i live in one of the 4 states that aren’t part of a consortium. her stats may get her some “instate” rates as merit (and its a matter of tracking those down-hence the request for the single page list of "merit for kids who can barely put pants on–otherwise known as Micro-MAC’s), but otherwise, there is nothing automatic in my neck of the woods.
yeah. its like that. we are those people. :))
i’m considering investigated welding schools–i hear they are a comparative bargain.
@dfbdfb —EXACTLY! But this child believes he knows more than I do on all subjects, so I just have to lead him places and allow him to draw his own conclusions.
@payn4ward – easily thousands of dollars of Lego all co-mingled. It was all they played with for years and years. Never had Bob the Builder. I have kept all the Brio train pieces in giant boxes, along with favorite hard back books, hoping there will be grandchildren some day.
I never considered selling the books. Just assumed the shipping costs would make it unprofitable. I did box up nearly 100 pounds of paperbacks and ship to a friend with younger children but was able to pay the very inexpensive book rate. Perhaps that works for Amazon shipping also.
Major: chemistry with business as a minor or focus. Then law school with aim of going in to patent/corporate attorney in chemical industry
UCAS app completed except for personal statement and guidance counselor reference (only one referee and g.c. seems to be the default since they have to predict her ib score)
@itsgettingreal17, I liked reading your D’s journey of deciding on her major. It’s nice that she had the opportunity to try out tech/med and decide that she liked other discipline better. Many students have to find that out after spending a few years in college. Also, having a foreign language skill like Arabic will help her stand out in business (or many other fields).
Major: D’s biggest interest is International Relations, specifically with a focus on South Asian Studies. At the same time, she also wants to major or minor in some type of history since that has always been her passion.
A few weeks before she was born, there was a military coup in Pakistan, so she was born into a pretty turbulent country. Once we came to America when she was 2, she loved to hear about the government and history of Pakistan. H would sit with her for hours to describe how Pakistan and India were formed, how Bangladesh split off from Pakistan, and general Pakistani politics in relation to the US. I always imagined she would go into academia somewhere, but she was never interested. She kept up her interest in politics and IR growing up. When she finished 5th grade, she paid for half of a year long subscription to The Economist and made a deal with us to cover the other half because her teacher let her read it in school, and she fell in love.
Basically, it has always been a big interest for her, although she did go off onto a tangent for a few years. Summer before 9th grade she took a neuroscience course at a summer camp and became really interested. She continued to take classes in that for two years, before spending a summer doing neuroscience research and realizing that it was not what she wanted to do for her life, but she did want to take some classes in it for fun. At that point, she took a look at her interests and realized she wanted to pursue something related to IR. Her absolute dream is to be a foreign service officer but that is so insanely competitive that she knows it is unlikely. She tells me that she will figure out a career plan eventually, but first, she just wants to enjoy learning. I’m sure she’ll figure it all out some day.
@LoveTheBard On one info session it was mentioned that the average student changes their major 3 times. I find that concerning because most colleges don’t let you declare until end of sophomore year which means the student has change 3 times after being at college for 2 years? I think if a child makes a wrong decision in a major, you don’t want to compound it by sticking with it and have nothing but regret but who is paying for all of this switching of majors? Merit aid is only provided for 4 years. All of this changing of majors has to be adding to the student loan debt. I think if a student doesn’t know what they want to major in, or was heading down one path and abruptly changes direction that child needs to be guided because this is all too serious and costly to be making mistakes.
QOTD: Double major in Linguistics and Japanese. These have been his interests since middle school. He was planning on majoring in linguistics and continuing language as a separate activity but during school visits he learned how easy it would be to double major all for the same price. He loves a good deal and two majors for the price of one was something he was excited to hear about.
All of our neurotypical kids so far have known what they have wanted to pursue before high school graduation.
Our oldest was a born engineer. I was surprised he chose chemE b/c I think he is a natural born ME. I think he chose it b/c of $$.
Oldest dd was really wishy washy throughout high school with no clear direction. She went from chef to forensic chemistry to dr to ??? She worked as a caregiver for a severely disabled teen (a 14 yo boy who functioned on about an 18 month level) and fell in love with working with on his OT activities. She decided on OTA at that point. And it suits her perfectly.
