<p>Might want to consider RPI or Worscester Polytech as possible safeties. Agree with everyone here-- even if her grades hadn’t “dipped” she has NO safeties on that original list. Unless you want to risk having her living in your basement next year, get some safeties on that list PRONTO</p>
<p>*** as an aside-- putting another serious plug in for Rice. My S had the same reaction when he set foot on campus, also applied ED and didn’t look back. Loved it Loved it LOVED IT!!! Perfect fit for him. He now does alum interviews in his area, and manned the Rice table at local college fairs. GREAT school!!! Go Owls!</p>
<p>I don’t usually search old posts but something about the OP seems off, and it is certainly hard to imagine that someone would only apply to the school OP listed and think there was a safety in there. My apologies if this is real, but I’m just not sure.</p>
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<li><p>The drop in grades (and they are still good, by the way) might be a sign of maturity. For a student to achieve like she has especially considering the dyslexia is a LOT. Since she doesn’t appear to be having other issues (drugs, depression), perhaps she sensed that she needed to dial it down a little to avoid a meltdown. That is a wise decision.</p></li>
<li><p>It’s always a good idea to have safeties. The admissions process is very competitive and with so many top students applying to certain schools many very well qualified students don’t get in. I do think that you should look over your possible safety list though. For example, NYU is a great school in many ways, but not the best option for a student interested in engineering.</p></li>
<li><p>This is a very stressful time for all of the HS seniors and sometimes the students who have had the top grades feel it even more as the expectations are so high. Even when the student herself and parents are relatively calm friends, classmates , teachers etc. put expectations (sometimes unrealistic) on these students. </p></li>
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<p>Re read aibarr’s terrific post which ends with this wonderful line.</p>
<p>Lastly, hug your D and let her know how proud you are of her. And good luck!</p>
<p>For someone who is really interested in engineering, a number of the large state schools in the Midwest would provide an excellent undergraduate education. I think someone mentioned Michigan already, but I will add Illinois, Wisconsin, and Ohio State to the list. An engineer would be better off at one of these than at some of the LAC-type schools that have high prestige. Also, the reading load in classes outside of engineering is likely to be a bit lighter at the large publics than at the top LAC’s.</p>
<p>Your daughter did not bomb out she is experiencing Senioritis. The timing could be very telling…Is it possible that the demands are just too much and she really may not want to attend the schools on her list? </p>
<p>Every kid needs a safety or two so you may want to find some that she could be happy attending. I am not saying this because she has a B- on her grade report but because kids are rejected from top schools with stellar stats every year and no kid should have all their eggs in the top of the barrel.</p>
<p>befuddled,
I feel that the message in your recent post was completely different than the message I received from your first post. I was basing, btw, my own responses on the Unknowns that I was picking up on in your OP. I certainly didn’t mean them, even interiorly, to be “cruel.” Sorry if mine came across that way. In my business, information is everything. One cannot make an original or new decisions without information. So I still say that the student in question may benefit from an atmosphere where information is given & received, not assumed. That goes not just for her current state of mind, but the wisdom of a revised college list, with her input, and making sure she’s on board with this new list. </p>
<p>That has some practical value, too: I agree with the poster who mentioned the psychic energy involved in coping with dyslexia. Folks, it’s true for all LD. It can be enormously draining. A student who is outwardly relaxed & has come to terms with college options will benefit internally from that as well. (Translation: it might improve her grades!)</p>
<p>Fine about the encouraging words received from the reaches:</p>
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<p>That’s recruitment talk or hook talk. Is she hooked? Because if not, I personally wouldn’t buy “assurances” in this college market – anytime in the last 7 years and current.</p>
<p>To the OP…I actually read the whole thread after I posted and I see that your daughter has dyslexia. I would also recommend that when you consider any additional schools you may want to think about a school that has support for kids with LDs. Engineering is a tough major, but it could be a good major for a very strong math and science type kid who happens to have dyslexia. </p>
<p>Sometimes kids send messages in the strangest ways and having four kids I have seen many. It really does sound like your girl is just trying to have some fun during her senior year but you do need to really hear that from her. I was also wondering with a major like engineering why some of those schools are on her list…she may want to add to that.</p>
<p>Above all…you are very proud of your daughter and you have every right to be. This drop in grades unfortunately is only one of those blips that come along. I hate to say this but the problem with raising great kids is that when they take a little tumble it seems so bad. I remember something a wise person once said “don’t put me on a pedestal because the fall will be too much for you to handle”. Right now you are upset that she may have lost her Val or Sal status but rest assured it will not hinder her in the application process by not having that. You may have dreamed of seeing your girl make that beautiful speech but after all she has accomplished her speech is in her heart, and she is thanking you everyday for all you have done to support her. Try not to let your disappointment show too much because she will be leaving for a wonderful new world very shortly and things will not always go smoothly. You will get phone calls and see grades that will make you second guess if your kid belonged at the school she was accepted to. It is part of the growing and maturing process and she will still need you as her mom to guide her over those bumps. By the time they get to their third year they are almost adult like and yet when things get tough they like to know they can tell you without you pulling the hair out of your head on the other end of the phone. I have taken many deep breaths along the way and with each of my four children I have learned something new…I wish I could have a fifth so I could put everything I learned into practice LOL.</p>
