Parents of the HS Class of 2014

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
5921

<p>eyemamom, thanks for the Rochester advice. We may end up going through Rochester twice, on the way to, and home from a visit with the grandparents. I think Rochester does Saturday tours and RIT does not, but Rochester doesn’t do interviews on Saturdays. So we might do the Rochester visit on a Saturday in one direction, and the RIT visit + Rochester interview on a weekday in the other direction. </p>

<p>What is your son studying and how does he like it? Why did he choose Rochester and is it living up to his expectations? Thanks!</p>

5922

<p>Classof2015</p>

<p>One suggestion re the schools…
I’d check the tour times/info/interview times available and then decide which way to tour based on that–and I’d google map the route first–and see which way is easier to drive it.</p>

<p>For K2 we flew in WV, drove to OH, then PA, through up state NY, then CT, then back through PA, to MD and then VA–flying out. I did that between a Sunday am and Fri of spring break --</p>

<p>If you put all of the schools on a google map you can manipulate the routes.</p>

<p>Good luck</p>

5923

<p>We made it home from our Texas tour late Friday night. I spent yesterday being lazy!! I’ve been reading along while gone. Someone was asking about seeing more than one college in a day. We have not been able to do that yet. Seems like our days start around 8:30 - 10:00 and don’t finish until 3:00! Between info session, college tour, dorm tour, engineering info session and tour it just takes all day! When we did Auburn, we only did engineering tour/info session in the afternoon, so probably could have done a second school in the morning … if there would have been a school with an hours drive! That’s our other problem, doesn’t seem to be a lot of schools close together where we have looked so far. If we travel to Michigan, I would hope to be able to squeeze a couple in on the same day on the trip to/from Michigan.</p>

<p>It was disappointing to find that the two Texas publics that we saw - UT Austin & Texas A&M have quite the housing shortage. It appeared that they did not even have enough housing for the full incoming freshman class (UT has about 7,000 spaces in dorms/last year’s freshman class was 8,000). They also did not guarantee admission to chosen majors. The main mantra we heard was “apply early”. But it sounds like for so many schools (not just the ones we visited this week), you not only have to apply early, you have to decide early. If you want housing, you need to put your deposit down early. At some schools, in order to put a housing deposit down, you also have to put an enrollment deposit down. What if the $$ doesn’t work out or you get better scholarships at another school? The housing deposit is refundable, but the enrollment deposit is not. And is it ethical to put an enrollment deposit down if you are still shopping? I would think you should not put enrollment deposit down at more than one school, so if you choose a school that may give better scholarships … that you don’t know about until spring … you run the risk of not having housing. Not just undesirable housing, but NO housing! Is this crazy or what??? I guess my DS could live off campus and it would probably be cheaper, but that’s not really the college experience I would expect for him his freshman year.</p>

<p>I was reading on the other 2014 thread about waiting for grades to arrive. Our school has an online system where you can check grades at any time … no surprises. I assumed most schools have the same, but it appears not. Do your schools have this or do you have to wait to the end of the quarter/semester for grades?</p>

5924

<p>We have an online system, but one of my son’s classes wasn’t included because it was officially offered by another school (co-located with the HS).</p>

5925

<p>Beadymom - What you are describing, housing priority by enrollment deposits, then you can give you housing deposit, just to get in line is what I spoke about earlier regarding deposits, and Auburn was the school we had this experience with. Yes, you can have ONE enrollment deposit and still be applying and shopping. The minute your student wants to commit to another university ethically you must first notify the first school and let them know you’re not coming. Once you receive confirmation you can deposit. (I’m a bit overkill and emailed and sent certified letters with confirmation of receipt to both admissions and housing). It’s a double enrollment deposit that is a no-no. I think the schools are wrong personally to push kids so early when there’s a shortage, and most don’t have all admissions and financial information yet. But, I guess they can do it as many do, or a version of it. </p>

<p>Housing was a concern and consideration when looking with S2 and it is again with S3. It is a plus when students can easily stay on campus more then one year if they choose. Also, if there is abundant affordable rentals close by and on bus routes, for upperclassman. Certain areas are obviously going to dictate higher rents, but within reason to the market (ie students aren’t being gouged).</p>

<p>Our kids normally have access to grades online. During finals everything goes dark and they have to either wait to be mailed their end of year marks unless a teacher happens to tell them if they’ve taken an early exam. We got a nice email from S3s AP Comp Sci teacher congratulating S3 on his A for the year.</p>

5926

<p>We get interim grade reports but you never know what the final grade will be until the final exam is graded. And those final exams are usually killers with curves and average grades in the C+ range for core math and science classes (which includes AP classes). There are no exemptions for finals either.</p>

5927

<p>Thanks fogfog – I didn’t think of putting all the schools on google maps.</p>

<p>beadymom— good thing you picked up on the housing shortage. That’s kind of a quality of life aspect of college, isn’t it?</p>

