Parents of the HS Class of 2018 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
1881

I’ll play too. Our goal is for the most merit (at least full tuition) we will not qualify for FA. Requirements are: a solid Comp Sci program, within 8 hours drive of Austin, and not religious and not TAMU (not a fit!).

GPA uw 98.89 w 110.9
SAT 1590 (no, it’s wasn’t my DS that posted on CC about retaking it yesterday at least it better not have been! I don’t think he’s on cc)
National Merit hopeful

We have a very short list:
UT Dallas - match
UT Austin - auto admit, but financial reach but could commute

UT Dallas is also attractive because of its Fast Track program. DS has a bunch of APs and DE credits so he might be able to finish BS and Masters in 8 semesters. They also stack outside scholarships.

1882

Rest assured y’all, my D18’s PSAT score will not be earning her NMF status. Really just want to know what it is, in a timely manner, so that she can go into the SAT in January knowing where she needs to focus. She will probably not be a one and done SAT kid and I fully anticipate that her SAT score(s) will be fine, but not stellar. Sure she could surprise me, but given that she has done little to no prep work it’s unlikely she will outscore those kids who have prepped. She did independently request the full score report for her January SAT, so that is a win in my book. Maybe it will prompt her to study a bit before taking it again.

I appreciate when others share what their kids are scoring and getting for grades, nothing wrong with bragging. I don’t see it as bragging most of the time, although there are certainly times that it is definitely bragging. By CC standards my kiddos are, well, in the lower stat realm. I know my kiddos are bright, well adjusted, active kids and that they will succeed at whatever school they choose. D16 had “fine” ACT (25)/SAT(1650) scores, a “B” average and some good extracurriculars, she was accepted at all of the schools she applied to (even the direct entry DPT programs) Wooster, Pitt, Purdue, Drexel, Ithaca, Quinnipiac, Duquesne, Marquette, Seton Hall, Ohio U, U of Sciences Philadelphia (that was my brag, did you catch it? lol). In the end, she selected the right school for her, Marquette University, and is doing “just fine”, so far,. My husband is a CWRU grad and I am an Ohio U grad. We seem to have turned out “just fine” and I know that D18 will do :just fine" too! The secret, IMO, is to target the right schools, stat wise and culturally. We aren’t Ivy League material, we know it, others are, good for them! I am a firm believer of “you do you and I will do me and we can all be happy”. Let’s keep sharing, I am not judging you, I promise.

1883

@3scoutsmom Have you looked into U of Tulsa?

1884

Yeah I’ll play too. I’m in total agreement with @snoozn, in that I love hearing about all the scores, et al. It helps benchmark things and I am genuinely so happy for all of our successes.

Our kid has an uw 3.94, all honors and AP. Our school doesn’t rank, but she is certainly in at least top 10%. She stresses about the tests and her top scores to date are SAT 1410, ACT still waiting.

2 sport varsity athlete, elected captain of one as a junior. She is Very good. Does not want to pursue this in college.
Student council activities chairman
Newspaper byline
HOBY finalist
Lots of other, community service, nhs, etc.

The list is very tricky for us. She has type 1 diabetes, and I want to be able to get to her. I know, grow up. But we are in the Northeast and close is easy. It also depends on where her '17 brother ends up. It will be easier for me for her to go further if her brother is closer. Yes, well, I know we all need to grow up. We are working on that.

As far as our budget, we are blessed. I have a childless, very successful sibling who has offered to fund last dollar. That said, I would be happier to do it ourselves. So we are looking for merit.

Ahh! Thinking, thinking.

1885

Our S18 is unlikely to score as high as S16, who made NMSF but had a trascript littered with
C’s and D’s. His grades are better despite a couple of rough semesters where he struggled with anxiety. He’s back on track now, though. He tends to be top 10 per cent on tests, but sees that as not good because of his brother’s scores. I’m sure he’ll be fine.

1886

@droppedit LOL, my D18 is also a victim of “rejection-bait” from U of Chicago. I am not sure how she made their list her PSAT10 was mediocre at best (1070, if I recall). We regularly have a laugh together when they send her stuff (about once a month). We console ourselves by saying at least she is not going feel compelled go to the school where “fun goes to die” (as it has been called here on CC).

1887

My 16 yo has no scores to brag about yet! Unless you count a 23 act math when she was 12, lol (to get into Duke Tip). My plan is to have her take the ACT in the spring and the SAT in june. Then take it again if the scores are out of sync with the PSAT. I honestly have no idea how she’ll do.

1888

It doesn’t bother me reading other kids scores. A kid with poor score may be at a difficult environment and is doing his/her best and the kid with a perfect score is getting all the help possible at home, who knows what each persons situation is, I just read, learn if i can and move on.

DD said she started receiving e-mails from universities and thinks college board released info to colleges. she thinks scores are out. she did not provide her contact info as a sophomore, this is new for her. From what colleges she gets e-mails mean anything in relation to score?

