Just curious to know what colleges and universities seem to be “trending” in your neck of the woods this fall. We’re in the Seattle area and (besides the always popular UW and WSU) it seems like the Claremont Colleges (Scripps, Pomona, Claremont and Pitzer in particular), USC, U of Brit Columbia and Tulane are very popular at our school this year. Additionally, here in our Pacific NW woods, it seems like more than an average amount of kids are looking at southern schools. (W&M, Richmond, UNC, Vandy, Elon) A few years ago, the hot schools were Middlebury, Macalester, St. Olaf, Santa Clara and Chapman. I barely hear parents and kids talking about those schools this year.
What schools are popular this year at your high school?
On these forums, University of Alabama - Huntsville seems to be getting trendy due to full tuition plus room automatic scholarships, since University of Alabama - Tuscaloosa has cut back on its automatic scholarships. However, other colleges that have even better (full ride) or easier to get (in terms of GPA and test scores) scholarships do not seem to be getting any more trendy.
@ucbalumnus UAH IMO was a hidden gem. My DD did get their top tier scholarship. UAH is a really cool school, the location is in a techy “Rocket” city and its an overall attractive choice with great STEM programs. The co-op concept is an added bonus to an already attractive school. The thing my DD likes most is the lack of football, LOL, she hates the football culture that she lives in here in Central Texas and had no desire to attend a university that is known for its football more than its academics. The amazing dorms are an added bonus.
The cost to us of books, fee’s and a dining plan is huge! She was accepted into several excellent schools but they all became cost prohibitive especially when UAH offered such a sweet package.
Many of the other other “full ride” schools (guaranteed merit) are not all that attractive, are small offshoots of bigger universities or have really high GPA’s to maintain or weird rules like can’t ever change major, can’t have taken a gap year etc.
Among students in the metro DC area this year, the hot schools seem to be University of Maryland (that’s a constant), Elon, James Madison, University of Chicago, Lehigh, and the University of Delaware.
UCLA, UCB, NYU and Northwestern are continuing their eternal flame on the “hot” meter at my D19’s school. Smaller school that are afire are Wesleyan, a mix of the Claremont McKennas, and Tufts.
In Florida UF is absolutely hot at this point. This is especially true now that you can get a full ride to UF with the Benacquisto scholarship. Full ride for the #42 ranked college in the US is spectacular.
It seems like Northeastern has been used as a safety school this year for many top students in our local high school. In fact, so many of them are applying to it that I think it may not turn out to be the safety they expect it to be! It appears to be a “hot” school.
And everyone also always applies to SUNY Binghamton, but that is not a new trend.
Less exciting, but for rural MN: Mankato State, St. Cloud State, and Winona State are usually popular, as are the UW branches on the southern part of the border (Eau Claire, La Crosse, and especially River Falls), and North Dakota State. Lots of people in the top quarter of the class will end up as pre-med at the U of M-TC and UW-Madison or engineering at Iowa State. People who want a smaller school tend to go to Gustavus Adolphus. Despite Carleton and St. Olaf easily being the closest 4 year schools to us, people rarely go to either of those (we’ll send 1-2 to SO and we’ve only had 2 people accepted to Carleton in the past few years, both of whom ultimately ended up at Grinnell).
NYU is always popular at our school. Kids who are tired of being part of a small school community in a small town looking for a complete about-face see this (and BU) as the perfect antidote!
Couldn’t believe the stats of the kids from the surrounding legion who were denied admission. You’re right— it was a bloodbath. D kind of felt bad for even taking up a spot.
At my D’s tiny high school Mount Holyoke is a perennial favorite. The school must have a great relationship with them because there are loads of admits in Naviance.
Claremont McKenna is a specific school in the consortium.