<p>It could have stopped at the first post which said it all. While my kids had favorites amongst the schools they applied to, they made certain the schools that they chose would be ones that they would be happy to go to. This has also been applicable to med school in my D’s case.</p>
<p>Distance, cost, and difficulty of getting there by plane or car were all reasons why Cornell was not on either S’s radar screen, though S2 has a good friend who is there.</p>
<p>After S2 had a horrendous nine-hour disaster with three canceled flights, followed by a cab ride to Penn Station to catch the last train from NY to DC rather than risking the last flight out of LGA being canceled, he decided Cornell was just not going to work out. He is a VERY experienced traveler, too.</p>
<p>Well I suppose “what says it all” is in the eye of the beholder. Speaking of friends and nephews, cousins of mine who both graduated from the University of Chicago (one with a Masters and Ph.D.) sent their daughters to Harvard and Yale. Make of it what you will.</p>
<p>"My nephew who is from DC was interested to see that it cost much less money to fly to Houston than to Ithaca. He’s a happy camper at Rice. "</p>
<p>Glad he’s enjoying Rice, but for the record…
[Cornell-Bethesda</a> Bus](<a href=“http://cbbus.com/schedule.html]Cornell-Bethesda”>http://cbbus.com/schedule.html)</p>
<p>I think these days if they have to fly they do syracuse quite often, it’s cheaper. But I imagine most of the DCers do the bus, drive or get rides. It’s a 6-1/4 hour drive from DC to ithaca. It’s a 22-1/4 hour drive from DC to Rice. I’ve wound up driving my kids to/from school quite a number of times. Because I could, and it was better. D2 has also driven home for some holidays she would not have showed up for if she had to fly. We were glad to see her.</p>
<p>You can also get to NYC by one of a number of ways and take Amtrak to DC.</p>
<p>No, Pizzagirl, our daughter was exclusively interested in Tufts upon visiting Boston–and, she has, newly, been admitted. Clearly, she was prescient when she didn’t want to look anywhere else.</p>
<p>^Congrats to your D! Tufts is a great school and Davis Square is, in my opinion, more interesting than Harvard Square.</p>
<p>^^^Thank you. I think my daughter made a very thoughtful decision, impervious to rankings or any other worthless criteria meant to stuff the vicarious parents’ egos. And she is the kind of kid who could have gone, anywhere (not to sound conceited–just that she is, like so many kids, of course, incredibly endowed with tremendous integrity and a really novel “hook”<–much as I have come to despise that word).</p>
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<p>This is an old thread, but there are a few inaccuracies here that have to do with me personally, as well as Rhodes. Since my name was used, I feel I should clear them up. I’ll take them in order:</p>
<p>1) I was deferred to Regular Decision when I applied EA to Caltech (in December), not waitlisted. I was accepted with the larger RD group at the usual time (the end of April), which was <em>before</em> the Presidential Scholar awards were given, so any Caltech acceptance definitely did not depend upon that. (To be honest, I doubt Caltech would have cared much anyway.) Exactly the same thing happened with my MIT app.</p>
<p>2) “Each college can only nominate one undergrad from each state for a Rhodes” is completely, 100% false. Colleges can and do nominate however many they want in however many states they want, and there have been many years that (for example) two or more people from the same state and same college win. There is absolutely no nomination limit imposed, geographically or otherwise, unlike the Goldwater process. (The substantial portion of your analysis based on this point thus fails.)</p>
<p>3) The Rhodes selection process <em>is</em> geographically based, but the regions are created based upon equally apportioning applicant population. (Otherwise it wouldn’t be very fair, would it??)</p>
<p>To use the example of the two regions I applied in: The Rhodes region (awarding four scholarships) including California in 2004-05 consisted of California, Oregon, and Washington, which have a combined population of about 46 million people. The Rhodes region (also awarding four scholarships) including Michigan in 2004-05 consisted of Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio, which have a combined population of… about 46 million people. Although those numbers fortuitously happen to be equal, which makes my point, there’s a further level of subtlety here, too: the Rhodes apportions regions based upon <em>applicant</em> population, so (for example) states with lots of colleges and hence lots of applicants are not penalized. The regions are “tweaked” every few years or as needed to keep things balanced.</p>
