Parents of the HS Class of 2016 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
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My son will take AP exams for AP Lit, AP Government/Economics and AP Psychology. They are required to take the exams if they are enrolled in the classes and we are required to pay for them. We are not refunded based on their score. A couple of my son’s choices will allow you to exempt courses based on your ACT score. When we went on a college visit last week, we were told he wouldn’t have to take the first part of English based on his ACT score. He also has taken and passed the AP exam for English.

Some of you may recall that my son said that he made his final decision last week after an Admitted Students Weekend. Considering that he told me last fall that he’d made a decision and I paid the enrollment fee and housing deposit at another college, I’ve been a little apprehensive about paying the acceptance fee at the college of his choice. I’ve asked several times if he is sure and he continues to say yes. We still have some time to pay the fee, but I don’t want to lose anymore money.

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@kittymom1102 - What he said!

I know kittymom has expressed, like many others, that Vanderbilt and ‘like’ colleges with less history and ‘wow’ factor to their names are lacking in "prestige’ compared to the “Ivys, MIT and Stanford” but I hate to have people that look to these forums for advice/ideas as we did when we started out (and still do) travel down that road and miss out on some truly wonderful opportunities. No offense to all of you that have kids at those great places-full disclosure, so do we-but in my humble opinion there is still a lot of regional bias and also way too much following of various rankings like they are the be-all, end-all. No disrespect intended.

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Ok, I apologize in advance, and it’s really late so this could take a turn for the worst but I just can’t leave it alone…

@kittymom1102 - If you are concerned about the prestige at Vanderbilt, don’t be. Have you looked at their common data set and student profile on their site? Your S '16 and ours have very similar numbers and as our son said, he felt fortunate to get accepted to Vanderbilt because his stats look mediocre there! They do not even make the top quarter of the class. And Vandy does very well in the World Rankings and US News and every value-for-the-dollar ranking out there, from Forbes to Kiplinger, if we must go there, haha. And there is also a decent mix of geographic, ethnic and racial diversity. Stats, rankings and diversity numbers are better then many of the Ivy League schools at Vandy and many other non-NE schools. Check it out! Like Asleep said, lots of opportunities there.

Nashville is a wonderful place. It is warm, friendly, layed-back, yet busy and exciting. It ranks highly on popular places to visit-even internationally. It is NOT all about country music, lol. (I did, however, hear my S '16 tell his brother today that if he chooses Vandy, it will definitely be so they can go to all of the country music clubs. Yeah, right! S '13 just wants him to go to somewhere “cool, like Nashville” so he can visit him. Hmm. Look out Nashville!) There are many colleges in Nashville, like Boston, but then Boston does have a lock on that stat.

Re-Boston. We really like the history of the place and have lots of ties through friends and family at Harvard, MIT, Boston College. S '16 has a close friend at Harvard right now and she is having a fantastic time. Our oldest chose to apply only on the opposite coast but worked in the NE for many summers. D '10 drew a line from northern CA to northern VA and only applied to the south…not a fan of cold. S '13 only applied after spending his last summer at a selective program with kids from the NE and CA. They talked him into it and he did end up liking MIT fairly well, and Yale even more, (loved the admitted student days!!!) but in the end he walked away from MIT and the Ivys. (And yes, he was fortunate to have those choices. But–brag alert-- while he was basically a perfect-stats kid, all of the admissions people told us it was his force-of-personality, or the x-factor, so to speak, that caught their attention. Even surprisingly at the techiest places. At that level, stats only get the rest of the resume considered, as most of us here know by now!)

Anyway, ironically, our S '16 spent last summer in Boston and expected to love it, but in the end he drew his application line south of New York and would not budge! I think ‘Ivy’ means much less to most of the country than it does in the east. In the west, mid-west and south, state flagships are huge. Our top students typically apply to Stanford and then big state U, which is well respected. In the midwest we see the same thing with Northwestern, etc. In the south it might be Vandy or Duke.

One thing all of my kids have all said is there is so much angst among the kids from the NE and the east coast in general at the selective programs…so much pressure to do well and get into the ‘best’ colleges. I remember oldest D commenting that some of the girls she worked with would talk about not getting into Ivy League schools and having to ‘settle’ for Emory or Wash U, “like they were Columbus and would fall off of the edge of the world once they were south and west of New York, haha! Exile, at the very least.” And S’ 13 talked about his peers during the summer that had been everywhere internationally but not anywhere off of the east coast except maybe California. (The two of them that hadn’t left the continent were observed like a science-experiment.) And that’s how they applied to college as well, except for those that did the Caltech, MIT, U Chicago trifecta EA. Or maybe Duke for the couple that had parents who did not want to fork out their EFC and were after a big scholarship. They seriously referred to the rest of the country, that they had never seen, as the '“fly-over states”! Yikes.

Anyway, there is my rant for the day. Or the rest of the admissions season, anyone still reading is hoping by now! Sorry to go on so long but I am really hoping all of this over-sharing will help someone else. I have been at this long enough to know that there are so many great college options out there and we all need access to the information to make the best decisions for each of our individual children. That is why we are all here, right?

@kittymom1102- I hope you know this is not all aimed at you! You clearly have a wonderful, gifted son with very supportive parents. He will land somewhere fantastic, no doubt and only your family will know what situation will be best for him. Just don’t be afraid to dig deep into those common data sets. You will probably find some real surprises.

