<p>DD is crabby-not because of the test but because she is a teen age girl and her parents are making her do something she doesn’t want to do (practice) :D. Dh finally just told her to stop being such a BABY–whine, whine, whine.</p>
<p>Her options are to go today, in the lovely, warm sunny weather or tomorrow when it’s cold and raining…but she “wants” to go tomorrow–um, yes, we are totally stooopid honey.</p>
<p>Bucknell visit: DD13 liked Bucknell, but not as much as Lehigh. She was impressed with the academics and said, “the school is full of nerds.” I think that she thinks that is a good thing :). However, because of all of the LAC requirements, it would be harder for her to do a double major if she wanted and/or travel abroad. Not impossible, just a bit more difficult. Otherwise she said the campus was very nice and had an open feel. Only when they went driving around did they realize how small the campus was. I think that she wants to find a school where she can travel abroad, have fun and get a good solid degree in engineering. Less “Party” than Lehigh, more fun than Bucknell. Any ideas???</p>
<p>Vandy: congrats on a succesful trip!</p>
<p>D took ACT today. She felt she did fine on everything except the science. She has another go at it on the 24th, only 10 days from now.</p>
<p>Geogirl, how about Lafayette?</p>
<p>Geogirl - Has your daughter looked into WPI? I can’t really vouch for the fun side of it, but all the students have jr and sr projects, and the ones Jr. year tend to involve studying abroad. The campus is not very large, though, and it is also, from what I hear, a “school full of nerds” 
They also have they 4 term system, which in the end, allows for more actual classes to be taken (12 classes per school year instead of 8-10) and I believe that would make it easier to double major. What other schools have you looked at/will look at? I’m curious because we seem to have similar schools on our lists.</p>
<p>Vandy87 - Great update! A very nice review of Case! </p>
<p>For all ACT-ers, I’d like to hear more of what the kids thought about it.</p>
<p>S didn’t finish the math or science section. I think he said he left 4 unanswered in each section. It was his 1st time taking it and wasn’t used to the timing. He still says he prefers the ACT over the SAT which he took once already. I’ll be interested to see how his scores compare.</p>
<p>Thanks for the review of the excelling in excellence meeting, or whatever they call it, YDS. We will go. </p>
<p>Thanks for the Bucknell report, geogirl. D is not planning for engineering, but nerdy is one of her criteria. It is on the “Mom” list for now.</p>
<p>The ACT English seems most similar to the SAT Writing Multiple Choice section. And the ACT Reading section seems most similar to the SAT CR section.</p>
<p>So, it seems very weird to me that many schools don’t care about the SAT Writing section, and also not care about the ACT Reading section. It seems mismatched to me.</p>
<p>My3gr8boyz- WPI is on the list to visit as are Tulane (well, DH and I want to visit and maybe we will bring DD to see Tulane :), Vanderbuilt, U of Rochester, Emory, Tufts… or at least they were. Now we need to look at her schools again based on this trip and see what she thinks! I thought U of Rochester would be her school, but now that travel abroad and fun factor are at play a bit more, I think we have to look again! Maybe SUNY Binghamton will offer what she wants, and then we could save a who bunch of money!!!</p>
<p>reeinaz- I think Lafayette is out. I think it is a case of disorganized tour session and just didn’t make her smile and excited like Lehigh. I am surprised because I thought she would love the colaborative nature of Lafayette. Seems my non drinking girl is looking for a party (non drinking, I hope). I think she is just looking for the fun factor and the nerd factor. I think based on this CMU is out as is Vandy, but we shall see! I read something about dancing at a club at Carlton. I think that is what she is looking for, but no engineering at Carlton!</p>
<p>Oh, geogirl, I was about to say “Carleton!” if she’s looking for fun AND nerds! But, alas, no engineering.</p>
<p>Sorry for the sour ACT-takers. There have been times when ds was sure he didn’t do well on a test and then did amazingly. May that be the case here.</p>
<p>Hello - I am finally venturing in here. We just visited Lafayette and Lehigh on Thursday with S and I keep seeing those names come up here. I did not care for Lehigh as much as I did for Lafayette. There were pros and cons to both though. I thought Lafa’s dining options were not nearly as nice as Lehigh’s. If you definitely wanted engineering, I think a Lehigh degree is more impressive than Lafayettes, although Lafa lets you study abroad and seems to have a more holistic focus.</p>
<p>I did not care for the big hill at Lehigh and it did not feel as safe to me. In addition I thought the dorms were a little more run down than I expected.</p>
<p>You should take this with a grain of salt because i am a Bucknell alum and therefore L&L were my chief rivals </p>
