@itsgettingreal we are on the bubble for NMSF too. S’s score is above all posted test ranges for our state, but I don’t know, it is not high enough to be a sure thing.
QOTD major: S wants engineering, probably mechanical. I could see him switching to electrical or chemical, but I don’t see him switching out of engineering. He has done a bunch of engineering classes online and it seems to be what he really wants. He used to want to be a computer programmer, but he hated AP Computer science, so that nixed that idea.
Thanks, @IABooks. Not frustrated so much with finding schools that he likes as finding a safety. He has a few reaches on his list but is not looking at MIT. He also has a mix of medium and larger state schools (Delaware and Purdue, for example) with strong engineering on his list. He would also like to stay in the midwest, mid-atlantic or northeast. Just not sure if any of these are safeties for any engineering applicant.
QOTD- right now my DD wants to go into business. Her interests are IB/Econ and Finance. She is also interested in corporate law. It will be interesting to see what she ends up doing!
@longwood UW Madison? I haven’t looked at their rates lately. Schools like Iowa State, Kansas and Kansas State may be too far west but should be admission safeties. Depending on his likes and your finances, maybe Missouri Science and Tech. That’s a better deal for Missouri residents and it’s in the southern part of the state.
Sorry if I’m only repeating what you’ve found yourself
D is away at Engineering camp now, which will hopefully help her decide if she really does want to major in EE/CS.
Previous career-related summer programs have caused her to decide against those fields, so we will see.
Well, that was interesting. Just returned from a session with D’s college counselor, where we discussed potential majors. She was kind of “eh” about everything we discussed, until we started talking about art (still “eh”) and then her counselor said something about graphic design and industrial design. D’s face LIT UP and she started talking about how some people from the Academy of Art San Francisco had visited her high school art class and showed them a video about what they do, “and it was SO COOL!”
So I think she seriously needs to look at schools that have design/media programs. I’m going through websites now and so far I see UCLA, UCSD, UCD all have various kinds of digital art/design/media majors. And the Claremont schools have a Media Studies major that is offered jointly by all 5 consortium schools together and that allows a concentration in digital/electronic media. This certainly seems to be an up-and-coming field of study in universities these days.
Interestingly, her objection to studying regular old studio art is because she gets bored with the constant search for “meaning” in art. I mentioned art history and she said “no!” with an appalled look on her face. Ha.
2 weeks into Engineering camp, D declared that she wants to major ME. Her other passions are econ/business and political sciences/public policy. She will want to double majors for college and go to MBA or law school.
@BusyNapping , D got free subscription of Economist and other magazines. But it might not be an option years ago. Our Ds have similar interests.
Last year for assignment on current events for AP lang, she did an analysis on Trumponomics. Passionate about equal rights, equal pay, closing education gap, etc. She submitted to OpEd or Letters to Editors and got them published. As DH and I are naturalized citizens who are engineers, we are least prepared for this one. ;
I have not found a great way to do it. What I do is look at the Fiske book to check stats, then I look up the CDS and do a ctrl F and put in the word “merit” to see what the school’s non-need based merit is. Then you usually have to divide it by the size of the school. This may or may not work very well, but it’s what I’ve kind of been going by, along with the automatic admits for NMSF/NMF and known big mac scholarships on the yola website.
QOTD: D17 has known she wants to do something with genetics and computer science since she was pretty small. It evolved from a love of dinosaurs and wanting to make pet sized ones to working with robots and coming at the idea of genetics from a computer side (no gooey stuff she says).
D18 started also with robots but has gravitated more towards marketing, business, and mock trial stuff lately. Her goal since she’s been a very tiny kid is to “run Disney World”, so whatever it takes to do that, she’s looking at it.
Living in the basement-no worries, next house will not have a basement If they’re on the same level of house as I am, I’ll drive them nuts. Problem solved.
Our Uber driver in San Francisco had graduated from MIT, and had worked for Google and Facebook, was currently working for Samsung. His one bedroom cost him $5k/month, and he only worked for Uber when they paid him more than $50 hour. It was one of the more enlightening 30 minute conversations we’ve ever had about colleges. The girls eyes were goggling out of their head. He was like, yeah, the Google campus is awesome, but that’s because they never want you to leave. They want you to work for them non-stop. It’s always good to have another perspective on all the “elite” stuff in the world, that’s for sure.
