<p>New to forum - this is my first post - please let me know if it is in wrong place, too long, whatever - help me learn to be a good participant. Thanks in advance for any help. Jr. year S is overwhelmed by overflowing mailbox and zillions of options for college. Would like advice from your wisdom and experience on finding good "fit".
3.93 uw gpa, IB diploma candidate, 4yr varsity tennis and soccer, ratty public HS - top 10% (maybe top 5%) of class of 400+. White kid from small state who isn't sure he wants to go away from home (but we think it would be good!) He is a liberal arts kind of guy, but not artsy and is conservative (Berkely = ick for him), humble (Yale probably sends everybody postcards, mom) and a little unsure of how he stacks up. Doesn't know what he wants to study but is an amazing writer. Newspaper all 4 years, editor last 2. fluent in Japanese, but doesn't want to major in that. Would love to play sports, but wants academics to come first. Hasn't yet taken SAT, but will have two SAT II as well (lit. and math IIC) - expecting between 2100-2200 on SAT from PSAT scores. He liked Claremont, but thought he isn't into politics, drinking, and $$ enough to fit. Liked Whitman, but they are limited in their majors. Is getting come-on mail from everywhere (Columbia, Harvard, Yale, NYU, BU....) Any suggestions of colleges he should look at would be great!</p>
<p>He is a good candidate at LOTS of great schools, so he needs different criteria to narrow his search.</p>
<p>Would he like to be at a large uni with great sports team, such as U Mich or UW-Madison? Or would he prefer being at a smaller (2000 or fewer students)? Would he like the setting to be urban, suburban, rural? What kind of weather? With his stats, he might qualify for merit aid at a good number of institutions. Is that an important consideration?</p>
<p>If he does not want to major in Japanese, would he still want to take classes in the language or history/culture anyway?</p>
<p>Let us know more and we could come up with some more specific suggestions.</p>
<p>Yes, the mail can be quite a deluge. Sounds like your S has a good shot at many colleges. Personally I think parents along with kids need to start researching online to come up with a list. The College Board site has info on all colleges and even a "compare" feature which is helpful. Does S want a huge university, medium size or small liberal arts college? Public vs. private? Christian? Close to home or very far away? So many considerations. Plan on visits to campuses when possible, preferably when classes are in session. From your post, it sounds like you may be on the west coast. Are you willing to have him go to the east coast with all its related travel costs? My first three kids all wanted to stay in Calif, but #4 has applied back east too. Try to come up with a few safety, match and reach schools. As I told my daughter, if you don't get rejected somewhere, you didn't aim high enough!</p>
<p>Thanks for responding. The only thing he knows he really wants is a "campus college" - he wants the students to live there and have lots to do there, not go into a city to have fun. He would prefer suburban , maybe rural. He is thinking of visiting Emory, but can't imagine himself at NYU or a truly urban environment (I wonder, though, if it is just cuz he has never had that experience...) We visited UCLA, Cal Poly, all the Claremonts, Stanford, Berkely, Whitman, and Linfield (small LAC in Oregon). He now thinks he is interested in smallish - less than 10k students. Does this help?
He might qualify as a merit semi-finalist, we won't know for awhile, but he has gotten a few letters from colleges saying "it looks like you'll be NM".
Right now Stanford is his fantasy school, but I think it's more of a "name" thing than a real "fit". Thanks again. Can't wait for more conversation - I love this place!</p>
<p>Yes - I have been knocking my socks off on all of those "find your fit" web sites, read the books - C. that change lives, Best Values, etc. Honestly, the most helpful thing I've found is this web site - I've been lurking for two days now and getting so excited about talking with people! We are on the west coast, and I just don't know - he is my oldest and we're close - can't imagine him being so far away, but I don't want to limit his possibilities! He would stay close with even a tiny bit of encouragement - not a great desire to get out of dodge.
We will qualify for need based aid, but we're hoping for merit aid, too.</p>
<p>OH - you asked about the weather. Here is his quote: "If there's snow, there has to be skiing". So that virtually eliminates the mid-west - lots of good schools there! Help me Rhonda.</p>
<p>My d also originally was in love with Stanford in jr year. We toured the campus and many others. She never even applied there. Shows how kids' ideas can change from jr to sr year. Btw I love the conversations here too.</p>
<p>OH - you asked about the weather. Here is his quote: "If there's snow, there has to be skiing". So that virtually eliminates the mid-west - lots of good schools there! Help me Rhonda.</p>
<p>On the East coast, 10k students would be considered big! Have you looked up the thread (at the top of the Parents Forum) about merit money?<br>
Would he consider Duke? It has a lot of things that your S is looking for (though no snow and no skiing): sports, great academics (including Japanese studies) and I believe it gives some merit awards. Vanderbilt, too, might fit very well as would Rice in TX. There are also a number of great smaller colleges. </p>
<p>One of the issues to consider is not necessarily the distance in miles but in convenience of travel. Is the school close enough to an airport/train station? What about your home? If needing to fly, is there a direct flight? We were reluctant to have S consider Cornell despite its being in a neighboring state because travel is so inconvenient. More so than if S had chosen to attend Stanford, on the other side of the country.</p>
<p>Welcome, I agree with all the above.
