Parents of the HS Class of 2013

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
5081

<p>Hi everyone! I’ve been lurking this board for just about ever. I’m a junior, Class of 2013 wooooooo! Anyways, I am almost done touring colleges…finally. Here’s where I have been/what I plan on doing/what my crazy college obsessiveness has led to:</p>

<p>Thus far I’ve toured: Barnard College, New York University, Columbia University, Eugene Lang College at the New School University, Emerson College, Northeastern University, Boston University, Salve Regina University, Roger Williams University, and I’ve practically grown up at the local state university, CCSU. I am touring my safety schools, Marymount Manhattan College and Pace University tomorrow (AHHH so excited). I now just have to make times to tour Quinnipiac University, UCONN, and CCSU even though I know basically everything about the darn place.</p>

<p>I know for sure that I’m applying to Barnard ED. I love it there. I feel so at home. I come from a home where I’m the only female, which means that I’m always taking care of my dad, brother, and their friends. I loved the empowering environment. It sounds a bit corny, but I really enjoyed the classes I sat in on in the fall. I’ve been to Barnard four times and have fallen deeper in love with it each time, which is a bit scary because I know that there is a chance that I will be denied admission, but it’s alright.</p>

<p>Columbia’s campus is beautiful, but I know that I stand no chance at ever being admitted into the university, so I really don’t see a point in me applying. I went to Columbia last year for the grad school of journalism’s three day spring convention. I enjoyed the campus and thought it was pretty, but something felt off anyways. It’s kind of weird how I fell in love with a school right across the street, huh?</p>

<p>I really liked NYU. I felt that even though there is no real campus, there is still one-if that makes any sense. I liked how the university was centered around Washington Square Park. And, I was happy to know that the facilities were kept up for the amount of money people are paying to go to school there. I definitely plan on applying. But, my only worry is that if I do get in I will not have enough financial aid. My father did calculations and my EFC is 0. This puts me in a very difficult place with the whole affording college part of the deal.</p>

<p>I liked Eugene Lang to an extent. I felt as if the aesthetics really brought the place down. Otherwise, I like the fact that I have the opportunity to start taking courses geared towards what I want to major in/my interests as soon as I get there. </p>

<p>I didn’t really like Salve Regina that much. My friend who is a senior this year forced me to go with him to see it. While I enjoyed seeing the Newport mansions for like, what, the seventeen millionth time, I didn’t like the school. I thought that even though it wasn’t a “Praise the Lawwwwd and only HIMMM” institution (I don’t mean to offend anyone, I just have no idea how to describe it without getting my point across), it did carry the religiously affiliated aspect of the school through with everything. I just didn’t like it. </p>

<p>I thought Roger Williams was a nice school. It was practically like its own town inside of Bristol. I liked its communications studio, it is similar to the one at my high school. But, it just wasn’t my type of school. I’m a city girl who hates suburbia and Roger Williams is definitely not a city school.</p>

<p>I thought Northeastern was nice. I didn’t like how all that was talked about was basically the co-op program. I understand that it is a huge part of the school and it is very interesting, but it just isn’t for me. Not to mention, I just don’t have the kind of money to purposely spend on five years of school instead of four. I know that not everyone does it, but for the majors I have in mind (political science/communications/journalism/economics) the co-op/internship experiences play a major role in career opportunities.</p>

<p>I hated Boston University. It had pretty buildings. That is all.</p>

<p>I loooooove Emerson College. I’ve been there twice and was there this past Saturday. It’s my type of atmosphere. Everyone is always so busy with their work and what he or she is into, but everyone I met on campus is laid back. I like passionate, hardworking people, and those are the type of people I found at Emerson. I’m so excited to visit there again!</p>

<p>After all of that, I’m happy to get to the end of it. I hope to narrow down my list by a bit more in the upcoming months. I don’t have high hopes for Pace. I also don’t know if I should leave on NYU because I know there would be no way I’d be able to afford it. Quinnipiac is a hit or miss for me. It’s in the middle of nowhere and every time I drive down to the train station to go to Manhattan I drive past it and imagine cows grazing in the fields. But, that’s more of UCONN’s thing.</p>

<p>AHHH! In about a month I’m starting my Common App essay in school! In about four or five the Common App comes out and I’ll be doing that! Then I have all of the supplemental essays to write! This is crazy!</p>

