As for progress ds is still chipping away a little at a time. He got his immunization stuff submitted last night. He’s written his script for his McDermott video and pulled a bunch of pictures and video clips together on a Google drive. I don’t think he plans to submit his application until Nov. 1. I’m ok with that.
Every day it seems he mentions that another friend is applying to UTD. It will be interesting to see how many of them end up at there. The one girl he knows that’s going for the McDermott has said she’d only go to UTD if she gets the McDermott Scholarship. The latest friend he mentioned isn’t applying for the McDermott but will likely be awarded some AES scholarship money.
Thank you for the imput. @AmyBeth68 he does not have a clear choice at this point, however…he is visiting one of the three for the first time in mid November so that visit may shoot it to the top, take it out of the picture, or make the choice harder!
Decisions about anything are incredibly hard for him (it’s his MO) but we have told him that although we helped him decide what schools to apply to, the decision about The One is 100% his. He will have to sit down and make a list of pros and cons for each school and see where that leads him.
@suzy100, we have discussed going ahead and making the housing deposit at the one school and at least taking that stress (although an expensive one) off that table.
Another point that I have asked him to consider is that if he by chance gets into his ‘reach’, once he is there, will the classes be harder for him because he skidded in at the bottom of the acceptance pool? Or should he stick with a school that is a ‘match’ for him where he will feel like he can keep up better because his grades and scores put him squarely in the middle of his college classmates.
We found that with D15, after ending up at one of her safety schools, she thrived academically which boosted her confidence dramatically. Had she gotten into a reach by the skin of her teeth, she knows she would have had a harder time keeping up and her stress level would have been awful.
@VaNcBorder My daughter is in at two of her top three and we put in a housing deposit at one (fully refundable until May) because that guarantees housing priority and likely a double instead of a triple. It was weird to do that, but several people at the school swore up and down that it doesn’t obligate her to anything but gets the ball rolling in terms of advising, etc. I predict she will know about that third one soon - good or bad - and we will go from there.
I will have to look into that second one to see if there is any advantage to a housing deposit now.
We obviously don’t have any financial aid information (other than some merit) so things are still very much up in the air. It’s interesting, though … of the four private schools she’s been accepted to, they all gave about the same amount of merit, including the one that’s the most expensive. Maybe they all use the same chart, lol.
@VaNcBorder that’s such a good point about going to a reach and perhaps struggling academically or going to a match/safety and having an easier go at it. I personally went through that and ended up transferring so I do worry about that for my kids.
Out of curiosity, what do you all consider a reach? A certain number over schools’s GPA?
@CB04 We’ve had that same discussion with our daughter.
She has one reach-y school where her ACT score put her in the lower third of acceptances for her program, from what we can gather. Not out of reach, but a bit in doubt. At her other schools she is clearly in at least the top third to top quarter.
I’ve talked to her about the downsides to being at a reach-y school, for the reasons mentioned above. Maybe/hopefully not as much struggling or competition. At this particular school its sheer size will possibly mean large sections of critical science classes, whereas the smaller schools will by necessity have smaller classes. She certainly could handle it, but when you have a choice maybe you choose the school where you have more support.
@VaNcBorder, in your situation I’d look into the possibility of putting down housing deposits at the two schools where he’s been accepted but leaving the reach in play until he decides. It sounds as if he’s not ready to commit to a school yet and there’s still so much time for him to make that decision. I absolutely understand the allure of having the college decision made as soon as possible, but your son seems to need some more time.
@3scoutsmom, NMFs do email after finalist notification in February. I exchanged emails with CV to find out if there’s any advantage to applying earlier and was told that there is not. They said some NMSF apply to ensure a spot in the honors program if they don’t advance to finalist but that’s not a concern for S.
@VaNcBorder I consider academic reaches schools where she is in the lower end statistically based on her scores and I also consider financial reaches any school that has extremely competitive merit packages that my daughter may not qualify for.
