<p>
It diminishes the reputation of the HS in the admissions officers’ eyes – and frankly, hurts the applicants. I know of a large urban school with a purported rigorous reputation. But when most students fail to get 4s and 5s, the “rigor” of the AP coursework rightfully falls into question. Also, it didn’t help that the AP English instructor’s rec letter on behalf of applicants was rife with grammar errors. true story recounted to me by an admissions officer for my college</p>
<p>^^^ Excellent post @calmom.</p>
<p>I tried to get at this by posing some vague questions for the OP’s daughter. This us so much more straight forward and clear.</p>
<p>I wasn’t trying to be nosy when I asked about her interests, it’s just that some interests are better studied at specific colleges and universities. It is more important that you and your daughter discuss her interests (we don’t need to know) and find colleges that fit HER. This will do a lot to get her off the name and prestige kick. </p>
<p>To be honest, last summer I was where you are now. I knew that my daughter while bright wasn’t tippy top but it’s hard to admit. Then she took the SAT and ACT last June after her sophomore year. Scores showed she was definitely not a candidate (I would love D to have your daughter’s scores) for the top 50 or so. Everyone in my family has gone to Ivies or some other top 20 university for undergrad and graduate school (although I was all ACC in grad schools) and usually the graduate program was top 5 (including mine). College talk had always centered around schools like Middlebury, Swarthmore, Penn, Columbia. Not happening for my child. Not even Rochester or Tufts.</p>
<p>While I’m still hoping her scores will go up, I found schools that fit her interests, academic, social and activity-wise based on those initial scores. CC helped a lot. Last summer, I realized there were amazing colleges outside the usual suspects. Going to an elite school is great but going to a school that fits you is best. If the fit is an elite (and you can afford it), fantastic. But if you have to choose one or the other, pick the fit.</p>
<p>Brantly, actually- Biology and Society is a terrific major for a kid who is interested in lots of things and it most definitely does not prepare you for a specific career. I know kids who have majored in that and the range of professional options is astounding- Masters in Public Health and working for the Center for Disease Control on reducing flu epidemics among the elderly; Nurse Practitioner working with disadvantaged kids with chronic (but curable) diseases; Science Writer/Media Relations guru, etc. But it is emphatically not a pre-professional discipline like Supply Chain.</p>
<p>To me this just means that your D needs to drill down on what she wants out of college- maybe less focus on where the school ranks on some arbitrary scale, and more about the kinds of things she will be exposed to once she gets there.</p>
<p>Rochester is a terrific option. The only kids I know who didn’t like it were kids who just couldn’t handle a real winter.
Miami also a great option.
Middlebury- truly out in the middle of nowhere but a fantastic place.</p>
<p>If she’s willing to look at Middlebury, she should expand her list of LACs. Try Connecticut College, Wheaton (MA), Dickinson, Gettysburg, Allegheny, etc. if she wants to be on the east coast. Honestly I think even visiting one of these schools with an open mind (and I would suggest starting with one that is less competitive than Middlebury) could really show her how many great opportunities there are at so many schools for kids who are bright and intellectually curious.</p>
<p>Do you think her activities are strong enough to get her into the sort of prestigious college she wants if only she can bring her test score up?</p>
<p>Quick note on Sally’s list (which I think is terrific)- do not visit those schools once the semester ends. Several of them host HS programs in the summer, and your D will definitely get a “High School 2.0” vibe from them- which has nothing to do with the way those campuses feel in September. Conn College for example- which has a nicely intellectual/somewhat counter culture student body (not everyone but some kids) will feel like an episode of the Baby Sitters Club in July. Between the lacrosse camps and CTY and summer programs for faculty children-- I think she needs to have lunch in the dining hall, wander through the libraries, etc. when real college students are in session.</p>
<p>Love calmom’s post. My younger son was not unlike your daughter. He liked history, but didn’t see himself as an academic or future lawyer and was unsure of what else you could do with the degree. He took the top math and science APs, and participated in Science Olympiad (winning awards in Ecology and some other events), but was no mathematician or scientist. He wrote about teaching himself origami from youtube videos and the funny things he learned about our neighborhood from the tantalizing incomplete files of the neighborhood association. An optional essay at Tufts gave him the opportunity to imagine an alternative history for the United States. He was able to sell himself as smart, self-directed and a bit of a diamond in the rough. Pretty modest accomplishments, but he made the most of them. The college application process can be a great opportunity to figure out who you are and what you want from college. (I remember my son and I rolled our eyes when the Tufts Admissions officer said exactly this at the info session, but in retrospect, I realize he was right.)</p>
<p>@brantly,
