Any chance the school participates in the tuition exchange?
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Wrt applying TO to Cornell
Can you specify if itâs 760ERW-700M or ?
740m and 720 reading and writing.
No free tuition. My wife only teaches there part time.
Okay, thanks- she should try and retake to imprive the ERW section or apply TO. 
Since her school is a âknown quantityâ she probably doesnât need to retest sibce rigor and grading scale will be well understood.
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Thank you. Her goal is to improve ERW by 20+ points. She may completely ignore the math section to focus all her prep on ERW.
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If sheâs not exhausted/stressed by it, thisbis an excellent strategy.
This part of your post resonates with me. While D24 was fine with the nuts and bolts parts of the application (she wrote great essays and she is organized enough to stay on top of deadlines), she has had trouble identifying clear criteria for choosing a college. The problem was never the applications. The problem has always been caring enough about college to make some choices about where to apply. Much like your daughter, she didnât have a clue junior year what she wanted for a major. ED was off the table for practical reasons (didnât have a clear first choice, our need to compare financial aid offers) and also she actively wanted to be able to decide between colleges during senior spring rather than picking a choice in the fall. Also like your daughter, she wasnât that interested in touring and we didnât do much of it. At your daughterâs stage, her categories were:
- indifferent --colleges that donât seem that interesting
- meh --colleges that would probably be fine.
In other words, she didnât have particularly warm feelings towards any college. On the flip side, she didnât have any âabsolutely nots.â Mostly she didnât care much beyond a list of traits and features that were in the nice to have category, Those traits (like location, size, accessibility arts for non-major) as well as our need for financial aid helped narrow down the list a bit, but none were dealbreakers in her mind other than wanting to be no more than six hours from home.
The good news is that it all worked out --she was admitted to an early action college which did take some pressure off, and then she mostly got great news this spring so now she has some fantastic choices. The bad news is that nothing has really changed. She still feels meh about her choices. She still doesnât know what she wants to study. And it has been like pulling teeth to get her to go to the admitted students days. So here we are with two weeks to go and no decision in sight.
So I guess the moral of the story is that I am reading people advising that you back off and leave her alone. That is what I did, and I think for the most part it was the right choice. If a kid isnât engaged, a power struggle with a parent and pushing them is going to be counter-productive. On the other hand, I donât think there is any guarantee that they will be more engaged nine months later. I wonder if I had done a little more nudging her to think about college, it might have helped. Maybe not, but I suspect part of the problem is that she is having a failure of imagination. She canât imagine herself at college at all so it is hard for her to get excited about any choice. They all more or less seem fine to her and some paralysis has set in. Little did I know that wanting to be free to pick among choices senior spring ended up being as much about procrastination as wanting to have time to mature and grow.
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If these are the criteria then Iâm confused why American isnât on her list â it matches more of these criteria than GW and Georgetown do. She would also (if she shows interest) have a good chance at a $10k-20k per year scholarship from AU.
To break it down:
School size: 14k (8k undergrad) (GW is 11.5k undergrad)
Pretty Campus: AUâs campus is a registered arboretum with cherry blossoms and a quad layout. GW doesnât really have a campus (unless you count their annex campus).
Ambitious students: About 90% of AU students do internships before graduating (compared to GWâs 68%) and more than half either double major or minor outside of their primary school (compared to 13% of GW students).
Little to no Greek Life: About 10% of AUâs student body is involved in Greek life (similar to GWâs 15%), and thereâs no on-campus Greek housing (GW has Greek housing).
Public Policy and/or American Studies: AU has a Polisci major with a concentration in Policy, as well as a minor in Polisci, a minor in Public Policy, and a major and minor in American Studies.
Jewish Population: About 20% of AU undergrads are Jewish (compared to 6.5% at Georgetown)
Not NYC, but not the middle of nowhere: AU is located in Northwest D.C., about a mile from Georgetown, but with far more public transit access (Georgetown, both the neighborhood and the school, lack metro stops and many bus routes).
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She didnât like the âvibeâ of AU.
Honestly, if she didnât like the âvibeâ of AU despite it meeting all of her criteria â doesnât sound like sheâll be happy with anywhere. College is about so much more than the âvibeâ and honestly if youâre the one paying for it you might have to just put your foot down about her making her mind up.
