Thanks for the advice, I look forward to proving you wrong or learning from my failed goals. Good point on looking into majors I should look more into that than the name brand schools.
2 Likes
Thanks for the good advice, I probably should look into what works for me and my family vs what is the name brand. I’m working on my SAT studies right now and I scored a 1250 on practice without studying so I just need to lock in on what I’m missing.
2 Likes
Study hard, keep up the ECs, talk to your family about budget.
In the end, you and not the school will bring your success.
There’s studs at no name schools and flops from Ivy.
Keep your focus BUT don’t forget that you are a kid.
1 Like
Thanks for the advice, its really easy to like a name but if my mindset stays the same then the only benefit of a ivy is being in a group of maybe like minded people.
You’ll find like minded people at 50K+ Ohio State, 20K Miami Ohio, 10K College of Charleston and 2K name your LAC.
Also, many and maybe most public colleges have Honors programs. Many in these programs were IVY capable. My daughter’s BFF at College of Charleston got into Rice, Vandy, and Penn - and there you go.
My daughter got into a top LAC - and chose Charleston.
My son a top engineering school - and chose Alabama.
You have smart kids - EVERYWHERE.
Be the best you, crush the SAT, talk to your folks about money - and you can revisit next year.
But - if you’re out and about, it wouldn’t hurt to visit a campus here and there - see an urban one, a rural one, a large and small one - start to figure out - beyond a name - what you like. It doesn’t matter if the school is “ranked” - you are looking for what do I like.
1 Like
The US military service academies are highly selective. @ChoatieMom may be more helpful in this respect.
If you career goal is officer in the US military, ROTC can be found at many universities which are less selective, although ROTC scholarships can be significantly more selective.
Also, be sure that you do not have any disqualifying health conditions for US military service: https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodi/613003_vol01.pdf
You are doing great and I agree with all the posts that suggest just keep doing what you are doing! If you keep up your grades and score well on SAT/ACT you should be competitive for admission to Ivy or Top 20 or military academies. As many commenters said, the chances of admission to highly selective schools are still low - they are for everyone! But, hey, take your shot. You have a chance.
I also agree that you should run the NPC at one or two schools you are interested in. At your family’s income level it’s easy to be in a sort of “no-man’s-land” financially where you qualify for a small amount of aid that doesn’t come close to making top schools affordable. Most top schools are super generous now at lower income levels but that’s not you…and at many schools the generous levels of grant aid drop off pretty quickly.
In better news…your strong academics and extracurriculars could position you well for merit scholarships at many, many schools. Keep it up and you will go far. Good luck!
1 Like
I largely agree with a wide range of comments that others have made on this thread.
My family has some experience with “top 20” schools, and has some experience with public schools ranked anywhere in the 50 to 130 range. One thing that we have noticed, there are a lot of universities in the US that can provide a very strong education.
My wife for example got her bachelor’s degree at an affordable university ranked somewhere in the 100 to 120 range, but where she was able to save quite a bit of money by both living at home and due to a very good merit scholarship. She then got two closely related master’s degree at an Ivy League university. She has said a few times that the quality of education that she got was just as good at the first university. She also had a very employable major and did quite well in university, both of which mattered a lot more than where she got her degree.
I got a master’s degree at a famous and highly ranked university (specifically Stanford). One thing that I noticed, the other students in the same master’s degree program had come from a very, very wide range of universities. There was only one case that I was aware of where two or more students had come from the same undergraduate university. It was probably a coincidence, and it was NOT ranked in the top 50 in the US. Then I got a job working in high tech in the US, and throughout my career found myself working alongside people who graduated from a very, very wide range of universities, and no one cared where any of us got our degree. People cared whether our software worked, whether our equations gave correct results (I was a math major), and whether we were reasonable to work with.
And both daughters went to medium ranked universities for their bachelor’s degrees (one not quite ranked “top 100”, the other a small university in Canada). Both are currently getting doctorates at very good highly ranked universities in the US. More importantly, both are getting doctorates at universities that are a good fit for them.
With the thought of keeping open the option of attending a highly ranked university, you might read the “applying sideways” blog on the MIT admissions web site. As I understand it, the recommendation is that you do what is right for you, and whatever you do, do it very well. This sounds like exactly what you have already been doing. This approach is a good one for a wide range of universities, and specifically not just for MIT.
Finding a good fit is way more important than the ranking of whatever university that you attend. Unfortunately, finding a good fit can be a bit more difficult, and implies that you should be thinking about what would make a university a good fit. For example a larger university will have more resources and more choices for majors, but will also tend to have larger classes. One daughter attended a small university with a smaller range of potential majors, but had small classes and got to know her professors well which helped with research opportunities. Some highly ranked universities such as MIT and Caltech are academically almost insanely challenging. Some students love this. Some students hate this. Some students love this part of the time and hate it part of the time, or even at the same time. In some cases highly ranked universities can be stressful.
