Pancetta tastes and bacon stats

Applying to College
1

We have begun asking colleges to send info. I understand that my stepdaughter likes Stanford. I like pancetta, but get pretty dang excited about bacon. We’re hoping to get her excited about schools that aren’t out of reach.

GPA calculators all seem to have her at 3.47 to 3.69 unweighted. Weighted varies from 3.79 to 3.9. SAT score should be about 1200, because that’s about what she got on the PSAT and she doesn’t want to prep. She’s undecided about area of study, distance, and type of campus. She’s not a big joiner as far as school sanctioned extracurriculars go. She’s a fan of social activities that involve a lot of movement (dancing, non-competitive sports games). We have taken her to a couple local schools. She likes Stanford, Caltech, Berkeley, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, CalPoly SLO, Claremont McKenna, Pepperdine, and Occidental. She’s also talked about the Colorado School of Mines, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Barnard. But she’s not getting into those schools.

There has not been a problem coming up with “reaches.” (Is there ever?) So far there’s Stony Brook, UT Austin, University of Washington in Seattle, UC Santa Cruz, Rochester Institute of Technology, UMass Amherst, UC Davis, Penn State, Rutgers New Brunswick, Spelman, Howard University, Virginia Tech, Purdue, and Texas A&M.

It’s been difficult coming up with targets and safeties. The only safties so far are Evergreen State College and CSU East Bay. (This would be the cheapest option.) Target schools are CalPoly Pomona, Arizona State University, San Jose State University, and San Francisco State University.

Can anyone think of other schools that might seem exciting but still be attainable? Especially safeties or targets? This is just to seek out information and help her get more eager and enthusiastic about the process.

2

I love the title of your thread!

Tell your student that if she wants a shot at some of the schools on her list, she has to prep and get that SAT score way up. The OOS publics on her list are going to be reaches otherwise.

IMO, it’s a good thing that you are reigning in her expectations now.

3

ASU which is on your list, SDSU which may be hard to get in for her, UNLV, University of San Diego, Loyola-Marymount, Chapman, and USF seems to be in cities which I would characterize as exciting that fit the grades/score that your daughter has. The first 3 should all have dance teams which are amongst the best in the US. I guess you might have to give us more as far as budget and major goes.

4

If skiing counts under her movement activities you could check out UN-Reno, although they’ve just had that dorm explosion so things might be a little nutty around campus for the next year. How about University of Portland or University of Puget Sound?

5

@momofsenior1 I love my title, too.

I’ll keep speaking like a meme: Comparison is the thief of joy. Her friends all got much higher scores, and she’s friends with older kids who got into impressive schools. I think she’s either intimidated or protecting herself from the disappointment that comes from trying and not succeeding.

6

Develop a taste for tofu. Visiting colleges she can’t get into won’t help anyone. Start with naviance, and explore places like Chapman or Redlands or the CSUs. There are a lot of good things there, she just needs to open up to new culinary experiences.

7

CU Boulder depending on major??? They seem to like out of state tuition $$$$

8

U Denver? Flagler seems exotic to me–gorgeous and unique campus (glamourous former hotel) with reasonable tuition. I don’t think USD, LMarymount, etc. would be too safe with a 1200 SAT. Lots of cool schools out there for every achievement level if you can open her eyes (and afford them).
Good luck! Time to explore!

9

Wow, I think I would be spending time this Summer with her on long walks talking about nature and essentially guiding her into a more realistic viewpoint. It’s a waste of everyone’s time to try for those schools. Even with a perfect SAT and GPA, her activities basically leave her out of the running. Kids at the schools mentioned have a well rounded application and near perfect stats. I think a single reach school is fine, the rest of the time should be spent on getting the best results possible. Of course, that is likely the job of the parents and that might not be possible at this point.
Hopefully, she’ll find a few she likes that are a match for her. Best of luck to her.

10

@ProfessorPlum168 Thank you. I think UNLV and USF would be considered targets. I can’t believe I didn’t think of USF. We’re pretty close to there. She doesn’t seem to know what she wants for a major yet.

11

@Happytimes2001 I actually think her friends are greater influences than I could be at this point, or any of her other parents. Her current plan, since she does understand she can’t get into those schools most of her friends introduced her to, is to just go to community college and transfer to a state school like her other friends.

