<p>@Idinct - the Robert E. Cook Honors College is part of Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) - a Pa. state school. We heard about it through a very nice brochure they mailed out (according to D, it’s also what attracted a number of other students in the summer program).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yeah, D indicated an interest in fashion design a while back, so she gets mail from some very cool places.</p>
<p>Living in Texas, our kids have lots of classmates who are one half or one quarter Hispanic. They know that some of these kids, who have well-educated parents, live in fabulous houses and drive expensive cars, may have an advantage in admissions or merit aid. But I don’t think they’re resentful. It’s really an issue with the institution granting the admission or aid - if they think that these wealthy suburban kids will make their campus more diverse, so be it. If they gave scholarships to the children of caucasian, left handed moms, I’d have my kids signing up; no use resenting folks who take advantage of what is offered.</p>
<p>Robert E. Cook is the honors college at Indiana University of PA - one of the larger publics in PA with 13,000 students. The honors college is much smaller, of course, and does have separate housing, which I guess is the small aspect that cooker is referring to. [Indiana</a> University of Pennsylvania - Cook Honors College](<a href=“http://www.iup.edu/honors/default.aspx]Indiana”>Page Not Found - Search - IUP)</p>
<p>Cooker, glad your daughter enjoyed her time at IUP. I’ve heard only good things about the honor’s college.</p>
<p>Pepper03, I understand where your daughter is coming from. Something similar happened with a fellow student of my son’s. This boy had a father with a Hispanic background but was raised with his mother without any hispanic heritage integration at all. He did however, check off the box and got the NMS for Hispanic’s. Great student, eagle scout and nice guy but didn’t speak a word of Spanish… Oh, well. The way I look at it is that the admissions people may be looking for my son too - and we’re intentionally looking at colleges where he will stand out.</p>
<p>The URM thing is a sticky situation…</p>
<p>I went to school with someone–he was 1/8 Amer indian…so while he looked like a white (polish heritage) guy–he could claim URM.</p>
<p>Admissions isn’t cut and dry…
lets face it–AdComs etc etc tells us that they can replace their incoming freshman class many times over from the applicant pool…
Why one gets in and another doesn’t–hard to know.</p>
<p>Rather not jump into that fray on that thread about admissions–and not wanting to add to that here…no way to win that discussion</p>
<p>Pepper…tell your son not to stress too much over the other two students perceived advantages. For the swimmer…it’s all about times…and if she is to swim for a college, her application will be considered somewhat differently/in a different pool from his. Same for the girl claiming Hispanic status. But in all events, his excellent academics will shine out.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, your son may get a tick or two in favor of his application at some schools just because he is a male.</p>
<p>^^ True. Recruited athletes are already being offered OVs etc. I know of a swimmer–who will be a freshman this yr–she was comitted by March/April of her Jr yr…with a verbal. </p>
<p>Admissions for recruits are completely different and the timetable is different…</p>
<p>Our student is hoping to be recruited–and submitted ful test scores, transcripts etc back in May. If kiddo makes it through pre-reads–then essays, recs etc etc get done…
No shortcuts. Just different timing. Grades, scores AND athletic times are all considered–think of it as one MORE layer of having to pass through/critique–not one less.</p>
<p>So Pepper–for your student its one less thing to worry about…kwim?
Dont’ stress.
