10th grade doesn’t seem so far away, but in terms of their growth, it is. She changed schools, presumably she kept her nose clean. And, I hope she has activities that show maturity, responsibilities and impact, more than just participating or following her own interests. We speak of how the app has to “show,” not just “tell,” the qualities, attributes, experiences the schools look for. Same will go for the explanation. How will she show she is well past this?
None of admissions to the highly sought after schools is simply about academic performance and what level of school a kid “wants.”
Look at the Common App and see how it asks about discipline. See the rest of the sections she’ll fill out and check any supps. Don’t assume.
@NewWaveMom, think long and hard about the plan for your daughter to take a gap year if she doesn’t get into a school she can fall in love with during this coming applications season. There are reports on CC that re-applying to schools one is rejected by after a gap year does not yield different results.
There are many posts on CC about the advisability of taking a gap year – I recommend you start with this one:
One other thing to think about would be transferring after she completes her freshman year at whatever “safety” she ends up attending, if it comes to that.
It might be worth your while to start a new thread specifically about whether a gap year could be helpful in your daughter’s specific situation. I wonder if it might be simply because it puts one more year of (hopefully) squeaky clean behavior between your daughter and her 10th grade indiscretion.
And, you didn’t ask for my personal opinion, but FWIW I agree that “she was bullied into it” is a bad way to explain the situation, whether on CC, to the Guidance Counselor or to the schools in the supplemental essay.
@lookingforward, I looked at the common app a few weeks ago and it asks a specific question about whether a disciplinary issue has occurred and it asks for an explanation. I don’t believe the GC will discuss it in her evaluation, as the common app specifically asks the GC whether any disciplinary action took place at their school. I suppose nothing prevents the GC from volunteering information she’s not supposed to share, but I will be speaking to her about it beforehand to find out. I will make sure she knows that we will address it, so she knows that we are not going to try and hide it.
@TopTier, you’re right. UVA has early action, so we will know in at the end of January. I need to be more precise on CC. I see that I am using some terms very loosely and getting called out
@GnocchiB, thank you for the links on taking a gap year. I will definitely read those.
@txstella, thank you for your comment about making excuses. That’s probably me making excuses. Perhaps I haven’t come to terms with my “imperfect” offspring I will make sure that the explanation doesn’t come off as whiny as I do.
You are all incredibly kind and helpful. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I need this honest feedback big time. I really appreciate it.
Also, your daughter could apply to a binding Early Decision (ED) school if you feel comfortable paying what the NPC indicates. This may increase her odds a bit and then you would have an early acceptance and be done. This school needs to be a school that your daughter would be happy to attend.
Your daughter is bright and has worked hard. Hopefully, her accomplishments will come through on her applications and a school will realize her “misdeed” is the mistake of youth and that she has learned a valuable lifelong lesson.
Thank you, @txstella, for your encouraging comment. We will be applying to Cornell early decision, most likely. I will honestly move heaven and earth to pay for it, if she gets in ED. After what we went through and overcame, it will be worth it. Also, her father went to Wisconsin, which doesn’t ask any discipline questions. So we might have a winner in the safety school category.
It is really important that your daughter understand that no matter how terrific her grades and exam scores are, if admissions is based on anything other than her GPA and test scores she can’t consider a college/university to be completely safe. Once you know how much your family truly is willing to pay, she should take a look at the threads that discuss guaranteed admissions, and find a couple of places where her stats will automatically get her in.
As for reasonably safe options, she should ask her guidance counselor for a list of places that have never rejected any applicants from her high school who had profiles like hers. This year of course the admissions policies at those places might change and she might be rejected, but chances are good that she will be admitted.
There is no “we” in terms of applying to colleges. This is something your daughter…she…will be doing.
Unless you are prepared to pay the full cost of attendance, don’t apply ED.
With regards to the disciplinary action…did your daughter attend any kind of drug education course afterward? What has SHE (not you) done that will make a college feel confident that this won’t be a repeat issue?
Even with schools that typically accept kids with your daughter’s stats, the disciplinary hurdle will need to be dealt with. to be honest, having the school counselor address this in a positive way might work better to your daughter’s advantage. The GC can (if true) state that this was an isolated incident, student did drug education,many there have been no further issues. Why wouldn’t you want that to happen?
