<p>kttmom – not for this trip, but S may want to give some thought to Rice, and to Washington Univ. in St. Louis. While Wash U might be a bit big, Rice is definitely on the small side for a major research university, and the residential college system there has a great reputation. </p>
<p>Also, if son is not into preppy/fratty you may want to reconsider devoting valuable time to Wake Forest.</p>
<p>Best of luck, and let us know how the final version shapes up!</p>
<p>And come back and post your visit notes when you get back!</p>
<p>Washington Univ is St. Louis is on the short list although we probably won’t visit till he gets an acceptance.</p>
<p>Rice is too far south - S1 was recruited there for baseball and he and H visited. We are Yankees thru and thru! And S2 doesn’t like the heat - would rather enjoy brutal winters at schools like St. Lawrence or anywhere in the NE.</p>
<p>That is a concern I have about Wake Forest - but since we are so close and it is the right size school (which is not easy to find) I thought we would give it a chance. He has a friend that goes there and loves it so we will hook up with her during our visit.</p>
<p>And yes - I will be sure to come back and post impressions…</p>
<p>Well, today DS got email’s from Wash U St. Louis and U of Chicago. I am quite sure that it dosen’t mean anything but it was nice to see…</p>
<p>^^ Your DS did well on SAT, ACT, or PSAT, I guess. The two schools pulled new records from CB or ACT, I think.</p>
<p>kttmom - that sounds like an ambitious, but doable trip. I’m pretty sure that regular CC poster *rockvillemom<a href=“she%20started%20the%20%22colleges%20for%20Jewish%20B%20students%22%20thread”>/i</a> has an older S at Wake Forest. I’m sure she’d be happy answer questions. </p>
<p>DD heard from Wash U today also. I’m curious to see if she ever hears from my alma mater, Grinnell. D1 never did, although she was NMSF - probably because she didn’t check the box on the PSAT.</p>
<p>if any of you feel like sharing, let me know if your S or D hears from Grinnell. I’m just curious to see if they are casting a wide enough net.</p>
<p>kttmom - I live close to Davidson. It’s a wonderful school. One of my oldest son’s good friends is a freshman there now. Another poster on this thread, DougBetsy, has a freshman son at Wake, so she may be another person to ask about Wake. I am a New Englander living in NC, feel free to PM me if you have any questions about the area.</p>
<p>kttmom the schools you are visiting seem to vary. I would suggest having your son do more research on schools before coming up with your list. I think CMellon is a much better match than Pitt. Wake is preppy.</p>
<p>There are a lot of small & med schools that are highly competitive with strong science programs and they aren’t on your list. My son used collegeboard to generate a filtered list; then he read about them using Princeton Review Top Colleges; after narrowing that down he went to each schools’ web site and read a lot of material.</p>
<p>He is looking for highly competitive schools with strong science programs (interested in med school and psychology so he focused on strong Neuroscience programs). He is not as focused on size.</p>
<p>Schools you may want to look at - Hopkins, Brandeis, Tufts, Wash U, Emory, Univ of Rochester (merit scholarships)</p>
<p>GL</p>
<p>Hey parents,
I’m trying to cast the widest net for advice on this issue. I am not a math or science person - so I am debating between AP Stat and Pre-Calc. My only worry is that colleges will see no pre-calc/calc and make a “mental note” of it. I am taking a rigorous schedule next year, 6 APs. I called UVa admissions and in their mind pre-calc and AP stat are equally rigorous.</p>
<p>W and DD12 and I just had our meeting with GC.</p>
<p>First, I must say how fortunate we are to have our DD at this private school - the GC spent 90 minutes with us. I could not help but think of all the kids in large publics who have GCs assigned to 1000 kids.</p>
<p>The good news for all is that I can confirm that those of you who spend a lot of time perusing CC, you know A LOT about college admissions.</p>
<p>Take aways: The common application has changed everything. She is getting calls from great schools saying inform your students that we do not grant on-campus interviews anymore because we cannot do 30,000 + and it would not be fair to interview some and not all. (Local alumni interviews are important as they show interest). If you can’t input it into the system, assume they won’t get it. Admissions committees do not like paper supplements because it is a big hassle to ensure that the paper catches up with the electronic file. (If you do sent something on paper BE SURE it has not only the students name, but the SS# - because everything is done by SS#.</p>
<p>Students MUST attend the local events when the ir target schools regional reps come to town. They will be the admissions officers reading your childs application and they want to make a mental note when they meet the student. If a regional advisor comes to your child’s school and you are not there, the rep will make a note of that.</p>
<p>Strong students should apply EA (she was not big on ED) if for know other reason than it shows real interest. She said highly competitive schools are very concerned about yield and they want to see the love, even from the students that they love.</p>
<p>She said the personal statement essay is HUGE. In a sea of 30,000 on-line apps w/ over 10,000 great GPAs and SAT/ACT, they personal statement essay is all they have to fall in love with you.</p>
<p>Highly competive school still love top tier-athletes and URMs, but they are a lot less keen on legacies.</p>
<p>Pick a teacher who is known to write a great recommendation letter. Don’t necessarily pick your favorite teacher or the one who knows you best. Some teachers take great pride (and time) to write really well. Find that one, sign up for one of her classes. (often AP English Lit teachers.).</p>
<p>The public honors programs are VERY hot right now.</p>
<p>^^^Your GC is right on the money. It sounds like your kid is going to have great advisor for this process.</p>
<p>onecot59 - I know the list seems a little scattered…</p>
<p>U Pitt is bigger than he wants, but I am hoping the Honors college will make it seem samller.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon is the right size but may be too ‘intense’.</p>
