Colleges for the Jewish "B" student

[champs2004]

Again I'm shocked by the responses! Thanks so much to everyone. This is amazing. I guess my son and I have to accept that he will not be attending a smallish school. Maybe it was wishful thinking, other than a reach, (as Chardo basically mentioned).
chocchipcookie - yes, I checked your list and thank you. My son's guidance counselor suggested Hartford, UVM and UConn too, so I guess we'll check these out.
Anyone know anything about the Jewish population at Western New England?
I appreciate the idea of Trinity Univ, though I have to give it a lot of thought, as I was hoping he wouldn't be so far away, but definitely sounds like what we're looking for - why are there no schools like this on the east coast?
rockvillemom - Lafayette and Lehigh would be great if only he could get in! Both of these schools have wonderful reputations - from friends' kids I'm hearing Lehigh is a huge party school/huge Greek life. But regardless, my goal is to remain realistic about my son!
One more comment - it's fun to read the "social" comments ... sounds like a group of friends!

[chocchipcookie]

^^^As C43 so eloquently stated a few thousand posts ago:

You guys are the greatest group of people I've never met!

[perazziman]

champs, There is Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ right across the Hudson River from Manhattan. It has a pretty good engineering program. We got a letter from them yesterday.

[college4three]

oh my! I heard my ears ringing .... thank you ccc!
welcome champs2004. I'll add my voice to the chorus of mid-size schools, especially if your son has ruled out 3-2 programs at the smaller ones. Also, a thumbs-up to Stevens.

[rockvillemom]

Wanted to share an article on UMBC from yesterday's Washington Post - since we have mentioned this school a few times:

Quiet revolution in teaching science is earning UMBC extra credit - The Washington Post

UMBC is an insider’s university, a place professors send their children, an academic brand as familiar to presidents and provosts as it is unfamiliar to the general public.

Each year, U.S. News & World Report asks college leaders to pick the top institutions for undergraduate teaching. Dartmouth and Princeton topped the list this year, along with some Ivy League peers and elite public schools such as the College of William and Mary. All in all, it was an utterly predictable exercise — save for UMBC, tied with Yale at fourth place.

[momjr]

Thanks for sharing the article, RVM. As I've mentioned here before, I know several students who are thriving at UMBC. It's a great choice for nice, serious students who don't want a rah-rah party atmosphere. My friend's son was a B+ student in HS. He has a very generous computer science scholarship and will spend his second summer interning at Google this year.

Welcome Champ. When we started looking at schools for my D's, we originally focused on the 5,000-7,000 undergrad size, but they both ended up at larger schools. They like the abundance of choices and opportunities at their schools. I've observed that smaller programs and housing set-ups can make a large school feel much smaller. For example, my D2 is at BU. She is in the College of Communication which has 400 freshmen, and lives on a tight-knit floor with 40 other freshmen. Half of her classes have been small seminars, and she has also found that professors and TAs are quite accessible.

[LINYMOM]

I've got to look at UMBC again....

[EmmyBet]

My older D is living in MD now, and starting to explore grad school. She has contact with a number of profs, including JH, UMCP and some of the DC schools. I sent her a link to UMBC - it actually has a master's in the field she is considering. So thank you for the info! That article mentioned wonderful support for UGs in the sciences. I'd like to think of my D1 as a one of the grad students who provides that kind of support. She was a University Tutor in sciences as an UG and enjoyed teaching, may become a prof someday.

[EmmyBet]

Both of my kids wanted about 5,000 students, and they went to schools that size. Older D went to Tufts (she was an A student) and younger D is at Adelphi, on Long Island (doing a Theatre BFA). Both couldn't see themselves at small LACs, and I can understand that, but on the other hand I totally agree that they only know a certain group of people and probably wouldn't notice if their school had 1,000, 5,000 or 20,000 in the long run. You do get pretty focused on the people in your major, or in your living community. My UG had about 3000 (plus 15000 grad students) and I only knew a couple of hundred max the whole time I was there. But it's hard to explain this to kids in advance.

[perazziman]

@champs, BU has a great biomedical engineering program that is ranked in the top 10 in the country. My son expressed some interest in the field so I looked them up. At BU, I found one professor of biomedical engineering, who did his PhD with Openheim at MIT, who also has a perfect score with his students on rate my professor. I am just saying, there are other factors which can be important, when selecting a college than size. This I think is especially important when considering a difficult field of study such as engineering.

[kathiep]

perazziman, I think you are bringing up an excellent point about priorities. There's a delicate balance when going through the college search with kids. On the one hand, you want them to take the lead and figure out what's really important, but on the other you know that they may be choosing their priorities without all the information.

