I just got distracted by an email from St.Edwards University in Austin,TX. If any of you are looking for a small LAC/private in Austin,TX I’ve always heard good things about the school.
Looks like an ACT of 32 and up and top 5% would get you full tuition ($20K per year) and total cost of attendance would be pretty doable.
@carachel2 – not looking for a school in Texas, but I am curious how this school (or any school) can require a certain class ranking when 70% of the schools in the country do not rank. Or are they requiring rank b/c they are in Texas where I assume all schools must rank since the UTs use it for auto-admit?
Most schools in Texas are forced to rank their students in someway whether they like it or not, when they send a transcript to Texas schools. Some private schools may have their top 40% in the top 10% when they rank them if they don’t officially rank students.
OTOH, one public school in Houston is notorious for declaring between 20 and 30 valedictorians each year.
My issue with the Alabama app is that the “Apply to UA!” link doesn’t actually let you apply, it lets you pay for an ID that you can use to apply. Pretty much every other school is more streamlined than that, so why can’t they be?
@thermom My son also isn’t sure if he wants Engineering or not. So we are keeping options open, there are a few schools on his list that have programs and a few that don’t. It’s hard to move into Engineering if you don’t start with it right away, but other majors are more forgiving. Unfortunately for S17 while he has very good SAT Math II Subject tests, he doesn’t have the grades for any top Engineering programs. So we are being more flexible and mostly looking at large State schools and very few of them even care about the Subject test.
I was appalled by the examples that were more than 1 page and it’s certainly not just that link. Other “college application” examples were often inflated. I personally think it is not unreasonable to guide a HS senior to a one page format that is minimalistic yet not over produced. And frankly as a mom if that’s the one thing I really help with, ok with that. More than one page is overkill in most situations and better to learn that now. I would toss an internship resume in a table format. Without reading. Just saying.
@holycrayon - I doubt that International Medicine Olympiad medal carries much weight. It is a new tournament organized by an individual associated with tutoring. As you know, only few schools from CA and couple of foreign teams participated. Most likely our school won’t participate again. Ours is a national power house in Science Olympiad and Bowl. However, there is no harm in mentioning the medals.
I also felt that most high school kids doing overseas missions to pad college applications is not appropriate and adviced my DS to find local causes that have global impact. It is easy to do in healthcare. He came up with a good cause to support. Overseas missions are more appropriate for college kids not high school kids.
@dfbdfb We filled out the application and then paid. We did it on the first day that it opened, I am wondering if it has changed?
Ugh, I hope that I didn’t screw up-what if that happened with all ten schools? ugh ugh ugh. I’ll call Bama tomorrow, I’ll have D17 give me her login info so I can call them and have the info at my fingertips.
D18 is giving me crap about studying for the PSAT. This is the kid with the crap GPA, but higher test scores. She didn’t study for the SAT when she was 12 and didn’t get into Duke Tip, then got mad and studied for the ACT and made it into Duke Tip Center (the one that needed the higher test scores).
I told her there’s no second chance with the PSAT so she’d better be more self-disciplined and more mature about studying for it and be able to say she truly gave it her best shot. I got a lot of eyerolling. So frustrating. At least I was able to be really clear about it being a one shot deal so she can’t say “why didn’t you tell me” when there are few affordable options available to her next year.
She mentioned to H and I that she wanted to tour Duke next year for colleges, and H and I just stared at her for a second like, are you listening to us at all? Duke is NOT an option for you. There is nothing so obstinate as a 15 year old who thinks she knows everything. [-(
@MotherOfDragons Everytime I hear you folks mention NMF or PSAT I cringe at our complete indifference toward the test a year ago. Won’t make that mistake again.
@dfbdfb With regard to UA application, I think you might be confusing the “Application for Admission” with the “Application for Scholarships and Other Programs.” Once you have paid, you have applied - that’s it. You don’t need to do anything else if you don’t want to. All the additional applications, forms, etc are for scholarships, other programs, and honors.
No matter how accomplished your HS senior is, their resume should be no longer than ONE page. Period.
Also, we printed out son’s CA Activities page, and I’m starting to think we should tailor that to be one page in printed form also. Even if it means cutting out a few activities. I’m a believer in quality and brevity over quantity. That has to be helpful to AO’s who are looking at thousands of applications.
ETA: But of course, like everything else, I’m over-thinking it. @MotherOfDragons 
About the NMF…… is the scholarship amount only $2500? I think that’s what I remember. We never looked into it, son17 does not qualify and is nt on that level.
Not to be ignorant, but aside from being recognized as a great scholar/test taker what financial reward comes with being a NMF winner? Is it just the award you really want, as opposed to the $2500 bucks? $2500 does not go very far towards a 65k yearly tuition bill. I can see how the award must look nice on the resume.
I’m going to disagree with the one page resume. This isn’t a job resume. Every admissions officer I’ve asked about this said it can be eight pages. Exclude nothing that your child found to be a worthwhile use of their time.
There is thread on one of the other forums stating that resumes should not be uploaded unless it does not duplicate the info on the CA. I haven’t seen any school requesting a resume for applications. I know my ds did have a resume for honors interviews.
My dd has not created a resume, yet, but she has been working on her zeemee page. I think that is probably what she will upload as supplementary material. She will create a resume for interviews, for sure.
@RightCoaster a lot of schools will offer full rides or full tuition to kids who make NMF or NMSF. The actual scholarship from the national merit people is, I agree, inconsequential. But having that title makes the kids very attractive to schools, who will offer their own scholarships to them.
@rightcoaster Some schools award major scholarships for NMF, everything from full-ride to full-tuition to instate tuition waivers. It is school dependent.
Bc my dd needs a lot of scholarship $$, these schools are good options bc they are stat guaranteed most of the time and not competitive.
@itsgettingreal17 I do not believe that an 8 page resume is going to be beneficial to a student. Students need to do what they think represents them best, but if I had a child trying to create a resume longer than 1 page,my highlighter would come out to tell them they need to cut.
So expanding on the resume question-what, exactly, is the resume accomplishing that the application can’t? Like should the resume contain only the stuff that the ad coms don’t see on the application because there isn’t a spot for it? Or do they want a concise summary of everything they’ve just seen on the application?
We should probably make this topic its own thread…
All this resume talk just increased my anxiety this morning. I realized that D needs to create one very quickly before an interview this week good gravy!
At least her transcript is gorgeous :))