Vandy is expensive, super competitive, and doesn’t offer the major (Aerospace Engineering) that my son is interested in, but it was a fairly well done presentation. 8-|
To give some idea of cost with Vandy, the COA is about $67,000. The median need-based awards to first year students in 2015/16 was:
Income range/Median Award
$0-39,999/$63,014
$40,000-59,000/$61,786
$60,000-79,999/$56,862
$80,000-99,999/$53,029
$100,000-119,999/$49,259
$120,000-139,999/$44,976
…
$180,000-199,999/$22,953
Aid is about 3% work-study, 97% grants, no loans. Only about 2% of admitted students get one of the 3 signature merit scholarships;
On Vandy’s test scores:
ACT Middle 50%: 32-35
SAT CR Middle 50%: 710-790
SAT Math Middle 50%: 720-800
(SAT scores from pre-March 2016 test).
Don’t everyone rush out and apply at the same time!!! @-)
@2muchquan, no in Germany we get to drink earlier but not drive. Probably a good thing. Plus there is a good public transportation network in most areas. Driving in cities and on the Autobahn is not for the faint of heart. And on country roads you can count on someone passing you, no matter how fast you go.
@nw2this Interesting following up to your thread on engineering/economics. Last week we attended a few admission sessions at Georgia Tech. The engineering session was lead by a senior ISyE (Industrial and Systems engineering) major who was planning on earning his minor in economics (requires 5 or 6 classes, which can not count toward the ISyE degree), and a certificate in Finance (requires 4 classes). Minors appear on your degree, while certificates appear on your transcripts.
He’s focus was “Economic and Financial Systems” and he seemed pretty happy with his choice.
Yeah, car insurance is crazy expensive. I’m looking forward to having both of them in college so the cost will go down (wrt car insurance!)
Been thinking more about Vanderbilt, and I’m trying to be cognizant of other schools protecting their yield. Right now we only have one “elite”-type school on her list. The rest are solid and some are somewhat hard to get into (esp the honors college) but not really “fancy”. I’m worried that if I put a “fancy” college on the list if the other schools find out Vanderbilt is on it they may think that’s our favorite.
Of course, I’m only having this conversation on here because I don’t want to put more money in the swear jar. I’m leaning towards “no” for Vanderbilt because if I put that on the list, why not RIce? Why not Swarthmore? Then we go all the way back around to looking at the NPC’s for those “fancy” ones and wanting to cry and saying oh hell no.
Unwritten rules: @Dave_N talking about the Vanderbilt rep giving internally contradictory advice on LORs reminds me of a story I’ve told on CC before: When we went to Penn’s info session we were told that Penn doesn’t track campus visits as a measure of interest, because not everyone has the means to visit campus; this matches what was stated on their website. However, shortly thereafter we were all told to play up the fact that we’d visited campus and what was memorable about it for the “Why Penn?” essay, because the admissions officers love to see that there’s that sort of reaction to the campus tour.
If I wasn’t cynical before, I certainly was after that.
Guidance counselors: We just got an email about our new guidance counselor…'s change of last name. (And cue the immediate sigh of relief.)
AP courses and rigor: The problem is that there is a point of diminishing returns—once you reach a certain number of AP courses (and yeah, I suspect 6 would do it), the increase in rigor for the overall schedule added by each additional AP course is going to be marginal at best. (Important caveat: As a college professor, I’m skeptical about the consistency of rigor in AP courses across the system—I really do believe that the spread of them has diluted their worth.)
Drivers license and learners permit ages: In Alaska you have to wait until 16 to get your license (like most other places in the States), though you have to either have already had a learners for 6 months or have turned 18—but you can get your learners on your 14th birthday.
Car insurance: I looked at the numbers, and our daughter getting her license didn’t double our premiums, or triple them, but increased them 330%—and that includes good student and drivers ed discounts. This is, I suppose, what to expect when a household with a perfectly clean (no accidents or tickets, ever) driving record adds a teenager, but still, that’s crazy.
Wait @Gator88NE…if I wasn’t such a math whiz, I might think that 25% of the incoming ACT-taking class at Vandy scored a 36C! Damn! So, even if it’s only 4% that get a 36, those with, say, 34s aren’t getting squat in the form of a tippy-top scholarship, unless they’re pointy as hell.
We have State Farm and have two cars insured plus life, homeowner’s insurance with them. When D was added our premium doubled with good student and Steer Clear discount. Since she is more than 100 miles from home at college (and not bringing car) it is a bit more than the old premium now.
@srk2017 I read in another thread here that Vandy is not a good choice for premed because of grade deflation and I think they don’t accept many of their own students to the med school?
