Help – with the search of safeties… and the top heavy list of a stubborn daughter and her increasing

Parents Forum
1

Help – with the search of safeties… and the top heavy list of a stubborn daughter and her increasingly anxious dad!

I do not know where to begin… really I do not know.

Her stats are good, if not very good:
-34 ACT (lowest score on Math: 31 (33 super scored))
-3.92 UW GPA/4.88 W GPA – And no she is not valedictorian because - the school chose to use UW for that purpose…. And the Val. chose to both take less AP classes + intentionally skipped the one sure AP B’s, B’s if lucky and extra hard working that is. To make matters worse the school does not report class rank. And also the HS generally does not place many people in top 15-20 University (the stat show about the same % of people accepted as the average acceptance rate for that particular University)

-12 AP Classes by end of senior year; 8 AP so far - with 4 AP(5) and 1 AP (4) score; The rest of hers are 12 Honors classes. (Everything not taken AP/Honors (aka 2-4 classes total) was taken pass/fail).

EC:
-4 y in DECA – 15+ medals in state level competition; Qualified for national/international on 4 events; President of the local DECA chapter for 2y and Vice president for 1y.
-Student Consul 2 y.
-Math team 4 years.
-NHS -with 120+ hour of voluntary work (although D decide to put/claim only 45h)

  • 4 h /w volunteering in the “country of origin” school for 9 mo./year [D refused to put any info in the CA]
    -some other not significant stuff like - 2 sports for 1 year each; debate /mock trail/ scholastic bawl [mostly left unmentioned on the CA]

Work/Internships: sophomore to senior year (3y) - 7h/week for 40 weeks. – accounting Internships/job.

Rec:

  1. Her APUSH teacher (Harvard grad) – says he has not seen student like her in at least several years in her HS. Also said to her “Are you aiming high enough with this ED ?”… haha you will see what it is in a sec., but maaan (9/10 most likely)
  2. AP English/Lit – loves her…and D loves her back – most likely 7-8/10 at least.
  3. Councilor – overloaded worker with definitely some pre-conceived notions [talking to me and my wife before my D even started HS immediately lead her to stating “(our D) should cut at least 2 of those classes, so she can handle the HS shock/workload !” And that only because she could hear our (me and my wife’s) non-native accent…. Anyway 2-3 y. later D said she finally grasped that D is taking the hardest classes possible and more or less nails them. So, I guess she changed her attitude a bit since then…
    5-6/10
    +++++++++++++++++++
    Socio – economic background:
    Any help/take comments here will be highly appreciated. Are those hooks/semi hooks etc?
    D was born outside of US (of non-US parents) this should make her 1st generation immigrant, should it?
    Wife and I do have “some: collage education, but from a 3rd word county” IN particular I have BS in CS and Masters in Law (the whole thing finished in 6y) and wife has BA in marketing and an MBA. Consecutively she took a lot of classes and successfully took the CPA exam… I doubt that this really constitutes 1st generation university graduate for our beloved D… but by the feel of it, the way we have been treated/employed like “not well comprehending English” 95% of our lives here, and for sure nothing like college grads sure feels like it, but what is the ‘official take (if any). That is Especially true for my wife, who was a “CPA” waitress for close to 10 years"…. Anyway I am drifting.

Guess my Q is – Is my daughter hooked in any way shape and form? [and no she is not black]

++++++++++++++
So we come to the meat of it….
D’s boyfriend applied to only 2 schools – SCEA at Yale (accepted) and Harvard RD accepted … CRAZY CRAZY CRAZYYY [chose Harvard finally btw]
One of her best friend (sister of the all state genius I promised to write about above, but have not done so yet) was accepted by 7 of the 8 top 15 Universities she applied to [chose MIT btw turning down Harvard, Yale, Columbia, UofChicago to name a few (the rejection was from Northwestern for the one curious]

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Here is my daughter’s list… the list that makes my sleep “like a baby” aka - “Waking every 2h and crying!”

Harvard
Yale
UPenn
Dartmouth
Brown
Cornell
Rice
Notre Dame
Vanderbilt
Georgetown U
University of Southern California
Tufts
Boston College
Rochester (NYC)
Brandeis

NYU

huh

Duke – Applied ED
University of Virginia - Applied EA
Michigan, Ann Arbor - Applied EA
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign - Applied EA

Syracuse (New York) – Applied

Oxford – Rejected
The University of Edinburgh - Accepted
London School of Economics – passed the 1st level of the admission process.

