<p>Mike, even though some of the schools will be on spring break, there may well be some students around, kids who cannot get home either because of distance or $$. Check if the schools are still offering information sessions and tours.</p>
<p>I caught up with the 09 thread at lunch. SLUMOM, that is your family on the SLU parent webpage? Quite a moving picture, I hope you have that saved off somewhere!</p>
<p>zoosermom, when are you going to DC/Balto? My H just called to say that the cherry trees are budding on the mall. If you are coming in late March/early April you may be in luck.</p>
<p>Iād so love to see those trees, Queenās Mom! Weāre not coming till the end of July, though. Sigh.</p>
<p>zoosermom - funny, but I thought you were going in April, during the break. </p>
<p>Mike - what momof3sons said.</p>
<p>Jackief - we were there over the summer, so we didnāt get much of a student vibe either - except that our tour guide was very laid back, and he seemed to be friendly with the few other students we ran into on campus. The admissions office who gave our info session wasnāt the least bit sleepy and had a great sense of humor.</p>
<p>Yes, I thought you were going in April too.</p>
<p>I just finished my note to the Asst Vice Principal-Ciricculum on the six items I had questions on or needed changing on my Sās HS transcript. Iām trying to see how many of these can be nailed down now, before the rush is on in the fall. For example, the transcript shows a āWork in Progressā section which lists the titles of the classes being taken for the current semester. It will show the same for the fall of senior year.</p>
<p>For the fall, rather than seeing āHomestudyā as Linear Algebra gets listed now (at semester end, I was able to get the name chaged), I think it would have more import for S if it says āMultivariable Calculusā since the transcript already has a subhead for classes taken outside the HS. If Iāve shown them proof that heās enrolled, they should be able to do this, especially with a known entity such as JHU-CTY. S will have a separate transcript from JHU-CTY anyway, to go with the one for the HS. </p>
<p>My thinking is, with a harried admissionās committee, better to have as much info (especially when it may be deal maker info) in one place/one page as possible. Am I right in my thinking?</p>
<p>Here is some text from an email to a friend with another '10er who wanted to hear about the Tufts visit. Iām adding this here, I will probably have more to add and will do a college visit entry also.</p>
<p>Relatively warm day and there was only a small bit of ice on some of the paths. But it couldnāt compare the the beautiful summer and fall days of the other visits. As we waited before the tour and and info session, there were greeter students who talked to the propsies one on one asking them if they had questions and drawing them into conversations. Tour guide was very good and engaging, Junior Child Development major in a sorority. There wasnāt the cohesive community building for the freshman that we saw at some other places, freshman can choose freshman only housing yes/no, single sex housing yes/no. 40% of Jr class goes abroad and many upperclassmen live off campus although there is new on campus housing options avail for them, some new large singles and some apartment options. Housing is not guaranteed for upperclassmen but they have not turned them away. International relations is the most popular major and the school of law and diplomacy is on the undergrad campus and upperclassmen can take some classes. More students transfer into the school of engineering than transfer out and there are low walls between the colleges for taking classes between engineering and arts and sciences. There is an experimental college where offbeat classes are offered. Also some interesting global interdisciplinary programs. They spent very little time on graduation and admissions requirements because it is easy to look this up yourself, we were unclear on some of the details but we can find it out later. Many study abroad programs plus you can petition to take one not affiliated with Tufts. They have a small program in the French Alps and you can do a 7 week program there which goes from May finals to end of June. They have an extensive (IMO) foreign language requirement- 6 semesters doesnāt need to be all the same language and you can apply culture/literature and AP courses to this also. The admissions officer who ran the info session was tired in the middle of reading season but she had the kids say where they were from including HS and she was familiar with the New Orleans and Michigan? HS present. She talked about separating the application into āthe dataā and āthe voiceā 80% of applicants have the necessary ādataā A B is ok in a challenging course, she isnāt impressed with straight Aās in unchallenging courses. She mentioned college board score choice and said they look at the highest section scores anyway. They do not superscore the ACT. Pitfalls in essays- talking about scoring the winning point in the game, they already know you are a star player from your other info. Service trip essay- many kids with money do these, you need to tell how it changed you. Grrandma essay- they are not admitting Grandma. Talk about yourself and not what can be seen in your ādataā They only want on teacher recommendation and one guidance counselor. If you submit many she might not read the best one at the bottom of the stack. She tries to get through seven a day and might not look at extra info.</p>
