Choice of major and merit/acceptances? [NY resident, 4.0 GPA, 1520 SAT, <$50k; art ECs/portfolio but does not want art major]

Parents Forum
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What does she hope to do with a biology degree? Does she want to be premed? Pursue grad school in the life sciences?

RIT, which has already been mentioned, was my first thought. They have a really good mix of STEMmy and artsy kids, and some majors that blend both, like Medical Illustration Another cool and highly employable major (much more interesting than the name might lead you to believe) that blends artistic ability with the life sciences is Packaging Science. (Rutgers also has a Packaging program; theirs is housed in their engineering school.)

Is she interested in minoring in art? URichmond has arts-specific scholarships that are not contingent on majoring in art, but do require a minor.

For the most part, though, I’d say that submitting a portfolio that positions art as an extracurricular, and applying to a life sciences major, is totally fine. There isn’t an expectation that people already have extensive STEM EC’s, just to apply to a science major, at the vast majority of colleges, even competitive ones.

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Yes, it’s the Visual Arts and Technology. We attended the open house and very few students showed up for that presentation. It seems they were trying to build their reputation in other areas so I thought that might be a good option. There is also the chance she may really like the major as well.

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Yes, she will probably apply to Suny New Paltz as well as Bing. I will have her check out Albany and Buffalo if she is set on a city (which I don’t think she is).

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Thank you for the suggestions. I will definitely have her look into Miami U. I was also thinking GW might be good. My older daughter got a very generous scholarship from them but she applied to the engineering school which was not highly ranked (and probably the reason she got the scholarship).

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Thank you for the suggestion of URichmond and RIT. I will have her check them out.

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Yes, visual arts & tech makes more sense Visual arts & tech had 14 grads in the most recent IPEDS compared to 8 for biology, so it’s not less popular than biology. I don’t know whether Stevens has a preference for one of these majors over the other.

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If you think she would like this, she might want to look at the Purdue version also: Studio Arts and Technology - College of Liberal Arts - Purdue University

Industrial/Product Design could be another major worth considering. Purdue has a program INDUSTRIAL AND INTERACTION DESIGN - College of Liberal Arts - Purdue University and so does RIT Industrial Design BFA | RIT If those appeal, there are quite a few more that she could look at. Syracuse is another: Industrial and Interaction Design B.I.D. unclear whether need-based and merit aid would combine to get you to budget, but it seems possible.

Lehigh’s aid is pretty generous - would this school meet your budget? Their traditional STEM majors are strong, and they also have Design department that offers a Design major and a Product Design minor.

Northeastern also has a highly combinable Design major - this combo, for example, might appeal for her interests: Behavioral Neuroscience and Design, BS | Northeastern University Academic Catalog Again, you’d have to check the NPC to see whether the aid would be enough; but she’d be competitive admissions-wise, I would think. And this is one where, if she wasn’t loving the design piece, she could easily let that go and do a pure STEM major, but the portfolio process for CAMD could help with admissions and merit.

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If your daughter would like to apply to colleges with studio art simply as a special talent, then she may benefit from researching schools that would allow her to demonstrate her artitistic attributes, irrespective of her other academic interests and intended major. As an example, this is how Hamilton describes this approach:

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I don’t get the sense that OP’s kid interested in integrating art but simply thought it might be a mechanism to get more $$ - and the answer there is likely not.

But - there are certainly programs out there if they do decide to combine the two. But not sure where they intended the thread to head.

OP?

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OP stated that they’d looked at the Visual Arts & Technology major at Stevens, and said

So, the possibility of interest in a blended major was confirmed, but OP’s D may also want a straight-STEM major. If it’s the latter, they probably need fewer specific suggestions
 whereas there are majors combining both interests that they may not have considered. So my thought was that running these up the proverbial flagpole might be worthwhile, and could help to clarify whether there’s a blended major that piques the student’s interest, or not.

Northeastern is the only school I’ve thought of so far where applying to the blended major might be advantageous for admissions/merit, but it would also be easy to drop the art/design piece later if the student isn’t enjoying that aspect. And I don’t know if their aid is generous enough to make the school desirable, or not.

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I believe my daughter doesn’t really know what she wants to do. She enjoys painting and ceramics but doesn’t see herself pursuing a full-time career as an artist. I think she is also quite practical and doesn’t want to be a “struggling artist”. It’s only in the past 2 years that she has started to really enjoy her math and science classes. She regrets not taking a science research class and is under the impression that she may enjoy doing this in the future. She has shyed away from CS, as that is her older sister"s “thing” but I actually think she may enjoy that as well. When she interned at her local art center, she designed very artistic and creative flyers for their website, making me think graphic design could be an option as well (or that major at Stevens). I think the only thing she has ruled out is a humanitites major, such as English or History.

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Yes, Norteastern would be great for her. We toured when my older daughter was looking and she liked it. When my older daughter applied, they offered her a combination of merit and aid which was pretty good (although our income was a bit less 4 years ago). While both of my girls have similiar grades and SAT scores, my older daughter did a number of CS things (including creating her own company for “girls in tech”). I think that made her a very appealing applicant at certain schools so I don’t want to assume the same type of scholarships for my younger daughter. That’s why I thought art could be her “hook”.

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As an aspect to consider, even some schools with generally strong visual arts programs may not offer ceramics classes or facilities. If your daughter would like to continue in ceramics, be sure to research this characteristic.