…And finally I am trying to do my best to have her have at least one back up. The one affordable choice I have (almost convinced her to apply to as Dad’s choice/just apply in time/to force to go there) is U of Alabama (full tuition/ generous AP credit if she wants to finish in 3 y and/or have a double major and/or have an MBA in 4 years + some money from mam and dad to go do whatever with little financial pressure)… But as it stands now Bama is something not touchable with a 10 (or 50 feet) pole for that matter… well I hope she at least finishes the apps till 15th of Dec. I have said enough, I am not saying a word more…if she chooses to break her own head so be it!

Anyway, extremely top heavy list (for my liking).
I am pretty much stressing out all those will/might be rejects.
Sad feelings on my part… despite having a pretty smart/special kid, but who does not?

2

State of residency? Is everything on the list affordable? Academic interests?

If she has no safeties, then her safety is to start at a community college and transfer to a four year school (probably an in-state public university) later.

3

She is not hooked. She is not the first person in her family to go to college either.

Has she applied to USC yet? Their deadline to be considered for merit money is TOMORROW.

If U of Edinburgh is affordable and she would be happy to go there, then she can apply to as many reaches as she likes. She already has an acceptance. She can only go to one. Does she prefer all of those universities over the University of Edinburgh. I would cull the ones that she doesn’t. Applications to all those universities are expensive and time consuming.

4

Can you afford Edinburgh and would she be happy to go? If so, she has a wonderful admission in hand. If that is not affordable, then she needs to sit down now with you to go over finances and come up with a list of affordable options.

5

I might have missed it, but is she a citizen or permanent resident? She will almost certainly have a few acceptances on that list. Have you run the net price calculators on all the school websites, and explained which ones you can afford and which ones you can’t? If some are not affordable, why are you paying the application fee? You don’t have to pay for those applications.

6

@ucbalumnus the state is IL… where the flagship is ridiculously “an affordable”. 25K /year pretty much no matter of your merit (almost non existing merit aid), grades 2.75 GPA is almost the same as 4.00 GPA. Practically No Need based FA…almost like the School do not really care about your need and or merit - aka we have enough IL/Chicago rich to pay for this kind of education kind of deal.
I am pretty sure if it comes to that we will take the UK 30-35K Edinburgh, Scotland tag before our 25-27 UI UC instate

Academic interest is pretty well established IMHO - taken AP Micro/Macro, accounting and everything Bussiness/Economics related class; EC heavy involvement and rewards on state/nation level in that field; as well as leadership for 3 years in same field; work/internship for 3y in basically same/max related field.

“If she has no safeties, then her safety is to start at a community college”
Well this is one of the problems… when I told her Bama is 1 one, even though she understood I meant football-wise, she laughed it loud for good 5 min or so. So no, she is not going to CC…if anything she will go to the “American University at 3rd world country where she was born” before stepping foot in CC (and Bama unfortunately). If I do not find a way to change her mind about Alabama, that is.

.

7

Are finances an issue?

If so…take NYU off the list. School doesn’t meet full need, and is $72,000 a year.

You already know that the list is very top heavy. Who is paying for ALL of these applications, and submissions of SAT or ACT scores…and the Profile.

There are 24 schools on that list.

I guess you should pray she gets accepted ED to Duke…with sufficient aid to attend.

8

I don’t regard that list as top heavy. But there’s a whole lotta schools on that list. Prediction: she will be admitted to at least 5 of them, possibly as many as 8 or 10. But if most of the “easier” admits are financial reaches, then what?

9

@bouders @Midwestmomofboys
Edinburgh is not only a wonderful choice in general, but she will be MORE than happy to go there.

Now, is it affordable?

Yes it kind of is.[As in “Far from not perfect but doable” kind of deal] Now, You have to keep in mind that we (as a family) do not exactly fit in the American way of thinking. 1)Yes, we can afford it. It will take 80% of our savings, plus mortgaging all of our properties (family home, second home, etc) to the max(or 80% of value). But if we do that we will have - a.no other loans taken. b. D will have no loans.
2) Till retirement (65), we also have give or take 20 more years {I know we married way way too yong per current standards.}
3) In retirement, We can (and we are very willing anyway) go back back to live in this 3rd world country in question… And if retirement stays at least semi sound (I know very unlikely) we can live more comfortable life on 2 * $300-500 pensions, than on the about $5000/mo. income we currently yearn. It is all way uncertain thou… we are talking 15-20 years in the future.

