@262mom No, my D is not considering UIUC. She’s visited once for a college tour, and has been down there several times for Math Team and band competitions. She seems to lean more toward urban campuses, although a few rural ones are on ‘her’ list as well. It makes her mad that UIUC is as expensive as going out of state, too (as am I). So, she is getting the hell out of town! Most of the schools we are looking at have a COA at or below what UIUC would cost, plus she wants to be warmer…although UIUC is a little better than northern IL.
@itsgettingreal17 That’s strange with Naviance. I don’t know what to tell you, other than call your school? Or, better yet, ignore it :))
@2muchquan S wants to get “out of town” (i.e., away from the Midwest) too, but he tends to prefer less urban settings, so he’s OK with UIUC on that dimension (though it’s not his first choice).
@262mom – Cornell University offers a BS in CS from the Engineering School or a BA in CS from the A&S school. Math would also be located in A&S, but A&S probably has a foreign language requirement.
Taking Chemistry ever again would be a deal breaker for my son.
@262mom Note that I believe online art classes don’t qualify as an “f” requirement for UCs, so maybe also for CalStates like CalPoly. Best to call CalPoly and ask if it comes to that. Community college art classes would work, though.
There is some confusion, and I’m not clear about whether they count a community college class as 1 semester or 2 semesters. I’ve heard from several sources that one community college semester counts as 2 high school semesters.
@Ynotgo Thanks for the info about Cal Poly! (I meant to tag you in my post above too, sorry about that!). That is very helpful info and I will look into it to see if it might still be an option for us. I had contact with people from UC and cal state admissions about the fine arts requirements, and recall that the requirements were subtly different between the two systems, so I’ll definitely double check carefully if Cal Poly ends up back on the list! Also, for UC, I think S may qualify for “admission by exam” (won’t know for sure until after SAT2 tests), so we thought he might be able to get away without the CC art class. Any information about the admission by exam option and how it works would be welcomed (I know it doesn’t mean you automatically get in, but think it means they waive the A-G requirements and still consider your application??)
@CT1417 Thanks for the suggestion! Cornell is definitely on our radar (supposed to be really good for math, too, if I recall), but we haven’t looked into it too closely yet. It’s good to know they have a CS option in A & S!
@Ynotgo – I thought it was you, thousands of posts ago, who told me that the UC Fine Arts requirement was only one semester. Or maybe I am thinking about UW (Seattle) and someone else entirely. AFAIK, my son has not taken anything that approaches FA so I am not sure why Berkeley and UW are still on his list.
Other than the four academic subjects and FL, he has taken CS, Independent Science Research (probably a different name) and is adding AP Stats as elective next year (with Multi-Variable as his math class). CT does not require FA to graduate, so while the school offers Drafting, Woodworking, Photography, Ceramics, AP Studio Art, etc…taking one of those courses is not a graduation requirement.
@CT1417 If I said one semester, I was wrong. It’s one year, and in the same discipline both semesters for the UCs (not sure about CSUs). I don’t know about UW.
My son’s only art class is “Engineering Sculpture & Design” which is 10th grade engineering at our school. They designed the engineering sequence so that it would give one UC credit year each of art, physics, and “elective”, even though they do some art each year.
@262mom, we are not in Calif., but we could afford OOS tuition at Cal Poly. We’re not looking at any UC because we are OOS. S has had fine arts because he was interested in photography. He will only have 4 years of English. Because you reminded me of their recommended amount of English, I just sent the GC a question to see if that might really hurt his chances for acceptance or not. (And I saw that you tagged Ynotgo as the one with the Cal Poly info!)
Anyone want to talk about study abroad? This is new territory for us b/c none of our older kids have ever studied abroad. (Well, our oldest dd actually attended a college in Ontario for a yr, but that was actual enrollment, not study abroad.)
So far we have only confirmed 1 university allowing admission scholarship $$ to be used for study abroad. SA costs are a little daunting and I am not sure how concerned we need to be about factoring in those costs into our college search. Anyone have experience with how much $$ study abroad costs relative to normal enrollment costs?
I will be finding that out about the time that S17 starts college and D15 starts her planned/projected study abroad! Many schools have “sister” programs with colleges/universities in other countries where the cost of tuition at the school they attend stateside is what they pay for the study abroad, minus travel costs.
@Ynotgo I’m going to take your lead with the brag sheet this weekend. When my D’s ACT score came from last October I emailed her counselor, and within a day it was in Naviance. I’m not sure how else it would have gotten in there. GPAs I’m sure are on more of a schedule, but the GC could probably do a 1-off for you if you asked.
@262mom I hear you about UMich. That’s my alma mater, but not looking like we are going to apply. They do have some scholarships that your S would be competitive for, but not many. I was CompEng/Electrical Engin back in the day. Great school, great town. Just too dang much $. It’s too bad we can use the 4th generation-alumn/a/us/ae to our advantage!