One issue with having parents which an income in the $160,000 range is that this might put you in what is known as the “donut hole”, where your family makes enough money to get very little financial aid at highly ranked universities such as MIT and Stanford and the Ivy League schools, but don’t make enough to be able to afford to attend these schools. You might want to run the NPC, or have your parents run the NPC, at a few of these schools and see what the results are.
However, you also live in a state that has very good public universities. Working in high tech, I have known many, many colleagues who got their degree (either bachelor’s or master’s or both) at U.Mass Amherst, and many of them are very excellent and are just as good as the strongest MIT and Stanford graduates that I have worked with. There are also of course a lot of other universities both in Massachusetts and in nearby states.
At this point I would recommend that you keep an open mind, and keep doing what is right for you and doing it well. Be cautious about “jumping ahead” in math, and instead make sure that you understand the prerequisites well before taking any particular math class. I think that you are solidly on track to do well.
If you are serious about military academies, these require a nomination letter from an elected representative of your state - either US senator, US congressperson - or the VP.
If you have a decent guidance counselor at your school it would be a good idea to check in to see if they’ve had any previous students go this route. Either way it will take some planning and persistence to get a nomination, so something to consider.
Echoing some of the comments made, all the Ivies and many ‘top’ schools (Berkeley, Stanford, Hopkins…) host ROTC on their campus. Search for ‘the school name ROTC’ as a start. I commend the OP for taking the initiative to gather information at this early stage of his college journey.
Need to state the obvious- as generous as ROTC can be, and as incredible as it is to get a top-notch degree for free from one of the academies, the US Military is NOT a scholarship program. ROTC candidates work very hard for their stipend as undergrads, and needless to say, serving in the military is no cakewalk either.
Do not even go down this route mentally unless you are prepared to serve in the military! You don’t get to choose where you are deployed. Perhaps it will be a gorgeous beach town (in Hawaii, San Diego, etc.) Perhaps it will be in some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the world. Your commanding officer isn’t going to be asking you where and how you want to serve. A friend of mine was a flight surgeon during Desert Storm. He wanted to serve- the scholarships were incidental. But older friends of his during med school assured him that he’d be likely sent to a sophisticated military hospital in Germany or Japan if he were ever sent overseas. And somehow… he ended up doing triage on a military helicopter in the Middle East with severely injured soldiers. And being shot at by our enemies who didn’t care that he was a highly trained physician…
2 Likes
I support everything @blossom posted which emphasizes why the OP’s primary goal needs to be military service if he plans to apply to any of the academies. The OP may have a burning desire to serve, but that doesn’t seem to be the primary goal from the initial post. Service academies are not backups or alternatives to civilian colleges. They are a whole 'nother animal with a unique application process. Rather than rehash my typical responses, I’ll refer the OP to this thread starting from my first comment there. He should read through the rest of that conversation for other pertinent information about making the decision to serve.
Of all the things the OP posts, this is the most relevant for applying to a service academy. Make sure you earn the rank as it will set you apart more than your academics.
3 Likes
You can also find lists by searching for “[branch of military] ROTC schools” where [branch of military] is Army, Navy, or Air Force. Note that a college may have ROTC but not for all of the branches. Note also that for some colleges, ROTC students do ROTC activities at the campus of a nearby college that hosts ROTC.
2 Likes
I was talking to my sophomore class yesterday. Some of them are very ambitious and hardworking. They recently took PSAT and scored well. I told these students to NOT choose a “dream college”; instead to think about all the things they are currently doing, then pick one or two that they love to do - would do it even if there is no incentive, no awards, no extra points, no medal, etc.
Find one or two thing that you are absolutely passionate about, pour your heart out doing it, and you will grow in the process into someone you will be proud of being. If you don’t have any passion yet, spend more time trying things out. You really don’t need to be the best of it before college application. It helps if you are, but it’s better to have a passion you are working on than to be the top of something you don’t really love doing.
1 Like
I will keep after it, I appreciate the advice and will focus on my sat and act scores.
Thanks for the advice, I personally have a sliver of a idea of whether i want to get my doctorate or even masters. I will take a peak at that blog , I like the advice of sizes. I think I might be a big school type of person as I enjoy trial by fire and pressure.
1 Like
Thanks a ton. My friends have said the nomination is the hardest part. I will ask my counselor.
thanks to both of you guys. I’ve looked into local ROTC contingents and the Harvard, MIT and Tufts one is the closest. That’s the dream.
Awesome story, thanks for the reply. I am very set on serving and if college doesn’t work out then I will probably enlist.
I will be in charge of my JROTC detachment next year which will help. I was always planning on ROTC and plan a is just going to do it at a T20 because of my financial status. I never listed that which is probably causing some confusion. Either way I go I plan on serving. thanks for the comment.
2 Likes