<p>It’s wait and see here as well - so far all I have gotten is a grunt and a I don’t want to talk about it… I love teenagers…</p>
<p>Sorry to hear about ACT troubles. My D had done a “mock” ACT at her school and disliked the exam for two reasons- 1) the science questions and 2) the long stretches without breaks, which make it easy to fall behind on time. She much prefers the multiple short 30-20min segments on the SAT. So instead of taking the ACT, she went out shopping for spring clothes and shoes all day. I am keeping my fingers crossed for the March SAT scores due out on Tuesday.</p>
<p>zoosermom, I understand completely why your D wants to cross Mt.Holyoke from her list, though if it seemed like a good fit, you might consider applying anyway, and then decide next April if she wants to matriculate. Who knows, they might scrap the offensive policies, and one of the other colleges might prove to be equally bad or worse?</p>
<p>I hear consistently, on here as well as from parents of students at our HS, that the ACT science section is the tough part.</p>
<p>Here’s another advantage of having DH as a prof. Tonight we’re going to a dinner party that will include a prof formerly from Northwestern and one currently at Berkeley. Both of these are on S’s tentative list so I can ask them a few questions about their U. I think I’ll ask the Berkeley one if he’d consider sending his own S/D there now or in near future, with budget cuts looming, to see the response.</p>
<p>FAP:</p>
<p>Love to be a fly on the wall to see the reaction to that question… Cal is going to have some serious challenges with budget cuts and an aging faculty.</p>
<p>zoosermom - I don’t necessarily think it’s bad that your D is reconsidering her list - it’s just surprising after all the thought she’s put into creating it. I do agree that the schools that you believe will remain on the list - Barnard and Bryn Mawr - sound great. </p>
<p>Keilexandra - the nice thing about starting your search as early as you and zoosermom’s D did is that you have the ability to reconsider your choices, but there’s going to be a time when that will no longer be possible - of course you know that. I was just surprised because zoosermom’s D seemed so certain about what she wanted. </p>
<p>I’m sorry some of your kids had a problem with the ACT today. Hope there’s a generous curve for those who need it.</p>
<p>vp - sounds like your D had a fun day. Lucky her, shopping for clothes and shoes! Good luck on Tuesday!</p>
<p>Dropping the dog off with my parents and leaving sunny FL on Monday morning with D (junior) to go to DC for three visits!
(Was thinking of canceling the trip, but decided that contemplating possibilities is always a good thing to do. Had a nice talk w/ D about the difference between lofty dreams vs thoughtful hopes & where all of that fits into the college plans & college visits.) </p>
<p>Fly into DC on Monday afternoon (hopefully with enough time to see hit the Newseum).
GWU on Tuesday, CUA on Wednesday, and AU on Thursday.
On Friday we hook up with my sister who’s driving down from NY to FL for her Spring Break. </p>
<p>Info sessions, tours, class visits, meetings with a few professors/academic advisors, etc. Interview at CUA, but no interviews at others.
Night tour of the monuments, checking out museums, picnic dinner on the Mall! We get so little time together, I’m so looking forward to this!</p>
<p>Staying at the Residence Inn on Vermont Ave.<br>
Free continential breakfast and dinner on M,T, & W! That’ll lighten the cost a bit I hope!</p>
<p>Will certainly share results of our explorations!
Any advice would be appreciated! </p>
<p>Schools we’ve already visited:<br>
Rollins - absolutely LOVED it!
UNF (Jacksonville) - Nice - comfortable - she could see herself there & it felt good</p>
<p>Next stops:
UF (Gainsville) - April 13 - stupid to schedule on a Friday, but work leaves me no choice
UCF (Orlando)
FSU (Tallahassee)</p>
<p>A late reply on the ACT stuff…my son took the ACT today too. No prep at all, not even a look at how the test is structured, which of course did not thrill me. But he’s already taken the SATs twice and I think just did not want to put any effort into this. </p>
<p>His impressions: </p>
<p>Math: First 20 questions were easy but then it suddenly got very hard. (But this is from a kid that got 760 on the math SAT.)
