Parents of the HS Class of 2017 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
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@jmek15 – I wasn’t yet thinking of new and old SAT scores in Naviance as they will not appear in Naviance until after our children graduate. I was wondering how the Ad Coms will treat the two sets of SAT scores. Will anyone bother drilling down on the fact that a 1500 from old test is supposedly a stronger score than 1530 from new test (or whatever the latest concordance tables say) OR will the AdComs want to take the higher score/new test applicant to make the school’s profile look better for rankings? Cynical of me…

Out of curiosity about CWRU, I logged into Naviance.

Class of 2015–7 applied, 3 admitted, 0 attended.
Class of 2014–9 applied, 5 admitted, 3 attended. And I have no idea who those three are and that is my older son’s class.

I share your suspicion that a college will look less favorably on a HS the year after they admit a few and no one attends. Rumor has it that three were admitted to MIT this year and all are going elsewhere. (ED admits to Ivies concurrent with EA admit to MIT.) Historically, our school only had athletic pulls to MIT so to have three academic admits who all turned down the offer…doesn’t bode well for class of 2017. Then we have Dartmouth, which historically only admitted athletes, legacies, or athletic legacies, but next year there will be three pure academic admits attending.

I do believe Case emphasizes demonstrated interest, so go for the interview, open all the emails, reach out of the regional rep…and hope for the best!

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@jmek15 Case Alumni Scholarship? Do you need to be the C of an alumni? How is it awarded?

Shoot, we did not interview when we visited Case.

I feel like the bartender in Its A Wonderful Life ‘handing out wings’ when he rings the register. I’m ‘piling up interest’ by clicking on all the emails.

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@2muchquan We have the Resume and the Brag Sheet separate in Naviance. You can only edit the resume as the student. It looks like you can edit the Brag Sheet from either the parent or student account, because there is an essay for parents. (“What would you want the admissions office to know about your child that they would not be able to learn from their transcript and the college application? Possible topics may include discussion regarding greatest strengths, most unique characteristics, significant family events, personal obstacles, etc. (We recommend a half page- one page thoughtful response).”)

S never used the Naviance resume. They all do a resume on paper in 10th grade and get comments from community members.

CWRU: It says we’ve had 7 out of 15 admitted over the past 6 years and none enrolled. Too few data points to show the graph.

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CWRU: at son’s school
Last 3 years, 3 people per year applied. last year 3 accepted, 2 year before, 2 year before that. Only 1 person attended. Avg GPA admitted was 4.7 31 Act. You’d need a 1410 SAT new SAT score.

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Ah, we don’t have a brag sheet in Naviance. That makes sense, as our GC sent me a separate document (brag sheet) for parents and students to fill out. Another difference between schools with regards to Naviance!

Our status for CWRU (apply/admit/enroll):
2016 17 7 1
2015 20 8 1
2014 16 9 2

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@CT1417 I just added a new school (Gonzaga) to D’s list and they had info about how they will use the new SAT: They are going to use the concordance tables from collegeboard and for now will not be considering the written section of the SAT or ACT. Here’s the link: http://www.gonzaga.edu/Admissions/Undergraduate-Admissions/Apply/New-SAT.asp

Hopefully other schools will be letting us know soon how they will use the old vs. new scores.

I’m pretty happy with the official new/old SAT concordance. Math went down by 30 and reading up by 20, which is a “loss” of points, but D needed higher reading. Writing is terrible, but many schools don’t seem to pay that score much attention.

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@2muchquan Don’t know if it helps but ds didn’t do anything for Case other than apply. No interview, no visit, no email. They contacted him about FA bc his sister was graduating with her degree in August.

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That last post posted wo me finishing.

They were super nice. They noticed he had put only 1 in college when he would be attending, but he had marked 1 already in school in June.

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@kac425 my son took the rescheduled Jan SAT and no his scores have not been updated in Naviance yet. I have his December SAT scores in there and his April ACT scores but we do not have the option in our Naviance to add in testing data.

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Maybe our kiddos will all meet at the accepted students day at Case. :smiley:
We plan to EA and interview in summer or fall.

Our school Naviance status for CWRU:
Class Apply Admit Enroll
2016 22 15 1
2015 15 7 0
2014 23 13 3
2013 15 10 3
Average accepted ACT 32

@2muchquan On: Case Alumni Scholarship. You don’t need to be an alumni to receive the scholarship. That would be weird? It’s just the source of money not destination. :wink:

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Sometimes I feel like our list of possible schools is getting smaller each day. Need to call some of these schools of interest and ask some additional questions about their Russian programs. @Mom2aphysicsgeek do you know if Bama still has only the 1 Russian professor? Read about complaints from 5 years ago about how they are letting the Russian go there but telling students it is a strong program. It was on our list but may need to come off.