I think that potential majors should be the #1 priority and agree with EmmyBet that size doesn't matter as much once the kids find their people, but that's hard to wrap your head around when you are doing the college tours and feeling the different vibes.

My youngest son, the one now a college freshman, was all about his major and even that evolved the more visits we did. We visited over a dozen colleges and we found that if he didn't meet with someone in his potential program, then he wouldn't feel that he could make a informed opinion on the college.

A good summer program (sorry for repeating myself) to help the techy sort of kids think more about majors is offered at RIT for rising HS seniors. RIT College & Careers Homepage There are concurrent workshops for the parents too.

[LuvMomN8ur]

A warm welcome to Champs! Forgive me for being engineering-deficient, but hopefully I can be helpful in other ways.

I envy you, perazziman, for having a child who knows what he wants, & in an awesome field - biomedical engineering, to boot!

Which brings me to this...I agree with kathiep that prospective students should hone in on their potential majors when considering a college, including researching the #, variety, & depth of available courses, faculty, research, leadership & co-op ops, academic & supportive orgs, etc. in that major/dept. And I heartily agree that, in the college search process, parents need to balance their need to steer with their child's need to take the wheel. (Can you tell I have a new young driver in the family?) I find, however, that so many kids:
a) remain clueless/uncertain as to a desirable college major (despite personality tests & exposure to various fields, and thanks to kathiep for helping with RIT program). Really, how many among us could definitvely point to our college major, much less our life's career, as a Jr in HS?
b) may focus on several possible majors, perhaps too many, which raises more issues
c) once in college change their major anyway d/t a myriad of reasons (from 40-80%-depending on your source-of ug change their major)
d) once out of college, get a job (if they're lucky)/career path wholly unrelated to their college major.

My DH & I are both big believers in a small school for our D considering D's personality & work ethic, and our own college experiences.

So, to my point...What to do when your student is not fortunate enough to know his/her college major while on the college hunt? I've found myself 2nd guessing my D's focus on smallish LAC's offering the 4 specific majors ("Plus, I'd really like a ceramics studio on campus.") in which she's interested, because it limits her # of potential schools, and have broadened our search (a la EmmyBet & kathiep's "size doesn't matter" theory) to include larger schools (with a "small school feel").

But I still fear she'd be swallowed up in a college of 15,000. So, I vacillate, & we will visit, visit, visit!

BTW, veterans, a ?: In your experience, do colleges, when considering admissions, attempt to fill a quota in specific majors/depts? And, if so, can students enroll at a college for a major just to get their foot in the door, knowing that they'll change that major once in? And, if so, would you consider this practice unethical?

[EmmyBet]

I'd like to broaden the "know thy major" argument a bit, and that might help you, LuvMom.

Regarding me and my Ds: My D1 and I had somewhat similar patterns, even though our majors ended up being totally different. We both chose our schools based on the foundational liberal arts education that appealed to us. We also wanted a few specific EC opportunities, and a certain type of lifestyle (this sounds a lot like your D). We both made sure that our top 3-4 major possibilities were very strong at our schools, and we knew that however we actually decided, we'd be happy.

My D2 was looking for a very specific program, and in the end when she was deciding among 4-5 schools, she did exactly what has been suggested here, including creating possible 4-year curriculum plans. She was able to give up some of the other facets of a school that she had been hoping for, in order to get the all-important program attributes.

So my short answer is look for whatever academic aspects you want - whether it's intellectual atmosphere, a group of possible majors, or a definite curriculum. I do believe that in the long run this criterion should be foremost in a college search.

As for saying you want a particular major and then "changing your mind," I would guess that it happens all the time, so there's no shame in it. You just have to what you feel comfortable with.

A little story I can share is a friend of mine's D, who decided against a school she loved upon visiting, because it didn't have a major she thought every school should have - even though there was little or no chance she would have chosen that subject herself. Fast forward, and she transferred to that school after a year at a school that had every major on earth but that never really felt like a good fit for her otherwise.

No magic answers, but lots of perspectives ...

[perazziman]

^Good point LuvMomN8ur and thank you.

As the parent of a B student who is interested in studying engineering, we are constantly trying to make sure S has a genuine interest and aptitude for the field before starting college. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an easy way for kids to figure out if they like engineering once they get to college. For example, they cannot take just one course to find out if they like it. To finish in four years, engineering students have to take very heavy course loads, right from the beginning. So, if they don't like engineering, they cannot just drop the one course and get on with their life, it a wasted semester. So we are trying to make sure he is academically ready. Most of the time this involves putting him in science classes to see if he gets fed up and bored with them, but also allowing him to meet interesting people involved in the field so he can see a use for it.

[LuvMomN8ur]

Hey, just want to share:

College Board has come out with a new site called Big Future - yet another tool to help us in the college search enigma.

https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/