@SincererLove For us, I consider CWRU a Match. It’s definitely not a financial Safety. And, since we have other schools that fit our definition of a Safety, I just think of it as a Match. If it’s your only Safety on your list, then I would be a little concerned. If you have other ‘real’ Safeties, then I don’t think it matters what you call it.
Overall, I think once you’ve got a couple schools your DC likes, you can afford, and are statistically safe…the rest don’t really need to be categorized (which doesn’t mean your list should be all crazy lottery schools, either).
@homerdog - Welcome – of course it’s fine to post here!
Just out of curiosity, does your counselor that says that S19 is perfect for Carleton plan on footing the bill?
Carleton is a great school, but so are many, many other LACs that DO offer merit (e.g., Claremont McKenna, Macalester) than are only slightly lower ranked. If money is a concern, I wouldn’t hesitate to consider them.
Re cell phones on college info - we are opting out of texts; set up a new email address just for college correspondence. If cell is really needed somewhere - typically mine is used.
Re CWRU – although re stats it could be a safety - need to show real interest and we’ll pay a visit when possible. it actually has strong CS and engineering programs and a great “maker” group & building (Thinkbox) so will be seriously considered. Someone upthread said daughter got an Arduino – tinkering with these & Rasp. Pis etc. is a fun way to learn some programming and learn about “physical computing” - enjoy!
Re subject tests - Carnegie Mellon and other universities strongly looking for subject tests aligned with student’s intended major is why DS is focusing on SAT Physics - could have done Chem (did bio in 9th grade) – most closely related to his intended EE major. Just frustrating the AP Physics 1 curr. doesn’t match up well at all. At least he is enjoying the summer Physics course quite a bit though.
@SincererLove - A safety is a school in which your D/S’s stats fall safely above the 75th percentile for GPA, test scores, etc. AND has a high (i.e., >50% accept rate) AND that you can afford. Without knowing the specifics, I would guess that Case is likely a match - not a full-on safety. I would have either a stats-driven auto-admit and/or a rolling admissions schools as backup.
What are your D’s stats? Also, be careful with Naviance data - depending upon the size of D17’s school, there may not be sufficient data to safely extrapolate.
It takes a lot of other merit badges and leading trips Biking miles he has been doing for years also you need to be a leave no trace trainer. It takes a Saturday and part of Sunday to complete and He also had to take wilderness first aid
training and that takes a whole weekend plus first aid and cpr. Plus he needed to finish the back packing badge along with tons of hikes miles. He was been working on it for years and will soon be getting the camping nights. I am always impressed to see someone get it. It is like an expert of the outdoors. He could count only things
that happened as a boy scout not a cub scout so that made it harder. It is much rarer to see than eagle scout. If your son worked as a camp counselor all summer at the boy scout camp that can also count as one requirement. There are also leadership for different trips along with community service and all the planning of the trips. It is very difficult to get. The backpacking badge is the hardest. My son has 99 different merit badges, but still hasn’t quite finished the backpacking badge hopefully by September. He is hoping to parlay it into becoming a trip leader in the college he is applying too. these are the same requirements as being a trip leader. If he plans the trips he gets to go on those trips for free. As an extra he is life guard certified and is getting his life guard training this week.
@srk2017 my kid got almost same Spanish SAT and IB scores. My understanding is that a huge number of kids who take the SAT2 are native speakers. We’re moving on.
I haven’t talked with DS about what phone number to use on apps yet. Last time I called rather than texted him, his voice mailbox was full. I’ll have to tell him to figure out how to fix that. I gather that on Android it may still be the old thing where you have to dial into a voicemail number and follow the prompts.
Arrgh, he’ll probably notice that his voice message is still his pre-voice change cute kid voice. I will miss that if he changes it.
@Ynotgo – my otherwise extraordinarily tech-savvy son had a difficult time figuring out how to empty the voice mail box.
I discourage reporting the cell phone because he doesn’t want people to call him during the day and he often has sound turned off in school.
@vandyeyes – Re: reporting SAT II scores. As others have commented above, it depends on the testing requirements of the program within the university, but there are perhaps eight +/- schools that require submitting all testing history. I do not have all the distinctions memorized but I think Stanford allows cherry picking subject tests, I thought CMU wanted all testing history, but this wording from their website is vague enough that I am not sure about reporting all subject tests.
