<p>Good luck to all taking the ACT’s. Cherryhillmom2 - do you spend much time on the Jersey Shore in the summer? Although we live in Florida, we go to the Jersey Shore every summer (I am a native Jersey Girl). </p>
<p>You guys are so fortunate that you can visit all these colleges without getting on an airplane!!! Last summer we visited 4 schools and this summer will hopefully see one or two more but most schools will have to wait until after the acceptances come out next year.
RVM - We will definitely take a tour of UMiami. I spoke to two parents recently (both from Massachusetts who were in town visiting a friend of mine) who have students there. They were both very impressed with the academics there AND the nurturing atmosphere. They felt their money was being well spent. It is only an hour drive from here so we just have to find a day that DS has no school and U Miami does (don’t suppose that UM is open on Good Friday)? Spring break here was also U Miami’s spring break so that didn’t work out. Really cannot afford to miss school if he doesn’t have to (the make up work is horrendous). I toured the campus once back in spring of 2006 when D1 was looking at colleges. We made the mistake of going on a Saturday and D1 was turned off by the number of girls on campus wearing bathing suit tops with their shorts and jeans. I don’t think that would bother DS. ;)</p>
<p>cherryhill, know the panic of ACT mode. Will fret with you on Sat. The good news is that it will all be over soon! </p>
<p>Cherryhill and Seiclan, we go to LBI in the summer, what part of shore do you go? I can dream about it now.</p>
<p>We went to the big college fair this eve, over 400 schools. We of course saw our 5, with efforts on our top 2. Great to see the reps who recognized S from the fall fair. Three even remembered his name.</p>
<p>Stopped over at UNC Wilmington booth. There is something very appealing about the school and I wanted to see if I could get an answer about the Jewish community. The rep knew there was a Hillel, but not much more. He told us to email him and he would have someone contact me. I figure since we will be in NC next week, maybe we should look. Honestly, it sounds in some ways better than USC for S, smaller and great entrepreneurship program. BTW, USC caps most of the freshmen classes at 20 incl english 101. There are a few classes with 100 like intro psych and bio.</p>
<p>James Madison-asked about getting in to the biz school. You take all the required classes the first two years. Must have a 2.9 in the required classes. If you maintain that gpa or above you can continue in the business school.</p>
<p>We will report on our visits over the week of April 16-23. Can’t wait to hear from everyone else.</p>
<p>Seiclan, we live close enough that we go to Asbury and Spring Lake on the weekends. My bro-in-law has a house in North Beach, so we go there a few times too. Love LBI.</p>
<p>Good luck on the ACT to everyone who is taking it Saturday!</p>
<p>You guys are making me reminisce back to my own hs days - grew up in NJ - going down the shore was a big part of teenage summer memories. (Cue the music from Grease - “Summer Luvin”)</p>
<p>Ok - shake that off - back to the present. Samtalya - I would be very interested in hearing about UNC Wilmington. I had it on S2’s list at one point - then decided it was too much like an OOS version of Salisbury and was not needed. But I am still curious.</p>
<p>Seiclan - I doubt we will get down to Miami any time soon. My best hope at this point is that if S2 wants to do a broader list rather than go ED at Elon - we will attend a regional Miami event.</p>
<p>Thanks for posting this. Looks like it is scheduled to open in August 2013, when my DS starts his freshman year there (LOL - he is very focused on this school right now!).</p>
<p>Interestingly, I ran into a friend of DD this week - she’s a HS senior - currently trying to decide between Syracuse, JMU and UM. Jewish, but it’s not a part of her life. She said she got the best FA from UM! $20K/year. I know her well enough to ask her SAT scores (it wasn’t wierd -there was no one else around) - and she said, “Not great, 1280.” She’s probably an A student (I didn’t ask that…). Still, it made me think. See we have a very diverse HS, not one known for being competitive (like Nassau County/North Shore high schools). Do you think this is a plus for those kids who are or even near the top here? Not as much competition for the top colleges, right? (Definitely not a plus for Ivies or the very top LACs, but maybe for schools under that?)</p>