12

Use https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/ to calculate GPA for UC and CSU (use the “weighted capped” version for most purposes, including computing the CSU eligibility index). The CSU eligibility index = GPA * 800 + SATRW + SATM.

What is the cost constraint? If you are not comfortable paying up to $70,000 per year, do some financial planning to figure out what you are comfortable paying, tell her what the price limit is, and run the net price calculator on the web site of each college of interest. Do not expect good (or any) financial aid from out-of-state public universities.

What intended or possible major(s)? The “mine” schools suggest engineering, but colleges like Evergreen State suggest general liberal arts.

Regarding some specific colleges:

SFSU is a non-impacted campus, so a CSU eligibility index of 2950 should get admission to a non-impacted major. Impacted majors which require a higher CSU eligibility index are listed at http://future.sfsu.edu/impaction .

SJSU publishes past CSU eligibility index thresholds here: http://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/impaction/

CSUEB is campus impacted. The best information about its admission selectivity seems to be at http://www.csueastbay.edu/impaction/files/docs/csuebimpactionproposal.pdf . If the procedures listed continue to be applied, if she attends a high school in the local service area, she will only need to meet the baseline eligibility index of 2950, unless she wants an impacted major.

More about CSU impaction: https://www2.calstate.edu/attend/impaction-at-the-csu

Depending on her UC recalculated GPA, she may have a good chance at UCM and perhaps UCR and UCSC (and if on the higher end of what you mention, some others may be realistic reaches or high matches). See http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-general/2127392-faq-uc-historical-frosh-admit-rates-by-hs-gpa-2018.html .

Arizona State is not hard to get into. Automatic admission criteria are published at https://admission.asu.edu/freshman/apply , but follow the link to the degree search to see if her intended major is more selective.

Note that Pepperdine is a strongly religious school (Churches of Christ), and University of San Francisco and LMU are Jesuit Catholic schools (LMU is both Jesuit and Marymount).

13

University of Utah in SLC. Beautiful growing campus and a WUE school too.

14

Since you mention that she is your stepdaughter, note that some colleges do require both divorced parents’ financial information for financial aid purposes (this does not include UCs and CSUs, which require only the information for the parent household that she lives in). If this is an issue, read http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/2083835-faq-divorced-parents-financial-aid-and-net-price-calculators.html .

15

This is a good plan. Reasonable, attainable, cost effective. Instead of searching for alternate pancetta, why not work on supporting this plan?

16

What is your college budget like? Have the various parental units talked about the money? Have the parent(s) she lives with most of the time (the custodial parent(s) for FAFSA) run the Net Price Calculators at the websites of the places she’s currently interested in? Get that done now, so that her list can be re-framed for affordability if necessary.

17

In addition to ASU, consider U New Mexico.
Her CA location would probably qualify her for WUE and her weighted GPA would give her access to the Amigo’s scholarship. UMN has an Honors College.

If she’s looking for a smaller public, Western Washington is an excellent choice for those who are undecided.

For private schools, in addition to those already mentioned, U Seattle is an excellent Jesuit school in an exciting city for students, with nice merit aid and exploratory programs for the undecided.

18

@milee30 She’s on track to have finished 84 units of concurrent enrollment just before graduating high school. She’ll be able to enter university at junior standing once she graduates high school, if she wishes. The only reason to attend what would be essentially a fourth year of community college is to avoid the first time freshman application process.

19

What is her college GPA?

For UC transfer admission stats, you may want to look at https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/transfers-major .

Still, it is typically advantageous to start as a frosh with higher standing than as a transfer, since the frosh with higher standing has the option but not the requirement to declare a major immediately and graduate early relative to a frosh starting with no college credit.

20

If she wants to stay in the west, I second Western Washington. It’s just far enough away to be exotic to her friends and close enough to get home for holidays and really important things like a friend’s wedding or family reunion.

I don’t think she’ll get into Colorado - Boulder but could go to Mesa. If she’s interested in engineering (with schools like Cal Poly, Mines, RPI on the list I’m guessing so), then her degreefrom Mesa is issued by U of Colorado. Another Denver school that has a lot of science-y majors is Regis, with nursing, pharmacy, and some other med tech type programs.