@amominaz
Did you switch from a district school to a private or charter school?
One thing? ACT/SAT. GPA is meaningless–no clue about grade inflation etc.
2 for me would be essay. Yes they are terrible and annoying, but I need to humanize this a bit. I think I would want to "craft a class" as they say.
I did actually sit on med school admissions committee and review applications. Scores score scores
For me, if it’s one thing, then test scores. But my secondary consideration would be extracurriculars (yes, they can be exaggerated, but generally I think it’s a good overview of time management, “passion”, etc). Third would be GPA, considered with the course list, and fourth would be essays (keeping in mind that some brilliant people are not necessarily beautifully expressive writers.) Letters of rec are much further down my list.
So let’s talk majors. D18 is going to double major is Chemical Engineering and Astrophysics. She is going to go to a college that requires Co-op jobs every other semester starting I think sophomore year so they help you get work experience so I think she will be okay getting a job. But D16 is getting Electrical Engineeting degree at a school without a co-op program and is today at an intern fair trying to get a summer intern job where she is finding out they are pretty much ONLY interested in CS (computer science) degrees. EE has a huge overlap with CE (computer engineering) so she had been thinking about adding a 2nd/double major to her EE degree and since she had 68 credits when she started and a full scholarship she thinks she can add CE and still do EE and CE together and graduate in 4 years with both degrees. But I’m curious about this job fair that ALL of the companies are super interested in CS degrees and not MEs or EEs or even BMENs! She’s at UTD which is heavily tech driven but I wonder if a majority of the jobs everywhere now are CS or if this is just at her school. I thought ALL engineering degrees would be sought after! I don’t want either D18 to think Chemical Engineeting/Astrophysics double majors or D16 to think Electrical/Computer Engineering double majors are bad majors and they will not end up with a job after all their hard work! But are all the jobs now in CS?
Why not a Masters in CE ? UTD has a “Fast Track” program that allowes students to earn a certain amount of credit to count toward boths undergrad and grad requirements. He scholarship should cover grad school classes. I asked, both National Merit and AES are 8 semesters and can be used for graduate school.
What is AES? She’s on the national merit scholarship. I’ve heard of the fast track program at UTD and suggested she look into that. She is currently EE. She just looked at CE and it appears it would only take about 24 credits to add CE to EE and she could definitely add that and still get that done, too in 4 years. After this job fair today she decided to add CE because she was completely frustrated that no one even wanted to talk to her at the job fair. I told her it’s just one job fair and she is in a honors research program this year and she’s only a sophomore and does intend to get at least a masters and maybe even a phd. She has a 4.0 so far (through freshman year) so she could handle the fast track program I’m sure. She was just concerned whether any masters courses she took would transfer if she got her masters somewhere other than UTD. She still has hopes of getting her masters at MIT, which was her dream for undergrad, but way too pricey. I told her why owe money coming out of your undergrad, get your bachelors for free, see where that takes you, take one step at a time…and UTD has been fantastic for her, she has reached out and gotten so many opportunities, research as a freshman in a plasma lab, yearlong honors research as a sophomore, but now we need help getting an internship!!
@DavidPuddy …from that list? I guess essay.
But honestly, I’d choose based on #, type and commitment level in extracurriculars. Yep, I am that far in left field. I think if you can demonstrate a level of commitment and passion to something you love, you are likely to be successful at anything you put your heart into.
Dissenting opinion - I think standardized test scores are well, standardized. They can be studied for to achieve a better grade. They are not a reflection of how you will perform in a given setting or environment where you have to deal with the quality of the teacher, adjust to the varying demands of the course, interact with fellow students and juggle your outside the classroom commitments and still maintain a decent grade or mastery of the material. I feel grades and gpa are a reflection of real life, even if they are slightly inflated (which I do not think happens as much as we might feel that it does).
She can gt a second masters at MIT or maybe a PHD?
Re: Majors
How many of you think your kids will change their majors along the way?
I look at DS’s group - Only 1 of the 10 that I can think of is in the major they started out as.
My DS was undeclared until his Jr year, he took 5 years to get his undergrad before he settled and knew he wanted PT school. There was one semester where he contemplated Poli Sci (Gaaaaaa!)
One kid wanted to be a sportscaster - Bachelors in Journalism and he is a sports caster - he started in really small markets and has worked his way up to a market that most people would recognize the name of, still small but no longer po-dunk Wyoming.
A few started pre-med - One is now a nurse (RN), one is a marketing director for a casino with a business degree.
The third started out wanting to be a Ped, she has a masters in speech pathology and works with kiddos.
One wanted to be a teacher - she fell in love, left school and became a military wife.