Youngest ds has always been gifted in math. I had thought he would pursue something in math b/c we hung out with math people. His math coach ended up at Stanford. Her mom has a PhD in math and was a math professor at GT once upon a time. Her older ds went to MIT. Anyway, she was his math teacher/coach after her dd graduated. But, in 8th grade he took physics and between that course and Stargate Atlantis he fell in love with physics. He never looked back. Like ynotgo’s ds, his love is actually astrophysics, but he is going to stay with physics (I think, anyway) b/c of employability reasons.
My current sr fell in love with languages all the way back in third grade. That was the first time she took Latin. She begged for French. Then she begged for Russian. She begged for German, too, but I told her no. She loves everything language…literature, writing, speaking.
I am finally caught up! (We are out of town at the moment with less time to read internet than usual).
Congrats to everyone who is happy with recent SAT scores, and to those whose DC are making good progress on applications/essays!
Thank you to the poster who shared a link re: updated EA/ED policies. I’m delighted to see that UIUC now has EA (though DS was not so happy about it, as it means an earlier deadline than he expected).
Our college visit list (in chronological order):
Dartmouth (big yes…somewhat surprisingly)
MIT (“better than Disney World”)
Tufts (no – “too preprofessional/not marketing to me”)
Yale (probably not)
Brown (yes)
Swarthmore (probably not “too snooty” though DH & I really liked it & didn’t find it snooty)
Reed (probably yes, not a favorite though)
Northwestern (no - similar reaction as to Tufts)
UChicago (liked a lot but maybe too urban for S; will probably apply though)
UIUC (lukewarm reaction to visit but definitely applying-most common destination for DS’s peer group)
UC Santa Cruz (liked & will probably apply)
UC Berkeley (ditto- surprisingly, not “too urban”)
Stanford (yes-lots of family history & legacies there that won’t help, but he’ll enter the lottery anyway)
Harvey Mudd (yes-loved it)
Pomona (probably yes)
Also considering but haven’t visited
UVM
Cornell
Carleton
UCLA
And probably a few others too.
List is reach heavy, but has a couple of match/safeties in the mix. Hoping to add a couple more safeties.
Currently major(s) of interest are CS/math, but I expect them to change. Thinks he’ll pursue a PhD eventually (and I think this is likely, just not sure what subject).
I’ve been catching up after being out of town for awhile, so I didn’t like or respond to everything I normally would, but I love Big MAC and getting gin in college! :))
Majors: S will be an engineering major, as he has declared since studying occupations in 3rd grade. Then, he chose Ohio State but hasn’t looked seriously at it recently. He’s been involved in entry level engineering classes in high school that cemented his interest and helped him decide on mechanical engineering specifically.
Number of apps: No idea. Maybe 6 or so. All to admissions safeties and most financial safeties.
@itsgettingreal17 We’re also waiting to hear about NMSF.
College visits: Made the difference for D14, who didn’t know what she wanted to study or if she wanted to go to college at all. :-S Now she’s happy at Kansas State. S17 also likes to visit before committing to apply.
Visited:
Oklahoma honors (yes)
Oklahoma State (no)
Iowa State (maybe as a safety)
Missouri Science & Technology (no)
South Dakota School of Mines (yes, visit info to follow)
To visit:
Alabama (thanks @2muchquan!)
U Texas Dallas
Maybe others
Jealous of all the D17s who have their paths decided. Perhaps since I’m still undecided on what I would like to be that’s influenced my child! Definitely a math and science angle, def. prefer a liberal arts school, plans to go to grad school, medical related field.
For those with STEM kids, I thought I’d share impressions of South Dakota School of Mines. DS spent the last week on campus, and we got a small admission presentations when we picked him up.
It’s small. 2400 undergrad students + 400 grad students. But with 98% overall placement rates (100% for certain majors and all female students) at good average starting salaries, it’s a $ value. Good reputation among industry in the (admittedly remote) western SD area. Lots of coop and intern possibilities.
Campus is nice, but also not large. On-campus housing is currently only available to freshmen but they are completing upperclassmen housing now, and the HS class of 17 is the first that will have the option to live on campus for 4 years.
