I know this isn’t what you were looking for but when we went on a recent visit they told us that the dorms where 2 kids share a bathroom is cleaned by staff twice a week! To me that was surprising because back when I went to college(different one) 5 of us shared a bathroom and it was NEVER cleaned by staff.Seems if they are 18 they ought be able to do it themselves…
When a HS buddy took a tour of Tufts in the mid-'90s, the admissions tour guide in charge of his group spent most of the time talking about fun activities/clubs on campus. When the discussion touched on academics, it was mainly on how to take the easiest classes to boost one’s GPA and little else. No discussion of academic programs including gems at Tufts such as IR. HS buddy was so unimpressed he crossed Tufts off his application list and would refer to the school as “Flufts” from that point forth.
Another parent asked at a small private LA school if admissions were need blind. Surprisedly we seemed to get an honest answer, not what the answer was. She stated that IF you child was an easy/early acceptance into to the school they were need blind. But when they got to the bottom 10-20% of admits (i.e… they were making borderline harder decisions) their pool of aid has basically already been allocated. And then they DID look at need because they didn’t want to admit students who wouldn’t be able to afford to attend.
@NYMomof2, my S had to get a extra teacher recommendation because of that U of C requirement. His first two were from a language teacher and a biology teacher.
@curiositycat333 , that’s not wildly uncommon. Schools like Carleton describe themselves as “need aware,” and that’s my understanding of how they do it.
Applicants shouldn’t care about a school’s being need blind/aware; it affects only the chance of admission, not how much you like a school.
Re Brandeis, we had that same question, “Who here hates math?” (2 years ago). Ironically S was looking for a good artsy school to double major in art/math!
As a parent,I’d be alarmed by the “who hates math?” question, even though my kids don’t naturally prefer math. It just sounds low-brow and ignorant. Colleges should challenge assumptions and preferences.
As someone with a numbers based learning disability who hates math and can vouch for the fact that one can have a sucessful life and an intellectually stimulating career where math never comes up ( despite the insistence of not a few of my teachers) I would have jumped at that kind of college where they understood and accommodated my math hatred.
I already told this story on the thread about colleges that moved up or down because of a tour. I was astonished that Sarah Lawrence tour guide suggested that students “try” to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art once or twice.
Sarah Lawrence is 1/2 hour away, and they provide a van for free every Saturday that takes you from campus to the museum. They call it the Met Van. The guide said that the students tend to use the van as a cheap way into the city rather than to visit the museum. The comment made the school seem so much further away from NYC, not just in terms of geography but in mindset. My daughter’s arty NYC high school assigns her work at the Met several times a year. Sarah Lawrence is an arty school. You’d think that they would practically live at the Met given how easy the college makes it for them.
I think I disagree. The only applicants who shouldn’t care are the ones who don’t need aid.
If you need aid, and your favorite school is need-aware (or need-blind), why wouldn’t you apply?
I agree, Otterma. Students can only applyto so many schools, and they need to be able to assess their chances of admission.
Students who do not need aid should care very much - they should identify the schools where their admission chances are higher than their stats would indicate because they are full pays.
At Colby, a parent in our info session asked what their distribution requirements were. The rep (an alum who had graduated in the past year) replied “You mean all of them?” and the three presenters managed to work together to list off a mostly-accurate set of requirements.
It makes no sense to spend money applying to schools that you can’t afford to attend. Students who need financial aid should treat need aware schools as reaches even if they are academic matches (and those need aware schools should be the ones that promise to meet full need if admitted.)
It costs many hundreds of dollars to apply to a good range of selective colleges. That’s serious money for many families.
But back to the topic at hand:
My favorite info session comment was at UC Davis when the AC was talking about personal statements. He told students to please not write about obstacles their parents had overcome.“Mom isn’t the one applying.” …that may sound like common sense advice here on College Confidential but judging from the murmurs in the room it was news to a lot of families.
I’d argue that the question re: Colby’s distribution requirements could easily be looked up on the college’s website and wasn’t a good use of the info session.
We went to a local info session held by one of those “we really care about test scores” national universities. The adcoms recommended that kids take the SAT or ACT as many times as they could to get every last possible point and said that they don’t care how many times they take the test. Yeah, maybe they don’t but I think plenty of other colleges might not like to see that a kid took the SAT 6 or 7 times. We left early and that school fell off the list that evening. The whole presentation was pretty bad and I could see plenty of other people looking uncomfortable with the way the college was being presented. Sad because we had gone to a local presentation the year before and those adcoms really did a great job making the school look fantastic.
I don’t think you’re right on that one. In my experience, nobody really cares. I’ve seen kids who have taken the SAT 4+ times get into literally every top-20 school.
If you apply to a need-blind school that doesn’t meet full need, if you need aid the chances are good you cannot afford it. If you apply to a need-aware school that meets full need, the chances are good that you can afford it. So don’t confuse meeting full need with being need blind/aware. And if you can’t afford the application fee, you can get a fee waiver. So don’t skip your favorite school just because it’s need-aware; there is no reason to! You can be admitted and afford it!
@vonlost Fee waivers for the 100% meets need schools are often available only to very low income students. There are many families with slightly above poverty level incomes for whom application fees can be a hardship but who don’t qualify for fee waivers. Students from these families need to be very judicious in choosing which schools to apply to.