<p>Grinnell and Central College are in two totally different dimensions… from the quality of the faculty to the overall quality of the students. I can’t imagine anyone that really likes Grinnell liking Central and I can’t imagine anyone that really likes Central liking Grinnell.</p>
<p>Central is very, very, very pre-professional and conservative. Most students are from Iowa and most will end up living and working in Iowa.</p>
<p>Grinnell students are from all over and quite liberal. Most will leave Iowa when they graduate and head to urban areas. Most will go to graduate school. </p>
<p>Have you looked at Cornell, Luther, and Coe in Iowa? All have better reputations regionally and for grad school admissions.</p>
<p>Haystack–no, we have not looked at those schools and probably won’t. They don’t have the program S wants and while I know it’s possible to change his major, he still wants to pick schools with that program. He has a pretty healthy list of possibles though. He won’t be going to grad school if he sticks with his intended major and I can’t see him going right to grad school no matter what he ends up studying. Possibly down the road with his company paying for him, maybe?</p>
<p>On paper Grinnell sounded appealing to him. He’s pretty nerdy, quirky but still conservative if you can be all of that at the same time. He likes Carleton so he figured Grinnell would be ok, but nope, not even close.</p>
<p>Daughter actually went to Junior Preview Day at Cornell yesterday, then took a tour of Coe. D was impressed by both visits. We just discovered the Cornell preview day on Saturday, which was past the deadline to sign-up, but husband and D showed up yesterday morning and they were happy to include them. DH said that it was well planned, tour guide was good, info good. D sat in on a pscyh class, and really enjoyed that. I am not sure how the block plan would work for her, though. </p>
<p>D decided to see Coe also since up that way, and called yesterday morning to set up a tour for 2:00. She had an hour tour, with a good guide apparently, and then talked with an admissions counselor one on one for over an hour. That impressed my husband. She was from a small town in our state, and D was happy to see that some students actually do leave the state ;)</p>
<p>D came home impressed with both, liked both campuses. They returned late last night, so I will get a full report this afternoon from D. H was impressed that neither college seemed too conservative(DD is very liberal), although he did not see many ‘quirky’ kids, which I would classify my D as being. These schools were really the beginning of her tours, and we will also see Grinnell and Drake in IA. I think it was a good starting point, and definitely increased D’s desire to go out of state to school, which many kids in her school do not do.</p>
<p>Edited to add that D thought that the squirrals at Cornell were HUGE and hilarious! We have about 3 pics of campus and about 10 of a crazy squirral! :)</p>
<p>MWMOM2013 – Squirrels were the focus of some of my son’s boarding school visits. So much so, that he ruled out a school because of the huge, black squirrels. If the environment breeds such fierce furry things, what would it do to him?!</p>
<p>Cornell College is on MY list because son likes the block. It isn’t making son’s list due to weather. How cold does it really get? Or, better, what is the real feel temperture with winds in the winter?</p>
<p>RobD – Wash U for you was our Trinity U experience. I enjoyed San Antonio. All the folks at Trinity were great. But it didn’t wow my son or me. Can’t point to anything in particular. I tried blaming it on the construction, but that really wasn’t it. </p>
<p>Wish we could get some visits in, but doesn’t look like it will happen for us over Easter break.</p>
<p>MegP - Congrats to your son! Great reason to miss the dance recital.</p>
<p>Longhaul ~ I can really see the advantages of the block system. DD has ADD, and on one hand I can totally see how only having one course at a time would benefit her, but she also has slow math processing, and I wonder what would happen if she fell behind. It seems to me that it would be hard to catch up. My husband did say that they have lots of tutoring, though. I am hoping that D will find somewhere with less gen ed requirement so that she does not have to worry about math and foreign language. Wherever she decides to go will have to have good academic support, and we need to research that. </p>
<p>I am sure that Iowa gets very cold! We are in the KC metro, and it can get cold here, but the winds make things so much worse! If your son does not want the weather, probably not a great place.</p>
<p>I don’t know that day to day you would notice an appreciable difference between the weather in southern Iowa and Philly. There will be days here and there that are colder than what you probably get in Philly but for the most part it won’t really be noticeable. Average low high in Jan in Philly 25.5°F/39.0°F, For Des Moines (closest I could find to Cornell) 11.7°F/29.1°F.</p>