Why the heck would a school require 5 years of English? Seems like you are eliminating a lot of great candidates who may not know about CalPoly in time to do anything about it. They should just require an English class as part of GenEd for those who only have 4.
I’ll talk to them for you guys. I’m sure they never thought of this.
SD14 is at Cal Poly SLO. No more english required for her, she had 4 years and got in ED. As to the fine arts piece, she had that already but I will say that SLO has a nice arrangement with the CC there. SD is taking some of her gen ed there for summer session which will save us some $$, auto transfer in without hassle and according to her, has some more interesting options. The upside down curriculum has it’s pros and cons. It has not always been easy for her to get the classes she’s wanted due to class standing but on the flip side it is nice for a summer session heading into junior year to take some fun things.
She loves it there and for OOS it is definitely one of the better deals around and to me, probably worth that year of fine arts if needed.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek Study abroad has come up twice at tours for us. U of Wyoming has an amazing program where they basically guarantee study abroad will not cost more than a few hundred more than regular tuition and actively encourage use of it. UPS told us that some scholarship funds could be used towards it, but not all. Sounded like just the tuition part but not travel costs and it was unclear on room and board. I think it is something you need to investigate by school.
We got S’s red circle moved to the right place in Naviance. Thanks for the info that the student login allows editing, @mtrosemom ! He also moved most of the “thinking about” college list to “applying to”.
I’m trying to clean up the Document of College Chaos, which is my not so organized version of @MotherOfDragons Binder of Destiny. So many tables. So many lists. I have found one good way to start thinking about upcoming school visits. We have a separate college gmail, so on the associated calendar I put in all the “special” visit days for the schools we want to visit. I also put in D’s school holidays, so it’s a little easier to visualize what might work when.
On study abroad, D only wants to do it if she can still graduate in four years. This seems pretty iffy at schools where the engineering dept is not involved in having particular programs set up where a student can take the necessary engineering classes.
@dfbdfb and @carachel2 My H’s family is southern – VERY southern – one of his ancestor’s was known as the “Mother of Atlanta” because she had the first white baby born there (which opens up a whole can of worms itself) and his great uncle was a segregationist senator. He has way more interesting family than I do (ancestors from NY and Chicago). Could also be a matter of sheer volume. I do genealogy and am always seeing couples with about 7-16 kids on his side and 1-5 on mine.
@srk2017 Yes, they did mention those programs. I didn’t pay a lot of attention, so I can’t remember for sure which rep said what, but they are very popular programs and of course pretty selective. However, the one rep said he saw the main benefit as being that you don’t have to take the MCATs (which I guess is a pretty big deal).
@2muchquan and @shuttlebus Yes, that’s a good point. An adcom for another school said that while officially you didn’t have to choose until the end of sophomore year, that almost all students have actually started the track for their intended major before that. I think this was the context in which the Case adcom made his comment.
@Momof2TX Good to have you hop in! I’d take most of those student review sites with a big grain of salt. For bigger and more active school threads here on CC there seem to be less “really angry” people who obviously have an agenda.
Well, both my kids are now on summer break! B-) D finally started applying to summer jobs. She had a straight month of finals and AP exams so never got around to it. Hopefully, she gets something, so she isn’t just sitting around the house after her internship.
Now that its summer, it is finally sinking in for her that she is going to be a senior and we have to take the whole application process more seriously. Maybe she’ll get more personally involved in the search process now.
I had replies to make but can’t remember to whom. Y’all have been chatty. Regarding Alabama, last years freshman class was over 62% OOS. My DD’s friends come from New York, Illinois, And Texas primarily. Her “big” in her sorority is from Wisconsin. The school is approximately 1/3 Greek with more girls going no Green than guys. They students mix well and I would say that among DD’s close girl friends most are actually not in her sorority or any sorority for that matter. None of her roommates this year or next year are Greek, even though she is.
If you want to look at Alabama I suggest arranging it through with the Honors College or having a member of the Alum Association set it up for you. You will get a much more personalized day that way. I wish I had known with my older DD. We did DD17 through an Alum and it was amazing.
As for the Auburn question that @Mom2aphysicsgeek (I think) had, I can answer that. I am an Auburn grad. War Eagle is a battle cry of sorts. It is not a mascot. It has to do with an eagle that was circling the field during a particularly thrilling drive. Just as Auburn scored, the eagle dived into the field and died. At least that’s the legend I was told. Who knows if that’s what happened.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek We have looked into the study abroad for D since she will be taking 2 languages and study abroad will be a must. The school scholarships cover it if a partner program and there are outside scholarships and study abroad specific scholarships at the schools D is interested in. Because she will study 2 languages, however, I will probably pay full price for the pre-frosh year program and then intersession programs.