What is your D’s unweighted gpa?</p>
<p>For doers rather than thinkers (I fall into that category as well), she probably would enjoy a college with lots of preprofessional types of majors so when she takes a class, she can see the applicability. USC ( Univ of so cal) is along the lines of what might work well. I have less familiarity with east coast colleges, but Lehigh and northeastern may fit into this category of colleges that have many preprofessional majors available.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t lean towards universities over LACs because they “have a wide range of offerings.” For anyone whose interests are varied and wants to explore different areas, an LAC offers plenty of options, and even within the more limited opportunities it can be tough to narrow down the decisions! Many LACs also do a great job of marrying the theoretical with the practical, even without preprofessional course offerings. </p>
<p>IMO, there is absolutely no reason a student has to head to college knowing what they want to study or do with their life: that’s part of what college is designed to help them do – and often, students still come out having no idea, but they’ve honed their critical thinking schools and can be flexible in moving in different directions over the course of their life.</p>
<p>I still haven’t figured out why your D is so against considering LACs? It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, LAC or University. Personally, i think it’s fine to have a range of school types on an application list. </p>
<p>In terms of course offerings, grades, rigor, etc.: what matters to the Admissions Officers is how each student did in the context of their own school. If your D is in top 5% and has taken many (doesn’t have to be all) of the most challenging course offerings, that’s what matters. It doesn’t mean anything to compare her GPA or the number of APs she’s taken to a student at any other school. At YOUR school, your daughter clearly shines. That’s what matters. But, because she will be competing against other equally capable students from YOUR school, then it’s imperative that you look for schools that these students aren’t applying to – so either a geographic region or a school type. </p>
<p>We come from a similar school system as yours. It was amazing to me how the kids overflowed the room when a Dartmouth rep visited, but when Oberlin came: my kids were among three or four in the room. The midwestern LACs get very few applicants from our schools. Yet, they are fabulous! (I know comparing Dartmouth to Oberlin is not apples to apples, but the point was to emphasize “known prestige” over less recognized top quality education.)</p>
<p>LACs WANT doers on their campus! Since life is campus-centric, they want kids who are going to generate ideas, organize events, etc., so crafting an application that demonstrates how your D can add to the vibrancy of campus life will go a long way in a holistic review (which LACs do).</p>
<p>I know i’m a cheerleader for LACs, and i don’t mean that they are a better choice than a university, but a path that should be considered.</p>
<p>I love the University of Rochester. One of my favorite universities. However, it is much more math/hard science, than it is humanities and social science. Sure, it does have humanities and social science, but it is much more of a hard science and engineering school. It also is great for biology and premed.</p>
<p>LACs are just as good as universities for humanities and social science. Indeed, the main two strengths of larger universities really boils down to professional majors (such as engineering) and big for the sake of being big (for people who want that). In most other areas, LACs provide a better educational experience – including small class size and the ability to get into almost every class you want.</p>
<p>Some “test optional” schools include Bates College in Maine, and Ohio Wesleyan University. Both are excellent.</p>
<p>@calmom, that was one of the best posts I’ve read on CC! I wish every kid applying to college could read it.</p>
<p>@calmom – adding my praise to others’. </p>
<p>Loved the full post, but this was my favorite line: “She needs to develop an elevator pitch.”</p>
<p>We told our son the same thing while touring colleges. He found himself in small group info sessions where each applicant had to provide two or three lines, the elevator pitch. </p>
<p>I agree calmom, great post. It does seem like so many kids (not saying this describes your daughter, OP) just want the most prestigious school possible and can’t even tell you why. If we asked them “do you thrive in a competitive environment?” or “Are you happiest when spending all your time learning new disciplines and stretching your mental powers to the utmost?” the answer might well be no, and yet that’s what they’d be signing up for.</p>
<p>Right ^^</p>
<p>Do you like to be a big fish (even if it’s in a small pond) or are you fine being a small fish in a big pond? Are you okay going to a school/major where, even if you get in, your stats put you smack in the middle of the bell curve or lower? </p>
<p>There are good-sized universities that are test-optional. American U and Wake Forest, for example.</p>
<p>Once again – someone with scores just under 2000 will not be hurt by submitting test scores to 95% of the colleges out there-- so especially as the boundaries are stretched beyond the uber-selective elites… those scores won’t stand in the way of admission. My d. was offered merit money at Fordham & Northeastern – schools she regarded as safeties based on her stats – but both very respectable schools. Not a whole lot of merit money, but something.</p>