1889

@labegg – I’ve repeatedly mentioned the “where fun goes to die” to get her to not want to go there. I have to be delicate at times because when I first said “it would be very difficult to get into UChicago”, I immediately got accused of thinking she’s “not good enough”. Ugh, teenagers! She’s grown up quite a bit since then and is much more realistic in her views. I’d love for her to go to UGA or, to a lesser degree, GT (that’s where “Hope goes to die” … the Hope scholarship).

1890

Thanks @ShrimpBurrito I did check out UTulsa briefly but their NM scholarship is just under what UTD offers and is not guaranteed (requires an interview) and outside scholarships can’t stack to be used for books, travel, or personal expenses. I also think that Dallas has more opportunities for internships.

1891

FYI, if your daughter is interested in Northwestern, its abbreviation is NU, not NW since Northwestern is one word.

And yes, it gets very cold there. My first winter there saw a low of -80 with the wind chill. And no, NU did not cancel classes.

1892

We’re waiting for both ACT and PSAT scores. He didn’t really prepare, but I hope we can figure out which test is better for him. D11 did much better on the SAT while D17 did a smidge better on the ACT.

I really like the college search process, even though I always feel like I must be overlooking dozens of great schools. S wants to double major in computer science with a cyber-security focus and business with an entrepreneurship focus. Here is the list I’ve come up of schools that seem to be strong in those areas:

Case Western Reserve University
Champlain College
Clarkson University
Fairleigh Dickinson University
Fordham University – Rose Hill
George Washington University
Gonzaga University
Illinois Institute of Technology
Kettering University
Maryville University
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Purdue University
Rochester Institute of Technology
Syracuse University
Temple University
Towson University
University of Denver
University of Marlyand
University of Vermont
University of Washington
Worcester Polytechnic Institute

At this point it’s pretty dynamic and I don’t know much about most of these schools, but who doesn’t love a big old list 'o colleges? Six of these overlap with schools D17 is applying to and I admit I’d love to see them go to the same college. Highly unlikely though!

He’ll need at least one in-state or WUE public that can be an admit/afford safety, but I’m still working on that.

1893

I wish we had a list. DD is not interested in the process at all. She has given us permission to pick a couple and schedule time to go see them. Hopefully that will get her interested. One will be her instate safety. I do not think she will be interested in any lottery type school, but she will consider applying to Vanderbilt because her brother is there. She has the grades so far, but not the test scores. I think she will be happier with something less competitive.

1894

@snoozn since that’s a long list of colleges, I thought I’d share what I know about a couple of them. Feel free to take my advice or leave it (since I’m a high school student I shouldn’t be posting on this thread anyway)
Gonzaga: My dad graduated from here with a double major in math and computer science. He runs his own computer science consulting business now and I think he liked the school. I’ve been going to church on campus (its a fairly liberal catholic church) since I was little and I’ve taken a math class there. One, its a Jesuit school (catholic). I don’t know if that makes any difference to you, but its something to keep in mind. Also, they take sports very seriously there in student culture (besides football, they don’t have a football team). They campus is fairy nice and beautiful and they’ve built a lot of new buildings and its along the Spokane river which is pretty, but one thing I don’t like is that since they’re in downtown Spokane they don’t have much room to grow outward and they edges of campus are a little sketchy I think. Also, they’re low on dorm space bc of this (but they have been building a new dorm so we’ll see). I know lots of people who love Gonzaga though, so that’s just my personal opinion.

University of Washington: I don’t know about their business program, but they’re computer science program is a very competitive major. Even if you get accepted to the school and attend you run the risk of not being accepted to the CS major later. (I think there’s a chance to be accepted directly from high school with your general application, but that’s even more competitive). Also, I did research and the lecture class sizes are HUGE even for upper level courses. I have a bunch of friends that go to UDub though, and they love it. (This is my instate safety/match but I’m not going for computer science).

Just some pros and cons and things to think about for those schools so you can work on narrowing down your list. :slight_smile:

1895

@snoozn Representing Syracuse here! I went there a million years ago, but feel free to ask any questions. Ironically, I could never AFFORD to go there now. Buy the best snow boots you can :wink:

About the only school I would consider a true reach for my daughter, and she might not even apply, is Case Western. We will know more after the first ACT how she compares. The only reason Case is even on the list is because it is a direct-admit nursing program - she might change her mind after visiting. We’ve had many discussions about “big fish/small pond” and that there is nothing wrong with going to a school that is a good fit, rather than the one with the biggest name - especially for nursing.

She wants an in-state, direct-admit nursing program and thankfully she has more than 10 good ones to choose from in our state. Some very good state schools and a couple privates, and they all seem like matches or safeties (to me). She even meets or exceeds the nursing requirements, which are often more stringent than the regular university admission stats. I know which one is her first choice, but she has to look at it as a potential student, not the daughter of a pretty fanatical alum :-p

The only one that requires the CSS profile is Case, so I’m sort of hoping she changes her mind on that one, lol.