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So the AOs at relevant colleges I have seen address this have disclaimed they try to fill majors in that sense. Which again wouldn’t make much sense.

Like, suppose your college has an exploratory model where you are expected to take a variety of classes and only decide on your major by the end of your sophomore year. Many people take classes in areas that are not typically offered in high schools, and end up majoring in things they didn’t even think about when applying. In general, a majority end up majoring in something different than they thought they would when applying.

If you are admitting applicants to such a college, how would you “fill” majors? Not only is there nothing stopping a student who says they might be interested in majoring in X from majoring in Y instead, but the whole setup of your college experience is designed to encourage that.

Now, what these sorts of colleges actually do say they do in admissions is look for kids who are truly suitable for that sort of broad exploratory model. So, like, CS kids are constantly complaining about how hard it is to get admitted as a CS major, and of course when CS admits by major it can indeed be one of the hardest these days. But these kids seem to think it can be true even when the college does not admit by major. Usually there is no verification of that, but I could see a certain TYPE of CS applicant not doing well, the type who is all CS, all the time, and is not really all that interested in such a broad exploratory education. If a college like that thinks that a given CS applicant is like that, they may not be interested because they may think that applicant is not really going to thrive in a college like theirs.

But they do admit CS intenders, indeed have been “allowing” their CS major counts to go up and up (not that they really can control it). So who is actually getting admitted? I would suggest if you are a CS intender who also has a strong interest in the arts, that is a good start on convincing them you are actually the sort of person who will thrive in that broad exploratory model.

OK, but then won’t you be better off still saying you are an art intender, and then doing CS instead? They tend to say no, and I don’t really see any reason to doubt them. It just isn’t part of their admissions policies to try to do things like that, because it isn’t their college model either. But they may know if you are a kid who says you are thinking of CS but also really like art, there is a good chance you will be one of those kids who actually finds a different passion in college, possibly art, but possibly neither of those too as you encounter so many new things in college.

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Or or could be everyone wants CS, so they need to offer those kids less merit. And fill in other majors - so buy those kids in.

Merit / hitting cost is often about where you apply though then what you apply for.

It’s essentially a discount in order for certain kids to choose it over another.

If you’re a top dog, they’ll pay to get you. If you’re average or below, they’re less likely to be aggressive.

Since you have a budget, you need to attend schools that you are better than the norm. Or different - maybe a female in a male dominated field.

Don’t know what you spent on your daughter
.but stats oriented alone your daughter will be in good shape. And that larger school with lots of options may make sense - for exploration.

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Have her build her list from bottom up. Take advantage of SUNY free application month in October(this way she can toss an application at Bing, Albany, Stony Brook, UB , and maybe even Geneseo and New Paltz) this way she will have a lot of choices regarding affordable options.

Has she considered Womens Colleges? She will probably be able to get some merit money from Smith, which is part of the 5 college consortium and is strong in STEM.

Has she considered tossing an application at CUNY Macauley Honors (CUNY has free application month in October)

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If Cornell is not mentioned here, I will. Cornell contract colleges are 15k less for NY residents. You can save money in going to one of those schools and then transfer to other schools. As an example, you can major in biology in college of agriculture as well as in A&S. It’s relatively easy to transfer between those colleges as long as you have required courses.
Both of my kids went to Cornell. Their main ECs were ballet. One majored in math & Econ, another in philosophy. They had very full college experiences at Cornell even though Ithaca was not a large city. My older daughter really wanted to be in a large city, but it didn’t work out that way. She said she was very happy she went to Cornell because it was an experience she wouldn’t have had otherwise. She now lives and work in NYC. One thing to keep in mind is going to a school in a large city will often require more spending money. It is much better to work/live in a city when one has money to spend.

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I think you should be smart and package your kid as an Art major. Look at it from the perspective of the college: they could admit an entire class of Bio majors, or CS majors (or whatever) but they are not. Let’s say they want 100 Bio majors , 100 English majors, and 100 Econ majors ( to maintain some diversity in the class)

Well then your bio major kid is going to be competing against kids who have done science olympiads and research with professors in science and science internships. She will not fare well in that evaluation

But if she applies for Art and has compelling evidence of talent, commitment, etc in that field she will be more likely to get in. You can always switch majors later. How easy or hard it is to do depends on the school of course. In many Canadian universities switching from art to bio would be impossible, but for many US schools it would not be so hard

But if your family income is <50K, as I understand from the original post, I would really recommend rethinking the plan and targeting wealthy schools. Those places are most likely to give your kid a full ride, all expenses paid, no $ out of your pocket. This is how a private school can end up being cheaper than a state school. When those places say you pay nothing if your family income is under X ( $150 K at some places) they mean it.

A wealthier school can also be more generous with aid. Our financial aid packages from private schools varied wildly–some thought our out of pocket cost should be $81,000; others $50,000. We did not get any aid offers from public universities in the US. I think looking at schools with healthy endowments that are looking to recruit lower income students might be a useful strategy in this case—

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D23, with a 95% GPA and TO, received $23k merit to UCONN’s School of Fine Arts for film production, which brought the cost to about $34k, which was the lowest of any school she was accepted to other than the SUNY schools and Florida State.

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An alternative to Temple is Drexel. Nice area of Philadelphia, next to Penn. D23 received about $35k merit to the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, which brought cost to about $40k (although with their coops, I never really understood what the average annual cost would be).

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