<p>4) Caltech nominated me both years–as we’ve seen above, the “grad students don’t count towards the limit” claim is spurious, since there is no limit. For what it’s worth, Caltech recommended I apply in California both years (since they expect the California committee to be more familiar with Caltech–don’t know if that really holds water or not). I chose to apply the place I was physically located each time to avoid the hassle of travel. (The Michigan interviews were actually on campus at Ann Arbor, although only one other student was a U-M student, and the regional interviews the following week were an easy drive away in Chicago. If I’d had to make two separate plane trips to the West Coast instead–not fun.)</p>
<p>5) So why did I win in 2005 and not 2004? Well, although I don’t really know why (of course), I suspect that the main reason is simply that I looked a lot better on paper after finishing my senior year and starting grad school than I did at the beginning of my senior year. I wasn’t really a different person, obviously, but I had finished my senior medieval history thesis (which gave me something unusual–for a scientist–to write/talk about, and I did actually end up being asked many questions on that so it was clearly a point of interest), had a slightly better GPA, and had managed to pick up some recognitions that Caltech (like all schools) gives to seniors and not younger students.</p>
<p>More and more scholarships in recent years seem to be going to people who are a year (or more) out of undergrad. In my region, three of the four people were 2004, and the lone guy from 2005 was actually older than any of us, due to having pursued some interesting things before starting college. Personally I suspect that part of this is just that students who have already graduated almost inevitably seem more complete.</p>
<p>Anyway, I hope this helps clear things up for the future, just in case this thread is used as a resource for people interested in applying, or, for that matter, googling my name.</p>
<p>My stand on my kid rejections from any place is - it is their loss. I told her to think like this and never try to break thru locked doors when there are plenty that are wide open offerring you opportunities beyond your dreams, just go and get them, use them to you advantage and always remember to give back. But the others with locked doors, they do not deserve you anyway.</p>
<p>Take heart kids, even if you don’t get into a respectable school, you can always go to the University of Chicago and become a Rhodes Scholar.</p>
<p>Pulling up a 2 year old thread with a post replete with a plethora of SAT vocab words?</p>
<p>My bad-- this is a THREE year old thread.</p>
<p>To paraphrase from the debates: the 09s called; they want their thread back.</p>
<p>On another note, I miss Marite and Northstarmom.</p>
<p>To paraphrase from the debates: the 09s called; they want their thread back.</p>
<p>On another note, I miss Marite and Northstarmom.</p>
<p>Sorry, must have the hiccups.</p>
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if you say so :)</p>
<p>I haven’t been on this site in a looong time, and for some reason the link to this thread popped up in my email today. Sort of a blast from the past. I agree with the ‘new’ poster - that U Chicago is an amazing school, and even more so with the sentiment that “if getting rejected from Ivies is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you, then you’ve lead a charmed life.” Very, very true.</p>
<p>That said… kids lack perspective. So did we at that age. And that’s an area where parents might just come in handy and help them keep from sucked into the ‘top school or bust’ whirlwind - IF they’re willing to take a deep breath and listen. Seeing so many kids graduate from HS, college and grad school and move into the adult world, it’s been wonderful to hear the success stories - including those from kids who did not attend upper tier schools. Mostly it makes me realize just how fast time flies–</p>
<p>Gunkanjima, you were right to offer apologies for reviving this thread. I am afraid you missed the entire historical context for which you could be excused since you cannot really appreciate how different the schools were in 2004 and 2003. </p>
<p>Newmassdad did everyone a service by sharing this experience. The same cannot be said for this unfortunate revival and off-the-wall editorial comments.</p>
<p>PS I do also miss … Marite.</p>
<p>Revival worthwhile if only to wax nostalgic about CC’s best contributors in action. I always wondered if Marite was Marit</p>