Swag - D bought swag only at Bama (only received discount coupon). She received a free t-shirt everywhere else we visited.
D isn’t applying to any schools that we toured. She really liked Bama and Oklahoma State, but they don’t offer any or enough Arabic.
@2muchquan Thanks for the tOSU report. It’s one of D’s top choices and she will visit if the scholarship money looks right. Looking forward to your Pitt review. We’re going to visit that one soon.
Only real swag was a t-shirt at UChicago…more about math and science than the school; DS wears it often. Also bought headband/ear cover for myself while at Princeton because it was so flippin’ cold and windy, then promptly gave it to a student there as we headed to the parking lot to leave since it was clear DS wasn’t going to be applying. :-"
I wanted to comment on the pointy student v. well-rounded student advice from the AO. In my experience, selective schools are looking for a balanced class, and a balanced class has both pointy students and well-rounded students. The reason they want pointy students is because the pointy students will ultimately become campus leaders in their area of passion. So while being pointy will help in admissions, being well-balanced isn’t a negative.
Yale’s engineering website reads like they desire well rounded students and produce well-rounded engineers and we were thinking of framing the supplemental essay that way. Now questioning this :-/
I would not buy swag on trips, but I promised to get some if she is accepted SCEA.
In my day, it was not cool to wear swag from a school you didn’t have some affiliation with.
Re: SATII, only one school recommended it (I always read recommended as required). We sent her SATII to all schools, however, as it was just easier than choosing not to.
Well rounded vs. Spiky:
I think this mostly applies to the highly selective schools whom are reaches for almost every student out there.
I believe what’s missing from this is that the students do have to meet some minimum cut. So everyone has to be well rounded to some extent if they want a chance. IE… high GPA, good test scores, EC’s. Princeton isn’t going to take the math geek who is barely passing English. I think spiky counts more towards the EC’s & optional advance classes.
I know many kids who have been accepted at top schools. Mostly of these are well rounded kids who have a small spike. Student who do amazing things, but not of national note. I’m thinking of the student who had a passion for Model UN. Became Model UN president, but was also involved in other EC’s & activities that backed up this passion. Such as being involved in student government (at large), taking a challenging foreign language & studying abroad over the summer. AP’s focused on social studies & math and not science.
The point is these students find a passion. They choose a few EC’s and poor their energy into those. It’s something that university admissions staff can hang a label on. This is the model UN kid. Basically doing something that make them more interesting that a kid who just takes what everyone else is doing, and throws in a few random clubs or activities at random. While they love that odd Intel Science winner, National Competition winner, top Athlete. Most of their acceptances are just students who stand out in their own H.S.
I’m agree with the advice to jump off the crazy AP train. Did that with S17. But when we did that we acknowledged that was also jump off the game of trying to get into these exclusive schools. My S17 could take almost any AP on offer, but CAN NOT handle the stress & load of full honors/AP’s. (He tried freshman year.) So he’s taking honors/AP math/science and skipping the honors English/Social Studies. That leaves room for band & marching band and other EC’s. And more importantly SLEEP. Without sleep & a lower stress I might not have gotten DS though H.S at all. (Well I haven’t gotten him through yet but I’m not worried about it anymore. 
)
University of Kentucky has their scholarship info posted for incoming freshmen fall 2017.
http://www.uky.edu/financialaid/scholarship-incoming-freshmen
We visited 8 schools over a two-week period and at none of them were we funneled into the gift shop, I mean, bookstore. No swag - didn’t want to jinx any outcomes!
thanks @2muchquan for the tOSU trip report!
SAT II tests - as it turns out, D17 took them and probably won’t “need” them. But she did well enough that submitting them optionally might help her application.
@saillakeerie I thought I remembered there was some dispute leading to the ‘The’. Someone should tell them that it really sounds pompous, and kids today don’t care about the dispute. 
D17 did definitely comment on it, but it’s not a deal-breaker. 
Sorry on the % OOS, the guy who mentioned the higher number was not in admissions. He was a prof answering a question as to why he felt so many kids in the program were from Ohio, and do they favor Ohio kids. He offered that (the large % of Ohio kids) as the reason. I should have checked his #s!
tOSU has also updated scholarships (can’t remember if I posted this already).
UGA as well.
My question is what is the allowance for room and board? We have to look at TOTAL out of pocket cost.
The Otis A. Singletary Scholarship
Four-year awards providing the cost of tuition and an allowance for room and board. Requires a minimum test score of 33 ACT or 1490 SAT* (M+EBRW) and a minimum unweighted GPA of 3.80 on a 4.0 scale.
@Tgirlfriend It covers minimum room and board if living on campus, i.e., the amount of honors level housing and the basic meal plan
@itsgettingreal17 Any OSU scholarship requirement changes that really jumped out to you? Looks like Buckeye amount increased a bit (due to tuition increase) and stats when up a notch…and they added a % rank stipulation. Maximus went down a tad. Any other changes jump out at you…I haven’t looked at the rest closely.
Swag.