<p>Seeing the posts about WashU, I just want to chime in that my 2014 S attends WashU and loves it. So, if anyone has any questions about WashU, feel free to ask me. He is an econ/poli sci double major, and plans to eventually go to law school.</p>
<p>I wish that I could find a less selective version of WashU closer to NJ for my HS 2013 D. There are so few schools in that ~6000 student size, which is big enough to have a breadth of majors and course offerings and diversity of students, but small enough to still feel personal. My S has had excellent pre-law advising, and had very little difficulty in getting into all of the classes (even sections) that he wants.</p>
<p>Would anyone care to offer any advice on this situation? </p>
<p>D will be finalizing her registration soon. Will be taking HN American Gov’t, HN Spanish IV(only Span. IV offered), Physics, and HN College Algebra(options were Alg III, HN College Algebra, HN Pre-Calc, AP Stats). Her Alg II teacher suggested college algebra would be better for her than stats. </p>
<p>Question is on English. D took HN English 9 and 10, but had a very hard sophomore year(various reasons), and decided to only take English 11 this year. She has ADD, and since honors classes do not allow late work she has had some struggles previously. But, she is an outstanding reader and writer, it is her best area. Her English 11 teacher said that at this point in the year he does not think D is ready for AP Eng since she still has problems with assignment/papers that leave the classroom. I think he has scared D of taking AP, but I think that she should and needs to take it. She is definitely smart enough, but some of the organizational challanges of ADD have the potential to get in the way.</p>
<p>As of now she is signed up for it, but she is nervous about her courseload. Right now she is sitting at 6 A, B+, B, so grades are good. I think she needs to take it to be competitive at some of the schools that she wants to apply to, but I also think she needs to push herself doing a college prep curriculum. This is a kid that never has any homework that she needs to do, and this schedule will probably require more work than she is current putting in, but she is capable. I hate to see her ADD hold her back from what she is smart enough to be doing. </p>
<p>Any thoughts on this? Should I just let her do regular english is she wants to? My concern is that if she can not handle THIS schedule, how will she handle her first year schedule at college? I will also add that her other courses will not require the work that the above do, and two are performance classes that require extra time, but no homework.</p>
<p>Our school (Catholic co-ed prep school) uses Naviance, but doesn’t use the scattergram. I discovered a local school does, but it’s a single sex (male), Catholic prep school. Academically, they are very similar, with an edge to the school in the higher level math (above the AP calculus type classes). Stats wise, their average SAT score is about 80 points higher for 3 tests (both in the 1800 range) They have less National Merit Semifinalists (by about 10 or 12), but more finalists. The coed school is slightly bigger. Will their scattergram be significantly off, if I wanted to use it as an estimator?</p>
<p>Also, I have used cappex to see their scattergram. Any thoughts on how accurate it seems to be?</p>
<p>This seems to be really dependent on the college. Some prize rigor over GPA and want to see the toughest schedule possible, some look for higher GPA regardless of rigor. Around here, state schools go by GPA (unweighted) and selective privates seem to value a lower grade in a harder class.</p>
<p>MWM - Son is ADD with major EF issues. He also has slow processing speed (documented) when writing. AP Language is very difficult for him this year because he cannot bang out the essays. Take some grade hits for getting things in late. I am very against him taking AP Lit next year, but he doesn’t listen to me and will base it upon the instructor for AP vs regular English. My son believes (and probably rightly) that homework is no less in the regular English. An essay of 1 page versus an essay of 5 pages is just as difficult for him, so why not take the AP. My son routinely has 3-4 hours homework each night for all 6 of his academic courses.</p>
<p>Things you should consider – 1. Can she spend a long time doing homework? Some ADD kids, whether on meds or not, just shut down after a certain time of day. If she can’t focus to get the homework done, well even if she gets the organization of turning in homework under control, the course may not work.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Do the colleges your considering offer merit based upon GPA thru senior year? If yes, I’d protect the GPA (again me, my kid doesn’t listen). Example - Bama only looks at grades thru junior year for merit allocation.</p></li>
<li><p>Will she be competing against HS classmates for college slots? If so, worth considering the AP course to have a stronger schedule.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>IMHO, or maybe it is just wishful thinking, 1 AP course senior year will not make or break college admissions at the majority of colleges. </p>
