@TimeUpJunior I know this isn’t a thread about what your son may like but has your son ever done any coding or Comp Sci? If he doesn’t want to pursue Music as a major all my best Software Engineers are musicians/composers.
@mathmom “Many colleges (such as Harvard) don’t admit by majors”, that is what I read also.
@Dolemite I know a lot of medical doctors are musicians, it is new to me that best Software Engineers can also be musicians/composers!! I can see something in common among writers, composers, and coders. They are creating an alternate universe, be it a piece of fiction in words, a sonata in sound, a program in binary numbers 1 and 0.
No, my son has not done any coding. It wouldn’t hurt if he tries a little coding in the summer
If I had it to do over again I don’t think I’d spend more than 5 minutes strategizing and agonizing over SCEA. In fact I would probably advise my kid to forget about SCEA altogether. For us it just didn’t amount to much of anything. It was the RD round that mattered.
For my two daughters (both high stat applicants):
D1 applied to Yale SCEA. Didn’t get in. Got accepted to many fine schools in the RD round and picked Harvard. Had a great time, got a great education, and loves Harvard to this day.
D2 applied to Stanford SCEA. Didn’t get in. Got accepted to many fine schools in the RD round and picked Dartmouth. Had a great time, got a great education, and loves Dartmouth to this day.
SCEA turned out to be a whole lot of fuss that in the end added up to nothing.
@TimeUpJunior, @mathmom explained much better than I did about a kid’s major being so central to his/her identity that s/he includes them in application essays. Your S may not want to include Bio in what he writes for his applications, but I believe that my D did touch on her academic interests in at least one of the essays for her dream school that was open-ended enough to accommodate it, since it went to her overall passion for intellectual inquiry and also reflected her extra curriculars. You will see that some of the essay prompts are open-ended enough for your S basically to decide what he wants to write about and mold it to fit the question, but essay-writing is a topic for a new thread.
As another data point, I’m an alumni interviewer for my HYP university and I always ask what the applicant wants to study just because it’s a good way to start a conversation and also because, well, these kids are applying to college after all and should have at least thought about it for a few minutes. I always include it in my interview reports. I’ve never been a fly on the wall at HYP during admission committee meetings but logic tells me that successful applicants have an academic passion (or more than one) and evidence (advanced coursework, related paid work or EC activities) to back it up. Others may disagree with my opinion on that.
Naviance is a software used by DD’s school that plots the GPA/scores on a grid to compare to other kids from her school who have applied to the specific colleges over the past 4 years. (I believe it’s owned by Hobsons, who owns CC- not sure if I can mention that, so sorry, mods and please edit my comment if need be). Completely agree with the poster who noted that it’s not going to really give you any information given your son’s stats and the colleges aiming for. We found it helpful for our D in figuring out what her safeties would be. More importantly, it gave me information to obsess over during the process ; ).
I disagree on the utility of Naviance, especially if you have a savvy guidance counselor. There are schools that show up as strong to possible admits on Naviance- and you need the GC to tell you "all of them were legacies " (here’s looking at you, U Penn). There are schools that look like a solid lock- and you need the GC to tell you “recruited athlete” or “The new school of nanotechnology is named for her grandfather”.
Seeing that kids just like yours got into Harvard last year is the first step. Having someone who knows what the little dots represent in terms of who got in and who did not- priceless.
A kid from one of my kids years in HS who was a multiple generation legacy at H (but not terribly wealthy family) did not get in to H- but he did get into Princeton where there was no family connection whatsoever. That’s an anomaly that Naviance can’t quite describe!!!
Yes, you never know what one admissions officer will see that another won’t. If everything were predictable there wouldn’t be so many words on CC. My well rounded kid could talk your ear off about military history, it just didn’t show up in any of his ECs. One hopes that an interest in academics beyond doing what is required by high school is of interest to the admissions committees, but one wonders sometimes! Carnegie Mellon asks the question directly in their applicaiton, Harvard does not.
“That’s an anomaly that Naviance can’t quite describe!!!” Or maybe legacy at these schools isn’t as important as many people assume it is. The legacy applicant pool is probably stronger overall.
You should get into Harvard first then apply to the other schools. There is a reason it is 15% vs. the higher acceptances for the other schools - so get that one out of the way first!
Mathyone- that’s my point. Parents can’t accurately assess their own kid; getting a feel for who gets in and doesn’t get in from their own HS is the first reality check. Then comes everything else. If no kid with your kids stats has ever gotten into college X, you need to understand just how small the odds are.
If like the OP’s kids, there is a college with a better track record of admitting kids “just like me” which the kid likes as much as H (or any other school) I can’t see yearning for Harvard.
But that’s me. The data is not predictive in terms of who DOES get in, but you can learn a ton from who is getting rejected. The guidance counselor is in a position to describe what the overall applicant pool looked like last year.
Hi Scipio!
If your child really wants Harvard and it’s affordable, apply SCEA. If your child gets in, then you’ve got the we in the hole. If there are other highly desirable schools with a better admission rate in SCEA, then that is a good alternative. Jamison Marvin retired from Harvard- a big loss to the music department.
Sounds like your child will grow wherever they land, as did Scipio’s. Good luck.