<p>I think this drop in grades was a message from the big guy that your girl needs to have some safer schools on her list. He really does have a way of looking out for us. Good luck and remember the pedestal…it is too far up, not to be hurt when the fall comes… so hug your girl and let her know that her timing was not great but it certainly made you realize that the list was too top heavy.</p>
<p>She certainly may! I’m a walking poster child for the university… Doing two alumni admissions interviews on Saturday, and my desk at work is impeccably professional… except, of course, for the massive Rice University pennant that my coworkers would’t even think of making me take down. (I also have an Illinois pennant, just to be fair… but my textbook overflow is stacked in front of it right now so it just proclaims “ILLINO.” I have a clear favorite. ;))</p>
<p>Nothing wrong with changing the identifying information about one’s kid – such as gender. I’ve often cringed when I’ve posted about one of my kids because I know there are posters who go back and search and some have even gotten enough data to google a kid (not on this thread.) I’ve often wondered if I should change some information because, folks this is the INTERNET. I’m surprised by just how much identifying data gets put on here by parents — not this thread, but others. It’s absolutely no big deal at all if the superstar daughter is a son – it changes nothing relevant about the concern.</p>
<p>This post wasn’t quite what I expected either, but I can actually understand that after seeing your kid fly through the academic stratosphere for years that a coming down to earth would be seen as a pretty big bump, however unrealistic that may seem to some. (Haha–B is for bomb!) Generally, kids who aspire to be top of their class have lofty goals, so to see one questioning what they want out of life may seem uncharacteristic and even be uncomfortable. From my experience, top kids with HYP-type aspirations aren’t going to allow themselves to get B’s even with senioritis kicking in. Kids who get in ED aren’t going to get their acceptances rescinded for a couple of senior year B’s, but those in an RD pool probably have something to worry about. Several of my D’s friends (and including my D) expressed a desire to relax senior year but felt that they really couldn’t. Your D may be burnt-out or she may be seeking a new direction. If your D’s goals have changed, then so be it–that doesn’t detract from her worth or intelligence, or ruin her future. But, imho, and from what I’ve seen, B’s in senior year even after previously consistent stellar performance send a signal to HYP-type schools on your stated list that could most likely lead to disappointment. You never know though, adcoms could see something in her that cancels out those B’s. But, YES your D needs safeties in any event–maybe she should look at some women’s colleges? Wellesley has a great econ dept and cross-reg with MIT and Olin (engineering.) Maybe Smith & Mt Holyoke with 5 college consortium have much to offer her as well? I think the CMC/Scripps/Pitzer/Pomona group might be worth a look, too. I agree that perhaps a public/honors is probably a good bet. I would definitely take a closer look at what kind of services are available for her in light of her dyslexia. She needs to feel comfortable wherever she ends up. All is not lost and sometimes things work out for the better.</p>
<p>Well, it seems that I missed that tidbit about gender while typing–so some of my advice may be of no use now–son or daughter–which is it?</p>
<p>For an LAC with Engineering, check out Smith College.</p>
<p>OP, I do think you’re overreacting. And I say this as one who’s D has gone through the search/app process and then graduated with some pretty gaudy honors.</p>
<p>You have no assurance that your D would have gotten into those schools on your list if her grades hadn’t hit this slight bump, no matter what you were told. If you think that, you clearly haven’t absorbed the realities of Ivy/HYPSM admissions.</p>
<p>Contrariwise, that bump doesn’t necessarily knock her out of consideration for those schools either.</p>
<p>Something for you to personally consider: iron breaks, steel bends.</p>
<p>I love metallurgical metaphors. Did you know that after it’s been through the refinery process, steel actually will deform and go back to its original shape under mild loads? Stress is just fine for steel in reasonable amounts. And even under unreasonable amounts of stress, as the steel starts to undergo permanent deformation under higher loads, it actually does something called “strain hardening,” where as it gets bent out of shape, the steel actually gets stronger.</p>
<p>If that’s not an apt metaphor for life, I don’t know what is. :)</p>
<p>While I agree that OP’s daughter needs a few safeties, here’s another view on “love your safety”:
Not necessarily. My daughter <em>hated</em> her safety, where she ended up for financial reasons, and is now very happy.</p>
<p>Expand the list and read aibarr’s excellent post #57. Remember that there can be enormous changes from fall to spring senior year, often overlooked because of all the focus on college apps.</p>
<p>Careful, AIB, I was indulging in poetic license…let’s not get into extrusion, heat treatment, annealing, acid etching, or other processes that could make people think that maybe being either plain old iron or alternatively a marshmallow isn’t so bad after all.</p>
<p>I agree. I can empathize with the OP. I don’t care what people say-it is a shock for the parent of a straight A child to see a B on a report card for the first time. My daughter got the first B of her life in her first trimester report card. Just one B, in a really hard class, part of a really tough senior curriculum, in the midst of very heavy extracurricular activities, and I still didn’t like to see that B there. My brain understood all the reasons but my heart still skipped a beat. If I had seen the report card that OP reports her daughter had, I would most definitely have thought in my mind that she had “bombed”.</p>
<p>Of course, there are reasonable explanations. Of course, OP needs to get some perspective and probably go easy on the parental pressure. Of course the list needs some safeties. </p>
<p>But just as the parent of a C average student is justified in taking delight in the kind of report card that OP describes, the parent of a straight A student is justified in seeing the same report card and asking “what happened?” And asking “how do we move forward from here?” Which is exactly what OP did by starting this thread.</p>