A couple went off to play sports and didn’t finish.
One started with Anthropology, she was going to go study ancient civilizations - she left college after one year, entered into a radiology tech program and loves it. This student was by far the brightest bulb in the bunch.
DD has bounced around - a year ago it was Astrophysics all the way, now, secondary education with an emphasis on English. Deep down, DD wants to be a pastry chef or a political activist. It will be interesting to see where she actually lands.
@HeliMom74 no knowledge of the Colorado school but I do know the Mackey School of Mines at the University of Nevada, Reno is one of the best there is.
From private to charter, @DavidPuddy
We go to kind of a rural HS. In retrospect maybe I should have sent my kids to private school. My D16 was the only NMF out of class of 300. The year after her, there was only 1 NMF. This year my D18 is a NMSF (there were 2 other commended I don’t know yet if they made NMSF). Our school doesn’t offer many of the online AP classes the top level students want to take but at least through my constant nagging shall I say our HS has been kind enough to help us get my kids online AP classes for things like AP Calc BC, AP physics, AP Micro/Macroecon, AP Psychology, AP computer Sci… but it has made the courseload for my kids extra challenging… and costlier for me too at $1000 per course for these online classes… so D16 did end up taking 14 AP tests but 6-7 of those were online classes.
My daughter has an unweighted GPA of 3.7, a 33 ACT and 4’s and 5’s on multiple AP tests. Her counselor has made her very anxious about her “lowish” GPA.
Her best friend goes to a local public school and has a 4.0, 26 ACT and zero AP’s so far.
It must be near impossible to understand the true impact of GPA on admissions where the individual schools are unknown.
Another local friend was thrilled last summer to finally get a 3 on an AP–her other scores were 2’s and she also has a 4.0
Unfortunately in CA public colleges, and maybe most publics, it is the UW GPA they look at.
This process must be very difficult for admission officers.
My D saw a slightly famous person at the local mall yesterday and got a pic taken with him, which she posted on her Instagram account. Maybe she can be one of the most mathematically-inclined celebrity stalkers ever. Is there a major for that? :D/
@sushiritto - that makes me think about social media footprints. My daughter posts virtually nothing on social media. That’s just not her personality. I keep hearing about following and commenting on the colleges you’re interested on Instagram/Twitter, etc. as being important ways to show interest in them. She won’t do it. Wondering if any of your GC or CC have talked about this?
@amominaz CC is my social media. :))
Other than recruited athletes posting about their various offers and commitments, I wasn’t aware that social media posts for “regular students” can be considered a show of “demonstrated interest.” I can’t believe if the AO doesn’t have more than 10-15 minutes to review an application, that they’re spending any time on Instagram and Twitter reviewing old posts by applicants. Now, I’m wondering if schools say like Stanford have computer algorithms to find such posts.
One person’s uninformed opinion (I am full of these today!):
Social Media -specifically FB, Twitter, Instagram and snapchat- have ZERO bearing on a general applicant’s admittance for ANY school in the United States. Zilch.
Caveats:
- the rare athlete using them as a means of communication (elite recruiting communication has gone from mail, to phone, to text, to twitter over the last 40 years).
- The even more rare social media (Twitch or YouTube) celebrity. There may be a tiny number (or 0) of these applying to colleges and their celebrity is akin to an EC.
What a crazy week and the hurricane hasn’t even hit florida yet. We are just outside tampa and the week started with the guidance pointed right at us, so apparently everyone scrambled to the store. Generators, flashlights, batteries (anything other than like rechargeable AA’s), water… all gone by tuesday. Gas. Nearly gone. We had luckily filled up ahead of the crazy but haven’t seen a station open without a huge line all week. Traffic. Insane! I thought i was being clever using amazon. Nearly didnt get delivered. UPS decided to shut down deliveries early. Luckily we had a shipment come in via USPS. Rain or snow or dark of night.
This whole week has been so draining and today, with our offices closed, I tackled cutting back the trees out front and will have more clean up tomorrow to finish getting prepped… I ache from head to toe. Glad I don’t work outdoors for a living. Jeebus it’s hot… at least after a little work tomorrow we will then then just sit around and mull the inevitable and DS will get to work on his essay… good times! I feel bad for the guy… like he doesn’t have enough stress already!
Oh, and the info session at school for NMSF was postponed too… boo!
Hope all the florida folks (and ga and anyone else hit by this storm) manage well. The next few days will be a wild ride.
Had a nice visit at Purdue today. D was planning on applying, but didn’t really seem to excited about it. After today’s visit I think she liked it a lot better and can see herself there. It’s really the front runner right now, not even sure where else she is applying 
ACT tomorrow, glad that testing will be done then.