<p>Happy Birthday, Keilexandra!</p>
<p>Trip to France for straight As?? No pressure there, RobD! Maybe you can get the girl to brng her back a T-shirt. :D</p>
<p>Weâre seeing them tonight for dinner (2 hours after they get home!) Having a spouse/ parent who is a pilot has some perks, thatâs for sure! She got to go to Japan last year, when he was flying that route.</p>
<p>Got some high level college mail today: Princeton & Yale. Which has brought up the SAT II conversation again. Need to go check the deadline for the June SAT II registration. Looks like Yale may be making the listâŠand I was almost going to post before about how stable the college list has been this month.</p>
<p>P & Y generic mail at our house as well. I have a friend whoâs a P grad so I was teasing him about how it was taking forever for this to arrive. S does not âfit the moldâ for P. Not sure for Y, Iâll have to ask my SIL. As for S, the shoe fits comfortably for my S but I will likely be similar to the Cinderella tale to get admitted so ⊠Once AP madness is over, back to having him work on the match part of his list, which seems to be the hardest to nail down.</p>
<p>Some of the kid rumors on CC boggle the mind. Thereâs one going around now about ALL students needing to re-take APUSH because some one person in an earlier time zone violated the 48 hour rule.</p>
<p>FindAPlace - I think the problem with finding match schools for kids like your S, my D, and lots of others is that the matches are still reaches. I think thatâs why when my Dâs GC made up a college list for her, she only noted the safeties. Normally, she would have noted âtargetsâ and reaches as well. Obviously, some of the reaches are less reachy than others.</p>
<p>Princeton mail here today too, along with some others, but no Yale. No problem, Yale wasnât on her list anyway - so there! ;p The other mail she received - packets from USC and Loyola MD, and a postcard from Champlain College in VT.</p>
<p>Princeton mail here, too, and we got it yesterday! Nah, nah, nah, nah nah. :D<br>
No Yale mail, though.
Princetonâs admit rate was well over 9% this year, so itâs clearly a safety for all of our kids. Uh, thatâs compared to Yale, which is down in the 7 1/2% range. :)</p>
<p>I got a generic Yale letter today, too.</p>
<p>I consider matches to be schools like Oberlin, Vassar for a guy, Macalester, Grinnellâplaces that are slightly less competitive, accepting maybe a third of applicants, and where you will bring diversity (in my case, the Midwest LACs are a great match because Iâll bring both geographic and racial diversity). If youâre in a non-Southern area, Southern schools really want geo-diversity too.</p>
<p>I wonât write up another visit report for Swarthmore, since I skipped the tour at the end. Keynote speaker was funny and engaging. I attended the mock committee and interview workshop panelsâcommittee was disappointing as the adcom sidestepped around relating the imaginary applicants to Swat specifically, while the interview session was amusing but gave kind of âobviousâ tips. I did enjoy my visit; in the fall I will go back at least once, for an overnight and/or Discovery Weekend to sit in on a class and interview.</p>
<p>Although Iâm not too excited about womenâs colleges, I decided to drop by Bryn Mawr anyway because an old friend whom I hadnât seen for 2 years transferred there as a sophomore this year (from Sarah Lawrenceâdonât think anyone here is considering SLC? If so, let me know and Iâll expound on the negatives). She likes BMC, although I appreciated her honesty about its drawbacks too. Classes are difficult, as reputed; the campus is gorgeous and estate-like (whereas I would describe Swarthmoreâs campus as stately yet welcoming, not âgorgeousâ). She lives in Haffner, the language dorm, which has singles for freshmen, is quiet, and relatively easy to get into because itâs on the edge of campus. Watch out for the basement of Erdman Hallâcockroach infestation. Bryn Mawr also has extensive traditions, some of which (e.g. Hell Week) sound a little too close to sorority hazing for my comfort. But my friend is not the crazy-making type (dressing up in outrageous costumes for class, racing to Haverfordâs duck pond in order not to be the last one there to be dumped in) and she still said it was fun. </p>
<p>Overall, Iâm not totally enthused but Bryn Mawr seems like a good fit (not as perfect a fit as Swarthmoreâs Quaker ethos and in specific academic fields) except for the gender thing. My father thinks that single-sex schools are old-fashioned and unnatural, but he also opposes coed bathrooms. Go figure. I am allowed to apply to one womenâs college if I wish, thoughâso, any thoughts here on Bryn Mawr vs. Scripps? Iâll probably post a thread in the proper forum soon.</p>
<p>Ohâalso, my friend warned me against the Econ and Spanish programs at BMC.</p>
<p>Princeton letter this week but never got that WUSTL mailing. Today had a mailing from Miami and USC. I told ds Iâd disown him if he ever went to USC (Longhorn fans will understand).</p>
<p>Is anyoneâs kid NOT doing something terribly exciting this summer? Ds was going to take a summer course at the cc and another online, but now I think thatâs not going to happen. He has volunteer work and a trip to Philmont, but thatâs it for now, besides college visits.</p>
<p>Thanks, Keilexandra. I thought that you might like Bryn Mawr at least a little. 
