<p>Thanks for the info, re: Univ. of Hartford…when the time comes, we’ll probably look there…glad to hear they were generous with FA, but the school cost is not nearly as expensive as some of the ones we looked at for our S1. I’ve also heard things about a strong music dept., and believe it or not, I think they have a pre-cantorial program there too!</p>
<p>Yeah, I knew they had a large jewish population…20% is a good number…why did your D decide not to apply there? Just glancing at their website quickly, it does seem to be very easy to get into…and not very academically competitive…I’d have to re-evaluate when S2 is closer to looking at colleges and maybe hold it out as a safety…</p>
<p>RVM: My S was very motivated to do well on the SAT and took prep very seriously. However, my S2 sounds a lot like your S2 and I’ll be in the same frustrating situation as you are in now! You are doing all that a parent should & would do…now it’s up to him. I will definitely be looking to you for guidance in a few years when the exact same scenario happens in this household! Good luck, sorry it’s so frustrating.</p>
<p>dwhite - Wake is about 35-40 minutes west of Elon along rt 40. I agree that it may be easier to stay in one place - I personally would stay at which ever one is closest to you - so that your long drive is shorter. PM me if you have any Wake Forest questions that I can answer. I’ve visited Elon three times - so pretty familiar with that one as well.</p>
<p>creativecrew - I would love to visit Muhlenberg - just a matter of convincing S2 that it is worth the sacrifice of a Saturday to do it. </p>
<p>Also adding a comment about our list of participants and their kids and colleges - this is, of course, completely optional. It’s a nice resource - but if it makes anyone uncomfortable - don’t worry about it. You can be as anonymous as you would like.</p>
<p>Some thoughts on Hartford. D3 is a freshman music performance major in the Hartt School.</p>
<p>Competitiveness: Yes, the music programs are considered more competitive than the University overall. However, there is a strong Honors program, with special classes and housing for first year students. D took two general education honors classes and found her classmates (for the most part) intelligent and engaged. Her personal circle tends to include musicians and the honors kids in her dorm; she doesn’t really connect with some of the slackers and partiers that are on campus.</p>
<p>Scholarships: Hartford’s reputation for generous merit aid is well deserved. The honors kids all seem to have healthy scholarships, several with full scholarships. They often shared D’s perspective: she was accepted to other, more prestigious conservatories and colleges, but in the end decided that cost trumped prestige. (For comparison, she was an A- student with so-so test scores and a pretty strong audition.)</p>
<p>Jewish life: Last I looked, Hartford is about 33% Jewish, ranks something like 5th in the nation. There is a very active Hillel with special activities for freshmen, a Chabad, the Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies and other activities. Levels of observance range from secular (many) to some (most) to orthodox (fewer). The university acknowledges Jewish holidays. Hillel’s lounge has a fridge, big screen TV, a Wii, board games, and probably some other stuff. It’s in the basement of one of the dorms, near one of the student snack bars. There’s a kosher dining option in the main dining hall.</p>
<p>Thanks, RVM, for mentioning list is entirely optional. I thought I would start it mainly for me, because my memory is poor and I was embarrassed that I did not remember who had what child in what grade at h.s. applying to what colleges…it was a matter for me to keep everyone straight in my mind, but I hope no one is offended…</p>
<p>Very quickly…Stradmom: Thank you so much for your input with regard to U of Hartford! Very glad to know your D is happy there. Anything else you can tell me would be most helpful…when the time comes I would look into the honors program too…did not realize the jewish population was so high…</p>
<p>Strandmom: Thanks for adding the great info on U of Hartford to the little we knew from our tour. Obviously, you have way more experience/insight than I do from my unofficial tour!</p>
<p>One more thing I can add about the school - one of my colleagues graduated from Hartford - she went for performance/dance but ended up a social worker. She’s from Connecticut and told me that there really were not a lot of students there from Connecticut (she’s out about 10 years).</p>
<p>CCC: My D did not apply because it would have been another safety school and we had enough on our list which were all SUNYs (thus automatically financial safeties even before FA). Had she been interested in music, it would have been a definite. She hasn’t picked up her flute since the last day of band in 12th grade!</p>
<p>Thanks RVM! Sounds like that is the best way to go - traveling 35-40 mins is easier than checking in/out hotels in 48 hours! As of now, Wake is very high on S2s list so I think we may opt to stay in Winston-Salem so he can get a better feel for the area. Btw, we will be traveling from MD.</p>
<p>At our NJ HS it is a popular option for C students–similar to York, although, for whatever reason (less rural?) it is more popular with Jewish kids than York, whose tuition is much less (although whose FA is less). Kids who are there like it.</p>
<p>dwhite - so if you are traveling from MD - Elon will be closer. We did something very similar in November - drove down and stayed near Elon - drove to Wake one day to visit S1 - and then did the info session/tour at Elon with S2 - before returning to MD. I liked doing it that way because the drive from MD to NC can take 5-7 hours depending on the traffic on 95 - so it was nice to be finished earlier by staying at a hotel near Elon. </p>
<p>I still have not seen much of downtown W-S. The area around the campus is very residential - very nice looking. My son and his friends leave campus frequently - going to movies, out to eat, sporting events and concerts. They frequently go to events in Greensboro and at UNC-CH. So - they seem to find plenty to do - he has friends from NC - which I think would be pretty common - so they know where everything is located. Wake Forest is a gorgeous campus.</p>
<p>Elon is also a beautiful campus - the fountains in particular make it stand out. Elon has more construction going on and more changes planned for the next few years. Elon seems to have less available in the area immediately off campus - but they also seem to have better bus transportation to get places.</p>
<p>My older son has not taken his car to Wake - has not been an issue = most of his friends seem to have cars. </p>
<p>A few notes of comparison - first price. Elon - at about $35,700 - is about $20,000 less that Wake. My son was accepted to both and chose Wake because he feels it is more prestigious and had better sports. I would agree on the prestige - it is now #25 on USNWR - sports teams - eh - not so much! One thing he did not count on is just how hard the coursework is at Wake and the grading. It is very hard to get an A there. So - his GPA - while good relative to the typical student at Wake - is probably not as high as it would have been had he gone to Elon. And he is concerned now that this may come back and bite him when it is time to apply to law schools.</p>
<p>☆。★。☆。★
。☆ 。☆。☆
★。＼｜／。★
Happy New Year!