<p>We have also visited F&M which I did not expect to like, but really did. S is pretty easy to please; he did not care for Drexel because it is in the city, so any nice suburban campus is good with him. Low student teacher ratios and small classes and he’s happy.</p>
<p>A quick question about GPAs. I hear so many things about what schools look at, weighted/unweighted/core only etc. He has a very impressive weighted GPA because of his AP courses. But a regular, core only unweighted GPA is an entirely different number!</p>
<p>I guess I am hoping that they look at the transcript more than the actual number, right?</p>
<p>Geogirl, I was going to mention Tufts in my last post, but then thought that perhaps their LAC’s would get in the way of the double major. We were there last week and I really liked it, but the boys were not enamored. No real reason why. We got a chance to speak with a German teacher (all set to sit in on her class, and lo and behold, she switched the test to that day!) and it sounded like the school would have a good opportunity to minor in a language and major in engineering, also with the travel. So far it’s been the only school we have looked at whose color is NOT red!! That will change with Lehigh, but that doesn’t thrill me because I went to Brown (color=brown) and my high school’s colors were brown and gold!</p>
<p>surfcity: I think they look at the transcript more than the number. And also compare it to the school profile and other applicants from the same school. Some high schools give a grade bump for honors, whereas others only give a grade bump for AP’s. Some schools max the number of grade bumps at 8 semesters. Etc…</p>
<p>YDS - I know, Carlton would have been perfect! I think I understand what she is looking for now. When I say “party”, I think frat party with loud music, beer bongs and ruffies. When she says “party”, she thinks dancing and laughing and dancing. No drugs, no beer, just fun. Kind of like prom sans fancy clothes, but all the time!</p>
<p>geogirl1–have you checked the small engineering schools thread yet? There might be some good suggestions there too.</p>
<p>Thanks, SteveMa, I have. Again, I think it is time for DD to go through the engineering rankings and decide what suits her. I have developed a list of 20 schools for her on naviance, but she has to look through them now. Before, she didn’t have a good frame of reference to determine if a school was “good”, or even good for her. Now, she will have a much better frame of reference and I’m sure she will take the lead now.</p>
<p>“When she says “party”, she thinks dancing and laughing and dancing. No drugs, no beer, just fun. Kind of like prom sans fancy clothes, but all the time!”</p>
<p>I think that so many of our kids would like this in a school, but it seems so hard to find! Why is it that the only “partying” seems to be the keg party variety, when so many of our kids are looking for an alternative?</p>
<p>If you find those schools, please share!</p>
<p>Vandy - what a GREAT recap. Thanks so much for your impressions. They help a lot! </p>
<p>Well, Step-D is at prom tonight. First ‘event’ ever with a “date” so I am thrilled for her. She sent us a picture earlier and she looks gorgeous. It’s times like these that make it so hard to be away from her. </p>
<p>Talked to Step-D about the ACT this morning. Sounds like that Science section was challenging because she mentioned struggling with this (as some of you have reported.) My H had to laugh because Step-D told him that she thought she did well “except for the hard parts.” sigh head…desk…</p>
<p>anniezz, BYU is one. :D</p>
<p>Hi all! Have enjoyed hearing about the exciting experiences many of you are having as you begin to college shop with your kids! D took time out of her spring break to take the ACT today. She took it cold with basically no prep. (Borrowed a Barron’s book from the library a couple of weeks ago, but had no time to look at it.) She wasn’t real thrilled about sitting for it even though it was her decision to do so. However, she seemed pretty satisfied and happy about taking it when I picked her up for lunch and prom dress shopping. Overall, she felt really good about the experience. She finished all the sections with time to spare, didn’t seem overly concerned about the science section as many around her were, felt the reading section was much more tolerable than the SAT CR, and thought the math was really easy.(other than a couple) So I guess now we wait and see:)</p>
<p>Regarding summer plans…my D has applied to our state’s summer residential governor’s schools to spend a month on a college campus studying the humanities. Today as we were out shopping, she got the news that some of her friends had received their acceptance letters. But shen we got home, she had not received any news:( Hope good news is in the mail on Monday!</p>
<p>On another front, she did receive a congratulatory letter from Clemson University provisionally accepting her into the class of 2017 based on the March SAT scores she had sent to them along with other academic information she had completed for them! My D has an acceptance in hand as long as she fills out their app by Dec 1:)</p>