Parents of the HS Class of 2011 - Original

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
3361

<p>Long time no visit-my mother has been very ill so the college process has taken a back seat.</p>

<p>My son is finally doing some work and has already come to some helpful realizations.</p>

<p>He wants to stay within a reasonable drive from home-this puts us at around 400 miles.</p>

<p>He loves the cold and snow which is good since we live in RI!</p>

<p>Wants a small city-better yet a small town setting.</p>

<p>Wants a competitive school but not ultra-competitive.</p>

<p>He is still unsure of major so a place which has undeclared majors would be good. He would prefer a small school but also is willing to go to a bigger school to get more choices.</p>

<p>He is therefore most likely to want New England and Upstate NY with areas of Pennsylvania as well. There are a lot of school choices in that region so now he is looking at ones he would like to visit. </p>

<p>We have a good service here in RI where they will work individually with each student to help with college information, common applications, essays and financial aid info-all free of charge. His father is going to make an appointment for next week to go down there and get that process started.</p>

<p>He has been very busy this summer. He joined the cross-country team and they run every night. He has been working to get the NHS chapter ready to hit the ground running in the fall and has been having meetings with the board. He has also spent the last two weeks teaching at our local parish and as an added bonus his little sister has been his teacher’s aide and has been assisting the director with making Power Point presentations. She heads to 8th grade this fall. It’s been a great experience for both of them.</p>

<p>We had a week at the beach and in a couple of weeks head to PA for a week in Philadelphia and out to Hershey Park. We can add a couple of days for college visits if need be. He will also be heading out probably next weekend to visit schools in Upstate NY-which is where I believe he will ultimately end up.</p>

<p>He is in pretty good space right now. We have had some great talks about figuring out what to do “when you grow up”-and he is coming to realize he doesn’t need everything answered at 17! He isn’t excited yet but he isn’t avoiding anymore either.</p>

<p>He did decide he will take the SAT again in October. He didn’t look at the QAS yet but feels when he does he’ll understand why he got things wrong-he realizes he may still not improve his scores but he wants to try. His scores are 1400/2120 and his PSAT was 211 so I think he is right about where he should be but if he wants to take them again that’s fine. This will give him only one shot at the subject tests in November but as long as he understands that (and he does) I have done my job giving him the information he needs to make his choice.</p>

<p>The schedules for Senior year will not be out until very close to the start of the school year and as I posted a while back he may not get classes he needs to get into some schools he would like-but right now all we can do is have a backup plan to take them at CCRI.</p>

<p>That’s kind of long but who knows when I will have time to write again.</p>

<p>I did have one question about the GPA. Does every school use a different conversion chart? I kept asking him what his was and he finally came home with a conversion chart with three columns and his school uses the middle. This makes no sense to me-are these not uniform? His max GPA weighted per the middle column is 4.3-the highest on the chart is 4.5-and I have seen places where they ask for the GPA and it lists maximum of 5.0.</p>

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<p>Pepper - Hope your mom is feeling better.</p>

<p>Re: School option - Many moons ago ago when I was in school in Albany, both Union and Siena were good schools. I have no idea what type of match they would be for your son now, but I’m sure others will have an opinion.</p>

<p>Re: GPA - In most schools a 4.0 = A, 3.0 = B etc. These are all unweighted. To get a weighted GPA, schools might count an honors class at 1.25x and AP at 1.5x so a B in a regular class is a 3.0, in an Honors class a 3.75, in an AP class a 4.5 (if I did my math correctly). </p>

<p>Another method is to only count academic classes and exclude classes such as PE. The school profile should explain the methodology. </p>

<p>Regardless of each HS’s method, most colleges have their own method. This is important to know espec if it is used to determine fin aid. My nephew did not get some substantial fin aid from Clark b/c his HS’s GPA and Clark’s calculation were different. He applied ED and did not realize this and assumed all would be OK come May. You know what they say about the word ASSUME.</p>

3363

<p>^^ GPAs are not uniform
and some schools do weighted based on Honors, APs…
others dont. Add that to the fact that hs vary in many aspects, grade inflation, deflation, size of class, etc …its impossible to really quickly correlate one kid to the next</p>

<p>For example
our hs uses a 12 pt scale<br>
and also lists a converted 4pt scale for the convenience of colleges.
The grading scale is on the school profile–so AdComs can see how they are calculated.</p>

