He definitely wants to go to college but wants to attend a middle level school vs Ivies or very selective. I absolutely understand and offered a gap year. He is looking at schools that are considered bery safe form him and I am personally okay with it but I worry he will regret the decision when he has to play catch up salary wise just out of school. Should I push him to apply to Princeton, Davidson, Hopkins or just let him settle and be happy somewhere else? Thank you.
Maybe check the AP credit policy of the different schools and focus on the ones that give your son the most credit for the work he’s done already. This will allow him to take more elective classes in college and relax a bit from the HS AP grind.
In our experiences, the salary differences aren’t really that big, especially if you look at cost of living.
What is his intended major? Note that for some majors, some of the Ivies can be more low key and with higher grade inflation than some state schools.
Since the chances of admits to the uber selective schools are slim for all students, I’d let him apply to where he thinks he’ll be happiest.
Go to the school that is a good fit, and takes those APs.
Based on four-year graduation rates, many highly selective colleges do a great job of supporting their students. Your son may want to consider the advantages of this in relation to his concerns.
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/highest-grad-rate
Intended major?
Rigor in college may vary by college, but usually not as much as admission selectivity.
Or they just start with stronger students to begin with. A college with students who had 3.9-4.0 HS GPA and 34-36 ACT is unlikely to have many academic flunk outs.
They may also have more students from richer families and therefore less likelihood of dropping out for lack of money, and many of them give good FA to the few from poor families that they admit.
Let him apply to where he wants, and persuade him to add in applications to a couple reaches /high matches too in case of regret later in his application season. And remember kids do better at schools where they are happiest, and some kids do particularly well when they are in the upper percentile of their school.
What is his major? What are his schools of interest?
I don’t see any problem with not applying to schools such as Princeton or Hopkins if he thinks they will be too intense. My daughter felt the same way. I would allow him to apply to schools that are a good fit and where he would be happy.
Thank you everyone for the replies. He is leaning toward environmental science with secondary teaching certification and would like to double major in music. He ultimately wants to get a doctorate and teach university. He is thinking of applying to Davidson as his first choice reach and a handful of safe schools. I have encouraged him to apply to Hopkins as it is within an hour from us and if he changed his mind last minute as to rigor and is accepted it will be easy for us to mange location wise.
Great idea! Thank you.
Another idea would be for him to take a gap year to do something interesting which is non-academic. he may be more ready to get back into “the grind” after that.
The important thing is to make sure the school will open the doors he needs. It has nothing to do with ranking. Many schools can prepare him for a career as a teacher. But if wants to be a University professor, he needs to get a Phd from a very prestigious university. It is HARD to get academic positions these days.
I would ask your son to investigate the number of kids that each college sends to prestigious Phd programs in his field. That information should be easy to get directly from the college. If a school provides the majors he wants and offers a good chance of going on for the degree he wants, then he should apply. If not, he should keep away.
If he’s drawn to big flagship U’s, UMichigan is terrific both for environmentally-oriented majors and for music, and they also have both undergrad teacher certification programs and one-year master’s programs to add a teaching credential. Maybe this would be a good best-of-both-worlds option for him, blending the rigor and prestige of a top-tier university with a larger flagship-U setting. It’s still an intense place, so maybe it’s still out of the range he’s drawn to, vibe-wise, but worth a look. (CU-Boulder would be a somewhat more laid-back version of a flagship with similar strengths.)
If he’s not looking for a large school per se, St. Olaf could be worth considering, with amazing music and top-notch sciences (and education programs), but outside of the east-coast-elite pressure-cooker bubble. It’s among the top-20 producers of math and science PhD’s… as are Oberlin and Lawrence U, both of which have music conservatories. (Lawrence particularly facilitates double-majors.) Any of these could give him a great balance between rigor and music-infused quality-of-life, and position him well for top-tier grad programs.
Hopkins, Davidson and Princeton are all known for intense workloads, more so than other peer schools. So you may want to look at selective schools that are not known for being as intense if he is looking to avoid that
What he needs to do is secure a high GPA, standardized testings, etc. This is **more easily obtainable at less competitive schools **
This is so not true until you hit the really non competitive schools and then your GPA can only be validated with some sort of standardized testing which will usually be low due to the poor prep you have received at said college.
Its not worth guessing about whether one school or another will allow a student to get the better GPA. In this case, the student’s goals require a Phd from an elite university. He needs to make sure that any school he is considering has a track record of sending students into those programs. Once you have a list of those schools, only then does it pay to speculate about where the student will feel most comfortable.
Better to ask the departments of the majors that are the same as or most closely related to his likely PhD major. School prestige for PhD programs and academic hiring is highly major dependent.
Thank you so much. He’s probably more comfortanle in a mid-size or smaller school, though he’s of the mindset that once you declare yours spending most of your time within that college anyway so size is not a huge factor. He’d like to head for warmer weather as well. Of the three you listed, I think Oberlin will be worth some researching. I tried to get him to look at Duke and Clemson, as they fit the weather bill, but he feels they would be too intense. I’m really glad we’ve started this process now. I had no idea it would be this challenging! I chose my own school for weather and campus beauty alone! I know, not smart. I wound up transferring two more times, graduated with a 3.5gpa from a school 30 minutes from my family home, went back for a Master a decade later, and have done fairly well. In the end, I just want him to be happy and at least earn enough to not sweat the small stuff.
Thanks again.
Has he considered Vanderbilt? It’s probably not any less intense than other peer schools on the whole, but likely a bit more lighthearted than Hopkins, while having the same strength in music and sciences. (Not being premed would be a help, at either school - the question is how much of his coursework would overlap with premed requirements and the associated rat-race.) And it’s on the warmer side… and has one of the top education schools in the country.
There’s also Sewanee, which has a feeder relationship with Vandy’s education master’s program. Gorgeous location and a strong cluster of environmental majors https://www.sewanee.edu/academics/environmental-studies/ and good music - they host a top-notch summer music festival that would be one way to get to know the school: http://ssmf.sewanee.edu/