Momma2018
The story relayed by DD is that the admits parent is the regional alum in charge of interviewing for the top ten school. We live in a large city so there are many alum performing the interviews for this school in our area.
Your comment on having to accept poorly assigned interview times to demonstrate how important the school is what I fear is the case. An interviewer makes a poor choice for you and you must take it and smile about it…or be deemed not sufficiently interested in the school.
I am already feeling that the other top ten schools applied to who actually consider the kids lives as important in setting interview times are more worthy of our consideration.
This one application seems just an unlucky choice and a wasted application fee.
My son only interviewed for one school and it was on a Saturday.
He visited and did not apply to:
UVA, W&M, Vanderbilt, University of TN Knoxville, Auburn
Visited and applied:
MIT (EA, deferred), Case (EA, deferred), NE (EA), GT(EA), Alabama (accepted), University of TN Chattanooga (accepted), TN Tech (accepted), RPI (RD), RIT (RD), U Rochester (RD)
Did not visit, applied:
Ohio U (accepted), Miami Oh (accepted), Purdue (EA), UNC Charlotte (applied due to nomination for full scholarship, accepted, decided not to apply for the scholarship once he saw the questions, lol)
We are seeking merit, so several schools selected for that reason to have choices. Looking for more competitive than our in state options, since he ruled out the highest ranked ones. I feel that these are all over the place in style, setting, etc. Would love suggestions for how to compare once the offers are in for a “fit.”
D applied to twenty, of which nine were requested by me. She just has no idea what she wants! She has been rejected by one, accepted by six she has no intention of attending. I think we will hear from Cal Poly SLO and Trinity in February and then a long wait until the end of March. Ugh.
Well we did a lot of visits with S17 before S18 and S18 tagged along.
Visited and applied:
Colorado State University (accepted)
Colorado School of Mines (accepted)
University of Wyoming (accepted)
Ohio State University (accepted)
University of Central Floroda (accepted)
University of South Florida (accepted)
Colorado University Boulder
University of Minnesota
Did not visit but applied:
Miami OH (accepted)
University of Denver (accepted)
University of Portland (accepted)
Creighton University (accepted)
Arizona State University (accepted)
Northern Arizona University (accepted)
Montana State University (accepted)
Visited but didn’t apply:
Stanford
UC Berkeley
Notre Dame
Wisconsin
Michigan
San Diego State
@homerdog - For my D, W&M was too far from home (we are in AZ). Also, we toured the fall break of her sophomore year. We did a regional tour because there are so many schools in that area with different feels (Large public, small private, mid size private, Christian, etc). I thought it would be good to see a variety all in the same geographic location so she couldn’t say “well I liked that one because it had trees” - coming from AZ trees is a big deal!! In retrospect, it was waaaaaaaay too early. She had no idea what she wanted and had pretty much forgotten most of the schools by the time the application process started. Oh well. First kid so made some mistakes. Hopefully learn for the second one!
@homerdog Don’t let that deter you. We LOVED W&M. If they’d had engineering, we would have applied. We still thought about it, but with CS and potentially a double major with ECE, we didn’t want to do a 3+2 program. I did a review of the tour somewhere on here, I think in this thread back in like the april may timeframe. The campus was beautiful. It borders Williamsburg, which is the historic area. The beach isn’t too far away. The students seemed somewhat quirky. Very walkable campus, decent food. Also, I don’t think they offer much in merit aid for OOS.
Here’s what my D did this weekend to compare her three favorite schools (she hasn’t been accepted to any of them yet–minor detail! ):
She drew up a sample 4 year degree plan for each school, looking at their AP credit charts, gen ed requirements, major requirements, and pre-reqs. These three degree plans are vastly different! One school offers very little flexibility, and because of the way it’s all structured, she’d be lucky to complete the program in four years, despite a gazillion AP credits. This exercise has been very productive!
@ShrimpBurrito I did this for DD16 and DS18 color coded to show which would DE or AP classes applied to “general ed core” requirements and which applied to major and minor requirements and what score is needed on remaining AP exams. It was very helpful.
We did a lot of visits, starting summer after Sophomore Year (and not counting the dozen or so schools she visited with her sister D15 prior to that)…
Visited and Applied:
University of Delaware (accepted)
University of Pittsburgh (accepted) * visited twice
Applied but no Visit:
Miami University Oxford OH (accepted)
Rutgers University (accepted)
U of SoCarolina (accepted)
U of Minnesota (withdrew application)
Visited but did not Apply:
Boston University
Northeastern University
The United States Coast Guard Academy
Worcester Polytechnic
Stevens Institute of Technology
The College of William & Mary *visited twice
St. Johns Annapolis
Lehigh University
The College of New Jersey
Hobart & William Smith College
Bryn Mawr
University of Richmond
The process was enlightening. You can see by the various types of colleges (from STEM heavy technical to small LAC that she was going through the process of figuring out what she wanted to study. At one point chemistry or chemical engineering, at another point it was Environmental Science and now she’s Russian and Economics. I’m sure that may change as she gets in school lol. The Coast Guard was her very top choice lasst year, but when she decided foreign language was meant to be a huge component of her studies, that was dropped off the list. William & Mary was a TOP contender for a while but on the 2nd visit something didn’t click with her and it was dropped off her list. Bryn Mawr was way up top along with Northeastern and BU for a while but ultimately she fell head over heels for Pitt when she visited in June and pretty much hasn’t looked back.
My son did not interview for any of the schools he applied…I don’t think the interview would sway the admissions, but that’s just my opinion. He did stay in contact with the regional admissions counselor at his first choice school (UChicago). He scheduled a meeting with him when we visited which I think helped more than an interview with an alumni would have, and every time that rep was visiting our school my son made sure to stop in and say “hello”.
Visited and Applied:
UChicago (Accepted ED)
UMichigan (Accepted - withdrew after Chicago accepted but still received acceptance letter)
CO School of Mines (Accepted and withdrew) - safety school, great school and IS tuition would have been great!
Visited but did not Apply:
Columbia (did not enjoy visit)
Princeton (did not apply since accepted to UChicago his first choice and ED)
UPenn (did not apply since accepted to UChicago his first choice and ED)
Notre Dame (too religious based on tour)
Did not Visit but Applied:
WashU (withdrew application after UChicago acceptance)
Fordham (accepted and withdrew)
Stevens (withdrew application after UChicago acceptance)
@ShrimpBurrito we have been doing half hearted attempts at that type of comparison planning. We need to get more serious about it now that the picture is a bit clearer.
I have to say I sort of did a closer look at one of the schools DD still has to hear from that she is not super interested in anymore and it sure looks more appealing to me then she will want to give it credit for.
@homerdog She thought it was “too old” and having colonial Williamsburg across the street was a turn off to her as well. Of course her mother and I were lets apply ED…One of her HS friend applied ED and was accepted.
Carnegie Mellon decisions came out first so D18 withdrew all others she applied.
We had 10 more on the list (including Princeton, UPenn and 8 schools that we did not visit) to apply if ED didn’t come through. So a total of 17 on the original list.
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