<p>YDS – I read your Pomona report. Your experience was not good compared to ours. Sounds like the crowds just led to poor visit. I would have expected a school like Pomona to be able to handle the crowds. An Admin Rep not introducing himself is just unprofessional. Glad you met up with CC folks to counter the impression. It is definitely a beautiful campus. It made me wish I could go back to college. The 5C really impressed me. I could not have imagined the way it worked without seeing it in person.</p>
<p>Off to school science fair. After 11 years of this, I am just sick of it all. My poor 5th grader has “that” parent who just goes and sits in the corner hoping it will end soon. We must provide our own table, etc for each child and set up and take down. At least now all 3 are old enough to help carry the stuff. </p>
<p>Hope everyone else has the great weather we’re having today - feels like April.</p>
<p>Midwestmom, What is HN? I haven’t heard of it. </p>
<p>Is the class AP Lit or AP Lang? My D took AP Lit last year as a sophmore and the class was okay for her. She had to adjust to the workload and ended up with a B+ (in her school about a 93), and managed to get a 4 on the AP exam, so she achieved college credit. At my D’s school the class grade really depends on who you have as a teacher. Some are hard whether it is AP or not, and some are just easy. </p>
<p>I would agree about hating to see ADD hold her back. My S who is a freshman with ADHD is taking AP Lit next year. It will be a stretch for him, but part of HS (IMO) is stretching and learning, not just college admissions. This class will be great prep for college level work which is pretty important at this stage. I would also agree that this one class will hopefully not affect admissions, either a lower grade if you take it, or the lack of AP if you don’t. Like Longhaul, that may be wishful thinking on my part.</p>
<p>I think ohiobassmom made a great point, the answer depends on the type of colleges your DD plans to attend. If she plans to attend a state school, find out how they rank applicants. Some state schools go by unweighted GPAs. Others go by high school class rank (in which case how the school weights Honor and AP classes vs. Academic classes is important). Some high schools will weight an A grade in an AP as 6 points, Honors 5 points and Academic 4 points. In which case it would be better to take the AP class. Other high schools weight an A in Honors and AP class both as 5 and Academic as 4. In which case it will probably be best to take an Honors class. Yet other high schools will not weight their GPAs at all. In which case it would be best to take Academic. </p>
<p>Private colleges and universities, may want to see kids challenge themselves with an AP class, but her teacher has advised her not to do it. So, I would listen to the teacher and put that as the reason she did not take AP classes in the essay. The only time I would do differently is if your daughter has made plans to attend a summer program in English where she hopes to develop new skills which may help her do better in AP English.Finally, I would also use the SAT and PSAT scores as a measure of readiness. What were her Writing and Verbal scores?</p>
<p>Midwestmom2013–I would say it really depends on which colleges she is looking into and what their “requirements” are for the AP vs non-AP classes. If she is considering colleges that want to see students that have taken the “most rigorous” course schedule then yes, she needs to take the AP class and a B would look better than an A in a regular class. I would be concerned about her lack of advanced math if she is looking at more rigorous schools as well. If she isn’t looking at that selective of schools, not taking the AP class is ok.</p>
<p>The other question I have is can she graduate with only 3 years of English classes? I don’t know what your state requires. I would look at the course requirements for the schools she is considering to see if they want 4 years of Language Arts.</p>
<p>The Pomona visit wasn’t bad. Parts of it, truthfully, just paled in comparison to the CMC presentation, but I didn’t want to do a whole compare/contrast thing on the Pomona visit report. I may make a thread about it later. I like Pomona better, but I think ds liked CMC better. I need to go write the CMC report now.</p>
<p>Dropping in on my iphone real quick. DS and I have skied together the last 3 days. We have had a great time! YDS did you do Pomona and CMC the same day? I am going to send DS with my mom in April and I wasnt sure if both in one day would be too much.</p>
<p>Does my Junior need math next year? She has taken Honors Algebra 2, Pre-Calculus and this year AP Stats. (She wants to be a Psych major and took a college psych class last year and realized how important stats would be for that major) There is only AP Calculus AB or BC left and given her poor pre calculus teacher, does not want to take these classes.</p>