<p>One of my teachers already told me that she is writing me a letter of recommendation! I guess that’s a good sign that my gut feeling is right, because I was going to ask her anyways. I plan on asking my AP English Lang and Comp teacher also.</p>

<p>Yay college!</p>

5082

<p>Welcome Swizzle! We are glad to have your in our group! Sounds like you have a lot of responsibility at home and you are handling this whole process very well. Kudos to you and we will be following your story closely in the months to come! </p>

<p>Attended Step-D’s “Class Ring Ceremony” today. Wonderful words said by her Senior friends (part of the ceremony,) and her ring is beautiful. She was so happy she was just glowing. Great to spend a few days with her and great to see her so happy today.</p>

5083

<p>Donivrian: Hi! We did our New England trip a couple weeks ago and also saw Tufts and MIT (as well as RPI, WPI,and UMass Amherst) Exactly as you said, we all loved MIT. The info session was the most engaging of all we have attended, and we loved our tour guide as well. They seemed to downplay how hard the work is once you are there, saying that the most competitive piece is the admissions. Everything was so nice and clean and I think there is something to be said for all the glass that let us peek into places (like labs and the pool and gyms) and get a feel for being there. Also loved that they have indoor tennis courts! We had a bit of trouble with our directions to the info session and ended up in the infinite basement underground tunnels with about 15 others, but everything picked up after that! :)</p>

<p>Tufts. It’s weird. I really liked it and I can’t even really say why. The campus was beautiful, loved our tour guide (he was a perfect example of how schools should pick their tour guides! He made engineering look so un-nerdy and totally cool!) but my son wasn’t really moved by the place. I had been very excited for my 2 boys ('13 and '14) to sit in on classes that morning, but as it turned out, the German class had a test and the differential equations was just vanilla and fine. He said it felt pretty much exactly like a high school class. So the “college” feel I was hoping for was not there. We did have a nice chat with the German teacher, but again, that was my '14 son, so college isn’t really even on his radar yet. We are in the same boat as you as to being unsure about need-based aid, so I’m pretty sure my son won’t apply. I think we are headed more towards the tech schools, although they thought RPI was TOO tech-y! Hard to believe that somehow we will hopefully find a happy medium that fits cost, the proper amount of techiness, just the right amount of rigor to the curriculum (MIT’s 12 hours per week per class was a bit scary…), a good rep in the engineering world, a nice campus, and nice tennis courts! Oh, Tufts had really nice courts!</p>

5084

<p>I appreciate all the great advice on LORs. thank you. Son will probably ask the English, US History and Physics teachers for LORs. However, son may wait until senior year to get a math teacher’s LOR, when he takes AP Calculus. In June, S takes SAT subject tests in Math 2 and (probably) US History. Then SAT in October.</p>

5085

<p>Rumor is that my Ds GC is leaving at the end of the year. D is upset about this, the GC has been fantastic and knows her well and is super supportive. Question is, is there anything she can do now to take advantage of the GC’s knowledge ( I mean this in the best way, by the way, no negative connotations of 'take advantage!) before this year ends? Can she have her do LOR or the common app GC supplement this summer, or is that just weird or wrong? Any thoughts? No idea who is coming in as the GC and there are 500+ kids in the graduating class though they are divided between a number of GCs. She’s familiar with one other at her school, but likely won’t ‘get’ that one as I assume they will be hiring someone as a replacement.</p>

5086

<p>my3gr8boyz:Looks like your S’s college list is similar to my S’s. We are also looking at RPI. A lot of students from S’s school in past years have landed in RPI and hence S knows a lot about the college. We are yet to visit there. MAy be in summer we will try to travel. Are you looking at CMU too?
@ MIT, when I asked about the rigor compared to her highschool classes, she said- I used to get A’s at high school with out much effort, I have to really work hard to maintain A’s here. Yes, we too wandered around the infinite corridor before we get to the info sessions. My H was commenting that a leading math school has selected randomness to name their building! I too felt they have their building numbers totally random. S has taken their high shcool summer classes there and really like the feel of it. </p>

<p>Tufts: Our tour guide was an international relations major. She was really good. The campus is so pretty. At the info session, I felt they were trying to sell them too much. She did mention that the class sizes are small. Also, looks like they have a good support system in place for students. The guide was saying that the biggest freshmen class was 60 and they had some 10 tutors and 6 TA’s assisting the professor.</p>

5087

<p>swizzle13: Welcome and nice to see you engaged in your college search. The only college that my S looked at that is on your list in Northeastern. They did talk about the coop program a lot when we visted too.
Good luck with your college search.</p>