@dustypig I was an industrial design major at CMU my freshman year-the guy that taught our 3d design class designed the DustBuster (I don’t know if he’s still there, he was old 30 years ago, ha). But the graphic design and industrial design at CMU are even more amazing now with computers. If she’s serious, that’s one to put on the list. She’ll need a pretty good portfolio, though. Get drawing
Today we did our first Sunday Night College Chat. I had scheduled 1 hour, it took 10 minutes, lol. I had printed out the big calendar that I had emailed her and her dad, and printed out a to-do list for this week. The three of us sat down and went over it, and I asked her if she felt like she could get this done by next Sunday’s Chat, and she said definitely. I also created a College Swear Jar, as in I Swear Not To Talk About College. I have to put a dollar in it every time she catches me talking about colleges not during chat time She got a huge kick out of that. “There will be so much money in there,” according to her.
@iabooks@longwood UW Madison is now extremely hard to get into OOS in the competitive majors. MS&T is supposedly VERY good at what they do, and are actually decently affordable OOS, and also have some automatic merit. (My H frowns upon it because of the m/f ratio when he was there, but its gotten a bit better.)
@Mom2aphysicsgeek A quick clarification, Engineering programs and some of the pre-med programs at schools we’ve looked at did require you to apply directly into the engineering program so that pretty much cemented that at the app stage, although MIT doesn’t require you to declare a major until start of sophomore year but I’m not sure if that is for all degrees. The schools we visited all said that you apply into the Engineering program and can transfer out of Engineering to another college but you can’t transfer in from another college to the engineering school because the track is so specific. I should have included that nuance earlier.
@kac425 Don’t know what state you are in but we received a letter last week from Roanoke College. It’s in Virginia. I was surprised out how much $ they are giving for merit aid down to a 2.75 w/ 1080 (new SAT). I know nothing about the school and had not heard of it until the letter arrived in the mail so I have no information I can share about the school or community but want to share the merit $ they claim is available.
True what @MotherOfDragons said the Uber driver told her. They have everything (dry cleaners, salon, spa, medical care etc). They don’t want you to leave the premises. Who needs an apartment when you have your cubicle :))
@greeny8 --you are not alone!! My DS18 also just wants to be rich - no plans though to get there but he is impressed that rap stars make so much - and seem to get away with a lot of stuff. He is not yet 16 - lots of growing up to do. :>
D15 visited Roanoke College when we were visiting friends in Roanoke. The college is actually in Salem. It has an honors college, just built a new athletic facility, and treated D very well. It is a small LAC with about 2000 students. D’s stats put her at the tippy top of their student body. She applied and also applied for scholarship. She was actually awarded a very generous scholarship - a full ride! She ended up getting a similar scholarship to a school better suited to her stats, but she would have taken it to because she liked Roanoke better than out state flagship.
She’s applying to University of Durham and on the UCAS you select your college which is where you live and socialize, everyone goes to classes at the University together for the academics. So she’s researching the colleges and a couple of the older/more traditional ones have twice weekly formal dinners in their robes in medieval dining halls. DD20 got very excited, the pics pretty much look like Hogwarts. You order your robes at a shop in the village that was founded in 1834. DD 17 couldn’t decide if that was cool or dorky
Colleges we have visited and if we will apply:
Florida State-yes
University of Florida-yes
Wake Forest-no
USCarolina-yes (but it keeps dropping lower on the list)
UMD-yes
UVA-no
UKentucky-yes
Still to visit (some before applying others if accepted)
UDelaware
Tulane
USC (California)
San Diego State
Ohio State
Will probably apply to 8 or 9.
Choice of major:
DS is looking to study Accounting and double major in Russian. He was undecided a year ago but took college accounting in school this year and really loved it. He really wants to get into Intelligence and started doing his research on how best to accomplish that. He wants CIA and they like languages so he decided to do both he Accounting and Russian. He will have 2+semesters of Russian completed when he starts college. We are looking for the Big MACS but ds will not make the NMSF scores for our state so that is less secure for us than others in this group. He is also considering the military as a route into Intelligence and therefore is applying for ROTC scholarships which pay for tuition making some of the schools on his list affordable. Plan A is merit aid, Plan B is ROTC we will see what happens and which route he decides to take.
DD is also anticipating NMF (pretty safe SI), but of the Big MACs, the only one she liked was Kentucky. She is planning to major in finance. She reached that major by process of elimination. She is solid in the STEM subjects, but has no interest in pursuing science or engineering. She likes the idea of making money and/or managing other people’s money. With the way she likes to argue, I think she should consider being a lawyer.
Tour list:
Harvard (maybe)
MIT (no)
Tufts (no)
Boston U(no)
Hampshire (no)
Amherst (no)
Northeastern (maybe)
Penn (yes)
Lehigh (yes)
Princeton (no)
If they’re on the same level of house as I am, I’ll drive them nuts. Problem solved.