She has a list of 29? schools. I think it is time for you to take a step back while she decides which schools to keep on her list. I recognize how difficult this is (taking a step back would be very hard for me).
She needs time to figure it out.
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About 29, I lose track. But 10 she has put thought into. Another 15-20 that her counselor and advisor added for her, that she hasnât researched at all. (Beyond⊠you like Vassar and Amherst, you therefore might like Bates and Colby and Williams).
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The prevailing wisdom is to give her space. Which Iâve been trying to do more of. She has her reasons, even if she canât fully articulate them. It may simply be lots of her classmates including her brother go to Georgetown and GW, almost none go to American. It may be that her advisor urged her to cross it off and she took the advice.
And if sheâs been - AU is vastly different than both of those.
We read every year - kids are apathetic toward the process - but come crunch time and it may be late, they get engaged - at least enough to have a landing pad.
She has seen the AU campus, not a formal tour.
My understanding, the type of âpretty campusâ she likes, isnât just a matter of being more campusy than GW. Itâs a campus with breathtaking vistas, bodies of water, etc. Yes, as opposed to GW, AU has more of a âreal campus feel.â
Letâs put it this way, I donât think she would classify Georgetown as especially pretty either, though I think itâs a lovely campus. She likes mountain views.
Yes, the criteria doesnât fully make sense to me.
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If itâs any consolation, my NYC D liked Vassar not Wesleyan; liked Bates not Colby; liked Williams not Amherst. I didnât get it, but at least it helped narrow her list.
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UVM has both Lake Champlain (really breathtaking vistas) and the Green Mountains. The campus itself is smack dab in the middle of Burlington ( hardly a huge metropolis- but certainly not in the middle of nowhere- cute little city with a very Vermont vibe) but if itâs views- nice bike path from campus which has stunning scenery. Vermont has had some issues (aging population, not terribly diverse, some difficulties with economic development to keep jobs and young people in-state) but they have done a fantastic job keeping pristine wild areas even in the populated parts of the state. And the state park system- WOW.
Shelburne museum- not far from Burlington. A gem.
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Yes, itâs one of her safeties.
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UPDATED JULY 8, 2024:
Intended Major(s)
Public policy, American Studies, Political science
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
4.0 unweighted. 4.06 weighted (very little weight offered). School doesnât officially rank, but is co-valedictorian with 10-15 others (so top 3-5%)(There were 10 valedictorians in class of 2024, they are mostly going on to Ivy (2 to Harvard) and Ivy equivalent schools (Duke, Washington U, etc).
1460 SAT, does not want to-retest.
Coursework
(AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores for high school; also include level of math and foreign language reached and any unusual academic electives; for transfers, describe your college courses and preparation for your intended major(s))
High school doesnât allow APs until junior year. Took 3 AP classes as a junior, will take 5 more as a senior.
Junior year scores:
APUSH: 5, APES 4, AP SEM 4
Awards
Presidential service award as a freshman. As a Junior award, Yale Book Award.
Extracurriculars
(Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)
Founding intern of a teen Asian American community group, Vice President of school BSU (black and people of color student union). Intern for state senator, intern for a congressional campaign.
Essays/LORs/Other
Strong essay, 8/10
Cost Constraints / Budget
(High school students: please get a budget from your parents and use the Net Price Calculators on the web sites of colleges of interest.)
None at this time.
Schools
(List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below)
- Safety (certain admission and affordability)
- Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable)
Need to narrow it down slightly;
Reach: ED â Cornell, likely Brooks Public Policy
Reach: Brown, Georgetown, UC Berkeley, Rice, UCLA, Amherst, Tufts, University of Southern California, Middlebury, Boston University, Hamilton, Bates, UVA
Match: Vassar, William and Mary, University of Maryland College Park, Brandeis, University of Rochester
Likely: SUNY Binghamton, Clark University, George Washington
Safety: UMASS Amherst, UC Davis, University of Vermont, SUNY Geneseo
Will likely cut out 4-8 of these.
Questions:
-Chances on the reach school
-Whether to submit SAT score to Cornell ED.
-Which of those schools would you cut. We really donât need additional schools recommended.
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