<p>jackief - thanks for posting that review. Although weāve also visited, it was helpful reading your re-cap. Iām thinking the admissions people must be tired of reading essays on the same topics because the admissions officer at Cornell also stressed the importance of the essay helping you stand out from the crowd. She said for her, certain overdone topics were like chalk screaching on a blackboard.</p>
<p>whatās with you people! page two!! I have more to say about Tufts, when I get a chance. I thought the dining hall was kind of bleak. Also, we walked through a dorm but no rooms were open for us to peek in. Most of the reviews say a dorm is not included. Iāll have to think of what else I left out for the next postā¦</p>
<p>Well, things got busy on the job. Today was the last day for paying business tax over the counter without penalty, so there was this knot of people ā¦ All hands on deck were required, especially in the afternoon.</p>
<p>Iām thinking my son favors the thought of urban campuses because he likes to eat a wide variety of ethnic foods. Saturday, weāll go with friends to Fairfax Avenue in LA, a part of which is Ethiopian restaurant row. Very tasty food you eat with your fingers (well, the āinjeraā bread which comes in rolls that look like fat little ace bandages.)</p>
<p>Okay, no fun. Something happened either at CC or my computer and my last note was not posted. Have the '09s cursed our thread??</p>
<p>The '09s are talking snowstorms, facial hair (boys) and eating habits. Okaaaaay, here goes!</p>
<p>Snowstorm: Hey, this is SoCal. Next?
Facial hair" My S gets these cute little wisps on his chin. He shaves every other week.
Eating habits: Well, itās swim season so food disappears and yet he still has the swimmer body. Lucky him. Swim season is more fun than water polo in one sense, since itās co-ed (on the deck, not in the pool.)</p>
<p>Okay, post now!</p>
<p>Okay, no fun. Something happened either at CC or my computer and my last note was not posted. Have the '09s cursed our thread??</p>
<p>The '09s are talking snowstorms, facial hair (boys) and eating habits. Okaaaaay, here goes!</p>
<p>Snowstorm: Hey, this is SoCal. Next?
Facial hair" My S gets these cute little wisps on his chin. He shaves every other week.
Eating habits: Well, itās swim season so food disappears and yet he still has the swimmer body. Lucky him. Swim season is more fun than water polo in one sense, since itās co-ed (on the deck, not in the pool.)</p>
<p>Okay, post now!</p>
<p>FindAPlace - No snowstorms here now, but I hear weāre expecting some bad weather over the weekend. No facial hair on D, thankfully - but my 12-year old S is sprouting a little. Eating habits - too complicated to go into right now. </p>
<p>Not much else to share tonight. Sorry.</p>
<p>Good news, bad news.<br>
- Bad news-Our thread is becoming subject to lots of spam postings.
- Good news-Our post count is going up.</p>
<p>College hunt, college hunt. See, Iām relevant. ;)</p>
<p>Edited out double post-Iām didnāt do it purposely. Honestly.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>As always, please use the āreport problem postā link whenever you see spam.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reminder, Token Adult.</p>
<p>My posts are college relevant all the time, thanks to my screen name. Who knew? :)</p>
<p>Good news, the GC sent me an email (at close to 6 pm!) regarding my six questions about the transcript AND it turns out most of them are easily fixable. As an added kicker, one of the fixes should result in a GPA/class rank boost. Hoo-haw that!</p>
<p>The GC is also holding a transcript workshop in early March, for parents of rising seniors. I promised her I would not bring up questions that are related to the somewhat unique circumstances posed by my S. See I CAN be a good girl! :)</p>
<p>Hi I am going to jump in here with a question after reading ( over a couple of days) most of the posts. My second S is class of 2010. elder S is in his first year at tufts.
My question is this: how will we ( and our kids) be able to judge the possible effects the āeconomic downturnā will have on course offerings, class availability etc ? We are all in the process of making these great lists based on past years data. So I am worried that schools will not be what we are thinking they will be when the kids finally get there. Specifically, this will matter if your child ( or actually mine) is looking for a specific set of course offerings as a filter in the college search. Do you think that we will have enough information by the end of summer/beginning of fall to verify program continuity?</p>
<p>expatme - thatās a good question, and I can only assume the answer will vary by college. Definitely, itās something weāll have to keep in mind.</p>
<p>FindAPlace - yay for good news.</p>
<p>momof3sons - lol.</p>