<p>This is just anecdotal, but a neighbor who was very involved in BBYO seriously considered attendin CofC. She felt that it offered enough opportunities for Jewish experiences, but chose another school for different reasons. I know of a Jewish girl from Connecticut who tranferred because it felt “too Southern.” I was intringued with CofC when my daughter was interested in Southern schools and it sounds very appealing. As a state school, it will have a different demographic mix than Elon. I’m looking forward to hearing your impression after you visit, RVM.</p>
<p>RVM:I hope your dreams about the ACT score come true!</p>
<p>We are not religious-- you could call us secular humanists-- thoughtful, ethical (well, we try anyway!) nonreligious people with a mixed Christian/Jewish heritage… My daughter was told she would go to hell by one child after another, from 1st grade through middle school. It was never meant cruelly: “Aren’t you afraid of what it will be like in hell?” Or, “I pray for you every night because I like you and don’t want you to go to hell.” D seemed to take it in stride-- as we don’t believe in hell it didn’t really upset her. But it has definitely put roadblocks in her friendships at school… and has made me take religious differences into a different kind of account than I might… And maybe geographical difference too-- I’m following the Elon and CofC discussion with great interest. (Coastal Carolina is another one D is interested in.)</p>
<p>momjr - I just left a message for the ACT tutor to commence the process. (Much gnashing of teeth). I know we shouldn’t compare one kid to another - but I’m not happy about needing to pay for a tutor this time around. Am hoping to do a few sessions - and then he tests again in February. We’ll see.</p>
<p>S2 said the best thing to me this weekend - we were talking about college stuff and I said to him that I am trying so hard to make this go more smoothly for him than it did for S1. And he said, “Don’t worry Mom - I know I’ll be happy wherever I go.” And that’s the truth - he is very capable of blooming where planted. I know his easy-going, flexible, laidback nature is not from my gene pool!</p>
<p>RVM: The ACT tutoring may pay off. You might also want to check to see if Kaplan or Princeton Review are offering any full ACT practice tests in your area. My daughter took an SAT class that included 4 full practice tests, and I think it really helped with her pacing and comfort with the test. </p>
<p>Your son sounds like a great kid with a great attitude.</p>
<p>He is a great kid, thank you! And as a funny aside - he was the worst infant and toddler ever! Colicky, cranky, tons of tantrums, etc. But I get very little teenage lip/attitude from him - maybe he used up all of his backtalk before the age of three?</p>
<p>I am hopeful re the ACT tutoring. At 24 - reading was his worst section - and I have a feeling that with good strategies/tips - he could bring that one up a few points. Fixing that alone would move him from a 27 to a 28 - so I am cautiously optimistic.</p>
<p>You are blessed with a fine son. It sounds like you have at least 5 schools that will meet your criteria (Elon, College of Charleston, Muhlenberg, Towson and James Madison) that you will have plenty of nice choices next year. I hope you will consider Towson, especially if your son gets accepted to the honors program. At least, it will be interesting to compare these schools to see where you and your son feel is the best fit after visiting every school.</p>
<p>mdcissp - and we have not eliminated Susquehanna either - so 6 at this point. Salisbury still a question mark.</p>
<p>Here’s another one that seems interesting - but I can’t find much of anything on Jewish life or Hillel - Coastal Carolina. Gwen Fairfax just mentioned it - so I had to look it up. It has lots that I like - great location near Myrtle Beach, $28,000 OOS t,r & b, 51% from SC - so still about half from OOS, easy safety school for a B student or a match for a B- student; interesting majors - marine science and wetlands biology is big, resort and tourism mgmt, professional golf mgmt; nice merit money for students with a 3.5 and a 26+ ACT; rolling admissions - they mention 3-week turnaround time on the website; 8400 students - nice medium size.</p>
<p>The religious life section of the website mentions Hillel - but no link or info. This is probably lower than we need to go - average GPA of 3.31 and average SAT of 1028 - but it might work for someone else if we knew anything about Jewish life there. Anyone know?</p>
<p>I know kids who go to/went to CofC (including my s) and kids who go to/went to Elon. </p>
<p>Taking the Jewish component out for a moment, it seems to me a big difference in the type of students each school attracts. Elon students are more conservative in dress and lifestyle, perhaps in politics, as one might expect at a private, southern college. CofC attracts the “out-of-the-box” kids who are seeking a more laid back, liberal environment (with no football team. And one cannot discount the importance the South places on college football.) This is my very biased opinion, based on observation. I love the kids who were attracted to Elon and they wanted to go there for a reason, so the “fit” was right for them. Unfortunately, (for this forum), none were Jewish so I have no “insider” scoop.</p>
<p>Here’s something to consider that I totally missed when searching for my s but will take more seriously when looking for my d: what are the college’s core course requirements outside of majors? Some schools basically let a student (along with an advisor) design his/her own studies outside of the the major. Other schools have very specific classes that must be taken as “breath” requirements. Liberal arts colleges, by their very nature, have students take foreign languages, math, English, etc. which can fill a schedule very quickly the first year or two. In my s’s case, this was great because he wasn’t sure what he wanted to study and he was able to sort things out while getting a feel for college level work. Other students may want to jump right into their major. Again, fit. What works for one may not be right for another.</p>
<p>My d is interested in Coastal, also. I know one Jewish student at Coastal (he is studying Fashion) and his mom reports that he is very happy there. He grew up in Miami and moved to SC around middle school so he is used to both a big Jewish population and a tiny one. His family lives about an hour from our Temple and his mom drove her boys here three times a week, for years. Former Youth Group President. So I imagine they must have considered how he would fit in at Coastal.</p>
<p>There is a congregation in Myrtle Beach but I’ve never heard anyone mention Hillel.</p>
<p>Stillnadine makes an EXCELLENT point about breath or core requirements if that makes a difference to your child. One thing I don’t like about Towson is the many core requirements (I think there are 10 classes?) depending upon how many good AP scores your child brings.
