when booked a couple of weeks in advance of a flight.</p>
<p>Rutgers has one of the top sociology dept in the country. The school gets a bad rap in-state, but it’s a great school. It was the ‘R’ word that could not be uttered in our house until September last year when D1 realized it had one of the top-rated pre-vet programs and one of the highest vet school admission rates in the country. We visited on Oct 1, she applied at the end of the month, was accepted 4 days later. End of college search & application process - one and she’s done. </p>
<p>Your daughter really needs to consider Rutgers. The College Ave campus is beautiful. She could opt to live in the all-female Douglas Residential College and create life-long friends and access an amazing alumni network of women. Did I mention that a 2250 SAT makes you eligible to be considered for the full-ride Presidential Scholarship? </p>
<p>All the kids I know at Rutgers, whether it was their first choice or safety (financial or academic) love it. I’ve lashed out at a few people that made snarky comments at why D1 ‘settled’ for Rutgers. If they had done their research they would know it’s an amazing school for kids that know what they want.</p>
<p>PS - she will be living on campus in the Douglas STEM dorm. I can’t imagine a bright kid wanting to live at home for college unless there were financial or social issues preventing it. We live 40 minutes w/o traffic from campus, but I would have never considered having her live at home. I’m amazed at the number of people that ask me if she was going to live at home. Please I’m counting the days until August 26!</p>
<p>sewhappy,
I would NOT advise visiting Rice or USC in Aug [ unless its late Aug for USC, when
fall classes have already started] because there will be few kids around and its hard to get a "feel "for a campus that empty[ not to mention it will be HOT and muggy in Houston!!!] .
Re LAC vrs university-
when DS started thinking about college, small LACs, far from home, were at the top of his initial “must have” list. So how did he end up at a big university in his home state ?[ excluding the full tuition scholarship he received?] As time went on, it became apparent that there would be many more opportunities to take more upper level classes and advanced classes[ i.e. grad level courses] at a university, as well as more opportunities to do serious research at a U, especially in the summer. Research could be a really big ++ for your D when applying to med schools. The distance did not end up really mattering at all[ son drives home most of the time, so it ended up being 7 hrs travel time anyway… MD’s moms’s DD will [ I believe?] be at USC, and the fact that Southwest flys into all the LA airports there will make travel relatively easy for DD[ and her]</p>
<p>I don’t know if ED is the best option for someone whose interests are as diverse and protean as your daughter’s–generally speaking, if you don’t really know what you want to study and how, and if you don’t have a dream school you definitely like more than all others, applying ED is a bad idea–but applying EA to UChicago looks like a no-brainer to me. I also agree that she sounds like she would excel at a liberal arts college. Wesleyan and Bryn Mawr are my suggestions. Her options are limited by her narrow geographic preferences, though.</p>
<p>On the subject of research opportunities at LACs vs research universities, eh. Some people are giving well-intentioned but slightly misinformed advice. One, there is plenty of research to be done at LACs. No, most of the time it’s not cutting-edge, but it’s well supervised, and a useful enough learning experience. Two, I know that my school at least regularly sends students to research universities like Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, Notre Dame, etc. for the summer–Reed’s lookbook even mentions internships at CERN–and I imagine the same is true for other LACs as well. I am sure your daughter would have no problem finding research opportunities at or through her school.</p>
<p>Iglooo, yes they talk it out to split up the ED apps. It makes so much sense.</p>
<p>Just a hunch but she may be a LAC-type person. Some very good ones, strong in social sciences and with a strongly academic-intellectual orientation (i.e., producing lots of graduates who go on to earn Ph.Ds), and within a short distance from NJ would be Swarthmore, Haverford, Vassar, and Wesleyan. I wouldn’t take a lukewarm response to Swarthmore as an indication of how she’ll feel about the others. Some people love Swarthmore, others not so much. My D1 was cool toward Swarthmore but absolutely loved Haverford and Wesleyan, applied to Haverford ED, was accepted, and just finished a very successful freshman year there. No regrets: she feels it was absolutely the right school for her, small, intimate and supportive but deeply challenging and opening new intellectual vistas.</p>