Her cumulative GPA at the last report card was 4.036 - they don’t distinguish between weighted and unweighted, but somewhere in there is an “honors/AP bump.” She has taken honors/AP math and science the whole way, and college prep for the humanities. At the last ranking she was 40/374 but I expect that will go down due to the honors/AP bump affecting her because she didn’t take a full slate of them.

Pretty good extras: High-ranking ballet dancer at her studio, gets paid to teach there (whoo-hoo!), professional performances here and there, Key Club president, NHS, church activities, volunteers at a nursing home in the memory care unit, and a few odds and ends.

She is also a Chinese adoptee, which might help in some way. Many of the schools she is looking at have very, very low Asian numbers - a couple are less than one percent. I don’t know if that’s a hook, but since she can’t change it might as well work with it. :wink:

1896

Anyone else the one who’s made their kid’s list of schools to look at? I couldn’t get my D to read the Fiske guide (or others), so I did and picked a list of schools she might like, given her temperament and interests. Now we’re visiting them in chunks to see if my guesses were correct. (So far, 25% success rate.)

1897

@odannyboySF that’s the approach we took with S16 - provided him with a list of 4 in-state public colleges to take a first look at. He applied and was accepted to 3, fell in love with one of them, and is there now and enjoying it more than we could have imagined. Our D18 has a much different academic personality than S16, but she also appreciates us suggesting places and I’ve encouraged her to do her own searches since she’s more interested than he was.

The one piece of advice I’d give is to really try to let the student make the final decision, independently, because they are the one who will be living/going to school there for at least 4 years. We were careful not to apply pressure since we were happy with the options he had. From time to time we’d try to highlight positives about each of them, and point out any obvious constraints, but in the end, we could tell he appreciated that it was his choice.

1898

I’ve made, and remade, my daughter’s list. Right now I’ve got about 17 schools on there, and there are another 19 that were on it at one point but have been since removed (I have a big spreadsheet). My D has been a bit like yours @KSMom1518 in that she has been a bit reluctant to engage in the process. (25% success rate is not a bad start @odannyboySF that’s what I hit on our visits this summer). She is definitely more interested now, and is absolutely clear with me that decisions about where to attend will be hers alone, but I doubt I could get her to try to come up with a list. But she has been willing to talk to me about what she wants in a school, and what she doesn’t. We’ve had a series of conversations, and what I came to understand was that she just found the whole searching for schools process overwhelming. Even looking at the materials some schools send hasn’t been helpful because she finds they really all look the same, and say the same things. (Looking back over some of the stuff we’ve saved she’s not wrong on this, there is a kind of homogeneity to the message). So it was more helpful to her to have someone (me) take her interests and do the legwork, and present her with some options. To your point @lifegarding I’ve noticed that she does spend a lot of time thinking about what is important to her for her future living and learning environment, she just chooses to pass those details off to me to dig in a find the places that offer what she wants. I’m with you @snoozn making college lists is fun! And I too have this chronic concern that I’ve missed a good one!

So all that said, we’re in state for CA, she has a violent hatred for UC schools, but we have a UC budget. She wants a small, liberal arts style school, preferably in the west but she’s getting flexible. She needs merit aid, we are full pay.

Willamette University
Whitman College
University of Puget Sound
University of Redlands
Whittier College
Occidental College
Lewis and Clark College
Scripps College
University of Denver
CSU Monterey Bay*
Western Washington University
UC Merced*
Linfield College
Southern Oregon University*
Denison University
UC Davis*
Ithaca College

The * schools are guaranteed financial safeties, and all but Davis are admit safeties as well, Davis is more like a match than a safety because UCs are so unpredictable. The rest of the schools are in the match/safety category for admit as well because of her need for merit.

She has no idea what she wants to study, so for me a place that will help her find her way and also offer enough programs to meet her wherever she lands is important.

You can see from the list, I’ve made only a few tentative reaches beyond the west coast comfort zone. When I mentioned the location of Denison to my H, he was completely shocked “Ohio?! why would she go there?” He was immediately needing a compelling reason why this school was better than all other schools 8-| Umm honey, it’s just on the list, she hasn’t even applied yet.

1899

@snoozn As soon as you said cyber security I was going to suggest Champlain and then I saw it on your list. Hidden gem imo. Beautiful college town (Burlington), lots of opportunities for internships, career planning and the like. My niece attended with the same focus as your son, was invited to attend and eventually present at conferences, and landed a job immediately after graduation. Has her own car, apartment, and is completely launched and self sufficient. Worth a look!

1900

Oh man, you guys are so far ahead of us! No list here, although I know D has a favorite that is reachy so it makes me nervous. I think over Christmas we will start to work on a list and a game plan for college visits.