My wife and I dropped our son19 at RPI for a week. She had not seen the campus before and I’ve only visited during the winter, so we were pleasantly surprised to see the campus with plants, greenery, landscaping. It looked nice. My wife thought it was a neat place, and she is hard to please, lol.
The dorm the campers stay in is kind of cruddy. The room was pretty small and no outlets for anything. That was about the only negative thing my wife had to say about the place.
The ride out there from the burbs of Boston is pretty easy, just Mass Pike west, for a couple of hours and you’re there. That is convenient.
The athletic facilities are top notch if your kid plans on playing a varsity sport. Very well done for a DIII school. Modern and upgraded. The complex is a short walk from the campus, maybe 1/2 mile or so.
Troy NY is a mix. It seems like it’s trying to transform itself. There is a small little downtown zone that was bustling, but there are also pockets of run down mill town zones. There are some cute houses, mixed in with some run down eye sores. That doesn’t away from the campus at all though, the immediate area surrounding the school is OK.
It’s a good fit for my son, hopefully he enjoys his time there. I’ll post his comments when he gets home.
Thanks a lot for the info! I had no idea applying EA was an option anywhere else after the presentation I went to. I should have known to come here first!
@carolinamom2boys We are visiting St. Augustine this weekend too! We have already done the Flagler tour with D19. The Tiffany glass is in the cafeteria, soooo pretty. It’s not a school D would go to because they don’t have her major, but it is beautiful to visit.
SAT subject scores came out and relieved for S. For the Math 2, he reviewed Dr. Chung’s book and took the practice tests in the Barron’s book and that worked for him (800). He just completed pre-cal last year and so that appears to be the right time to take this test as the material is based on that math level. For US History, no special prep per se other than preparing for and taking the AP test (glad that he eeked out a 760). With his SAT Bio score from last year, glad the boy is done.
Just proves to me that these test scores don’t really reflect anything. S loves history and his interest in it leads him to read all kinds of books and visit all kinds of museums. Math and Bio, “ehh, just required school subjects that you gotta do” is his approach…he could take it or leave it. Funny, that was exactly me in high school.
I’ve signed us up for a tour at Beloit this Friday. Kind of like Chicago, I’m pretty sure it’s not a perfect match. It’s really small (1300 students) and I have a feeling it won’t have enough going on for S19. The student population, though, does seem like a match from what I’ve read. S19 would be above the 75th percentile there but it sounds like the kids there have the “love of learning” thing that the kids at Chicago have. They are offering a special tour of the science departments as well and “workshops with the faculty” so that will give us some good info too.
At the very least, I’m hoping he likes it enough but thinks it’s too small…and then I can show him Oberlin, Kenyon, and Grinnell and say that they are bigger. In Oberlin’s case, twice as big!
S19 is all over going on college tours now. Especially if I take him on a Friday when his XC team has its hardest workout of the week. He get out of a nine mile tempo run. :))
9 mile run? Good grief, I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
D19 was part of a non-school affiliated track team a few years ago and based on the workout regime those kids engaged it day in and day out, I have mad respect!! D trained for the 3000m race and after qualifying for the Jr. Olympics, declared she didn’t want to go (it was held in Louisiana in Aug that year, so who could blame her). She runs recreationally now, but I do miss the competitive aspect and the team work the girls displayed for the relays (don’t miss those all day meets though held in the far corners of the state).
Well DS2019 got a 680 on the World History SAT, which I know he will not be happy about. He is really going to have to hit the US History and English SAT subject tests out of the park next year…
@ThinkOn Yes. XC is brutal. We almost hope that the AOs that read S19’s applications were XC runners so they really get how hard it is. They run 60 miles a week in the summer and that includes hill runs, tempo runs, and 4x400s. Today was twenty 4x400s with a two mile warm up and a three mile cool down. Ugh.
@Samsmom2019 That’s the beauty of taking these tests early. Our thought process was if they did not achieve their target scores, they had plenty of time to either restudy the same subject and take it again, or try a subject they are more confident in.
That was the initial plan anyway, which we were able to execute with S19, but unable to do so with D19 (she only has the SAT Bio under her belt taken last year). She ended up not taking any subject tests this year because she’s taking AP Chem next year (so why not just take the subject test then) and will take Pre-Cal next year (so will be able to take Math II). Would have liked for her to have a subject test in a humanities subject, but she had AP Euro this year and it just didn’t align with the WH subject test.
Will he be taking APUSH and AP Language next year?
@ThinkOn@Samsmom2019 If you don’t mind my asking, which schools are you applying to that need SAT 2s? Are they required or recommended? S19 took Bio after freshman year and got a 700. Not so great but it was just after Bio H. Kids at our school can’t take AP science until senior year and that stinks because it’s really hard to take an SAT 2 science test without taking the AP class Self-studying is not going to happen since S19 is always maxed out on homework time.
He’ll take APUSH and AP Lang next year so maybe I’ll have him sit for the equivalent SAT 2s. Right now, he doesn’t have any schools that require them but, if he did well on them, the schools will take the scores into consideration.
@ThinkOn He is taking both APUSH and AP Language next year. I figured that with him having taking 2 years of Regents Global History (NY State) he would be ok with a little extra work with the SAT subject test book, but I guess it didn’t work out quite the way we had hoped. He is away at language camp (Arabic) right now but I know he will be bummed when he gets back and sees the score. Hopefully he will have better luck with the 2 next year.
My son also does XC and it IS brutal. He specializes in the 5K so he really has to push his limits. It’s handy that the other sport he does, ice dancing, complements it quite a bit with the leg and core work it requires, and the XC really helps him with his stamina in skating. With a 2:10 program he is still going strong at the end and it has been a big competitive advantage for him. If he qualifies for the solo ice dance nationals this year (we will know for sure by 8/14) he will be doing 3 hrs of XC in the morning and then 2 hours of skating in the afternoons the last 2 weeks leading up to school. Just reading that makes me tired, I don’t know how he does it.
@Samsmom2019 Your son sounds amazing!! I keep telling myself that these kids are 16 and have a lot more energy than we do! Sometimes, though, S19 comes back from XC and goes back to sleep. In the summer, I worry about him getting hurt with all of this mileage. In the school year, I worry that he’s just too darn tired after practice to focus on homework. When he played soccer, he was NEVER this wiped out.
@homerdog DS’s #1 pick is Georgetown, which is where both my dad and I went. He wants to study Arabic further there (he is doing it independently along with French at school) and diplomacy. Georgetown requires the 3 tests, unfortunately…
@homerdog We haven’t finalized a list yet (waiting for SAT scores later this year to do so), but given S’s interest in history, language and policy, we were looking at Georgetown and their 3 subject test requirement. No idea if he will end up applying there, but we didn’t want the doors to be shut to him based on this requirement.
For D, we looked at engineering schools (some of which require a math and science), and some specialized BS/MD programs (all of which require a math and science) and again, not even sure she’ll go this route, but didn’t want to close the doors here either.
Finally, NYU has the flexible option of submitting 3 Sat Subject tests in lieu of the SAT. Thus, not knowing how either will perform on the SAT or ACT, we thought we might see if the Subject test route provided better results for applying here.
We recently returned from a trip from DC to Cape Cod. We didn’t look at any schools, but I think we all agreed that any school that involves a long haul drive on I-95N is probably not going on the list!
Hi, does any one have a S or D who is a member of NSHSS? My DD got an invitation to join and I’m just wondering if it is an actual worthwhile society or just a scam to collect money from students?