Re keeping up if the student’s stats are in the lower tier for the school, I’d look at freshman retention rates, graduation statistics, and placement statistics. If, say, 90% of freshmen return, and 95% graduate within six years, and 95% of graduates are placed into grad school or permanent jobs, then the school is doing great at supporting everyone who gets in. Some reachy schools (or departments within some schools) have pressure cooker reputations while others do not. A school with great outcome statistics and a reputation for being supportive rather than cutthroat wouldn’t concern me much if my kid was on the low side of the accepted student profile. A pressure cooker with a 60% placement rate, however, would worry me. Lists such as “happiest students” could also help highlight whether the school works for the whole spectrum of admitted students, and any available data on rates of student depression and suicide can be useful too. And it of course depends on the specific student and whether he or she is better as a big fish in a small pond or a little fish in a big pond. Some kids could thrive in a reachy school but coast in a low match school. Others will be more driven if they’re closer to the top of the class at a low match and could give up at a reachy school where they are consistently outranked. I had those conversations with my son, and I think it’s important for students to really think about that aspect of their college choice.
@CB04 I consider a reach school to be significantly above both my son’s SAT scores and GPA. Along with those parameters, I also consider location.
For example, we are in state for his reach. He goes to a small, private, college prep high school and 3/4 of his class will apply there. Although his SAT scores fall in range for the school, his GPA is a little lower. When the college starts accepting kids from his school, his GPA will keep him lower in the group and he will likely be looked over. If we were applying from out of state, with a smaller pool of applicants, his chances would probably have increased. But, he is applying to a lesser known major so that is what keeps it on the list as a reach and not a wipe out.
The school closest to home lags behind in opportunity for clinicals. She’d have to go to much larger cities for some rotations, several hours away. Why not just go to schools in those cities (where she’s applied and been accepted)? Plus, she said, their scrubs are ugly. And they are, lol.
So now we have the original top 2 (fully admitted to nursing, and waiting for some word) and a quickly-approaching third that she is waiting on the nursing decision (admitted to university, will find out nursing in January).
And that was all during a 15 minute conversation in the car. 8-}
@bearcatfan my D would totally knock a School off the list if she had to wear ugly scrubs. She also doesn’t like schools that have what she considers dumb names (sorry Case Western). I guess you have to narrow it down somehow.
S was awarded the Presidential and Presidential Bonus scholarships from Texas Tech today. The presidential is $6k/year plus a waiver of OOS tuition. The Bonus is an additional $4k the first year.
These are both autostats scholarships but still nice to see. They’ll be replaced by the full COA NMF scholarship when / if he advances.
He’s still planning to go to UNM, but TT is there in case he changes his mind.
And speaking of changing his mind…
Majors, oy! S lives and breathes EMS, right? But he’s been told that UNM’s BS in EMS isn’t a good choice for a pre-med student because of questions about rigor. S grudgingly accepted that advice and decided to major in Population Health.
But then… He mentioned his disappointment to the EMS departmental advisor and the pre-health advisor while he was setting up meetings for our visit on Nov. 10th. Both of them say that UNM’s EMS BS is a great choice for a pre-med student, and double plus for a kid who likes disaster medicine.
And what’s that? A Theatre minor? That’s perfect because EMS does joint disaster drills with the theatre department every year. The theatre kids get all bloodied up with stage makeup and act the part of disaster victims, and the various departments involved in the drill scoop them up, triage and treat them.
These latter two advisors say that UNM’s EMS degree is different than most and quite rigorous. They were surprised that someone from their own med school would say otherwise.
On the one hand, S is thrilled, and the BS in EMS is back on the table.
On the other hand, we may have started a fight among the various medical advisors. :-"
For those of us with kids submitting McDermott scholarship apps for utd (I think there are 5 of us now?) I got a call today from a nice young woman from the McDermott scholarship office just calling because she noticed that DS had started his application and wanted to know if he/we had any questions and to make sure to fell free to call if there are any questions.
I thought this was very nice. My dd16 applied to many scholarship and the only one to call her was from the OU National Merit scholars office but that was after the Feb. finalist list came out.