…★。／｜＼。★</p>
<p>Happy New Year to all of you. I really appreciate all the support you’ve offered during our rotten winter break. To qoute one of our members (college4three?), “You’re the nicest group of people I’ve never met.”</p>
<p>That IS a classic line stated by college4three…very original! I love that line :)</p>
<p>Happy New Year to everyone and may 2011 offer you and your families, peace, health, many stress-free moments, cuddling with your kids (of all ages) and getting into the college of your choice!</p>
<p>RVM - Thanks for your 2 cents! I think we may be living somewhat parallel lives! Our S1 is also thinking law school and knows he has to maintain a fairly decent GPA -which at Vanderbilt is also very difficult to do. It has the reputation of being a “grade deflation” school. Thankfully, he was well aware of the workload and attended a very rigorous private HS, so was already very comfortable with hours and hours of nightly work. </p>
<p>I do believe that law schools are aware that some schools are certainly more difficult than others and take that into consideration. Your S1 should be fine come law school application time especially if his GPA is higher than the average at Wake- that is impressive! Adcoms certainly know that Wake is a challenging school, thus the “Work Forest” nickname!</p>
<p>Interesting that your S1 does leave campus- that is the one thing S2 is concerned about with Wake and Elon. All he currently knows is his brother’s life at Vandy - downtown Nashville has tons to do and is 1.5 miles from campus - so he is convinced no other school can be so perfect. I just want him to be as happy as his brother! </p>
<p>Anyway, I can’t wait to tour all the schools on our list - I really love seeing college campuses. I loved all the schools we saw with S1 and am looking forward to re-visiting some of those as well as some new ones this time around.</p>
<p>I would agree that Wake/Elon will not be like Vandy in that regard. You do need a car - or better yet - friends with cars - to take advantage of most off campus attractions. But it has not posed a problem for S1 at all. There seems to be plenty to do on both campuses as well. I also find that he often makes road trips to other colleges as well for football/basketball games - so his view of off-campus fun is pretty broad.</p>
<p>Be careful with Clark…our son is a B/A student with excellent EC’s…did not get in…I was more angry than he…he had fallen out of love with it(Thankfully). I sense that they may be pushing that B student up to an A level? Maybe maybe not, anyway he got into UHart, UMass and Green Mountain so we’re well on our way!</p>
<p>UHartford also gave S a great Merit Scholarship so well see…he has several NFTY friends who go there and are pretty happy. Small classes, good social life etc…!</p>
<p>hey guys: thanks for the shout out!
I hope everyone has exciting plans for this evening. More importantly, it’s been wonderful sharing these past few months with you all…I am looking forward to what’s ahead. Happy New Year (wish I knew how to the graphics…imagine confetti and noisemakers, okay?)</p>
<p>RVM and Dwhite, I am on the alumni board of my law school (they must not have looked at my meager donations or less than outstanding law school gpa) and I can assure you they evaluate the difficulty of colleges. At the top law schools, it is still horrendously difficult to get in, but they do not accept all GPAs as equal.</p>
<p>yabeyabe - good to know. As we have discussed previously - I’m not sure that going to law school - in this economy - is the right choice in any case. But I would like him to apply to a few top schools - and see what happens. If he does get accepted - I would like him to defer for a year and work for a year - we are in agreement (S1 and I) that he needs a break from academia. I just hate to see him discouraged that his present GPA - about a 3.5 - will not permit him to get into a good law school. I’m also going to assume he will do well on the LSAT since he did well on the SAT and ACT - he is a very good standardized test taker. So - I will relay your message as I want him to keep all options on the table at this point.</p>
<p>Wishing everyone a very happy, healthy and low-stress New Year. Thanks to everyone who reads and posts on this thread - it has been a lot of fun and I am looking forward to continuing to share our respective journeys in 2011!</p>
<p>Best wishes for a happy, healthy and productive 2011 to all of my Jewish B thread friends!</p>
<p>Does anyone have any interesting resolutions? I think that one of mine may be to volunteer to help our local high school juniors start their list of colleges to visit and consider. I will be sure to tell them that I am NOT a professional, but I have been through this process four times, and with the great information that I have learned on CC from all of you, I could at least participate in a little mutual brainstorming with the students and parents!</p>