<p>BTW - Thanks for posting the thread for Passover recipes. I’ve got to start focusing!!!</p>
<p>Linymom: I’m pretty sure that Miami puts a lot of value on class rank for admission and merit aid, so a less competitive school would be an advantage. My daughter’s friend was rejected with a low 3 GPA and 1900+ SAT scores, but I think that her class rank was around the 50th percential. Kids from our school with higher GPAs and ranks are generally offered merit $$.</p>
<p>My daughter considered UNCW early in her search. A few kids go from our HS every year. It sounds like a nice school in a cool location near the beach, but when I checked a few years ago, there were not many Jewish students. It’s also not very accessible from the North. Everyone we know drives and it takes about 7 or 8 hours.</p>
<p>Thanks RVM re: UNCW. I have seen this stuff and it makes it seem like there is an active group on campus, but then they don’t have their own site. I have a feeling it is a small group. There may be more Jews, but not wanting to participate. The school has real appeal, in that it is a better size for S and great biz program. However, it is a backup to a back up and I don’t think we need fret over it.</p>
<p>RVM are you driving to Elon tomorrow? So excited for you!</p>
<p>We visited UNCW last year and met with the head of Hillel. We didn’t love the school and the Jewish presence just isn’t there. We are pretty secular but wanted SOME Jewish feeling.</p>
<p>When we visited UNCW for Accepted Student Day, the students were talking about how campus police have the right to come into a kid’s dorm and search (don’t know how vigorously) for contraband. No warrant, no probable cause, no reasonable suspicion, no nothing. That one little fact just turned me off. Lots of parents loved that aspect of “school safety.”</p>
<p>many, many pages back I mentioned UNC Greensboro. I’ve never been, but it sounds very nice. There is a Hillel which is under the umbrella of NC Hillel, which includes Elon. If your schedule permits, maybe take a ride over to UNCG to check it out while you’re in the Elon neighborhood.</p>
<p>Thanks Vitrac for the report. What a shame there is not a stronger Jewish community.</p>
<p>College43, we are going to uncg. We are going on a Sunday, so we reached out to a Hillel Bd member and she is giving us a tour and then going to lunch. Will report back.</p>
<p>LINYMOM, I tend to doubt whether most schools around the country truly see a difference between schools from one part of the Island to another, although as we both know there certainly is.And there are probably lots of other places that have that sort of range. More likely, a school will have good experiences with students from a certain school and will tend to favor applicants from there. My son’s public (North Shore) high school seems to have a pipeline to UMichigan and sends many students there. At my D’s private school, the college counsellor seems to be able to get almost any student in to IU. </p>
<p>Given the schools your DD’s friend has ended up chosing from, it doesn’t sound to me as if she got any real boost from her SAT or class rank. And it may be that UM gave her good FA because of its familiarity with the school, perhaps because of Lacrosse. LOL or maybe even Boomer.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your responses to my question about NE public U’s with college towns. In the same vein, does anyone have info about WVU in Morgantown, WV? Nice college town? Anyone been to see it?</p>
<p>I will see if I can kind of track this… even DD (terrible test taker in HS) was well within top 10% when applying for college. Class was 470. DS class is about the same size – I think he can finish in top 20 kids and perhaps higher at the rate he is going. If rank counts, then he will be able to check off that box.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not sure I completely agree with this. There are definitely LI schools that are known as being among the best in the country. Not ours. As diverse as the school is, it offers an excellent curriculum for high achieving students, so many IB and AP choices, etc. So you still have to excel. You just aren’t competing with as many top students, especially for schools you have to fly to. Not like the schools in Nassau County (and some in Suffolk) where the parents don’t worry about airfare.</p>
<p>BTW - Boomer is from a couple of towns over. H actually went to elementary school with him.</p>