@whataboutcollege Are you going to visit Lafayette also? Both Lehigh and Lafayette are on D’s list. I think she is leaning towards applying to Lafayette over Lehigh but we haven’t visited either (and won’t unless she gets accepted)
I am not sure about merit - they are both on our list because they both meet 100% full demonstrated need.
@CA1543 – one can apply EA to MIT and ED just about anywhere else (except for Penn’s new ‘restrictive’ ED rule), but if she is accepted to her ED school, she will have to turn down MIT.
I LOVE MIT’s wording on their website about their policy. Very refreshing.
The SCEA schools will not allow her to apply to a private university’s EA (so U Chicago, MIT) but can apply to public universities’ EA programs.
I have a completely silly reason for not recommending Lehigh to D17-a girl who was super mean to me in high school went there. Yeah, it’s completely irrational. Luckily, there are other colleges out there 
(to be fair, it didn’t tick her box of “close or in a good city” either).
@stlarenas We planned for Lehigh because its engineering is very well known. I didn’t think about Lafayette since I am less familiar with it. The only difference I know about the 2 schools is one is hilly one is flat :). D said one of her friends really likes Lafayette, so I think she doesn’t want to compete with her friend either. I will ask her that we go tour both and see what she says 
. I never took notes for tours before, D does on her secret little college-stuff notebook. If anyone like a tour report for Lehigh, I will try my best…
@whataboutcollege I am pretty sure Lafayette offers engineering too. My D is undecided but a STEM kid so we are taking note of schools with eng. programs. I would love a tour report of both if you end of going. No need to take notes for me though - first impressions are fine
@curiositycat333 - Like everything else in life there are some abuses with research papers, science fair projects (and essays). I also have seen parents doing robotics projects or programming. These things are not avoidable. Colleges claim they can figure it out, but I don’t think it is that easy. My take is most of those kids may not go far in the life with manipulated admissions. My DS joined research with no expectation of his name being on the research paper but he proved himself to the professors. First one he got through connections but professor told him upfront that not to expect his name on the research paper but was impressed with his work (data analysis) and included his name.
Lafayette has a very solid engineering program. The school has a different feel than Lehigh. Yes, flat, very pretty, and extremely friendly students! (Not saying they were not friendly at Lehigh, but overwhelmingly so at Laf.)
Laf has a preppy element. Lehigh is a university and offers a 5th year free to anyone with a 3.7 GPA, so option to stay for Masters in Accounting or Engineering, IIRC. I really liked Laf. They offer Marquis Scholarship. Do not recall details but just search, if interested.
They are only 25 minutes apart and the info session/tour times allow visiting both in one day. Both suggest interviews (even though Lehigh did not say this on their website, they did say it during info session). Would be impossible to cover info session, tour & interview at both in one day, I think.
D17 toured Lehigh over the summer. Her biggest takeaway was that her legs would be in really good shape if she were to attend. The campus is very “hilly”. That being said, it is still on the list. They do offer merit scholarships, ranging from $12,000/yr to half tuition to full tuition. Not sure how many of those are given out. 3.0 required to maintain scholarship. NMF receive $1,000 to $2,000 from the university, though it is not clear if this is a one time award, or all 4 years. Looks like no additional essays required for merit scholarships. Only additional applications seem to be for music/theater/chorus/marching band scholarships.
Have a question for parents with kids who don’t know what they want to do. S17 was sure he wanted to do engineering until a few weeks ago. Now he is unsure what he wants to major in or what he would be good in. The problem we are now having is our college list was based on his engineering focus. Now he is deciding between metallurgical engineering, cognitive science and computer science with focus on AI or game design. We are in search of merit aid(except for in state TX schools which we could afford). Schools that are good in one area are not necessarily good in the others. So Alabama is # 1 for engineering and could make it work for the other areas although not ideal. But schools that are good in his other choices don’t have metallurgical engineering(ugh) so having trouble coming up with a new list. And he feels like he won’t know what he wants to do before actually taking classes in college so is completely unsure what he wants to do. Alabama is still on his list and will probably be where he goes(Presidential) but any suggestions on how to cull our list with uncertain majors would be great. Sorry this is so long winded.
DD has been doing research for the past 4 years and attended conferences and international competitions. We see all types of students as mentioned above. I would say at national/international level competitions such as ISEF, the judges are really good at determining what portion of research came from the student. So even if the student got to the lab initially from family connections, he/she will still have to contribute significantly.
Publishing paper is really difficult. Some kids got lucky and were included on the paper with just one summer/year lab involvement. After all these years, DD still does not have a paper. She is starting to work on it and it won’t publish before she graduate high school.
@pokerqueen I would say look for schools that have both good CS and good cognitive science, since I think those might be more common than metallurgical engineering? Unless he’s got a really strong pull towards that particular major, I think it might make your search really tough to find a school with all 3.
@4beardolls wrote
I agree; if the parents get him an in and he’s playing Pokemon Go! in the lab, then nothing will come of it. My point was more along the lines of having connections is a really, really good thing because it creates opportunities. What your kid does with the opportunity is up to them, as is evidenced by your kid doing such a great job when the opportunity presented itself. I’m a big fan of using every connection and opportunity morally and ethically available to you if you kid will benefit and learn from it.
@CT1417 – oh sorry if I misspoke - it is bc if accepted ED or REA elsewhere he’d have to turn down MIT that means ED apps highly unlikely except if needed/helpful after getting turned down from MIT in Dec. maybe he’d do some ED2 if dates were to work out. Even though MIT is a long shot - not ready to take an action that could make him decline should somehow he get accepted – make sense?