@BrownParent’s suggestion in post #34 about rolling admissions schools is truly excellent because it is, as he/she says, a way to test the waters as well as lock in a solid acceptance early on. The rolling admission school’s decision can let you know that you need to adjust your sights while there’s still time to apply to more schools. Wisconsin, a great option for your d, doesn’t notify its first fall applicants until the end of January. https://www.admissions.wisc.edu/apply/freshman/deadlines.php
My daughters (and I) loved the University of Pittsburgh, a rolling admissions school that responded to their early fall applications by mid-October. It’s a great campus, there’s an enthusiastic student vibe and some stellar faculty names, it’s in a neat section of the city, certain departments are ranked at the very top in the U.S., etc. I’m sure she could find a challenging academic experience there. https://oafa.pitt.edu/apply/admissions-process/freshmen/
Right now, consider any college with an admission rate below30% as a reach. Focus on finding affordable safeties with strong honors colleges. I agree Radford and odu would not be appropriate even as safeties,but what about umw, jmu, vcu? Look into Urichmond too- more a match than a safety but should be easy to visit and there’s merit money.
I disagree regarding bullying: if your child was a victim of bullying to the point she had to change schools it can be addressed and should be included. If if was just tour way of explaining your child,s action then it’s another matter.
I would definitely forget Wesleyan since they can’t afford to take a risk right now.
Parent PLUS loans need to be approved every year and you’re unlikely to have access to them for your second child too. You should keep the level of debt to the federal limit over 4years-27k- as much as possible.
The 2 disciplinary offenses that are radioactive are drugs & cheating. Even if it’s the truth that your D was “bullied into it”, to most people the explanation will sound incredibly lame and reeking of not taking responsibility.
I wouldn’t be so dismissive of these schools. They are not safeties. I know of high stats kids who treated them as such and were shocked to be WL’ed.
I also would not put too much stock in the “The Gatekeepers” story about the girl who got into Cornell w a drug disciplinary action. That book tracked kids in the 1999 admissions cycle-- 15 years ago. Things have gotten a helluva lot more competitive since then, and the focus of AO’s today has increasingly shifted to giving poor 1st gen kids a leg up. Schools have even less patience for privileged kids who can’t own up to illegally sneaking around with their friends’ Adderall.
The net piece calculator will not work for this family. One parent is a self employed real estate developer…with a ton of business expenses. See other thread.
@NewWaveMom, I get the impression that you aren’t fully understanding what many of us mean by “safety school.” A safety school is a school that will most assuredly offer admission, that she/you can afford, and that she will be happy to attend.
There is no reason to begin the process thinking you’ll just take out a bunch of loans for undergraduate!
I have one kid who left 6 years of college (4 bachelor’s; 2 master’s) who took out $28,000 in unsubsidized student loans. Together, he and I slowly but surely paid off the interest on those loans before they capitalized. Plus, we paid down almost $3000 in principal. So his monthly payment was calculated on the original loan principal minus almost $3000, plus the tiny bit of interest that accumulated month to month. Ultimately, he owed $25,200, I think, when his loans were capitalized and the monthly payment was calculated. Most of that amount is undergraduate debt at the old 6.8% interest rate. A little of it is grad school debt at 5.41%. His monthly payments are about $285 a month, I think. And that’s on just the original $28,000 in loans, which became $25,200 after working hard to pay down thousands in interest and principal over 4 years before his repayment period began. It’s also at what used to be the best interest rates one could find for student loans (standard federal govt rates at the time).
Can you imagine what the monthly payment would be for hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans? It’d be like a mortgage, but with a higher interest rate. Good Lord.
A safety school should be affordable. With minimum loans. With your D’s stats, there are many schools she could choose from that will pretty much guarantee admissions (she has that disciplinary wildcard) AND guarantee scholarships! So WHY would you begin the process just accepting the fact that you will have to take out loans?
Here’s just one example of what most of us mean by “safety school” for someone with your D’s stats: U of Alabama.
Yes, I know, “the South doesn’t fit your profile.” But hear me out.
An excerpt from Alabama’s website:
Has your D ever even looked at Alabama? Have you? It may well fit her like a glove. It’s a beautiful school. Friendly. Great honors programs. Loaded with smart kids, possibly in large part due to the generous scholarship packages. Many national fellowship award winners. Even better awards for NMF’s. (None of my kids went there, but one kid came really close to attending; chose elsewhere instead.)
My point is this: You shouldn’t go ruling out schools willy-nilly for silly reasons. For me: “the South doesn’t fit our profile” or “we want a school with a good name” are silly reasons.
Fine. She can put those non-south, good-name schools on her list, too. But it would be very unwise, imo, to omit at least one very good safety. And there are enough very good safeties out there for just about everybody. She doesn’t have to have a “good name,” for goodness sakes. She needs a “good-enough” name.
A “respected-enough” name will really come in handy if she gets accepted only by schools that she/you really can’t (or shouldn’t) afford. It will also come in handy if she doesn’t get accepted by any of her “good-name” schools.
This is a one-time shot for most students. Yes, there are gap years and other alternatives. But, let’s face it, most of us think of this as a one-time shot, expect it to be a one-time shot, hope with all hope that it is a one-time shot.