You should look at your finances NOW. Fill out a "fake" FAFSA, as if he was a senior this year. Go online to the Dartmouth website (other big name schools have this option, too, I'm just familiar with Dartmouth, you might want to actually find another one), and fill out the online calculator, which will give you an idea of how Dart would handle your CSS Profile. The point is to get a handle on what your EFC will be, both from the feds' (FAFSA) and a theoretical school's version of what you can pay, then after you pick yourself up off the floor, realistically ask yourself can we afford this?
If you have to have merit aid to make it work, then that will be a different set of requirements/schools than if your family will qualify for significant need-based aid, or if merit aid would be nice, but not an absolute necessity.</p>
<p>Do this now, before your son develops any long lasting attachments.</p>
<p>The other thing to do is get your son to articulate his desires - it sounds as if he has made a good start on this. Perhaps the most important one that you have not spelled out is geography. Get a map of the US and ask him to draw a circle around how far he can go. If you need merit aid, it will be in his interest to travel away from home. On the other hand, as you understand and he may not, sometimes if you are a freshman only 3-4 hours from home, you can be as much on your own as if you are a thousand miles from home - it is as much about attitude as distance.
I can think of several great schools in the South - with and without merit aid - where he might be happy, but he has to be content to come South.</p>
<p>It's just so hard to get him to consider states he knows nothing about. Rice - he can't imagine Texas. He does have an interest in Duke, and I thought he'd have a better chance there than Stanford, just because we are west coast. I'd like to take him to see Duke and Davidson, but there's that darn $$ thing getting in the way.
He actually asked me to narrow down the choices to 20 and he would pick 9 from that group - 3 safety, 3 maybe, 3 reach.
Should I refuse and make him do the search work from the get go?</p>
<p>Ditto for looking into Duke and Vandy. After attending my niece's graduation at Duke, I was so impressed with all it has to offer. Beautiful campus. Perfect size too, about 6000 or so.</p>
<p>Oh and Duke, and its small college cousin, Davidson, do have skiing in the mountains a few hours away, although it will seem tame by Western standards.
Sounds like Dartmouth would be a good fit - not much snow this winter, but some skiing went on ;).</p>
<p>I don't know if he has a chance at Duke - do you think? He is worried that his school might discontinue IB next year (his senior year!!) after he has worked his behind off. He and I both wonder if the IB diploma (vs. a few IB certificates) really makes any difference.</p>
<p>Orjr, we cross posted, your giving him a list of 20, especially with all the criteria you have already listed, is a very reasonable thing to do. At least we did a variant of that and it worked well. My daughter took a list of about 35-50 schools, all schools that would generally be thought of as having excellent academics, whittled that down to about 25 just based on reading 351 Best Colleges (hey, it's not scientific, but you have to do something) and location. Then after visits, she added some and subtracted some, and had about 15. Then I did a spreadsheet for her covering several criteria that she made (including how many essays did she have to write) and she picked 6 to apply to as matches and reaches - safeties were a separate process.</p>
<p>Visiting can be really important with small LACs, but less so if you are going across country - important to visit the ones in your area if he applies there. Otherwise visiting is a very personal decision - some kids need it, some don't. If a school has a nationwide draw, like Duke, or Stanford, or an Ivy, he's going to meet kids from all over the country. If it is more regional like a Whitman or Davidson - chances are the kids will be from fairly similar backgrounds, although their politics might vary, so he can extrapolate some. I would push visits if you find yourself in the merit aid game, and you need that extra push of geography - it may be worth a $2500 trip to net $80000 in merit aid, but the $80000 might not be worth it if your child is so miserable at the merit aid school that he flunks out, or gets involved in serious drinking, or etc, etc.</p>
<p>We do need merit aid. Our EFC right now looks to be about 12 - 14K and I have no idea where they think this money will come from. We will qualify for need-based - 1.5 public sector jobs between 2 parents - solid middle income. We are encouraging him to look far and wide.
It's very affirming that you mentioned Dartmouth - in my research that looked like a good fit for him as a reach school. (except being on another planet)</p>
<p>Does anyone have experience or info. about the IB question? Diploma vs. certificates, or if it matters at all?</p>
<p>I found myself thinking he should take a serious look at Pomona, then I read that he'd looked at Claremont. Did you mean all the Claremont colleges, or specifically Claremont? Because I see Pomona as attracting a similar group as Stanford, only it is smaller, sunnier, cozier, and I've heard offers merit aid.</p>
<p>If he wants to continue with sports, you are on the right track with academic D3 schools.</p>
<p>He might like to check out Carleton. Though snowy & midwestern I think it would fit a "humble" smart kid who has excellent academics. Swarthmore or Haverford could also be a good fit. These schools are quite liberal politically, however, though not extreme hippie. More conservative are the southern schools like Davidson, Duke, or Washington & Lee.</p>
<p>You are correct to push at least a few applications where your son would be a geographic oddity. It can made admission easier and he may WANT to go far away in a year's time.</p>
<p>We did tour / visit all of the Claremonts and he thought he wouldn't have a very good chance getting in at Pomona. In fact, all of the schools ya'll are mentioning are ones we would consider "reach". Are we underestimating him? We have no fancy help, big $ or private school behind us, and the public school counselors don't know as much as I do - or don't have time to help. He is going to national competition in DECA - that's his only national EC, he is officer in several things... I don't know - we're just in a small place and we don't know of any kids from this HS to ever get in any of these places - except on athletics. Even our brightest kids tend to stay close.
He does know someone at Swarthmore, who thinks he could handle it there. But S thinks Swarthmore to be too intense for him.</p>