<p>On the speed reading:
Our older student did a course --it worked into the summer schedule–
and I kinda wished we had done it for our younger student who starts hs this fall.
Did our student improve speed–yes–
Was it helpful and bring up grades etc–meaining -Did kiddo use the skillls learned??–I am not sure.
However I would have liked to have gotten our second kiddo in–since kiddo 2 could use any study/help tools we can offer.</p>

<p>On scheduling–we have had to have our kiddo make second and then third choices because of some faculty issues this yr…and because several of the Aps are offered only 1x a day.</p>

<p>On GCs–and school selections–
the safties are just ok–they would be very far below ou r students academic ability–our student has an ACT over 30 and the ACTfor the saftey is mid 20s…
And I have heard from other parents how the GCs will not encourage the kids for reaches–one parent told me to go with my gut–Her daughter was told she could not get into a school and did…
Another parent told me that the GCs were only paper pushers and never gave real help.
This is a private hs --and they only have 50 kids per advisor…
and frankly we know far more from CC and reading than from what the “junior semianrs” etc have offered our student and the college seminars for parents offered. </p>

<p>Our kiddos list is top heavy and bottom heavy–hard to find matches in mid range that would be much better fits academically etc if the high reaches (HYP MIT etc don’t work out) Our students ACT is perfectly within the range of those reaches, ECs etc are excellent… the hook will determine whether anything will fly there.</p>

3364

<p>"GC does not want him applying EA to any schools in hopes that he can pull his GPA up, but I want a yes from someone early on in the game. "</p>

<p>Good grades in 1st and 2nd quarter senior year could show an upward trend in some potentially difficult courses…so it would “help” an application in that respect…but will they have a big impact on GPA?</p>

<p>If any of the EA/Rolling schools are an absolute top choices of your child’s, and GPA is below the mid-50% (and tests are not in top 25% for the school), then I guess the GC strategy makes sense. But…how much can 1 or 2 quarter’s improve a GPA…and will those 1 or 2 quarters be straight A’s so that they have an impact? (In our school, last quarter is weighted heavier than others for final year grade, and 1st quarter weighted less for school calculated grades…so…good grades in 1st quarter show a student is serious…but don’t impact GPA very much.)</p>

3365

<p>In the span of two weeks, my D’s list has zoomed from 5 schools to 12! She recently decided she wasn’t happy enough with her choices and wanted to add some reaches - mostly LACs in the northeast. All are fabulous schools and she would be thrilled to be accepted to any of them. However, we haven’t visited any, due to distance and time constraints. Our plan is to have her apply (we narrowed the list down to 10, half of which are reaches in the northeast) and when/if she is accepted, we will make a trip out there to visit in April to visit those schools.</p>

<p>Common App becomes available on August 1st and she is ready to jump on these applications! Doing 10 apps is going to be quite the task. Her ultra-safety is an in-state university that doesn’t require any essays, so that one will be easy. The rest will take quite a bit of effort, but she’s really excited to start.</p>

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<p>His school issues grades by number. I don’t know why they can’t just issue a weighted and unweighted GPA on the transcript and let the colleges do what they want with it-it seems pointless to scale a number grade. If they issued letter grades I could see the use.</p>

<p>I will have him look at those schools in NY. Right now he likes Cornell and wants to look at U. of Rochester. SUNY Genesco and Binghamton look like hidden gems that would cost about the same as URI. One has the engineering program he may want and the other is more liberal arts.</p>

<p>There are tons of schools in this region and I think he will be able to find something he likes with the price being manageable. What I am hearing from recent graduates of his HS is they are getting enough aid to make the cost comparable or even lower than the instate URI.</p>

3367

<p>Howdy y’all! DS#2 is in this class and the fun is really starting to heat up, isn’t it? Would it be cheeky of me to just toss out there the possibility of starting a new thread–same topic, just Part 2 or something? So we have a place where everybody can post about how the application season is going that doesn’t already have two years/225 pages of posts?</p>

<p>Anyone? If the OP is still checking in, I think he/she might be our go-to guy/gal.</p>

3368

<p>I think OP’s S went to Simon’s Rock the past year. I wonder how he is doing.</p>

3369

<p>So hard to narrow down the list…so many great schools and my son has no particular preferences , or won’t admit to any, re size, setting, etc. Not real to him I think.</p>

3370

<p>Myob, I really like that idea, as well as keeping the focus more on app process.</p>

