<p>Queen’s Mom - tentatively, we’re visiting Princeton (D’s choice), and Swarthmore, Villanova, Lehigh and Lafayette (my choices). Swarthmore is a reach, of course, but it’s very different from the other reachy schools we’ve looked at, so I’d like her to see it while we’re in the area. The other three are a little/a lot more realistic.</p>
<p>All good schools. Have fun on your trip.</p>
<p>I think my daughter has seen the light… last night she was saying on spring break I really need to find more H&Ms… I must have had a strange look on my face because she said remember my scale? </p>
<p>(previously posted as 2968).</p>
<p>Top Schools (Reach) = Anthropology</p>
<p>Medium Schools (Match) = American Eagle</p>
<p>Lower schools (Safety) = H&M</p>
<p>No Way = Hot Topic</p>
<p>I’m not sure what changed her mind and got her out of the “anthropologies” but I’m glad she is trying to find a balance for her list - and that she is thinking about it.</p>
<p>So far, as far as safeties, D put down U of Alabama. Yes it’s a safety, but I really do not think she realizes how HUGE that school is. I suppose if she gets into the honors college it will be a possibility but other wise I just can’t see her there.</p>
<p>I scheduled an appointment with the college counselor at D’s school. Hopefully she’ll be able to talk some sense into D.</p>
<p>We still cannot get our list narrowed down, and she is not very sure of what she wants. She seems to know what she doesn’t want, but not ever based on my idea of reality. I suggest Tulane, she says “I don’t want New Orleans”. Why? No reason. I remember a thread that the kids started that they named the dumbest reasons for not applying to schools, such as “Colgate, it reminds me of toothpaste”. She was looking at the list, saw Colgate, and said, “No way, all I can think of is toothpaste”. I am hoping when she finally starts her visits, she will have more solid criteria to base some of her decisions on. It is so easy to feel so far behind here.</p>
<p>WhirledPeas,</p>
<p>Glad to see I’m not the only one with a D who is “not very sure of what she wants.” And, she also vetoed Colgate because of the name!!</p>
<p>So far, the college trip list is: Northwestern, UofChicago, Carnegie-Mellon, Bucknell, Colgate (HA!), Cornell, Tufts, Brandeis and NYU. She wants cold weather, not too big, not too small, 50-50 gender split, not granola, not Greek, not too rigid academically (too many required courses). But, she has no idea what she wants to study, what she wants after college, etc.</p>
<p>I’m also hoping after she visits this group of schools, she has a better idea of likes/dislikes.</p>
<p>Thanks, QM. We won’t be going until mid-April, and things may change between now and then. U of Alabama sounds like a great school - I wouldn’t mind my D taking a look at it herself, though I know it’s larger than the other schools she’s looking at - it’s also a lot farther from home than she’d like. If your D insists on including it as one of her options, will you be able to visit? It’s a little far from home for you too.</p>
<p>Whirledpeas/Burn This - my D is also not sure of what she wants, so don’t feel bad.</p>
<p>Burn This - my D has visited Tufts and Cornell and really liked them both, though they’re very different schools.</p>
<p>Burn This, have you thought of adding Brown to that list?</p>
<p>No, we will not visit unless she is actually considering going there.</p>
<p>Queen’s Mom - understandable.</p>
<p>BengalMom - where’ve you been?</p>
<p>LIMOM – out of town for a while, then busy here and there. Thanks for asking. I’ve been reading some of the '09 thread, too. But it give me palpitations when I think that we’ll all be going through that before we know it. :)</p>
<p>Today I learned from GC that the Class of '09 at our HS had 3 National Merit Finalists, out of a class of approximately 650. Is that a low number of finalists for a class that size?</p>
<p>Me too, BengalMom. Whenever I lurk among the seniors I want to put my hands over my ears and sing “nanananana I can’t hear you.” 
:P</p>
<p>S2 said he couldn’t imagine going to Elmira because he used something very similar as a D&D character name!</p>
<p>BengalMom, we never have any more (NMFs) with a similar sized class. There were two my son’s year. There are usually another dozen or so commended students and a handful of Hispanic and National Achievement scholars.</p>
<p>Counselor has said that my year, an unusually strong class, she expects 26 NMSFs out of 232 students. We are a academic magnet though, with a critical mass of high-testers (of both the studious and slacker varieties). Not many National Achievement or National Hispanic scholars, maybe a couple.</p>
<p>EDIT: And our state cutoff last year was 219, has varied as high as 221 though not in the past two years.</p>
<p>I was just surprised because the cut off for semifinalists is very low in our state, MUCH lower than NY. If S lived in most other states, he would not make semifinalist. So, that’s lucky for him! :D</p>
<p>DougBetsy – LOL!! Too true. I’ll join you in that little ditty.</p>
<p>Then, after reading the '09 thread I go over to the college threads and read the “Oh, please, chance me! I only have a 2390 SAT, a 4.00 gpa, with 800 hours of community service, and I started my own business which now has 100 employees, and I discovered a cure for the common cold. Will I ever get in??”</p>
<p>Why do I torture myself so?</p>
<p>I popped over to the '09 thread and thought I would read the posts from the past few days—I didn’t get through it. I think they’re posting faster than I could read! Anyway, one piece of advice put out to us '10ers is to visit colleges now and not wait for acceptances. </p>
<p>Pour yourself a glass of wine before visiting that thread. It’s stressful!</p>
<p>They are posting really fast over there - we once were slightly ahead of them in post count and the gap grew to more than 200 - but we have been busy today and the gap is now down to less than 100… so we must be posting faster than they are!!!</p>
<p>If we’re posting here faster than the '09s, then we must be doing virtual sweating and worrying for those folks and their kids!</p>