English: Much easier vocab than the SATs
Writing: Did not finish the fifth (concluding) paragraph of his essay…seemed most worried about this
Science: Was pushing my luck since he had told me so much already, so I actually have not asked him yet!</p>
<p>ReadyToRoll - don’t forget the Reading section (different from the English section)…lol. That ACT is a looooong test.</p>
<p>To 1sttimemom-please let us know how your CUA visit went. Son is considering this school for biomedical engineering.</p>
<p>Also, please any input on UCF. Doesn’t have biomedical engineering, but might want to go with electrical and/or computer. Particularly interested in internship/coop opportunities available at this school.</p>
<p>Have a great trip and keep us posted!</p>
<p>LIMOM–I’ll let you know how D likes Rochester. She was warned about the cold, but at least the campus does feature those underground tunnels between buildings. She’s going to be trying focus on the strength of their English program, since Rochester seems to be known for the sciences (and music too, I believe). </p>
<p>Mathmom–Considering how relatively open UR’s curriculum is, there didn’t appear to be a language requirement, (I had looked at a PDF link from the UR website describing the various curricula for different majors in the Arts & Sciences school.)but I’ll try to confirm that.</p>
<p>2Blue–I’ll let you know about Rochester and Pitt. I’m not sure about UR, although, off the top of my head, I’m pretty certain that Pitt doesn’t guarantee housing for all four years: I believe that most, if not all, seniors live off campus, but I’ll try to verify that when we visit.</p>
<p>1sttimemom-Good luck with the Washington visit! D1 is an AU sophomore and really likes it there. We just visited the Newseum the last time I was in DC; if you do go, allow enough time, as there’s so many great exhibits there. And, yes, those complimentary hotel breakfasts do help alleviate some of the travel expense.:)</p>
<p>zm: Just to ease your D’s mind, Barnard is definitely not “touchy-feely.” It is supportive but not intrusive. Very NY. My D is graduating in a month. I have to pinch myself to believe it.</p>
<p>The ACT. Can’t figure it out. My S got a perfect score on the Science section and is a Classics Major and doesn’t care if he never sees science again after his required courses. He has never scored like that, so don’t mean to brag. I have no idea what kind of mind aces that science. It just seems like busy work with graphs. I wasn’t particularly impressed by his result, though this year he has a job in his school’s library shelving books and the librarian thinks he should make it a career.</p>
<p>He’s at a rather good school so he can’t imagine that there would be anybody there who couldn’t do as well as he shelving books, but apparently not.</p>
<p>So, if your kid has trouble on Science it’s probably a compliment because my S is scratching his head over the things he seems to be good at.</p>
<p>Veering off topic. We filled out the ‘send more info’ forms for some schools online in January. So far, have only received mail from two places (I’m not counting the email).</p>
<p>I was hoping to have a short stack of info that D. could pore over, highlight, etc., before the summer tours. I think they send the info too late…</p>
<p>We are in the states most of June and July. When we come home in August there will be a big stack of info from colleges we might have wanted to include on the tour… At least, that is what happened with S.</p>
<p>Karen, We have had the same issue with older S. I have noticed this time around more of the schools actually have their view books etc. on line as downloads.</p>
<p>momonthehill - glad to hear your older D is still happy at AU. Looking forward to hearing about your trip when you get back, especially the U of Roch portion of it. I’m still trying to figure out how I can arrange a trip there by fall. It really is an excellent school, and according to my D’s GC it should definitely be considered. </p>
<p>Hi Myth! :)</p>
<p>Karen Colleges - hope you get that mail soon - but expatme is right - most of the viewbooks can be seen online.</p>
<p>Planning to drive up to URochester next month. It really sounds like an impressive biology program. S is currently in Boston with his dad- plan for Brandeis, Wesleyan, Tufts, Brown, MIT (no way- but his father’s alma mater).</p>
<p>Wow - sounds like U of Rochester is going to be a hot school next year. I wonder if they know that?</p>
<p>mont - will happily report on trip. Though we live only 20 minutes away from UCF, I can’t report anything substantive (and don’t want to report general rumors & vague notions as that’s probably not very helpful). D has 3 senior friends who are heading there in the Fall. I’ll make suer to get input from them & will report back. </p>
<p>hil - great advice, thanks! Sadly, Newseum closes daily to 5:00… won’t have much time there I’m afraid! Will do what we can though! I’ve been wanting to go for so long!</p>
<p>so psyched!</p>
<p>so - here’s a question for the group. If everyone sends in a few answers, maybe we’ll get a useful top ten out of it?</p>
<p>What are some useful on-campus things a parent can do while waiting for S/D during a campus visit? </p>
<p>Of course, a good book to read is nice. And if I can steal away to hit a local museum or something, that’s a bonus. But there must be on-campus explorations that would be beneficial in the learn-more-about-this-place effort… to do while D is in an interview or while S is having lunch with a student or attending a class. </p>
<p>So far here’s my list:
- Find the hot-spot for morning coffee. Stay there awhile and soak up the atmosphere - what’s the energy like? what are the kids talking about? what are they carrying with them? what plans are they making?
- Read the bulletin boards around campus. What’s being advertised? How active does the student body seem to be? How many things are there to do during the upcoming weekend? Is the information current?</p>
<p>Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Mythmom, thanks for the good info about Barnard and about the ACT! It’s definitely for the best that Barnard is a little more hands-off. Some kids are just more up for that, right?</p>
<p>1sttimemom thanks SO much for posting your impressions. I’m waiting quite eagerly for your impression of the DC schools. CUA seems to have caught my daughter’s eye in a good way for various reasons and we won’t be visiting until July.</p>
<p>Here’s my addition to your list: wear an appropriate hat with a small brim and then situate yourself in the waiting room in such a way as to be able to take a nap without being conspicuous! Naps are your friend. Seriously, though, for D1 and D2, the most informative thing I did on my own was to read the student newspapers. That gave me a very good feel because while D1 is laid-back and easy, D2 is most certainly not.</p>
<p>1sttimemom – I do both of those. I also pick up every flavor of campus papers/publications I can find. When we visited one school, the info session was touting the relative health of their endowment, but the student paper was detailing significant cuts. It’s also a good way to get a feel for the culture of the campus, ongoing discussions/disagreements on various issues, unvarnished crime reports, etc.</p>
<p>S1 found that wandering through the departments of programs he was interested was a VERY good way to find out about where recent grads have gone, a sense of faculty availability, programs/competitions the department is involved in, etc. At Mudd, profs came popping out of their offices to talk to S1 and they all had funny math cartoons and office hours posted. At another school, all the doors were closed, no cartoons/personalization, no sign of life. For S, this was a big deal.</p>