After reading through much of these threads, I thought I would post our plan for S18. Note that the whole family just wrapped up this exercise with S17 including 10+ college visits so we are definitely taking a different path for S18.
S18 is a relatively high stat kid with a 4.17 weighted GPA (3.94 UW) and a 1460 SAT. He plans on majoring in applied math and/or CS. He has taken 4 AP classes (Gov, US History, Bio and Lang) to this point and is taking 2 more (Calc BC and Macro) his senior year. He is adamant that he does not want to “kill himself” his senior year no
matter what I tell him about academic rigor with respect to applications. He also does not have many strong EC’s. Marching band for 2 years. Varsity swim for 1 year. NHS for 2 years. His best EC might be Eagle Scout (not yet finished but very close).
He is planning on applying to 6-9 schools and he wants to focus on high merit scholarship schools. Automatic merit are high on his list as well as those that don’t guarantee merit but it is highly probable.
We live in Colorado and he really wants to go out of state so merit is required for it to fit our budget.
His current list is:
Mississippi
Florida State
Florida
Purdue
Arizona State
Ohio State
University of Denver
Clemson
University of San Diego
We have only visited Ohio State but our plan is to do virtual tours, apply and then consider the offers before scheduling visits. He really does not want to “fall in love” with a school that either rejects him or is not affordable due to not getting merit aid. His brother had that happen to him with his #1 school and it was a rough time for a while.
Just thought I would share our plan. No visit reports from us until the spring.
@jpc763 I am certainly no expert, but a lot of the admissions folks we met with considered “interest” to include emailing them with questions. You could also see if there are any alumni he could interview with in your area. Not everyone can visit in person, so I’m sure there are some long distance ways to show interest.
D has been at McGill Summer Academy for 24 hours now. I thought I’d pass along a couple of things she’s learned.
The students are staying at New Rez, one of the hotel dorms. D is in a single. Her room is HUGE, very nicely maintained, with TV, private bath, and walk-in closet. (Closet space for those big winter coats!) We've discussed quality of McGill's facilities here recently; this particular dorm is much nicer than the one seen on the standard campus tour. You do pay for the upgrade, though.
D is hearing from the local students who have friends at both universities that there are significantly different social environments at McGill and U Toronto. It is reportedly difficult to connect with people at U of T, whereas McGill is a tighter community. I've heard this assertion before, and it makes sense, McGill being the smaller school in a smaller city.
Quick Question - Is USNews Compass worth subscribing to?? Just $29 - not a main source of info for me but I am tempted to unlock some of the rankings for the low price of $29/yr.
@jpc763: “We have only visited Ohio State but our plan is to do virtual tours, apply and then consider the offers before scheduling visits.”
This is our plan too. My S18 is looking at schools in the US and U.K. But we’ve avoided a mammoth college tour. We’ve visited a few campuses. But overall, he will see where he gets in, and then we’ll travel.
@my2caligirls I bought Compass. It’s semi-helpful, in that if you just want a quick snapshot of a school’s stats without much digging, you can go straight there. But otherwise you can mostly find the same info online these days, especially if you seek out the common data sets.
Welcome. Typically Oklahoma, Alabama, and UTD might be on a list like yours. Your son sounds almost exactly like mine. (Except mine is taking a heavy AP senior courseload, probably to his detriment)
True. Most big publics don’t care one bit about demonstrated interest for the vast majority of enrollees. They can’t. I think one area where there is value, though, is areas like the National Scholars programs. The pool is probably small enough where demonstrated interest MIGHT have some impact - certainly not on admissions decisions - but maybe on some less tangible down stream benefit. (future internship in that admissions office for example)
I’ve been MIA we had a fabulous vacation in upstate NY…I drank a lot of wine…now I’m back at work and sad ;). Beyond that my D18 is procrastinating a bit although she’s working her way through Dostoevsky and her 30 pages of Calculus :(. That’s just the tip of the iceberg…I feel for her because she’s already attended one summer program and heads off to her next over the weekend then straight to her field hockey camp for another week. I don’t see much work getting done during those two weeks…it’s giving me stress (not sure she’s acknowledging it though). We’re headed on our next to last college visit tomorrow. We thought we were done then two new schools came on the radar when she changed her major aspirations. University of Delaware is tomorrow and I cannot contain my excitement (my husband and I are both alum) and we’re meeting with the World Scholars Program director (check it out…incredible opportunity if she’s chosen). We have pushed UD for years and our kids have bristled for some reason. But suddenly she realized UD offers a unique foreign languages major allowing her to study 3 languages and still double major in either Econ or IR. Fingers and toes are crossed that she falls in love with the campus!
Welcome to all the new parents who are joining us all on this crazy year ahead.
Just realized that S18 can’t apply to colleges until he figures out his senior year course load! He’s going to drive me nuts. He has a schedule right now that completely doesn’t work (3 classes 1st block, 0 second block type thing).
Not sure if this question has been asked, or maybe I have even asked it! (haha)
What is the purpose of College Board Subject Tests? Is that primarily for selective schools? If so, we probably don’t need to bother. My daughter is already taking AP and IB exams, so I feel like she is getting plenty of testing.
Got S18’s senior schedule today: US Gov AP, Religion, P.E., Calculus AB AP, English V AP, French IV AP and Physics Honors. His teachers for US Gov, English and Calculus are generally considered the hardest in the school, two of which taught me 30 years before (and gave me two of my worst grades, LOL!).
My D is vacationing with relatives at a camp in Yosemite, so she’s not getting “squattola” done. She’s written some essays and worked on the common app, but it would nice if she had all this stuff buttoned up relatively soon. You guys are making me nervous. :))
Tomorrow her SAT2 Literature score is released. She has no WiFi, but I’ll check for her. :-SS
Literature has the lowest mean score of the subject tests at 599, but we’re still hoping for something good so we can be done with testing. If bad, then we’ll have a retake in August. :((
@crazy4info for the subject tests you’ll want to check the requirements of the schools your D is planning on applying to. Most schools don’t ask for them at all, some have them required or required for certain majors, or recommended/optional which most take to mean required.
My D isn’t taking any, none of her schools ask for them.
:-SS