5088

<p>Lauren: nice that you could spend couple of days with your Step-D and you were able to make it to the ring ceremony. My S has not ordered a ring and has not talked about it at all. He must have just passed it- opps. That is how he is. If some thing involves money- he ignores it. </p>

<p>This talk about LOR making me nervous. Most schools S applying to need the LOR from his Math/science teacher and from humanities teacher. He will be asking his computer science teacher for an additional recomendation beucase he is also coach of the robotic team and S is on the robotic team from freshmen year onwards.
This whole college application thing is fast approching!!</p>

5089

<p>89wahoo: that must be difficult to have her GC leave. Usually school will have a system in place so a new person can come in and look at your D’s file and will be able to know her. I would ask the school personals about what their system is like. I don’t know if she can do the CA. I hope everything goes well with your D. When i worked at a high school, they had thier GC leave. The new lady that came in was a really nice one, and kids liked her really well. She went above and beyond her capacity to help the kids out. This perticular GC who is going to leave may not have 500 kids assigned for her. WHen i met the GC at my S’s school, she said- We know a lot about the students than you think we know. She was quite familier with my S even though we were meeting for teh first time. She knew what is going on with my S’s academics(she has the grades etc) and also, the activities that he is a part of. Praying for your D’s smooth transition to new GC…</p>

5090

<p>DONIVRIAN, my S10 is a sophomore at Tufts and loves it. For him it came down to a choice between Chapel Hill (2 hours from home) or Tufts–the more personal and smaller feel of the school is what sold him, and wanting to be more independent and further from home (boo hoo for me). He also considered NYU but didn’t like the urban campus (or lack of campus). He went into Tufts interested in Physics and Philosophy and is now majoring in Religion and Poli Sci.</p>

5091

<p>I know this has been discussed before on this thread, but I really am surprised (not sure that is even the right word) by how many of us have a kid who plays tennis. We look at the courts on every campus visit.</p>

<p>S’13 and his HS team (he is the no. 5 seed) competed at the state chamionships the last two days. The talent pool was very, very deep (some potential pros out there - certainly D1 college players) and his team did not win many matches. But they had a great time (missing two days of school on school business helps).</p>

5092

<p>89wahoo: Maybe you could ask advice from the GC that is leaving. Maybe she will offer to leave some notes for her next GC. </p>

<p>Changing majors: D1 went from math to undeclared to buisness/accounting to math finance to math for the single subject teaching credential. S2 went from Applied Math to History (with a possible minor in Classics). Both colleges told us the average student changes their major 2.5 times. And despite all the changes, and the fact that they go to public schools, they both are on track to graduate on time (D1 graduates next month!!).</p>

5093

<p>I only expect him to be commended next fall, but excited for him nonetheless! </p>

<p>So what is the strategy for naming the two schools?</p>

5094

<p>MommyDearest - My son’s strategy is to name a large private he is “sure” he is applying to (USC) and a small LAC in the 50-100 US News rankings that gives full tuition (competitive) to NMF. He is avoiding Bama and many other big name NM schools because he already has gotten on their mailing lists and sent SAT/ACT scores that qualify for Presidential. He has many issues with “how to show the love” and we think sending to the small LAC will be one way to show interest. </p>

<p>Swizzle - Welcome! If your EFC is zero, look at the Questbridge info on the Financial Aid sub-forum and see if you’ll qualify. NYU is notorious for bad FA. If I were you, that would not stop me from applying, but I just would not get my hopes up. If you have the grades and test scores for Barnard/NYU/etc., I also strongly urge you to look at the full tuition non-competitive scholarship offered by Alabama. 3.5 GPA/1400 CR-M SAT = full tuition for 4 years. I really like the fact they are rolling admissions and non-competitive scholarship. It gives you something in hand as early as September. </p>

<p>Donivrian - TUFTS - we did not visit, but we have close friends whose son is a freshman now. The FA they are receiving matches up with the new Net Price Calc (I asked them to run it as a test a few weeks ago). He is doing well academically, but had some adjustment issues. It may be more to do with his major (Engineering) than anything else. He really did not like his grades resting on group projects. He has also taken to be involved with more off-campus community activities then on-campus. He truly loves the area. Academically, he came from a well-known boarding school and has found the work load very managing and engaging – aka, he is not bored or stressed. He chose Tufts over CMU. </p>

