Also,
** Which Colleges Superscore the ACT? **
http://www.princetonreview.com/college-advice/colleges-superscore-act
** Questions to ask College Admission Representatives **
*** College Fit (or things I may not find on the website…) ***
• If you went to this school, or know someone who did, what was a favorite class?
• Tell me about a fun tradition at your school…
• If you picked three adjectives to best describe your school, what would they be?
• How diverse is the student body?
• Would you say your school is more collaborative or competitive? What’s an example?
• What counseling or support services are available?
• If you could change something about this school, what would you change and why?
• What is the town like?
• What is the most interesting/fun thing off campus for students to enjoy?
• If I were to graduate from your school, what would I remember the most?
• What is the average freshman class size and the gender ratio?
• Are there programs for students with learning disabilities? …other special needs?
• Does the college provide study abroad or internship opportunities?
*** Academics ***
• How seriously do students take studying at your school?
• What are the most popular majors your school offers? Which majors are most unique?
• How many hours of study are required each week on the average?
• How does a student get an academic advisor?
• What tutorial assistance is available to all students?
• Does the college have an honors program and how does a student become involved?
• What type of AP credit is given and how is it determined?
*** Campus Life ***
• How much importance is placed on athletics, social activities and other extracurriculars?
• What are the dorms like and how are freshmen assigned to a dorm?
• How are roommates selected and can changes be made mid-year?
• How does the cafeteria system work and is the food good?
• Are religious groups are represented on campus?
• How comfortable are members of minority groups with the campus and the community?
• Is there a Greek system? What is it like?
• Are freshman permitted to live off campus? Have cars?
• How can a student participate in sports? What time commitment must an athlete make?
• What is campus life like on weekends?
*** Financial Issues ***
• What types of financial aid do students get for the most part?
• Is there anything tricky about the financial aid process that I need to remember?
• Is there a job placement and career development center? Are graduates placed successfully?
No spreadsheet here!
Re senior trips, none of those either. DS does have a band trip, however, and this is the year of the big trip (happens every four years). They will be going to, and playing at, Disney. He’s excited, but they will be taking a bus and the drive is long and overnight.
@ Dolemite
Do you think you can repost that link. I’ve been looking for it but haven’t found it yet. Thanks.
Thanks essay writing nightmares for s 17. Hopefully, this will help some.
Re: Questions to ask College Admission Representatives
I think questions like “How seriously do students take studying at your school?” will come across as superficial or insulting and should be avoided like the plague.
Whatever you do, don’t go into a meeting with a college rep with a generic list of questions. Pick a few that are relevant to you AND relevant to the school. Frame the questions in your own words and with your own experience. So “How can a student participate in sports? What time commitment must an athlete make?” could be asked as “I gave up playing basketball last year because I wanted to focus on academics, but I love it and see it’s offered as a club sport at XYZ College. Do you know how many hours a week students spend on it?”
There was a girl at my son’s high school last year who attended Admissions Rep visits for many of the same schools my son was interested in. He said it was painfully obvious that she had been “given a list of questions by her mother”.
Superscoring question - Do you think there is any school out there that cares about a superscore that only improves your ACT composite by a fraction?
In addition to @nw2this comment above - don’t you think that superscoring is all relative anyway. It just means all the applicants have a slightly higher ACT score right?
@nw2this I think there are schools that primarily look at the highest Math and English subscores. So, if the slightly higher superscore is because of higher scores in either of those, it could be important.
@nw2this –
Superscoring question - Do you think there is any school out there that cares about a superscore that only improves your ACT composite by a fraction?
Neither of my boys took the ACT so my knowledge is limited to what I read on this site, but I thought that a 1/4 pt bump could result in a one point composite bump. For instance, a single sitting 32 that was really a 32.25 could benefit if only one of the four subsection scores increased by one point as that would bring the 32 to a 32.5 which would be rounded up to a 33 composite. Or is that not how ACT superscoring works? SAT superscoring is more straightforward as nothing is rounded up or down.
@CT1417 I think @nw2this is asking what if the superscore only improves the composite from 32.0 to 32.25.