@pokerqueen Our primary goal was to get D16 to a school she was willing to attend and that we could afford.
During application season, she had an intended major. Not all of the schools on her final short list had this major, and she reshuffled those to the bottom of her preference list.
After HS graduation, and the dust had settled, she abruptly announced a change in her intended major. We support the decision and her reasoning behind it. Who knows, maybe she’ll change again. And again! That’s the norm, isn’t it?
We had a mix of schools on our short list, with affordability + acceptance chances + “is there opportunity here?” as the driving factors. Each school would have brought her a different adventure. If your DS is not sure, and really, who is at that age, mix it up. It’ll be okay.
@srk2017, that’s so wonderful that the professor was impressed by your S and willing to include him in paper.
I chuckled reading that, in the beginning, the professor told your S to not expect a paper. I think labs know what many high schoolers are hoping for. I remember my DS14 had to pass the ‘test’ when he first interviewed with a lab. After the interview, the professor told him to follow up and propose a research question/topic for the lab. The professor was really using it to screen out serious high school applicants as many kids will drop it at that point. My son proposed 3 research questions and was given the opportunity to research there.
@snoozn: I look forward to hearing about the response from CU-Denver. 
High school kids and research: It totally depends on the field. Like I tell my (college) students, my field (linguistics) is young enough in its modern form that it’s easily possible for sufficiently motivated sophomores, at least, to be doing original research. Something where there’s a deeper, historically longer knowledge base (like, say, theoretical physics or literary criticism)? Not so much.
There are also the occasional exceptional high school students. In my over-fifteen years of college teaching, easily two of the ten best students I’ve ever taught in my intro classes were high school students—one was homeschooled, the other was a dual-enrollment student, but both were incredibly motivated and, let’s be honest, simply naturally brilliant. I would have taken either of them into a research project I was running in a heartbeat, and if they did part of the analysis, then sure, co-authorship is totally appropriate.
Why are we starting so early? In my daughter’s case, it’s the chase after merit money. Yeah, there are other benefits like being able to get stuff out of the way without a sudden last-second rush, but really, it’s nearly entirely having a better chance at merit money, full stop.
JOTD: “I’ve just had horrible luck”, said the student. “First I got angina pectoris, then arteriosclerosis. Just as I was recovering, I got psoriasis. They gave me hypodermics, and to top it all, tonsillitis was followed by appendectomy.” “Wow! How did you pull through?” asked her friend. “I don’t know”, she replied. “Toughest spelling test I ever had.”
@4beardolls - Thanks for the compliment. My S had to go through same process as your S to get his current research opportunity, He applied to bunch of labs after getting state level medals in Science Olympiad and he got calls from two labs. One asked him to email all the programs he has written before and scrutinized his code. For the other one he was called for interview and then was asked to spend week or two researching on his own on one protein (they didn’t say which one) and was asked to do 10 min power point presentation. He was told that his presentation was better than lot of undergrads. IT all comes down to level of effort kids are willing to put.
@pokerqueen Check out Case Western Reserve, which offers both cognitive science and engineering of various kinds. One of the pluses is that once you’re admitted, you can switch between schools relatively easily. So if he decides definitively on engineering at a later date, there won’t be barriers to entry. CWRU also offers decent merit scholarships.
Wash U St. Louis also allows transfers among its colleges but admission is increasingly more competitive, merit awards even more so. A reach for most applicants.
It might be beneficial for him to apply directly to engineering programs as an incoming freshman, if that’s still under consideration, because it’s easier to transfer out to A&S then to transfer into an impacted major, as many engineering programs now are oversubscribed.
Thanks @Midwest 67. Will put a mix of schools on our list and then see what happens. Affordability and fit are top of drivers of our list right now. Merit aid at most schools is a must which leaves out many of the “lottery schools” like Penn which would offer him most of his majors but even if admitted(very long shot) we couldn’t afford.
Ups and downs over here. D17 got some fantastic feedback from her college admissions writing instructor at Smith about her CA essay last night (he’d offered to review drafts for kids who participated in the program). He said it was “stellar” and 95 percent done. Which-- YAY! But then I read it for the first time and thought it was just pretty good. I can see room for improvement. But what do I know? I am pondering whether to keep my mouth shut or gently suggest a bit more work on it. Either way it’s huge progress for us, since she hadn’t even started it a couple of weeks ago.
I was distressed last night to figure out that Agnes Scott specifically mentions that people who apply EA1 or EA2 (non-binding) are “eligible for merit aid” whereas “merit aid may not be available” during regular admissions. We’re planning on applying at Stanford under their SCEA (single choice early action) program, which specifically prohibits applying ED or EA to any other private college. So…blergh. But there is a possible loophole. The Stanford site lists as an exception:
“The student may apply to any college/university with early deadlines for scholarships or special academic programs as long as the decision is non-binding.” I guess I will have to ask for clarification about whether the wording on the Agnes Scott site qualifies as an early deadline.
@mamadefamilia we just added Case Western last night to the list. The oversubscribed thing is definitely an issue especially here in texas. Right now looking at UT Dallas and Case Western and possibly UT Austin. We know S17 is in top 10% but don’t know yet if he is in top 7 % for auto admission. Computer Science is so competitive at UT Austin that not sure S17 would even apply if he is not top 7% because his extracurriculars are weak even though his GPA and SAT’s are strong.