@srk2017 Is S17 considering any of the auto-admit BS/MD programs? There are a number of them, some with merit (like Univ. of Rochester, Univ. of Toledo, Drexel, Baylor, Boston U), as well as non-merit possibilities like Northwestern and Brown. Some programs have provisional acceptance to medical school, while others are guaranteed. Most are 8 year programs, but some are 7.
This article got me. I was so perplexed I read it twice and was close to crossing it off the list because lunacy came to my mind. I checked other cc threads and saw that kids were admitted so this just added to my confusion. After going back to read the article for a 3rd time, I noticed the date. Interesting sense of humor.
Son17 got permit @ 16, then had to do a bunch of driving with parents, driving school, and got licence @ 16 1/2.
He can only drive himself and brother for first 6 months, no friends, that’s a law. He drives to school and around town, but I don’t let him drive to Boston. Highways are totally scary around here, maniacs everywhere!
Son17 wouldn’t get into Vandy , and I don’t think he’d fit in there. Seems too preppy and frat guy for him. Also too hot, and no snowboarding. Not going to work.
@2muchquan good idea listing class schedule on resume, going to borrow that.
Deep from the mists of thread-time (one week ago, before vacation), I emerge to answer old QOTD’s. I loved reading all the varied answers.
I’ll just combine the “visited” and “safety/match/reach” questions. The NPC’s are pre-latest SAT, in which she raised Reading by 30 points, but I’m too lazy to re-calculate yet.
Visited (mostly in order)
CU-Boulder (yes - admit/afford safety. Hanging on the the tail end)
CO State U (yes - admit/afford safety. If I may paraphrase Farmer Hoggett: “It’ll do pig, it’ll do.”)
Oregon Tech (no)
Clarkson (yes - match and affordable NPC)
Rennselaer (yes at time, but fell off due to reachy + NPC)
WPI (yes - matchy/reachy but NPC tells a sad story)
Union College (no)
Smith (yes – #1 for D and I think a match, but NPC says most likely not)
BU (no)
Northeastern (D loved, but fell off list due to reach + NPC)
RIT (yes - D’s #2 and my #1, NPC doesn’t show merit, but safety and a good chance of being affordable)
URoch (yes, reach, haven’t run NPC but my expectations are not high)
U of Vermont (yes - safety and NPC is higher than I like but still affordable.)
D loves visiting and we hope to visit Western Washington University and Gonzaga on a cross-WA long weekend trip this October. She has high interest in both schools and WWU is an admit/afford safety, while Gonzaga is a safety with a pretty nice looking NPC. We may visit VA Tech if we see my family in VA. She’d love to visit Case (not happening) and U Calgary (because Canada! – not happening).
Depending on how things wash out, she’ll almost certainly want to do some accepted student visits.
I’ll be back later when I’ve caught up to the present day and write a review about UVM visit.
re: driving
S procrastinated getting his permit. Then procrastinated practicing. Permit has expired. He’s procrastinating getting it renewed. This semester will be interesting as I am in school FT, which is going to cause him some outages in chauffeur service. He turns 18 next month. (H & I are enjoying our inexpensive car insurance while it lasts.)
Sorry I ruffled some feathers re: paid summer programs. No offense intended. Big group hug!
Just speaking from my own personal experience and from talking to adcoms, including several friends that are in admissions at elite schools. Generally speaking, if a student has the stats to make the first-cut, adcoms want to see something that makes the student stand out and they particularly like kids that think outside of the box with respect to extra-currics and how they spend their summers. So all things being equal, the expensive summer program represents the easy choice for those that can afford it, which is why I said if a highly selective school is the goal, I don’t recommend putting it down. Personally, I think summer programs are beneficial and better than sitting on the couch. They were great for my D. I was interested in Duke TIP/CTY programs for D (which she qualified for) but they never worked with her schedule. But we are also not applying to any selective schools. Had D wanted a highly selective school, we would have had a whole different strategy from 8th grade on in several respects. It’s all a game.
I’m not sure what MOD meant about schools “finding out” about other schools (I’ve heard about crazy talk with FAFSA), but got me thinking about interviews and how your DC will answer the question: What other schools are you looking at?
D17 got this for the first time this past weekend. Was honest, but kept the list short. We should probably have a rehearsed answer for next time. Or not. Thoughts?
@mommdc - Thanks for the info on Vandy grade deflation. I will research further. With MD associations getting tougher every year, grade deflation will be a big factor.
@LoveTheBard - Yes, DS will be applying to few BS/MD programs including some with merit possibilities. With all the supplementals it is going to be lot of writing for DS