Senior trip: DS17’ high school engineering program has a fall trip to San Francisco that includes the Exploratorium, some other museums, and tech companies. Their spring trip is to the Bay Area Maker Faire. The high school as a whole doesn’t have any sort of fancy trip, but it is a large public with 50% low income kids.
S and many of his friends are upset with the engineering program about some recent changes they’ve made to the senior project. These changes are in addition to cancelling the robotics team last year, which prompted last year’s seniors, DS, and others to speak in protest at the school board, send letters, etc (all unsuccessfully). Last I heard, most of the kids plan a “make the best of it” approach this time, and are resigned to the changes.
I agree with @otterma - Prospective students should never ask generic questions that make it seem as though they just have a playlist. They also shouldn’t ask questions in a manner that makes it sound like they are interviewing the admissions rep/alum for a job; If I were an interviewer, I would be put of by a question like “What are 3 adjectives you would use to describe your school?”
@Ynotgo Why did they cancel the robotics team? Not enough interest? Lack of funding? Our son has found a 2nd home at the robotics club.
No senior trips here. Well except the official senior skip day trip to 9-Flags Park. And we just found out that in March, the AP Physics class will be also be going to 9-Flags to study the rollercoasters. 
But the band puts on a spring break trip every other year, this is the year and we are still debating if we will send him on this one. But the teacher hasn’t talked out it yet so i don’t know how expensive it is. He went on the band trip sophomore year, and a school trip this past summer but that was only 20 kids.
@youcee I can’t go into too much detail about the robotics team, because it was a fairly identifiable team in the FRC world and a fairly identifiable engineering program. The director of the program decided to take things in a more mechatronics/maker direction. We miss the team now that DS is a senior and could have participated (senior only team). A couple of smaller robotics teams (FRC and FTC) have sprung up to take its place, but with fewer resources.
School support for application essays: We have one of those schools where 60% say they are going to 2-year college or “other” and many of the rest go to CalStates, which don’t require any essays. So having everyone do essays wouldn’t make sense for us.
Pet peeve warning: But, I’d sure like it if they’d teach kids to write personal narratives again at school. And an intro to technical writing. Almost all of DS’ assigned writing for the past 3 years has been analysis of the author’s intent and rhetorical strategies. That’s part of Common Core, but when kids get to college and jobs, they need to write a lot more than literary analysis. Even a literature professor has to write syllabi and departmental memos, for heavens’ sake.
They give the assignments different names: analysis, synthesis, response to poetry, critique, etc. But when you read the assignment, it’s really all literary analysis. Sigh. >:P
@Ynotgo Sorry to hear about your school canceling it’s Robotics team.
My son’s been involved in a Robotics ‘club’ since freshman year. I call it a club vs. a team since it’s entirely student run and while the competed his sophmore year, they didn’t last year. And the claim is they will again this year… BUT repeating I’t’s entirely student run and the schools gives virtually no support except a ‘advisor’ who lets them use his room. When they compete it’s against schools who poor a lot of money into the program. Additionally last year a new Engineering teacher, took it upon himself to start a separate and competing activity instead of working with these kids. I stay out of it. It’s honestly mostly a social club for him anyway.
@Ynotgo - Sorry to hear about FRC team shutdown. FIRST became time consuming and more and more kids/coaches are having issues with how it’s run.
Catching up on a few things from earlier:
Thanks to those who weighed in on my weird question. We decided to use DC21’s preferred name.
@pokerqueen Does it have to be called “metallurgical engineering”? Might the same thing be called “materials engineering” or “material science” at other colleges where there is a strength in the metals end of things? Someone on here is in materials, but I can’t recall who…
@CA1543 How’s the wisdom tooth extraction recovery coming along? Hope it is going well and is uncomplicated.
When you superscore the ACT the composite score is rounded to the nearest whole number. If your avg only increases by a fraction (say from a 32 to a 32 1/4) the score will not change and the composite is still 32. You only increase by a whole point if your average increases by at least 0.5. http://blog.prepscholar.com/how-to-calculate-your-act-composite-score-with-strategies