“Applicants are required to submit all official results of either the SAT Reasoning Test or the new SAT Test”
Regarding cell phones on apps. I haven’t really though about it much but I would probably make that up to S17 if he will include it.
Unless college admissions officers (or whomever is calling them) are idiots, they know these students will be in school during the main part of the day and won’t be calling them randomly. I suspect it’s there more for another data point in identifying your student as unique. People don’t tend to change their actually cell phone number often these days.
DD wants a microbiology major (hard to find strictly that) but is willing to take a biology with a concentration. There are a limited number of schools that offer that, especially when you weed out the ones that specialize in plant or marine. I can definitely relate to the language discussions here. She has a strong list of schools as contenders but nothing is standing out. Does anyone else feel like there is a a school out there for their kid that you are just looking over or don’t know about? We are beginning to feel that way.
@“what???!!”, back a number of pages you asked if you could choose which scores from the SAT to send, even if you took more than one test at a sitting. You you can. You use what SAT called score choice and select which test scores to send. We used this for D15 when she got a less than stellar Bio score her first go round. That is one reason I have not yet sent any test socres of S’s to schools yet. I wanted to have them all available in the event that he wanted to pick certain score. Now that testing is done (thank goodness), I can send his scores whenever he needs me to.
@disshar I have felt that way multiple times during the past year, most recently last night at 1am! (My fault–I should know better than to do college research after 10pm lol)
I found the video about Case Western interesting only in that the building they showcased was super wacky and cool! Who knew!
Temple University called here yesterday on the land line and asked to speak with D. She talked to them a bit and then I heard her say “no, I won’t be applying anywhere early decision, I’m applying to a lot of schools.” She was a little thrown that rando colleges are calling and asking her stuff like this. I think I"m going to let ALL calls go to voicemail from now on, and just screen them from there. Temple came off of our list because of safety issues in the area and the fact that they oversold their merit scholarships by 22m dollars. It’s weird that they called because other than being in the BOD for a while, we never expressed interest to them. The home phone is the only number we give out, though, so it’s out there…
I’m procrastinating on finishing a Javascript lab. I’ve worked on it for hours, and I’m hating on it so hard. They ask you to put all these lines of information in, and then the next instruction is “remove all those lines and replace them with these lines”. What the everloving bloody hell! Why not just put the right lines in in the first place? H says it’s to teach you what you’re doing, and I said “it’s to teach me that this sucks. Mission accomplished.” I wouldn’t paint a picture, then paint over it to start a new picture so I could “learn” how to do it. No sir. Grr. More tea and off I go to finish the damn thing.
Cell numbers: My daughter refuses to give out her cell number to all but a select number of friends, so she sure isn’t going to give it out to a college she may or may not end up attending. It’s one of the main reasons we still keep a land (really VOIP) line, actually.
College visit update: Visited the University of Alabama yesterday on one of the hottest days of the year in Tuscaloosa so far this summer (they weren’t lying to us about that, I looked it up), and so we’re utterly wiped out. I’ll write up a decent visit report sometime later today or this weekend.
We will list Son’s cell phone, email and home phone on applications. He never answers his phone, ever. Oh well. Just need to make sure he knows how to listen to voice mails. He is a 100% all the time texter. He might not even know how to use the home phone
Some of you all are scaring with me with so much talk about SAT subject tests. Son17 does not need them, so I haven’t even bothered to look into how all that works. But with other son19 interested in engineering schools I think he will have to take some. I should start figuring that out I guess.
@VickiSoCal - Thhanks for the update. Is it worth spending some time on doing one humanities? Debating between Spanish vs Us History i.e. whichever takes less prep time. Another option is to go with 3 SAT IIs he has already (Math II, Bio and Chem).
@disshar What’s wrong with a biology major with a concentration in microbiology? What is it about a major in microbiology vs. biology that makes it special? What are the differences in required classes. Freshman classes? Have your DD look into the course requirements at various schools. If she can answer this question, maybe she can look farther than just the name.
Sample size of 1, I just checked my local research university. It has a microbiology major, but it looks like lower division classes are almost identical to the regular biology degree. And that students commonly enter as a general biology major and switch to the specialized versions during sophomore year.