Here are a couple of other resources that are kind of fun for comparison, from the Chronicle of Higher Ed-

http://collegerealitycheck.com/en/colleges/compare/

And this is great to play around with and check demographics, even though a bit outdated…it gives the gist-

http://chronicle.com/interactives/freshmen_insts#id=164155

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@critter This is a general statement not directed at an one person, but I agree that a wonderful school that is a perfect fit may be overlooked because of the prestige factor. I also agree that it tends to be geographical in nature . I’m going to stir the pot here, but IMO there is a strong bias against Southern schools with exception of a very few. I grew up in the mid Atlantic , but live in the South and personally believe there are many schools here that are simply overlooked because of location. That if they were plopped down , as is, in Mass the masses would be clamoring for admittance . Rant over.

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P.S.-And for those of you that might remember, S’ 13 is the sweatshirt and boxers skype interview kid.

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@drmom123 Let me reassure you as a student they are not a must. Sure some people ask with a poster or flowers but you don’t have to. I asked three guys just by saying it and one was over text. Honestly if your D or S is shy but wants to do something like that they will, otherwise a simple “Will you go to prom with me?” Still works.

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Best promposal at our school last year. My next door neighbor paid one of the guitar students to follow his potential prom date from her classroom to the cafeteria serenading her with Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” where my neighbor was standing with a dozen roses and huge banner above the cafeteria asking her to go to Prom. Of course she said yes. They had not been dating, but had been friends for awhile, so she was completely surprised.

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That’s sweet. @carolinamom2boys Ours was a guy gave a bunch of people clues to give to the girl and then met her with a giant sign at her car at the end of the day.

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@LKnomad, if I recall correctly, I had a student a few years ago who did DE while in high school. He used the DE courses to satisfy high school requirements and graduated at 16 and started UCLA. He then graduated from UCLA at 18. Another student of mine did DE, graduated last year and I remember the counselors at my school correctly, they said he was almost a sophomore (or may have been a sophomore) upon entering UCLA.

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@happymochi @LKnomad congratulations on the acceptances and Regents.
@sseamom congratulations to your D

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Congratulations @happymochi @LKnomad <:-P

I kind of understand the Regents is a big scholarship or something like that, am I right?

Again, Congrats!

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Congratulations @happymochi and @LKnomad <:-P

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Don’t let out the secret that Nashville is a really hip, young city… its growing too fast- they say 80 people move to Nashville each day. New urban housing is sprouting up all over, new restaurants, clubs, coffee shops all over. The music–um yeah, its not just country anymore-- lots of indie stuff going on, great venues (Ryman, new outdoor amphitheater, free festivals at Riverfront). Art-- well there’s the Frist, Cheekwood, Vanderbilt’s galleries and Fisk’s too. You want sports-- Titans, Predators, brand new TripleA ball park in downtown, and Vandy occasionally has a football team.

but-- we’d appreciate it if you kept this a secret!

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@critter You understand that my S is the kid who has NEU at the top of his list, over Vandy, University of Southern California, BC.

Does that look like a kid who is into prestige and rankings? =))

NEU has two things he likes: Location – he wants to go to Boston and have a college experience similar to his dad, and Price – NEU admitted him as University Scholar which, among other things, comes with full-tuition.

Prestige is the last thing in his mind, yes, he is aware that Vanderbilt ranks 15 and NEU ranks 47. For him it makes no difference. It boils down to price and quality of life those 4 years.

Based on his dad’s experience, they both share similar personalities and interests, S strongly believes that Boston will be a better city for him than Nashville. If Vandy comes with a better financial deal than NEU, I’m sure S would think long and hard. He’s that practical a guy.

I believe that at the end, the kid has to choose the school. The kid will be the one going through the experience. As long as it is affordable, we will support him. We only remind him to keep an open mind and see what’s out there.

Congrats on your children’s choices. They sound amazingly enticing <:-P

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If I can throw in my two cents on cities alone and not the colleges… Boston is awesome. I love how historical it is. There is so much to do and other major cities are within driving distance. Providence is about an hour away, New York City is within driving distance too. I think one could be in Boston for a month and still not see everything.

Nashville is a young town full of musicians trying to make it. Broadway is an exciting, bar hopping street. The Titans stadium and Bridgestone arena are within walking distance of Vandy (about 2 miles each way). Despite being in the South, Nahville is not as historical as Boston. Nashville can be seen in a day.

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@Mysonsdad That is exactly my S’s point of view about location. Based on my H’s experience while a student in Boston, he had so much to explore and enjoy not only in the city, but the whole region, which is conveniently within driving distance or train.

S’s issue is location and price, not prestige or rankings.

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My husband graduated from Vanderbilt, and I thought he would resent the prestige comment. Surprisingly he didn’t.

I’m thinking that kitty mom wishes she could delete that comment, like you can on Facebook when you goof. :slight_smile:

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Location trumps everything for some kids, mine included. I thought she would at least consider Tulane or U of Miami after being accepted, but NO. London calling…

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Mine too. At first he wanted to be in a big city, but now he is leaning towards staying closer to home. There are of course other factors, but for him, location has always been a top one.

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Location was the big thing for our son. NY, Philly, Chicago, or LA; fortunately it’s worked out for him to be in Philadelphia. He’d recommend University Mississippi to someone looking for a traditional college town; both of us think it could be a good match for S18, who is a huge football fan.