MATCH ME: female STEM (math/science/pre-med not CS) with ADHD, 3.4 UW/1380 SAT [PA resident]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics

  • PA domestic US female student
  • Tiny public high school feeds 2 or 3 regional schools predominantly
  • Wants suburban school near some commerce (she loved Smith’s environment), generally open geographically but focused on Northeast and not further west than Ohio (outside of one-offs like Colorado College), and not really further south than Virginia or NC.
  • Wants “vibe” to be creative and fun students, but not overly rah rah I don’t think. Not interested in polytechs because feels they are too “nerdy” a student body. LOL.
  • Focusing on smaller LAC strong in STEM because will do better in smaller class spaces where professors are engaged and keep her engaged.

Cost Constraints / Budget
Should qualify for aid.

Intended Major(s)

Not sure but enjoys math and science. Took anatomy & phys and thought maybe pre-med.

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • 3.39 end of 10th UW GPA. Expected to improve to 3.5 uw by end of 11th.
  • 3.84 end of 10th W GPA. Expected to improve to 4.05 by end of 11th. (Honors worth .5 extra weight (ie A is 4.5) and AP and Dual Enrollment worth 1 full point (ie A is worth 5).
  • Class Rank: Probably between top third and top half but not sure - ranked at end of 11th.
  • SAT Scores: 1440 PSAT (680 Eng, 760 math) (expected commendation from NMSQT), SAT taken prior to PSAT was 1380, taking SAT again on 3/14 and again in early April. Aiming for 1500s.

List your HS coursework

Block scheduling utilized by school.

  • English: Honors for each of four years. Only offer AP lang in 10th and had conflict so could not take.
  • Math: Honors Alg 2 and Trig (9th), AP Calc ABBC (10th), AP Stat (10th), Multivariable Calc (next year).
  • Science: Honors Biology (9th), Honors Physics (10th), Chemistry (10th), Anatomy & Physiology (11th), AP Physics C, AP Physics E&M (11th), AP Bio (next year)
  • History and social studies: Honors Civics (9th), Honors US History 1 (10th), Honors US History II (11th), AP Gov (next year)
  • Language other than English: French 2 (9th - could not take a language after this due to scheduling conflicts and only offering 1 session every year). Considering French 3 for next year either at HS or through dual enrollment.
  • Visual or performing arts: School requires 2 credits - Art 1 (9th), Guitar Lab (next year)
  • Other academic courses: AP Psych (10th), Exec Functioning (required by IEP - 11th, 12th), Intro to Personal Investing (dual enrolled to satisfy requirement for business course). Forensic science (next year)
  • Gym - school requires 3 classes - Fitness for Life (11th), Racket Sports (next year), and Strength and Conditioning (next year).

Awards

National Honor Society

AP Scholar (expect to have additional award after an additional 4 APs are completed by end of senior year)

NMSQT Commendation expected based on selection index for PSAT

Extracurriculars
ECNL-RL Soccer player - will try to play in college. 10 hours a week approximately in training and games.

Soccer Mentor - work with younger academy players in winter and summer showing them skills, and assistant coaching.

Junior Varsity Soccer - 9th (low level of play that she tried and then moved to tennis because more enjoyable even though plays high level soccer through club).

Varsity Tennis, Singles - 11th, 12th

Youth and Government - 9th - model congress organization.

Math Tutor - Mathnasium.

Server at Country Club. Loves to work, to earn money, but to also be helpful.

Crafts - very hands on interests in knitting and yarn art generally, whittling, jewelry making, painting.

Essays/LORs/Other
Not sure what letters will look like. Teachers seem to enjoy her, find her creative and smart, but not sure she inspires raves. Exec dysfunction means frequent extensions on work requested and utilized, forgetful about turning work in, but engaged in hands-on class types. Smart student but not straight A perfect student. Ended 2nd semester Soph year with C and C+ in History and English last year, unfortunately. Doing better this year, working through the “motivation” challenges that block scheduling is often unforgiving about. Aiming for nothing lower than a B, in AP Physics C. Overall having difficulty weighing odds for because of generally low unweighted GPA (should graduate with over 4.0 weighted) but expected good test scores and early pursuit of high rigor – in both soccer and in STEM.

Schools Being Considered for Soccer
Dickinson

Bates

Bowdoin

Brandeis

Wellesley

Bryn Mawr

Case Western

Clark Univ (MA)

F&M

Haverford

Hamilton

Oberlin

Smith

Union

Skidmore

Vassar

Wesleyan

Other Schools, not for Soccer - Open to other ideas, and to just play club soccer for the right fit school.