<p>re: senior pics – we got a kind of vaguely worded letter from the school’s chosen photographer saying sign up sheets will be available in the fall. I think I’ll call her anyway and see if I can put S down for a spot.</p>

5928

<p>@mathmomvt: I don’t know how interested in RIT your son is, but are you aware that RIT has two College & Career Days? One is the middle of July and the other is in the beginning of August. They have hands on workshops and one overnight in the dorms.</p>

5929

<p>Oldest’s wedding is over (+ some sightseeing with relatives yesterday), the rest of the family is sleeping, and I’m finally catching up. I’ll admit to not even thinking about senior pictures yet. I doubt my guy knows anything about them either. When we get home I’ll have to do some research.</p>

<p>In the car he’s been using the computer to check up some more on colleges. UTAM Galveston looks nice for what he wants, but is out due to not giving any aid to OOS. I think Coastal Carolina remains a possibility, but he’s still been busy telling all the relatives about his FL or HI schools - with Juniata as a potential too. I’ll have to start looking at planning a trip for his visits, but it’s going to require both of us taking a week off of school - most likely in Sept. He has Anatomy and English first semester (for tough classes), so we might try for Labor Day week in order to miss one less day.</p>

<p>HI school visits will have to be second semester and we might have to wait to see if they are financially feasible first - or perhaps in Jan early in the semester again. I believe we get off for MLK day.</p>

<p>We’ve passed a ton of colleges on this wedding trip. I find myself wondering about visits - mainly for fun - but there’s no time for those. We did drive around and show the relatives oldest’s college (Covenant in GA - great mountaintop location - so a nice “free” touristy thing), but that’s it for anything college related other than apps, etc. Youngest looked at the CA essay topics to start thinking about those. I believe that opens up next month, right?</p>

<p>Oh, and middle son goes to U Rochester and absolutely loves it. He’s a Brain and Cognitive Science major heading pre-med. He’s with us now for a week, then heads back to work in labs (two lab jobs for the summer). If you want me to ask him anything, let me know. He’ll be working with freshmen in the fall so is rather up on a bit of info.</p>

<p>We never looked at RIT, but I know he’s been there some for concerts and ASL (American Sign Language) events. When I asked him about it, he mainly told me, “it’s BIG!” He prefers a smaller size school.</p>

5930

<p>For far away trips we have always done two-a-days.
Much more efficient that way.
But every family is different.</p>

<p>As far as A/C in the dorms go, almost none of the schools we visited had air conditioning.
I hope my D doesn’t use that as a major deciding factor.</p>

5931

<p>mathmom - Rochester is a great fit for my son. Their curriculum is really quite great for him. There are 3 separate disciplines - humanities, social science, stem. So if you major in one, you need to take 3 related classes in the other two. His clusters are music and psychology. The thought behind is to keep bored kids taking classes they don’t want to take. My son thought he wanted engineering but was very, very iffy on it. First semester, first class, he realized it wasn’t for him. He’s going to do math major, cs minor. It’s not a huge sports rah rah school. It’s a school where most kids live on campus all 4 years, it’s required the first 2. The kids are intellectually curious, loads of opportunities for anything under the sun. </p>

<p>At 5k students it’s like the goldilocks size for him. It’s also 50/50 m/f. The school is very pretty, and not shockingly, it’s cold and snowy there. But he loves it there. Certainly not for everyone, but just stepping on campus I knew it was the one for him, and he ended up apply ED. We never found anything else quite like it though he had quite a few on his list.</p>

<p>If your child likes Rochester you may also want to check out Case Western. I personally thought RIT was the ugliest campus I had ever laid eyes on, but people seem to love it. It seems a great fit for video gaming, and lots of kids with special needs attend there and there is a large deaf population there.</p>

5932

<p>Thanks, Eyemamom and Creekland for the Rochester feedback. We do plan to check out Case as well. RIT is a pretty ugly campus but my kids don’t really care about that. DS11 visited and it was his second choice in the end. I’m a huge fan of co-op and think it would be especially useful for DS14, so we’re visiting all the big co-op schools: Northeastern, Drexel, RIT and Waterloo. Unfortunately they’re all BIG co-op schools – there don’t seem to be any schools that do a full co-op program that are more Rochester-sized. We’ve been to Drexel and Waterloo and he liked both though. </p>

<p>@Student4Ever, my DS really wanted to attend the college and career days but neither of the dates work for us, unfortunately. He would have gone last year but you had to be a rising seinor. :-/</p>

<p>@golffather We did an east coast college trip last February, and as we got farther south, the dorms started being air conditioned ;-)</p>

5933

<p>A/C is a funny thing. If you live in the mid-atlantic/south, you pretty much live in climate control around the clock. I’m shocked that some schools in VA, NC & SC still don’t have A/C in the dorms. </p>