Pretty common around here for HS kids to wear a variety of college stuff to school. If S asks to buy, to me, it’s a demonstration of interest in his part that is helpful for me to see. It’s always a hat. He has two. He does have one free tee that he’s worn…once. And honestly I was shocked to see him wear it, I can’t tell if it’s interest or not but do know that school is still on the list.
We all bought Willamette t’s and sweatshirts when we toured, but I went there and both D’s genuinely liked the school, even if they don’t end up applying/attending. Other than that, no purchases yet.
Sleep- whoo boy. My kid turns psycho on less than 8 hours several days in a row. Since morning swim in the spring means 5 am rising time, she goes to bed at 9. This means she does a lot of writing and homework on the weekends and plans in advance to not have too much on any one school night. If a big project is due Thursday, she has it done on Sunday. Little sister- she’s still working on it midnight the night before
@Ynotgo – We bought the MIT/Caltech mug too. And a t-shirt at Caltech. Bought swag at Stanford, MIT & Rice. We need SATIIs - math level 2 (done) & science–> physics - taking in Oct.
To All — Thanks for all the campus visit reports & the report bout the AO indicating no need to load up on every AP or be so “well-rounded”- that one we had heard - show passion & involvement in ECs in areas of interest. Gotta write good essays! A bit worried about any required/highly recommended interviews - DS not always so conversational or effusive with positive observations - will need practice!
Agreed. It’s less of a ‘spike’ and more of a ‘bump’ or ‘cyst’ or ‘wart’ that just takes them to another level in a specific area. I don’t agree that all kids with a ‘spike’ had to be well rounded first. I see lots of kids who are not well rounded, but excel (or play) in a very specific area. Now that’s what I consider a ‘spike’. Assuming adcoms are looking for those specifics (except for athletes) seems like playing the lottery. Someone’s gotta win.
Tomorrow I’m flying out to Denver to visit my sister and her family for a couple days before attending the closing ceremonies at DS’ summer program. Really looking forward to seeing him again. hearing more about the program, and having him back home! 
I suppose he and the other kids are kind of disappointed that it will be over soon. DC21 is really looking forward to having him back; he’s been really lonely despite various day camps.
I expect I’ll be a mess around September next year. This summer I could at least tell myself it was only 6 weeks.
Hi all!
My daughter posted a couple weeks back looking for schools that we can afford outside of our state school. She created a list of schools where the NPC is less than our flagship and brought it to me. Since then I have been spending a lot of time on this site. I read the first couple pages of this thread (back from 2013!l) and then jumped forward and worked through the posts from about the last 3 months.
I have created a crazy spreadsheet that my D refuses to look at She is smart, kind, and funny. However she is thoroughly enjoying being a kid and isn’t ready to take on real adult responsibilities until she has too. She is just this summer learning to drive and got her first job 2 weeks ago. And while the Timeline tab in my spreadsheet has her working on essays and the common app this summer…I doubt she has even looked at them and school starts back Aug 9th!
I’m trying not to stress too much and keep telling myself I need to fall in love with a safety school too. A bunch of the schools are on her list are 100% need met schools (because we need it) And while her stats are pretty good (4.3weighted gap and 30 act) the schools are just so selective. She is however motivated enough (right now at least) to study for the Sept act in hopes to get a couple point bump.
Right now Wake Forest and Richmond are at the top of her list…but she will not be able to visit unless she gets admitted because they are too far away.
Up until a couple of weeks ago I had no idea this is what college admissions was like nowadays. I feel like I’m gonna be so much smarted with the next two kids.
@itsgettingreal17 Absolutely, being well rounded isn’t a negative. The point the AO was trying to make is that being the pointy student isn’t a negative either. Kids have been hearing for years that everyone needs to be well-rounded to get into a good school. In their experience, in the quest for being “well-rounded”, kids are trying to be the perfect student, athlete, have tons of community service hours, play an instrument and taking foreign language courses for, in some cases, no purpose but to fit the mold of the well-rounded student. AO now starts to read apps in November through March and they all look the same. How do they pick? They most likely are intrigued by the app that looks in some way different.
@curiositycat333 “I believe what’s missing from this is that the students do have to meet some minimum cut. So everyone has to be well rounded to some extent if they want a chance. IE… high GPA, good test scores, EC’s. Princeton isn’t going to take the math geek who is barely passing English.” Your point really goes more to the safety/ target/ reach issue for me. A kid who is barely passing English probably has other academic issues than just not passing English and then should be considering whether Princeton is a fit for them in the first place. The point wasn’t that kids who are an academic reach should start applying to highly selective schools and they will suddenly be accepted by the masses. The point was the kids are going to have to do their best to reflect their personality in their essays because the applicants have similar GPAs, APs, EC so the place they can distinguish themselves is in the essay.
Almost forgot to answer QOTD: No swag given and none purchased. @2muchquan, we did the info session but skipped the UNC-CH tour but I would imagine you are right and they did end it at the school store. They stapled a 20% coupon to the map they handed out