<p>I think one other CC myth is that applicants need to have scores in the top quartile for any given school in order to be admitted. (Along with the idea that the other 75% are all recruited athletes, legacies, and URM’s)</p>
<p>That’s not how it works: median is just that – it is the scores range that is most common and fits what the school expects to see among admitted applicants. Above-median is obviously a bit of an edge, and below-median is something of a ding: but every year each college is going to end up accepting and enrolling students who fit somewhere within the same range of scores as the previous year. There is surprisingly little change from year to year in reported score ranges and percentages within each range. (Perhaps because some colleges fudge their data a bit, but that’s another story entirely).</p>
<p>I would agree that if a student wants or needs a LOT of merit money, then those test scores can be important. My d. never saw the type of offers that were presented to her brother with NMF status. I don’t think this is right and I felt the same way back when my son was getting those offers – especially as my son had made the NMF cutoff by one point, so I was disturbed by the idea that a single test taken in 11th grade could make such a huge difference in the lives of students — but it is what it. Some colleges will pay good money to attract students with high scores,</p>
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<p>Just as about most of what is shared in this long thread, the problem is that one cannot generalize in such a way. The application and admission process remains one that recognizes and reward the INDIVIDUAL within his or her context. And not so much the school in general.</p>
<p>There are rigorous schools that do NOT push AP as they do NOT believe in the value of the overwhelming majority of the TCB offering. The fact that the AP program is not popular or appears to be a mere afterthought at a high school does not necessarily “diminishes the reputation” of the school. While the adcoms might have to “learn” more about the school that has not jumped on the crazy bandwagon, they also learn to evaluate how individual students performed within their environment. As an example, a small school in my neck of the woods has been sending about 20 percent of its graduating class to the schools people dream about on CC. A same percentage (20 percent) makes it to the final round of the Gates Millennium (showing it is not a rich school) and plenty of others win comprehensive scholarships. As a comparison, the small catholic school has exactly TEN times the number of Gates than the two best public local school – combined, and a same ratio of HYPS students. And yes the public schools have your typical insane smörgåsbord of APs! </p>
<p>For full disclosure, the lack of AP is amply balanced by an extensive dual-enrollment program, a dynamic community program, and a successful participation in academic and athletic competitions. Students have learned to “package” themselves and present high level applications. </p>
<p>Granted, there is the not so subtle fact that the school is predominantly hispanic. What works in the steppes of Texas might not work the same in the ultra competitive Northeast. But that is exactly the point, isn’it! </p>
<p>
If OP’s daughter is top 5% in what appears to be a very competitive high school environment, then I suspect the answer would be “yes”.</p>
<p>A better approach might be more open ended questions, avoiding those with a yes/no answer. For example, What do you like about your high school now? What parts don’t you like? What would you change? What are some of your reasons for wanting to attend a larger college? Imagine a day in your life at college – what do you think you will be doing? </p>
<p>My own daughter was also very averse to the idea of LAC’s, so I understand where that is coming from. She is also a person who likes a lot of stimulation and likes to keep busy, and so I think she wanted to be in a very vibrant location with plenty to do, and easy access to off campus activities as well as on. So I think she was right to focus on large & urban. (Barnard is a LAC but certainly does not have an LAC-like feel). </p>
<p>I don’t think parents should try to nudge their kids toward a poor fit schools simply out of a search for perceived academic quality. That is, it may be true that the academics at a LAC like Middlebury are superb – but that’s small consolation if an urban-centric kid is miserable there. I have great respect for schools like Grinnell, but it’s rural Iowa location meant that it was laughable to imagine either of my kids there – though my son very much wanted an LAC – just not one that far out in the boonies. Obviously there is a lot of variation among LAC’s, both in terms of location and campus culture, so it might be mistake to draw bright line distinctions between the concept of a university vs. LAC. </p>
<p>Nothing I said to my younger kid could convince him that a college smaller than his high school would feel bigger because everyone would be like the honors kids. Our high school had over 3000 kids. The only LAC that stayed on his list was Vassar and when we did accepted students visits it still felt too small to him. I never think of Barnard as an LAC - though I realize it’s more separate from Columbia than Radcliffe was from Harvard when I attended. He didn’t want a rural school either - he hated Bard, too small AND too rural.</p>