<p>As far as your other suggestions: Hopkins (too intense/cut throat in science); Brandeis/Tufts (looked at these with other kids and rejected for various reasons, but maybe should let him look again); Emory (too far south?); U of R (would be perfect, except we live in Rochester and he wants to go ‘away’).</p>
<p>I am open to other suggestions - there do not seem to be many hightly selective schools in the mid-size range (like U of R). And we cannot narrow it down by major since evey school has Biology and Chemistry as a major.</p>
<p>Was thinking maybe Case Western?</p>
<p>Wow, glido, GREAT GC advice-- thank you for passing it on. I am off for ours in an hour and maybe I can build on it.</p>
<p>kttmom - I completely understand your son’s list having variation in it! In fact, I think it’s good. On my first trip with each of my two older boys (college freshman and HS junior), we purposefully made a list of schools to visit that were very different. And really, once you identify the 3 or 4 important factors you’re looking for, you can end up with a seemingly scattered list that fits those criteria but are very different in other ways.</p>
<p>We visited Case Western in the fall. My S didn’t like it, but it was for very subjective reasons. It’s probably worth a look - your S would most likely get great $ there. Our visit was funny - only 4 kids were in the info session, and all four were from our hometown, which is 5 hours away from Case Western! </p>
<p>onecot - I LOVE that your son is digging in and searching so diligently! The experience in this house with my oldest was that I made the college search my hobby, I came up with a list of schools, he picked which to visit, then S narrowed down his final list of schools to apply to, we added a couple mom-picks, and then he filled out the applications himself, but with me keeping the time line in mind and making sure deadlines were met. I think that’s probably what it’s going to look like this time around with 2012 S as well. I admire your son’s initiative!</p>
<p>glido - thanks for the tips. You are lucky to have such an engaged and knowledgeable GC! Interesting that she says they really care about touching base with the college reps when they visit your high school. My older son went to a really small brand new school and they really didn’t have many college reps visit. My 2012 S goes to a huge high school, and reps do visit, but from what I hear, many of the teachers make it pretty tough to leave class to go visit the rep, so a lot of kids don’t. </p>
<p>And we’re on our third snow day here - getting a little stir crazy! Hmmm, I should have S make phone calls to set up his spring break visits today.</p>
<p>Pinot- Have you posted details about Case Western? What were some of the subjective reasons he didn’t like it? </p>
<p>Glido- thank you for sharing your meeting highlights! Excellent advice.</p>
<p>Glido, Thank you for sharing. Very interesting to compare notes. My D’s GC is all for ED as well as EA. </p>
<p>My D is wildly changing her field of interest. It is all over at the moment. No luck on narrowing down choices by major.</p>
<p>cherryhill - I can tell you why my S didn’t like Case, but I’m a little hesitant, because it was very subjective and I know it’s a great school. So here are his impressions - please take with a grain of salt!</p>
<p>Campus is really long - like over a mile. If I remember right, there’s a north campus & south campus (they aren’t separated by anything though). We were there on a beautiful sunny but chilly day, and we didn’t see students anywhere. </p>
<p>People in admissions office weren’t all that friendly - well, the woman giving the info session was very friendly - but not the staff (not a huge deal), but also couldn’t answer questions about much. Nor did they offer to put us in touch with someone who could. In contrast, we went to Oberlin the same trip, and when the folks in admissions didn’t know the answer to my son’s questions about the math dept, they picked up the phone, found a math prof, and we were on our way to her office before we knew what hit us ;)</p>
<p>Our tour guide (I know - don’t judge the college by one student tour guide) was unimpressive. He just didn’t seem that bright. And when he talked about what great experiences he was having with their hands-on approach, his main example was that he works on an "engineers without borders"project. My younger son and I had met some students from a lower ranked college involved in an EWB project and they were truly hands on and well spoken. This tour guide couldn’t really say what the project was, but he said it was in Africa - “Kenya or Ethiopia or somewhere” (really?). He really couldn’t say what they were doing or his part in it, but he summed it up by saying it would look great on his resume when he was applying for jobs. </p>
<p>The only class we saw in action on the tour was a big chemistry lecture (probably an intro class). The guy teaching looked young, so I asked if these classes were taught by TA’s or if that was a prof. The tour guide looked in and said, “Oh…actually, that’s an undergrad, but he’s really smart - i know that guy. Maybe something came up with the professor.” Now, it’s been pointed out to me that I don’t really know the scoop there - it could have been a TA in a workshop that supports a lecture, or it could have been a student being asked to present something to the class. who knows. My son wasn’t as put off by that as I was - he said “hey, if the guy knows what he’s talking about and explains it well, I really don’t care if he’s an undergrad or a prof.”</p>
<p>Also, for people who care - the dorms were grubbier than many schools I’ve toured, although that doesn’t matter at all to me or my sons. I’d rather the school’s money is spent somewhere other than fancy accommodations!</p>
<p>That being said - this could have been a different experience on a different day, so I wouldn’t take the school off anyone’s list - go visit it yourself! It is certainly well respected.</p>
<p>igloo - I guess if she doesn’t settle in on a focus by application time, that narrows her list down to medium to large schools that offer many choices?</p>
<p>ktt - What about Vassar? It’s a small LAC but has a great science department, beautiful campus also.</p>
<p>PN - I am hoping she can settle down somewhat not to rule out LAC’s. A few mid size schools on her list may not be enough . I am afriad large could be too big for her.</p>