<p>My son told me he doesn’t want to discuss or think about colleges until after the school year. He told his siblings (who get home before us) to just trash all the mail. He told me to not even think about trying to get him to go to any college fairs.</p>

5095

<p>Welcome, Swizzle, you seem very organized! It sounds like you’re having fun with your investigations!
Dadotwoboys, more tennis players here! We even check online to see what the courts are like well before the visit! It sounds like the last two days were busy for your S13! Unfortunately our provincial championships always conflict with our grad celebrations so we may be hurrying to catch ferries with our seniors at the end of May.</p>

5096

<p>It has taken me 3 days …but I have read 225 posts…Yea I know… I didn’t want to miss anything…and Boy Oh Boy do you guys have some great info to share…It was sooo worth it…
@Swizzle…Thanks your insight has been so helpful…my D wants NOTHING about the C word discussed…she’s toooo busy…she is away at boarding school so conversations are on the phone or I drive up to see her…
we managed to get in 5 schools over Easter break…I got …3…“yea I like them”…it is so stressful on me…I guess I need to let go…Any tips on how to get her motivated???..if she were a he…I’d understand…I have read and been told that with all the girls out there…a She is at a disadvantage…any advise is greatly appreciated…
I work 7 days a week all Summer so trips are out…she leaves for school Aug 20 something…
reading about the visits is GREAT…I was looking at Tufts for her and all of you seemed to like Northeastern so since they are close I’ll ad it to the 6 day trip in June that I can eek out…
The whole thing for admittance is such a big crapshoot I guess she knows that too and wants to cast a wide net…as she has said …I can always transfer…</p>

5097

<p>Swizzle- what a great kid you are. I am so impressed by all you have been doing. I didn’t catch what your EFC was or more importantly what your D can afford to pay for college. From reading the cc boards that seems to be a big miss. Folks are focused on academic safeties and forget the financial safeties. One of the CUNY schools may be one more thing to put on your list. Enjoy the next year of discovery. </p>

<p>One thing our school does well is the guidance office insists that each student apply to a financial safety (ie- a SUNY school). This is a public magnet so the income varies widely (from public assistance to surgeons). By making it a “policy” it helps to ground some students. </p>

<p>D created her resume in September/October. After the ECON IB exam, students will spend the next couple weeks completing the resumes, and starting their essays. (One of the reasons D opted for IB ECON). We didn’t think about getting LOR’s yet. My concern with doing those early is they may be missing some items we want included. Example- D will likely be Student Government President next year, and maybe Editor in Chief for Newspaper. I assume many of your students will also move to these kinds of leadership roles. Isn’t it important to have the full picture. Really just a question since I just going through this for the first time.</p>

5098

<p>I think that it is an evolution. We started with DS12 early in 2011 when he figured out what he might want to do at university, then we looked at possible places to go, contacted coaches and so on. When you contact the coach you need a resume at least and usually a LOR but from another coach.
As Nellieh points out the activities/accomplishments during senior year can be pretty important, too. Sometimes you receive unanticipated awards at junior year end recognition ceremonies that can be added. We kept updating the resume, sending updates to coaches both about sports and academics as the schools he was interested in were strong on academics. We updated his common app, too. When we first sent it off for his EA school he hadn’t yet written his last SATII test, so in preparation for the RD cycle we changed the app to reflect this. You can even change the main essay, if you become dissatisfied! Not that DS had the energy at that point!</p>

5099

<p>Students should be able to add updates to the student resume up until the moment they use it. Why is it a problem to get a lot of it done in the spring of junior year? It’s a really good time to get the resume format decided on before 12th grade starts and to include anything you can think of from the first 3 years of HS before some of it is forgotten.</p>

5100

<p>Starting the resume early also gives you time to reflect on how to best organize it to emphasize what you want it to emphasize. One choice is chronological, of course, but there are others. In DS’ case, we were trying to “tell the story” that he had a somewhat unusual EC that was mostly self-pursued. We ended up with “Individual Honors” (kind of a grab-bag list), "Major Extra-Curricular Activities (3 major headings with activities grouped under those headings), “Community Service & Involvement,” and “Leadership.” I think it worked well, but it took several tries over a couple of months to figure out the best way to organize it.</p>

<p>Oh, and don’t let your DS and DD do it on their own - DS’ would have had about 2 items on it; he’d completely forgotten all kinds of things and didn’t realize that other things “counted” as ECs.</p>