She shouldn’t limit her opportunities with narrow thinking.
First of all, colleges in “the South,” at the level we’re talking, even safeties, are full of people from all over. Second, if Mom is worried about going South, but lives in Va, makes me think they may live in northern Va-- which presents a whole other level of admissions challenge, due to competition from some mighty high schools.
GMT, thank you for the comment about the Gatekeepers. As you point out, that’s 15 admissions cycles ago. Things change fast and that’s an ice age ago. Same for Hernandez. I’d add causing harm to another as radioactive.
Also, re admissions and overcoming the blot, for me, Mom hasn’t said how her girl surpassed this. Top grades and some hs activities (she said “average,”) so often simply aren’t enough, to begin with. She needs to show maturity and some serious responsibilities. Not this CC thing about her own “passions.”
Last, I noted GW and American based on her interest in govt. Can’t beat DC for that, in so many ways. Are they perfect safeties? No.
2200 SAT and 4.3w (3.9uw) gpa may not be enough for these four places. What is her class rank? What is her CR+M SAT? What are her “average” ECs? What are her “passions”? Does she have any hooks?
Since you are in Virginia, you are lucky to have fabulous public universities/colleges. UVA is in a special category with only U of Michigan, UNC-CH, UC-Berkeley and UCLA joining it in national public university quality. But, as you stated, UVA isn’t a lock for your D, despite her good stats. Are you in NoVA, as someone already asked?
@OP, since you expressed interest in FA, despite your 200k average household income, these 2 schools would seem to be a good “match” schools (not safeties), as they present opportunities for year-round internships in DC, plus offer generous MERIT AID for families not qualifying for FA. In fact, Princeton Review rates GW #1 for internship opportunities.
I agree that au and gwu are matches, not safeties. If op is from nova their daughter will need to consider Midwest, south, and pacific northwest for better chances.
Another issue: colleges request all hs transcripts. Sometimes, the 2nd hs incorporates everything from the former into its own and that’s fine. Not all hs do this. The ones that do may still include notes from the previous.
Mom needs to speak with the GC sooner, rather than wait.
For the Gatekeepers, the girl mistakenly ate a weed brownie and I believe she wrote about it in her essay as well and was rejected. Granted that book was written quite some time ago, things have only gotten more competitive. Address the suspension in the additional info section of the common app. It will likely keep her out of a few schools. Why take the student with the drug incident when you can take 10 other students who are just as qualified with a spotless record? Her best way to attack this is to take responsibility for what happened, acknowledge that she is the one who made the decision, and then show what measures she has taken to ensure this won’t happen again. Getting caught with someone else’s prescription medication is no joke.
In addition, there is an overwhelming Bama bias on this site. If the South isn’t for her, don’t let her apply, even with the merit scholarship. Remember, she’s gonna be the one living there for 4 years. It isn’t all about the money. If Alabama isn’t for her, it would be a waste to apply. Also, there are very few students who would be equally as happy in Tuscaloosa as they would be in DC. The internship opportunities are lightyears better than in Alabama and the local area is very different.
The intent of my post may have been misunderstood here. I am definitely not suggesting that she apply willy-nilly to Alabama, only that she broaden her scope! I completely agree that if Alabama isn’t for her, it would be a waste to apply. She has to find safety schools that work for her.
BUT,
(a) She has apparently ruled out all schools in the south. How does she know that all schools in the south aren’t for her? Ridiculous. (Duke? Vanderbilt? Rice? Not good enough? Not that any of them are safeties.)
and (b) the same can be said for “non-good-name” schools – is this one, particular kid so special and peculiar that only “good name” schools will fit her? Also ridiculous.
I said in that same post that the safety school must be a school that she would be happy to attend. If Alabama doesn’t fit the bill, then it’s out. It was merely a random example of a true safety school. In most true safeties, the school’s website posts guaranteed admissions and/or guaranteed financial aid that render the school affordable. I wanted to show an example of such a page.
I’m sorry but narrowing one’s list to only supposedly “good-name” schools of the caliber she’s talking about that are not in the south is … well, it’s short-sighted.
It does sound like the OP is (short-sightedly) willing to take on any amount of debt for her D’s undergraduate education, and that’s a choice. Her D only needs to get into one of her “good-name” choices if her mom is willing to pay any amount for her to attend.
But if she intends to include a safety on her list, which she randomly discusses on her two threads, she needs to understand what a safety is and she and her D need to be willing to accept something less than her idea of a dream school.
At every mention of the word “safety,” the OP mentioned another non-safety school. Hence, my intent to illuminate what a safety really is!
I will make sure that the explanation doesn’t come off as whiny as I do.