3371

<p>Perhaps there should be a thread just for senior year (this thread alone will probably be hundreds of pages), then a different thread for college.</p>

3372

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<p>Then you should start a thread with “Applications” in the title. If you move this thread over to a new one that is limited to application questions, then when you have a question about senior pictures, or want to descibe how you cried when you saw your D in her last HS play, you’ll have nowhere to post.</p>

3373

<p>Morning all</p>

<p>My DH took our student’s list–(some 25 schools being sorted)…
and looked at the tuition and room/board etc–
Hardly varied from OOS to Privates etc, even publics…
seems the total COA is likein the high 40s to 50k by the time you add if it all up…</p>

<p>Really? </p>

<p>In fact one large public our kiddo would be OOS was one of the most expensive…</p>

<p>As far as other threads–I would check in the Admissions section to see if there is an Apps thread etc…perhaps that would be helpful…??
I am sure there are threads about certain schools----the search tool is helpful for that…
I do wish that more would post newer college profile reviews–sooo many are a couple of years old.</p>

3374

<p>[Highest</a> paying college degrees and schools - Yahoo! Finance](<a href=“http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Highest-paying-college-cnnm-1865422139.html?x=0]Highest”>http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Highest-paying-college-cnnm-1865422139.html?x=0)
interesting article</p>

3375

<p>I would be in favor of a Class of ‘11 Applications thread in the Parents’ Forum - remember, once we leave this forum, it’s just as much kids talking as parents. We probably still need our own discussion of this topic.</p>

<p>Then the “Parents of…” thread can be for the various senior year stuff like pictures and proms and memories and moods.</p>

3376

<p>fog, that’s strange that everything comes out about the same. Our costs differ across her list by over $20K a year (we’re full-pay everywhere). A couple of $50K privates, a couple more like $40K, a couple of OOS publics and less expensive privates that are more like $25-30, and our instate (WI and MN) that are down to $20K. All of these include R&B.</p>

<p>We’ll handle it if she ends up at the highest priced schools - we’ve managed with her sister and definitely don’t want to curtail her opportunities due to cost, especially not to seem like we blew it all on #1. It’s hard to imagine what life will be like at $20K less to deal with per year - we try not to even think about it, so it won’t feel like hoping. Also, she’s applying to several schools in the mid- to lower-cost range where she’ll be a higher academic candidate and probably will get merit/talent aid from them (of course the top-priced schools, as with D1’s school, give out practically no merit aid, and D2 doesn’t have the impeccable stats, anyway).</p>

<p>We are looking forward to a year from now, and knowing just what the heck our finances will be. I know everyone’s in that boat - I’m just surprised to see you post that the differentials are negligible in your case. I guess that’s just because everyone has different lists.</p>

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<p>Pepper - good luck with the visits! It sounds like your S is starting to get a handle on what he wants. That is so, so helpful. Your list looks great for the kinds of places he knows he’s interested in. Keep us posted!</p>

3378

<p>Ok–to be a bit clearer…On the chart</p>

<p>The highest is an ivy $56.6k in the privates (Columbia- its $ a bit higher than HYP etc)</p>

<p>Low in the OOS are around $37k GaTech
Ga Tech is not known for aid</p>

<p>For example, BU is $53k </p>

<p>OOS at UVA is $42k</p>

<p>A super very safe safety (academically) in our state–is $45k </p>

<p>Gotta wonder what the $ buys.
My DH was shocked to do the research and see what they would all cost–He is including only tuition, room/board, books/supplies as listed by the college web site. It does not include personal/travel. He’d liek our student to consider his lama mater–and our kiddo is NOT at all interested…because its very rural.</p>

<p>Beyond that–the list really looks like 53,50,52,52,54,54,41,51,53,54,53,54,50,42,50,53,53,54,53,51,52,53,53,52,50,47</p>

<p>shocking, isn’t it.</p>

3379

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<p>It’s more like 3.75 for a B in AP, for the reason that a B in an AP class is not better than an A in a regular class.</p>

<p>Colleges look at GPAs as high school-specific and they convert GPAs, at least for a few key courses.</p>

3380

<p>GULP, GULP, GULP, GULP
Those numbers are high enough. Then multiply times four (or five). Sometimes I think we are all crazy.</p>

<p>Re: changing the thread. I like it the way it is, a little bit rambling. I look at it as a support/friendship/info group. If I am looking for something really specific, I can ask here or go to any number of other threads. That is just one mom’s opinion.</p>