The BS Class of 2015 Thread

<p>Just an FYI for those of you planning Claremont visits: we went last summer right after school got out. The campuses were virtually deserted. I think this largely contributed to RuralSon wanting to go to a large university. UCLA, USC were still very well populated and vibrant. (Strangely, UC Berkeley was quite empty during our visit as well.) </p>

<p>Anyway, my advice is if you want to visit the Claremonts, try your best to get there when school is in session or you just won’t get an accurate feel for the them.</p>

<p>RuralMama – I totally agree. We went last year (while the schools were in session) and it felt somewhat deserted even then. USC and UCLA were hopping by comparison. </p>

<p>Thanks for that tip RuralMama. I agree, MamaBear. We visited this campus a few years ago while school was in session and it did seem unusually quiet for a college campus. Granted, it was also unusually cold during our visit. </p>

<p>That is interesting to know that they are quiet even when school is in session. Maybe we actually did get an accurate feel!</p>

<p>I’m butting in on your 2015 thread but I admit that I like seeing what I have in store next year. As for having a kid at school across the country - you’re all right, it sucks! But speaking from my own experience of leaving the east coast to attend school in CA, I do think it’s a wonderful time to experience a different part of the country. I remember visiting colleges on the east coast and feeling like I already knew half the people there because of the large boarding school contingent, which was a big reason that I chose to go so far for college. Of course, I am still on the west coast now, so be warned that if your kid goes they might never come back…</p>

<p>I went to the Claremont Colleges from the east coast and absolutely loved it. I knew myself just barely enough to know that I needed to shake it up and get out of my comfort zone. The grooves were just too deep back east. Best thing I ever did. I am back east again raising my children but now I have 18 years living in different parts of the US/World partly because of that one decision. </p>

<p>Wife just passed along this link to me…for Juniors:</p>

<p><a href=“January College Checklist for Juniors - The New York Times”>January College Checklist for Juniors - The New York Times;

<p>I’ve braved the waters a bit with the regular ccc college lists, but it feels too big and impersonal. I prefer to ask this here- what SAT scores do you think are “good enough” to stop at for the most selective colleges? </p>

<p>@Rellielou: Great question and one that I asked SAS CC. I will shoot you a PM now with their response. BTW, I agree that the BS Forum is more “homey”…I guess because many of us have been together since the app process…</p>

<p>SevenDad – I’m impressed that you got a “real” answer to that question. All I’ve heard is that there is no magic number, that tests are “just a snapshot in time” of one morning, etc. Nothing concrete (when something concrete would have been very helpful)…</p>

<p>I’m with MamaBear. We’ve been given a vague sense that there’s a range rather than one magic number and that there are too many other factors in play to provide a concrete cutoff. Naviance seems to support this.</p>

<p>@3girls3cats: Just to clarify…I was not given a specific number nor even a range…just a suggestion that scores generally go up on a second taking, so there’s really no downside to it (even with a relatively high score in the bag).</p>

<p>@SevenDad, oh I get it now. I agree and that’s certainly been this family’s experience.</p>

<p>

GMTson1 is shooting for at least as high as the avg SAT score of the kids admitted to those schools, as per his school’s Naviance data.</p>

<p>GMT and all- Have your schools been using naviance for long? My dc’s school has barely introduced it to juniors and their parents. I’ve played with it twice, but I have the feeling that there is a lot of data I haven’t yet accessed. </p>

<p>@Rellielou, every school uses it differently. I gather that some kids were even able to see their SAT scores early because their schools entered them into naviance before the official score release. </p>

<p>For us, the key use of naviance has been to look at the admissions history from D’s school. First, there are the scattergrams. These place her on the gpa / SAT graph and provide a visual look at where her stats fit in the overall scheme of acceptances, wait lists, deferrals, denials. For some schools it’s helpful, for most it’s not. The average SAT/gpa is usually below her, often far below. But that tells me nothing. For one thing, there are too many variables affecting acceptance that aren’t gpa/SAT/ACT-related (think $ and athletes) and these variables aren’t recorded. So you see that the average acceptance to school X is 2120 SAT and 3.6 gpa and think wow, she’s so far above this…and that’s a mistake. When you look at an outlier candidate, you can tell that this came into play, when you look at applicants that are bunched together with similar stats, you really can’t. Nor can you get any sense of courseload, extracurriculars, anything that might distinguish the student outside of the stats. For another, it’s clear that D’s school is not on top of the data and does not record the ultimate outcomes of the early decisions. Since early decision seems to have an enormous impact on acceptance vs. denial, not having that data leaves too big a gap of information. (Many schools are much better in providing this data.)</p>

<p>What is somewhat more helpful to us is the year by year application data (I think it’s captured under “Application History” for each college)–how many applied, how many were accepted, how many attended. You start to get a sense of which schools like your school, which draw a lot of kids from your school, whether there’s been a change in admissions trend and when it happened. </p>

<p>I do think every school uses it differently (buys/uses different modules). SAS’s Naviance portal allows me to see the “Application History” mentioned by 3girls3cats, but NOT the scattergrams.</p>

<p>I have seen the graphs with all the different colored dots- are those showing applicant stats from all over or just from ds’s school? I will have to search for the application history. </p>

<p>Thanks for the tips!</p>

<p>The Naviance scattergrams are just from your own school. </p>

<p>I asked D2’s guidance counselor about whether she should retake–her answer was “only if she wants to.”</p>

<p>@Sudsie: Had your daughter only taken the SAT once?</p>