so the school guidance counselor told my son not to bother applying to RPI, but he is on the wait list, he also got into Binghamton( out of state) and UMASS Lowell now we have to see about financial aid…and make some choices! But it just goes to show dont listen to the guidance counselor, do your own research!
Congratulations to your and your S. I agree, there is no substitute for doing your research. I’ve found that in general guidance counselors (at least in our local HS) are very conservative so they probably don’t want to deal with disappointed students and parents. My opinion is that there is absolutely no harm in a reasonable reach or two as long as everyone understands it is a long-shot.
guidance counselors are only human and have their own biases.
they are not soothsayers or gods.
IF you want him to go to RPI [ if the FA $$will work out] NOW is the time for your DS to let RPI know it is his first choice and if admitted he will enroll there.
The ball is now in your court.
^^^^I would not say “if admitted I will enroll” unless that truly is the case. If a certain level of aid package is needed, then the wording should probably be more like “RPI remains my top choice and if I am admitted and receive a sufficient financial aid package, I will attend” I understand it is not quite as strong, but it is honest.
^I did say IF the FA $$ will be sufficient.
My son was wait listed too and I’m guessing it is unlikely he will get any funding if accepted. RPI is a reach school for him. His father went there and got a phenomenal education, but we cannot afford full price with another child in college too. Our guidance office encourages kids to apply to all 3 categories: Safety, Target and Reach schools. I thought this is pretty common advice.
@menloparkmom - apologies, I thought you put it in parenthesis because you didn’t mean it to be included in the note. I was mistaken apparently.
If the guidance counselor was thinking about acceptances only, and thought your son wouldn’t be admitted to any of these schools, she was wrong. However, it’s possible that she thought it was unlikely that your son would be both admitted AND would receive sufficient financial aid. RPI’s need-based aid isn’t usually that good (certainly not for an admission from the wait list); SUNY schools probably don’t give any institutional need-based aid to OOS students. Are you instate for UMASS Lowell? If so, that may be your best bet if finances are an issue.
I agree that doing your own research is the best idea, and reliance solely on what a guidance counselor says is foolish. We had kind of the opposite issue - GC told my daughter, who applied to 3 safeties and 2 low matches, all of which she considered good fits and any of which she would have been very happy to attend, that she needed to apply to several reaches. Um . . . why? The same GC also told her not to worry about finances and to just apply where she wanted. Seems like terrible advice to me.
Take a look at RPIs Common Data Set to get an idea of how many people are admitted off the wait list. Every school is different. Some take very few while others take a good number. It helps to know. Also it really helps to really make ones interest known in multiple ways, at least in our experience at a different school. Did he visit? If not then definitely visit!
I was a mentor to a low-income student (without stellar scores) and the GC was suggesting schools that would be a decent academic fit but that had NO money to give out. Pointless.
57 admitted off the waitlist of 4087 (1.3%). http://provost.rpi.edu/sites/default/files/CDS_2015-2016.pdf#overlay-context=institutional-research/common-datasets I was wondering why everyone was treating a waitlist as an admission. It’s not.
Certainly a waitlist is not an acceptance by any stretch. I thought (maybe incorrectly) that the OP’s point was that getting waitlisted showed that RPI was not an inappropriate application and that is it important to do one’s own research and not rely solely on the advice of a GC.
Being put on the waitlist (except possibly for the rumored courtesy waitlist for legacies which I am not at all sure I believe in) definitely means your application was in the running. Figuring out where you will get in is an art not a science. I thought my older son (stellar grades and scores) would do better than he did. I thought my younger son (demanding schedule, but mixed grades, with similar highs and lows in the SAT) would do worse than he did, but apparently witty non-STEM boys are in demand. Some GCs are more risk adverse than others.
I know it isn’t a guarantee admit, however the guidance counselor was treating UMASS Lowell as a reach, and both RPI and Binghamton as unattainable reaches…recommended he apply to some schools as safeties where my son would be in the top 2 percent for SATs. She never even mentioned financial need at all, did not enter into her equation and cut me off when I suggested schools like RPI and Binghamton, as if they were completely not an option. In fact she was ecstatic we applied to UVM, which we only did as an afterthought, and she thought we would get in there. I think it was more her demeanor, and I want to say, as soon as UMASS got his grades, they admitted him the next day, and she was unsure about him getting accepted.
We did not seek, nor did we get guidance from the school “guidance counselor.” He was one of a very overworked staff that did not at all give personal advice or opinions about college choices, but only helped with the paperwork. Since they assigned the counselors according to alphabetical ordering of students’ last names, both of our kids had the same counselor.
The only thing we were concerned about was whether a 1-day suspension of our older one (for arguing with a teacher) was part of his record that the counselor’s report would include – it was not.
In many large high schools, the school guidance counselors mainly provide clerical and administrative support to make sure the high school’s reports are completed and sent on time. They aren’t going to be good judges of the student’s “fit” to the colleges, nor what the student plans to study in college.
My daughter pretty much ignored her guidance counselor. He told her she had too many safeties and not enough reaches, and talked down one of her safeties (which happens to be the school from which she will graduate in a couple weeks after a great 4 years). He also told her not to worry about finances as she made her college list. Since he had no idea what our financial situation was, I cannot imagine why he would give that advice. I’m sure there are good guidance counselors out there, but I think parents and students definitely need to do their own research.
well at my son’s school, the parent meets with the guidance counselor with the student. So I was present when I heard the "isn’t that special tone about applying to RPI, as well as SUNY Binghamton, I wish we had now applied to WPI and Trinity as well as possibly RIT, Wentworth and Ithaca as well as UMASS Amherst. We were told the only school that MIGHT give him grants was Lasell. Fortunately he is getting a hundred percent of his needs met at UMASS Lowell…I also might have had him apply at SUNY Albany if I had thought he might get grants, but we were told probably not anywhere but Lasell. I am a single mother with 0 percent expected contribution.
I did tell them I was a single mother and that he was really interested.
I’m beginning to be thankful that we knew upfront the guidance counselor, while very nice and well intentioned, would be totally useless in D’s college search. There was never a parent- child-GC meeting about colleges. Way too many students for that to happen.
D handed him her request for transcripts and his LOR the first week of school her senior year and that was the first he had seen or heard of her college list. It was also probably the first time he had heard of most colleges on her list.