DS hasn’t decided if he wants to go to do ROTC or not so he’s applying and will decide based upon all his options. He wants to go into Intelligence, does JROTC in High School but isn’t convinced 100% he wants military to help open that door for him. Some schools he wants to apply to (USC, UVA) will really only be possibilities if he is offered and decides to accept a ROTC scholarship because I don’t anticipate merit money from them if he is accepted. Others I think he has a better shot of merit money, like Texas A&M and Florida State which he loved when we went to visit (FSU) but it was a weekend so we didn’t get to meet anyone. All of the schools he is looking at are so far away I can’t figure out which to find a way to see and meet with people and which to wait on. I feel like I’m glad we started researching early but I still feel like there’s so much to do and so little time and I feel like I’m not quite sure what I should be doing in the process…

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@collegecue Dd did not even look at Bama. We visited Ole Miss (disaster of a visit! That Russian dept told her that they didn’t allow students to place out of their intro level classes… Dd was insulted. Too bad bc she liked Croft) and UAH (a slightly better dept, but not one she would consider. Their French dept came right out and said they had nothing to offer her bc if her level.)

We learned from those visits to not even bother if there aren’t at least 3-5 professors listed for the dept.

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@Mom2aphysicsgeek thanks! Guess we will have to contact each school and go from there. DS is planning on starting Russian online with that tutor you suggested (thanks) and he really needs to find a school that will allow him to do Russian and Accounting and not break the bank. Easy peasy right?

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I started on this post earlier, but then got pulled away from my desk.

@Mom2aphysicsgeek We’ve been looking into several different programs. From what I’ve seen, you have three general types of travel abroad programs:

“Exchange Programs”: The college has a written agreement with a partner institution to exchange students. These are one semester/quarter or a full academic year. The student pays tuition directly to the home institution, so they pay their normal rates for tuition and can often use scholarships, etc. These are not usually “all-expenses-paid” experiences, and the student has to make living and travel arrangements. It’s offers a lot of freedom and can be very immersive. It also likely requires fluency in the local language.

Here is a list of exchange partner universities at UGA:

https://international.uga.edu/educationabroad/get-started/exchange-partner-universities

“Sponsored Programs”. The college has developed a short-term program (most are for a week or two, some up to 6 weeks), that was developed by the faculty. The institution’s faculty is present on most programs, and classes are usually taught in English. Most classes are taught by the home institution’s faculty. It’s much more planned and scheduled than the exchange program, and not nearly as immersive. The fee for the program would cover tuition, and must likely housing and even meals. In many cases your scholarships may also help pay for these programs.

The UA in Oxford program is a great example of a sponsored program:

https://studyabroad.ua.edu/index.cfm?FuseAction=Programs.ViewProgram&Program_ID=10049

FSU’s “First Semester Abroad” is another type of sponsored program:

http://www.international.fsu.edu/Types/FSA/FSA.aspx

The third type is really a catch all category. The university will have made arrangements with “affiliated programs”, you can do your travel abroad with programs sponsor by other U.S. universities, you can choose to directly enroll in an overseas university, or work with an independent program providers. Often your scholarships will not pay for these programs.

Oh, and don’t forget that some study abroad programs are internships.

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@Mom2aphysicsgeek I did forget to mention that SS11 did a study abroad program through his school. It was an intense language course, one month in Spain. Tuition was paid through the school but the rest of the costs were on us, and extra, however the lodging etc was arranged through the school.

We didn’t really consider it study abroad through, just a pricey way to fill a language requirement lol. We did allow it as all 3 other kids had a European trip as part of their HS experience with their schools and he did not. This took the place of that.

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@Collegecue One of my D11’s best friends majored in Russian at St. Olaf and was offered a CIA internship. He turned it down. My niece, who works for the CIA, was astonished because apparently those internships are very highly coveted. I don’t know how one applies for the program, but it would probably be on their website. I will add that my niece loves her work and good luck to your S finding his “in.”

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@collegecue With only a single yr of Russian completed, I think most universities that offer it as a major, not a minor, would be OK. I would look through the course catalogs and see how many classes and what course sequence classes are offered each semester and then judge whether or no you think the offerings work.

@Gator88NE, @eandesmom, and everyone else, thank you the input on study abroad. @Gator88NE those types of categories are similar to what UKy described except they were differences in terms of levels of support for the student for semester and yr long experiences.

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CWRU @ D’s school

Average accepted GPA: 4.26, average ACT 32

2015 58 25 4
2014 44 17 8
2013 44 18 2
2012 25 14 4
2011 18 12 2

To allay some fears, it doesn’t look like low yield from previous years hurts.

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DS’s team had their best result @ National Science Olympiad and DS got 5th rank medal in one of his events! Nice to see so many smart middle and high schoolers @ one place

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@Mom2aphysicsgeek, I have read on cc that students’ financial aid typically cover study aboard costs. DS14 is currently on a Maymester study aboard. It is expensive since he is not receiving financial aid. The program cost is $8k which include tuition for 3 credit hour, lodging and some food. Fortunately, he has $6K merit scholarship money to be used for summer study aboard. I still have to buy an airline ticket, $900 worth of immunization, two extra days of lodging, some meals, and some gears specifically for the class. If your child’s main goal is to sharpen the language, check out some outside scholarships such as CLS associated with the State Department.

Junior year is over for DD!
On the last day, DD went to her teachers asking if they would prefer to write her LOR during summer or early fall. All three said fall. So much for trying to be ahead of curve.