Rapid City and the Black Hills area are great, especially for those who enjoy outdoor activities, but there’s not much nearby as far as other civilization.
There’s a nice downtown area with restaurants, bars, retail, but it’s a hike (maybe a mile, maybe a little less) west of campus. The north side of campus is a not attractive industrial area, and the other two sides are hills/mountains. Your basic mall, retail, etc. are spread through the city.
S loved the faculty and area industry representatives involved with the ME camp.
Their OOS tuition is low, with some auto merit aid, plus they allow you to stack with departmental scholarships.
Not a lot of cultural diversity, although there is a large Native American population in the area. I believe they have Div II athletics with marching band, etc.
Overall, a good option for a for-sure STEM major who doesn’t need to travel home a lot and likes a small campus. With NMS, I’d prefer S to go to a larger school, but if that doesn’t happen, SD Mines will be near the top of his list.
@Atyraulove most medical professions require a year of math, chem, bio and physics. That takes at least a year and a half to complete so if she starts with those classes, she’ll have time to explore different subjects and what interests her.
Here is a good website with links to pre-reqs for medical related graduate schools. http://explorehealthcareers.org/en/home
My son just took the practice act test and got a 35 reading 35 science and 30 english 35 science. How to they figure out the composite score. Is it based on all 4 categories? Is English writing and how much weight to they put for that?
He’s composite on that practice test is a 34. They add the 4 sections and divide by 4. The total of the scores came to 33.75 so it’s rounded up to 34. If it’s .5 or higher it is rounded up. 33.25 would get rounded down to a 33. Very nice!
Qotd2: @paveyourpath mentions most colleges not allowing a declaration of major until the end of soph yr. How many of you see that in your college searches? My kids have always declared on their apps. (At least I think they did.) Definitely at the schools attended.
Is it more the norm across the board or a tier type distinction? I’m thinking most flagships and lower ranked schools have you declare right away. I would thinking engineering would be difficult to declare later bc so many sequence courses start almost right away. And the higher tier wait and offer more core.
When I look at the college board compare college for the act test it says Math score which his was 35 and his composite was rounded to a 34. They mention they want his english score which I guess was writing. This was his lowest score what about reading. Is reading and English rounded together to get an average called english or is writing more important?
My son said he likes the act better because they don’t have all those historical ones in the reading and it is a different dialect. Have other people found they don’t like this as well?
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I have seen a lot of both (declare/ apply to major at the outset vs. declare after you get there often during sophomore year). Based on my experience, it seems like smaller schools and private schools are somewhat more likely to be in the second category (also, with no competition for majors- if you get into the school you can take your time, explore, and choose your major). Engineering majors often have so many prereqs and requirements that students functionally have to know they’re on that path earlier, but still more flexibility than in first type (mostly larger state schools on my S’s list) where you have to apply and be accepted into major on entry.
To me, this is one of the most important (but least talked about) distinctions among schools. I wish there was more readily available info about this aspect (including admissions rates and merit based on majors).
I also wonder how much the “average number of times changing majors” is affected by these policies (I suspect more people who have to declare as freshmen end up changing majors compared to students who get to wait and declare after 2-3 semesters, but I’m not aware of data on this).
UC Santa Cruz is one state school that lets you pick major after you get there, which is a big plus IMO.
I picked my major as a sophomore and it worked out well for me. I would not have been ready to commit to a discipline earlier (actually, my major was interdisciplinary, so I didn’t commit to a discipline until grad school :-)) )
QOTD: S17 wants engineering, probably mechanical. One of the hardest parts of the process for him is trying to figure out admissions rates for engineering. Seems like there are only two categories–reaches and super-reaches.
@longwood I apologize, but I haven’t looked back at your previous posts. What types of schools are you looking at for engineering? From our research, it appears that ABET accreditation is the most important factor in an engineering school, and most state and directional universities that offer engineering are accredited. So, unless your C has his sights on a top tier school, you may have more options within reach.
I do think certain names can open doors in engineering (MIT for example) but placement and salary are high at most programs, and you’ll find many employers hiring more from the local institutions than actively recruiting from top tiers.
Besides large (and possibly impacted) programs, there are some smaller STEM only schools that are affordable.
Just my two cents as you sounded a bit frustrated with your search.