Colorado College

William & Mary

Lehigh

Davidson

Lafayette College

Univ of Richmond

Focused on best fit for ADHD student who might need professor to guide them toward a good fit career. Light on “safeties” because what even is that? Personality of student is somewhat typical ADHD - lots of interests not lots of follow through. Did a summer at Smith studying bacteriophage, and then took anatomy, and as a consequence was leaning pre-med. This semester, in 2 AP physics courses, talks about loving math. She will not follow a straight line, I don’t think…

Hoping for some feedback on the above, and maybe some “fit” suggestions for this quirky but smart student.

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Do you know what kind of vibe she’s looking for? Like big or small school, STEM focused or liberal arts or overarching, urban or rural, lots of school spirit/sports is or is not important? Is there an area of the country she wants or wants to avoid? Or weather she wants or wants to avoid? And do you have budget concerns or an amount you’d like to stay under?

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Thank you! I tried to edit my post to answer these questions. She is not a big football school girlie. She’s a “lives in a house with its own kitchen and a giant common room with a jigsaw puzzle out kind of girlie.” Only “no” on location is urban schools (ie no NYUs or Drexels). Generally wants pretty campus with nice college town attached.

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A safety is a school that is affordable, where the student could be happy and do well, and where the student has a very high probability of acceptance.

The first thing I would do is use the NPCs for every school on this list and remove the schools that are not affordable.

I would also look into adding safety and likely schools, as this list is very reach heavy.

Maybe look at TCNJ, some of the SUNY schools such as New Paltz, Geneseo, Oneonta, McDaniel College, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Marist….just to name a few.

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Since Ohio is on the table, do you think she might like College of Wooster? It strikes me that their emphasis on undergrad research (for which they have a very strong reputation), and the faculty mentoring involved in same, might work well for her. The strength in STEM is there but not in an extra-nerdy STEM-school kind of way… and they have an artsy streak too, including conservatory-level music. It seems to be a pretty neurodiversity-friendly school. (One field hockey athlete recently did her capstone research on college athletes with ADHD, comparing in-season and off-season in terms of academic performance, social wellbeing, and other metrics… so there must be a decent-sized cohort of student athletes who qualified as subjects for that research!) Wooster is a charming, walkable town, and the women’s soccer team has been doing well. This program is cool for premeds, too: Health Coach Program — The College of Wooster

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Would any of the PASSHE or CSHE schools be affordable safeties with the desired academics and other desired aspects?

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When I said “what even is that” I was being a little sarcastic - meaning, in this crazy academic space, how can you ever “really” rely on something being a safety. . . but I think she’d aim toward a Gettysburg over a Kutztown, generally speaking, because she wants a liberal arts bent. If CSHE is California, I don’t think we are looking at west coast in case we need to step in at any point it’s too inconvenient.

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When you say “for soccer”, have they shown interest, or is that just where she thinks she’d like to play? How motivated is she to play in college. Has she factored in the amount of time that she will be practicing and traveling? S23 chose not to play (even at a D3 level) once he experienced the travel schedule at boarding school and determined how stressful it was to be traveling when he knew he had school work to do. The good thing is that some of your schools are in conferences that don’t travel too far for the majority of their games. I’d have her look at the schedules and figure out travel times.

As you’ve listed Colorado College, how about Cornell College as a safety. They have a similar One Course at a Time structure, which can be really great for students with ADHD. Especially athletes. It’s outside of your geographic radius, but would be a safety.

When she requested extensions on assignments, was that part of her IEP/504 plan? Just so you know, colleges do not have to honor those types of accommodations and many won’t. They consider “reasonable” to be that the student can keep up with the class with added structure. I’d closely research the Students with Disabilities Offices of the places you are considering. Some will offer additional executive functioning tutors (often for a fee). We found that the ones that were willing to talk to us before we even applied were also the ones that were the easiest to work with once we were accepted.

If she’s already having trouble handing in assignments on time, I see some of these schools as not a great fit. Especially if she is planning on playing there. (Hamilton, Bates, Bowdoin, Wesleyan). Perhaps not, but I haven’t heard them mentioned as schools that are great matches for kids with ADHD, like I have about Clark or Skidmore.

S23 attended a school known for educating bright students with dyslexia/ADHD. I often refer to where they encourage kids to attend as they want to place kids where they will be successful. You might want to add Connecticut College to your list as it meets the “professor taking an interest”, good support and many of your other criteria. Students receive not one, but two advisors. One is a typical advisor that offers student guidance while the other is an advisor that helps determine a career path. We know of two kids that thought they would love Dickinson, but ended up transferring to Con and are much happier. They both spoke about having close relationships with their advisors. (They are both great self-advocates, so that may have had something to do with it as well).

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My kid has been out of school a few years now, but a lot of the schools listed seem like a reach. I would definitely add more matches and safeties. And, of course, budget as mentioned by other posters.

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Excellent post.