Hugs.</p>
<p>I’m almost through with Elon’s application already. It’s pretty different.</p>
<p>“What makes you an interesting person?”</p>
<p>Yikes.</p>
<p>^athlete, maybe…</p>
<p>oops, missed the thread by about twenty entries…ignore above.</p>
<p>Pepper, maybe one way to shift the conversation with your son could be to focus on the plusses each applicant brings, from the college’s perspective. Imagine it this way: there is a pool of all the students who are academically strong enough to succeed at a particular college. What distinguishes them? What extras does each applicant have to offer? For your son, it might be his academic strength. For someone else, it’s athletic or artistic talent, or diversity that the college is seeking. </p>
<p>One way to think about it is that he’s not competing for slots with his friends, he’s competing with other students who bring very similar strengths to his - that extra academic oomph, or whatever else is his own “plus” in the admission process at that particular college.</p>
<p>About diversity - I think socioeconomic status and ethnic identity are distinct types of diversity, and colleges are interested in both. So low-income white students and high-income Hispanic students both bring diversity. It may be invisible to your son, but I bet that his comfortably middle-class Hispanic friend has thought about and experienced cultural identity issues in a different way than your son has, and that experience might bring something interesting to a college community.</p>
<p>I find the questions asked on the supplements pretty interesting and wonder how the results are used.</p>
<p>Questions like: “Favorite quote from a movie”, “Favorite book”, etc.</p>
<p>I wonder if AdComs really care about the answers, or if that is their way of determining whether the kids are actually reading or going to films?</p>
<p>Wow that link to the thread about URM etc. was an eye-opener! He is looking at Brandeis and he may have a better chance because he is Catholic? He also may have a better chance at some schools because he is male? I had no idea about these kinds of things. </p>
<p>Just to be clear-i have no issues with the process. My real concern is how it may affect him and his friendships-which I value very much and I know he does too.</p>
<p>My husband and I have talked to him about the advantages he HAS-including that he is 6’1"-as amazing as this is tall men have advantages in life. He didn’t have a thing to say about it-just as he didn’t have a thing to say about his sex or his skin color. He should and I think will focus on the things in his control-keeping up the grades, maybe actually studying a little harder for the SAT’s and SAT subject tests in the fall, and finding a college that wants him there as much as he wants to be there!</p>
<p>The more I look into this whole process the more interesting and baffling it is! It seems colleges are looking for the right “mix” of students to form balanced classes. In a way I am glad it isn’t so cut and dry-it seems more subjective than I had thought-and that’s OK.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Pepper,
This girl had better be very careful, while being Hispanic is a hook, just checking the box does not ensure acceptance, particularly in selective schools where competition within URMs is high and stats are comparable to ANY candidate. Within Hispanics, factors such as country of origin (MA & PR are the most underrepresented), SES, overcoming adversity, demonstrated identification with Hispanic community, HS attended, etc. will shape how much weight is given them.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Right -you just need to find the school that wants what your child brings to the table.</p>
<p>Do colleges look at attendance?</p>
<p>I’m telling my parents that it depends on whether or not it is on the transcript (it is not at my school), but they are insisting that all colleges look at attendance and care deeply about it.</p>
<p>CIA - I don’t mean to LOL, but LOL. No, they do not look at attendance and therefore don’t care at all. They look at GPA, strength of schedule, SAT/ACT scores, EC’s, recommendations, your essay, and if it is pertinent, your race. Some schools look at financial need (need aware) but most do not (need blind). Now if your GC brought it up in their rec and made it sound like a negative, that might have a very slight effect. But what are the odds of that?</p>
<p>I think attendance would only come up if it was really poor -as in truancy.</p>
<p>Or, some kids have an unusual situation that may need to be explained. Our state mandates a certain number of hours of “seat time.” You can’t exceed a certain number of absences - even if you are getting an A in the class you could fail if you have too many absences. A neighbor had a chronically ill son. She had to withdraw him from the school, then re-enroll him a few months later when he got better, so he wouldn’t have too many absences to pass.</p>
<p>But those situations are rare.</p>
<p>Pepper,
sometimes male applicants have a bit of an advantage when applying to heavily female campuses…in other words, a school with a close to 60% female student body may have say 5 similar applicants as far as academic profile and some other metrics are concerned----basically equally desirable applicants—but the school only wants to allocate one or two of the slots presently under consideration to this profile of student. If one or two of the 5 applicants are male, and the others female, and the school’s student body is male-deficient, it may well offer admission to the male in that case.</p>
<p>Being male won’t get an applicant in if he is not already admissible on other criteria…but when he is considered in the pool of applicants already meeting the admissions criteria and the school is building its class his application may be chosen to help build/balance the class. Just like a school needing musicians for the orchestra, writers and journalists for the school newspapers and magazines, swimmers for the swim team and people of different backgrounds and experiences for diversity…it needs males and females to have a coed campus.</p>
<p>He’d feel like he’d died and gone to heaven at a 60-60 F/M school! (-:</p>
<p>There are lots of them!</p>