I really donât know enough about the differences between Scripps and Bryn Mawr other than what you probably already know. </p>
<p>About the matches, itâs been really hard for my D to find true matches that arenât also reaches. Perhaps if she would consider schools in the midwest or south, it would be easier - but being limited to the northeast, itâs really hard.</p>
<p>D isnât doing anything exciting this summer either. Sheâs hopefully working at the same place sheâs worked for the past two summers, plus starting on her apps/essays. And I guess sheâll work on any AP assignments handed out over the summer. Is that unexciting enough for you, YDS?</p>
<p>At some point I was reading the wiki article about Bryn Mawr, and I thought âI know why this wasnât a good fit for my Momâ. Those traditions just did not sound like her at all!</p>
<p>Yes, unventful enough. Iâm glad ds wonât be the only one not trying to cure cancer. Whatâs a bummer is he had a lead on a great job but he turned it down because he thought he couldnât do it because of summer school. He will, however, now be able to do some little college programs, two-day college visit-type things.</p>
<p>I hope this would not bother the current discussion.
Is there any information which college will appreciate the report of PSAT Top 50k. Since its submission is limited to only 2 colleges, my son wants to use it effectively. We searched around which college of his favorites would appreciate or ignore the report but get almost no information.
My guess is that it is not so informative to top colleges with most of applicants having such status. Am I correct?</p>
<p>LIMOMOF2 - Oh, yes, I canât think of any northeast LACs that âmatchâ in both selectivity and rigor for a top student. Well, maybe the womenâs collegesâBryn Mawr, Smith, Mt. Holyoke all have relatively high acceptance rates and rigorous academics. Iâm considering Bryn Mawr as a high safety, given the people that I know attend/were admitted (including from my schoolâvery good local relationship, my counselor is a HUGE fan). You might look at some of the PA LACs, although theyâre more Mid-Atlantic than New England and may be safeties, not matches. NY has some nice schools, too; maybe Skidmore, Rochester for a small U?</p>
<p>Hey Keilexandra! Its my dsâs birthday today too!! Happy day all the way around!</p>
<p>Hooray, birthday twins!</p>
<p>There are quite a few colleges that have global acceptance rates around 15-20% but a rate of around 30-40% for my Dâs high school, where my Dâs stats are above the average accepted student. We are going to call these âmatchâ schools.</p>
<p>I wouldnât call any schools with <20% acceptance rate a match, no matter individual school recordsâthey are low reaches at best. In the 20-30% range with favorable local record, sure.</p>
<p>^^ This gets into semantics. It all depends what you expect out of a âmatchâ. To me it doesnât mean guaranteed or even likely admission but it does mean you have a reasonable shot. It means if you apply to 4 match schools and are denied at all 4, then you can consider yourself unlucky. If youâve found safeties you really like, it doesnât matter that your âmatchâ schools were a bit reachy. I think the key is finding a good safety. The more comfortable you are with your safety, the more you can reach.</p>
<p>I think of matches as 50/50, definitely not guaranteed or likely; but in practicalities, any school with sub-20% admit rate is an Ivy or top 3 LAC (correct me if Iâve missed a few that donât fall into these categories). And none of those schools can be considered matches for anyone. Thereâs nothing wrong with having a safety that you love + a bunch of reaches, but those reaches are still not matches.</p>
<p>In other news, on Friday I found out that my favorite Calc teacher (aka our schoolâs only decent Calc teacher) is retiring next year. Weâd all expected her to stay at least for another year, since her homeroom is rising seniors. The quality of Calc BC is suddenly up in the airâŠ</p>