And I’ll add Lehigh and Wellesley to the “may be too intense” list. I am sure professors are caring and accommodating when they can be- but both attract a pretty ambitious type of student and the atmosphere could be off-putting for a kid who needs support.

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Look into Wheaton.

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Yes, recruiting is making this a little tricky, and I”m hoping this post helps make sure there aren’t other good options we’re missing for her LAC STEM focus, because, without recruiting, I have no idea how to process her lower GPA against higher test scores to know what schools to aim at. As a top 1% PSAT scorer, have to believe that she’d be considered above other lower GPA students, but I truly have no idea. We just got some feedback from Carnegie Mellon that stated that her Cs would not be disqualifying (my worry for the high academics in her sights) if her junior year grades were moving in a better direction - and they suggested that AP scores could stand in for SAT scores, which was a new one for me. So the “pre” “pre-read” assessment was to “go for it” with recruiting there, much to my great surprise. Recruiting will be ongoing over the next few months with lots of clinics and visits to go - ongoing discussions with various high academic schools but she could end up meeting their needs and getting an offer in a few months, or being on a long list of interested players that they never get to the bottom of to make an offer. So that’s HIGHLY variable, and then her stats make her variable as well. So just trying to make sure the bucket of options is full and I’m not missing any clear and obvious options that she would want to consider.

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TCNJ is public, and one of the higher priced public colleges in NJ. I don’t know how much financial aid they give to out of state students, and I don’t think merit will happen.

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It sounds like your daughter’s level of play will sway some decisions at the reach schools as her test scores indicate the ability to do the work, but she will have to make sure they will be a good match to her executive function needs and personality. Some kids actually do better with a packed schedule and the motivation of playing (you better get your work done now as it’s the only available time vs. I’ll do it later and it never gets done at all). She also seems like she might do better with “collaborative” rather than “pressure cooker”. The only thing that concerns me is that her ability to attend office hours and build those relationships with professors could be limited by her schedule.

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Yes, that’s the Plan A plan and exactly who she is. Unstructured time is her devil’s playground - and getting her into good habits, like going straight to library after school and getting homework done, is EVERYTHING. So I believe the structure of soccer will actually help her academically. But I have to prepare for a Plan B approach in case that falls through. :slight_smile:

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I’ll say, also, that the majority of programs we’ve spoken with have impressed me with the way they schedule their practices to ensure lab times and office hours can be unaffected.

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No, referring to the PA “state related” schools (PSU, Pittsburgh, Temple, Lincoln).

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OP, I know nothing about soccer recruiting so can’t help there.

But at least in my neck of the woods (urban, northeast), here is a quick list of schools which seem to be OK with “splitters”, i.e. high scores and not always the highest grades, all things being equal. I’m sure the other old-timers here can add to the list.

Vanderbilt

Case

CMU

Brandeis

Washington and Lee

Emory

Most of the Catholic schools- Holy Cross, Providence, Villanova, Fairfield, etc.

American

Don’t know how many of them fit your other criteria, but it’s a good place to start. I would NOT assume that a small school means the type of support you think it will. Professors- in general- assign work at the beginning of the semester via the syllabus and assume that a kid who is falling behind is going to reach out and be proactive about catching up. I know kids with various LD’s who have crashed and burned at tiny, midsize, large and huge schools, and kids who have made fantastic transitions (including tons of individual attention) regardless of size. If a large U has a well resourced program for learning support (tutoring for everything, not just “here, we’ll help you pass organic chemistry”), makes it easy for kids to switch majors midstream (something very challenging at some schools- and a kid with LD’s will be in a real pickle if all of a sudden he or she needs to pivot), makes it easy for kids to balance a heavy courseload with one or two easier classes, etc. This last one in particular- the smaller the school, the greater the likelihood that the courses your kid needs to graduate are offered either Spring or Fall but not both. And that makes it tougher to balance out the very heavy workload courses. The bigger the U, the more likely that the classes in the sequence are taught every semester.

Your kid sounds terrific!!!

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I don’t know the budget, but figured I would add it just in case.

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If she is prioritizing soccer/is sure she wants to make her best attempt to find a good fit school to play at, that should be the focus right now. But…it does make sense to have the list where she wouldn’t play varsity soccer as well…that is common for potential recruits who aren’t sure how things will play out.

I don’t have too many schools to add for soccer…she should cast a wide net and be opportunistic. She might look at Roanoke which has a good vibe and good sports scene. I second Wheaton.

With Lafayette and Lehigh on the no varsity soccer list, why is Bucknell not there? She might also look at Elon and Furman in NC.

If she doesn’t want nerdy, CMU is likely not a fit. It is also academically intense. A visit would be a must before committing. Other schools on her list that tend to the nerdy side are Brandeis, Case Western and Oberlin.

She may run into some coaches who don’t want lab science majors on the team. In that case, she can just move on.

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