You would be surprised how a kid can get stuck having to take courses s/he is not strong at, and then this impacts GPA. </p>
<p>The only school I heard that really does away with core requirements is Brown (not for the B plus student). However, if given the choice, Rockville Mom and other parents on this thread may want to look more closely at the core or breath requirements to see if it matches your kid’s academic interests.</p>
<p>I don’t know what the core requirements are at Elon, etc. </p>
<p>Any feedback out there from other parents whose son or daughter got stuck with required courses not interested in? This may impact your decision, particularly if foreign language is required and your kid doesn’t want foreign language (or any other particular academic subject-math, science, etc.)</p>
<p>Gen ed requirements have been a huge concern to me because D is A) very focused, with a lot of classes she’s anxious to take, and B) very lopsided, with very low math/science ability. She’s never going to be ‘well-rounded’ and I don’t want to pay for her to take classes that will be meaningless to her. So, I’ve learned to search “General Education Requirements” on each school’s website-- usually you can get right to them, sometimes you need to put in “Core requirements” instead. It can be a big surprise, and it can also be a quick way to get a sense of the school’s central educational values, too.</p>
<p>As a kid, I wanted as few requirements as possible. As an adult, I can see how schools which want to have graduates who can thrive in 21st century America think, for example, that an enormous amount of fields now require some understanding of technology; statistics; international cultures; and the ability to write persuasively; speak before groups; and work on group projects.</p>
<p>Before suggesting that even the most lopsided kid avoid core requirements, I would look at the various ways the requirements can be fulfilled; the quality of the school’s advising; and what the college seeks to achieve.</p>
<p>Remember, too, that many, many 18 year olds change their majors before they graduate, no matter how certain they are coming in.</p>
<p>yabeyabe, I agree. I think that a compromise between core requirements and no requirements is distribution requirements. This means that students have many choices about how to fulfill them, and there are often courses designed for “non-majors”. I also know that some students thrive and learn with core requirements. When schools such as Brown or Rochester abandoned requirements, they probably did so with the idea that students would venture outside their comfort zones and try different areas of study. In reality, the exact opposite often occurs. I think that if our kids do go to school with few or no requirements, we should encourage them to do some exploring of different areas of study.
When S1 was unable to place out of his foreign language requirement, we were, at first, very disappointed (not surprised, as he was terrible at languages, but upset that it meant that he had very few other choices outside of his business core requirements.) It turned out that he loved his Spanish teachers and learned way more than he had in high school, even though his high school teachers were also excellent. He ended up studying abroad in Spain and became fluent, and can now converse with the Spanish-speaking (Jewish) relatives of his gf, who was originally from a Spanish-speaking country. We really tried to encourage him to use the few options outside the core to explore some of the humanities. I think that he is a better person for it!</p>
<p>I know back about 100 pages we were discussing graduation rates…just saw this posted on Elon’s website but I can’t access the entire article…if anyone else has subscription, please post…</p>
<p>The article on Graduation Rates that was recently posted in the Chronicle referred mostly to public IHEs, not privates. I work at a Community College and we have a subscription. I hope this link works.</p>
<p>If you look at the link in my previous post. It allows you to change the “Sortable Tables” to the following categories:</p>
<p>Public Research
Private Research, etc.</p>
<p>I think Elon is in the Private Master’s category.</p>
<p>Intersting statistics. However, there is much controversy in the Academic world about how badly these statistics reflect how students move through colleges. For instance, it does not track transfer students or students who go to community colleges and then transfer to 4-year IHEs. For an interesting response on these issues I suggest you read this article:</p>
<p>One last item, in defense of my D’s alma mater, when looking at the Tulane stats you will notice that the latest figures are from 2008. These reflect the large turnover after Katrina and President Cowen has stated that the real 6-year graduation rate will not be reflected until the 2010-2011 figures are reported.</p>
<p>Gwen, you are right that it is very hard to tell the quality of advising from a website. An email to the head of Admissions or the Office of First Year Students (if they have one) can be helpful. In addition, reading how the school explains the philosphy behind its distribution requirements can be helpful.</p>
<p>My son’s advisor suggested a theory of film class to meet a distribution requirement and, to his shock, he finds it very interesting despite many of the films being very obscure.</p>
<p>It can also be helpful to explore whether such classes may be taken pass/fail, which limits the downside to the student’s GPA.</p>