<p>S goes to school in upstate NY, but it still gets hot and humid there, and everywhere we went at move in, restaurants, etc didn’t have their a/c on. I’m thinking up north and midwest they’re more into the ambient thing, going with whatever the temperature/humidity.</p>

5934

<p>Welcome to July. Its time to start the countdown clocks.</p>

<p>Please note that some liberty has been taken on future dates as in many cases, they will vary around the country but in general, we are on target with the countdowns.</p>

<p>1 month (Aug 1st) - The CA for class of 2014 will be released.</p>

<p>2 months (Sept 1st) - The senior year of high school will begin and the last ACT test date (9/8) for the ED application cycle (register by 8/17)</p>

<p>3 months (Oct 1st) - The last SAT test date (Oct 5th) good for ED applications (register by 9/6)</p>

<p>4 1/2 months (Nov 15th) - The most common ED application deadline (11/15)</p>

<p>5 months (Dec 1st) - The nominal cut-off most high school GC’s use for requests for transcripts, LOR’s and other school generated documents for the January 1st application deadline schools</p>

<p>5 1/2 months (Dec 15th) - ED decision day! :eek:</p>

<p>6 months (Jan 1st) - The RD application deadline for nearly all selective schools, Ivies, and many private colleges</p>

<p>8 1/2 months (March 14th) - Pi day at MIT (RD’s are released)</p>

<p>9 months (March 30 - April 1st) - RD days for most selective schooks, Ivies and many private colleges</p>

<p>9 months (April 1st) - SS Indecision 2014 sets sail for a crazy 30 day cruise :D</p>

<p>10 months (May 1st) - The SS Indecision is back in home port and all desicsions have been made and mailed/emailed/accepted through the online admissions portals :)</p>

<p>Every month - Start saving the Bed, Bath & Beyond coupons! College dorm room shopping starts soon!</p>

5935

<p>Does anyone have any experience with Kettering? And what about Olin?? Those are on our radar.</p>

5936

<p>Aye, aye, cap’n.</p>

5937

<p>Captain, you forgot:</p>

<p>4-6 days (July 5, 6, or 7) Early access to May’s AP Scores. </p>

<p>That’s the one we’re counting down to right now!</p>

5938

<p>

</p>

<p>Good point. They are not on my radar as D has written them off based on her feelings after the tests. Hopefully she will be surprised but I am not holding my breath. </p>

<p>Updated countdown -</p>

<p>4 - 6 days - AP Scores available</p>

<p>1 month (Aug 1st) - The CA for class of 2014 will be released.</p>

<p>2 months (Sept 1st) - The senior year of high school will begin and the last ACT test date (9/8) for the ED application cycle (register by 8/17)</p>

<p>3 months (Oct 1st) - The last SAT test date (Oct 5th) good for ED applications (register by 9/6)</p>

<p>4 1/2 months (Nov 15th) - The most common ED application deadline (11/15)</p>

<p>5 months (Dec 1st) - The nominal cut-off most high school GC’s use for requests for transcripts, LOR’s and other school generated documents for the January 1st application deadline schools</p>

<p>5 1/2 months (Dec 15th) - ED decision day! </p>

<p>6 months (Jan 1st) - The RD application deadline for nearly all selective schools, Ivies, and many private colleges</p>

<p>8 1/2 months (March 14th) - Pi day at MIT (RD’s are released)</p>

<p>9 months (March 30 - April 1st) - RD days for most selective schooks, Ivies and many private colleges</p>

<p>9 months (April 1st) - SS Indecision 2014 sets sail for a crazy 30 day cruise </p>

<p>10 months (May 1st) - The SS Indecision is back in home port and all desicsions have been made and mailed/emailed/accepted through the online admissions portals </p>

<p>Every month - Start saving the Bed, Bath & Beyond coupons! College dorm room shopping starts soon!</p>

5939

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</p>

<p>I can’t say anything about Kettering as I am not familar with the school. They are emailing us a couple of times per week and our delete button is getting a good workout.</p>

<p>Olin is a small specialized engineering school that has a tremendous program. Our step-niece attends and will graduate next year. At one time all students got a full tuition scholarship but they cut that back to half tuition when the economy tanked. The admissions process is very competative. Part of the process is that they invite applicants for a preview/“tryout” weekend where they are inteviewed and observed before the admissions committee makes their final decisions. Not all attendees make it. There was a lot of talk on our HS 2011 parents thread as one of the kids got in off the end of the wait list. If I recall, I think it was amadakayak’s son who was admitted and is attending Olin.</p>

<p>If your D or S is really bright and wants engineering, I would recommend checking it out.</p>

5940

<p>Just wanted to point out that the September ACT dates posted were from last year. The correct registration date for 2013 is 8/23 for the test administered on 9/21.</p>