In other words, it will be stretching it! I believe we will be more comfortable for us paying EFC (or even up to 2* FAFSA EFC for US school)

@intparent She is US citizen (by naturalization) and EU citizen by berth (although U of Edinburgh tries to not recognize this as of now, but it is not here nor there)

10

@mackinaw


[QUOTE=""]
I don't regard that list as top heavy. Well, If having 50% of the Ivies + 50% of the top 15 is not top heavy, I do not know what is.

But there’s a whole lotta schools on that list.
Sure, I for one am certain that I cannot write the 15 or so essays needed/remaining between now and Jan 1’st… And I will bet against my D here. She will not be able to finish them neither.

Prediction: she will be admitted to at least 5 of them, possibly as many as 8 or 10. But if most of the “easier” admits are financial reaches, then what?
I know people here tend to be politically correct/generous in predictions etc. But the generally idea remains the same - no matter if she gets admission to 1,3 or 4 of her “acceptance” safeties, all of them tend to be bad ‘financial safeties’ …IMO and you confirm that.

[/QUOTE]

huh

11

Rice, Wash U, etc. with her stats anything below her current list is a great bet to get merit (as long as you meet deadline).

12

You still didn’t say if you have run the net price calculators yet.

13

There were probably 15-20 girls with a similar bio in our competitive HS. High gpa, lots of APs, typical EC like speech and debate or DECA with various awards and leadership, but otherwise you couldn’t tell one from another. Not a unique hook. They didn’t get into the tippy tops but did get into a decent school. The girl that went to Harvard had created a bio-med device, and the Stanford bound gal had been published on some phyics theory, solid hooks. Neither were in the usual EC’s that a zillion kids do. Yours will land at least a few of those on the list, it’s got good variety. Isn’t NYU acceptance pretty high compared to the tops? Agree, not first gen college student, hope she isn’t checking that box.

14

@intparent “You still didn’t say if you have run the net price calculators yet.”

I have run the NPC for all of them … if Duke, UMich, Rice, Notre Dame , Vanderbilt or any ivy she is applying to comes with an offer even 30% above the NPC calculator number… that she GETS INTO.

… I will be jumping up and down for a week…at least!!!

Make it 2 weeks

… non stop! :slight_smile:

15

What about the schools she is most likely to get into – Syracuse, Brandeis, Tufts, BC, NYU, USC?

16

@intparent … actually when you put them like that… and totally ignoring money…
I have hard time finding any of them I do love or at least like :slight_smile:
If I have to chose only 3 - BC, Tufts, USC; (in that order), but then again Syracuse is way, way up in her list, for reasons not only unknown to me, but her having hard time dinging out to put in actual words.

17

I am confused. You should not be “ignoring money”, or paying for applications to schools that are unaffordable. You seem bullied by your kid. You are paying the bills. You have the right to insist that she apply to only affordable schools, to a list of schools that includes affordable matches and safeties, and to not pay for applications to 21 schools. No one out here can give you a backbone.

18

You don’t have to love the schools. You’re not going.

19

There seems to be confusion about who the parents are. I would certainly not be 2nd mortgaging 2nd homes to subsidize someone who is spoiled. On the one hand, she has worked hard to earn parental support. On the other, she needs to use her intellect to make a rational decision with some parental input. It might be time to pull the battery from the phone, eat a painfully long dinner together, and discuss reality.

20

So your daughter is too haughty to step foot on a CC or Alabama but she is perfectly fine bankrupting her parents by causing them to mortgage their properties, wipe out their savings, and leave the US for retirement in order to be able to survive during their old age? Does she really understand what she is expecting?

Do all of you believe those campuses that will somehow endow her with an automatic superior career? How will she respond in the future when she has graduates from “beneath” her institutions as her bosses or coworkers and she knows she is responsible for her parents struggling in their old age only to arrive in a similar spot if she hadn’t been responsible for consuming all of their resources?