@liska21 my D15 is a junior at Pomona, but she is spending this semester at Swarthmore under a domestic exchange program. She likes Swat and the campus is beautiful, and thinks her classes and professors are great. And she loves the easy access to Philadelphia, much easier than getting to LA from Pomona. But she definitely notices the difference that the 5C consortium makes for Pomona. I think Swat is about 1500 whereas Pomona is 1600 but with the 5C consortium you have about 7K students on contiguous campuses. D15 says that after a month at Swat she felt like she already recognized everybody (not literally but you get the idea). Swat is definitely smaller than her high school, which had about 2400 students. Again, Swat is a great school and she is enjoying her semester, but she 's going to go back to Claremont in the spring with a renewed appreciation for the benefits of the 5C consortium.
I remember my S and D1 had to pay $10 each semester for NHS membership. That was more than enough to pay for a sash and a cord to wear at graduation time and to have the seal on the diploma. I noticed that the val did not have the sash and the cord. My junior D2 does not participate.
@liska21 were you at the Seattle NACAC fair? We hit that yesterday as well. Similar thing, hit a huge variety of schools. I let him drive so we hit some I might not have chosen and skipped some I would have, we definitely had variety!
Between the large fair yesterday and the one at his HS on monday he visited:
HS Fair: Macalester, Central WA, Seattle U, Seattle Pacific U
NACAC: Oregon State, Santa Clara, Redlands, Occidental, RPI, WPI, RIT, Virginia Tech, Digipen. Rose Hulman, Michigan State, Northern Arizona
He skipped ones he felt he knew well such as UW, Western WA and ones I might have liked him to hit such as Colorado State, Chapman, U of Portland and San Jose State.
We were there at the end and some had cleared out already, we were both a bit disappointed to miss Lawrence.
Winners for the week were Macalester, Virginia Tech and Northern Arizona. None which I had on his list. Well, I had Mac and took it off as I am concerned about reach status and price but I am ok putting it on.
Followed by Redlands which we will tour in December and Santa Clara which we will tour in the Spring.
He did feel he didnāt get enough time with RIT and RPI and wants more info. WPI moved a bit down though.
My kidsā school district is sponsoring a large college fair this week. It was suggested that my S19 register in advance for it to receive a barcode to be scanned by the colleges he visits. Our game plan is to āfollow the moneyā and visit the top 5 on his list starting with most merit/interest and possibly visit 2 reach schools (1 in state, 1 OOS). This will be good conversational practice for my introverted son 
@4MyKidz we also have a college fair this week. The info I see for it is very sparse, so not sure what to expect. I have no list of what colleges are going to be there. My D is also an introvert, so I will have to drag her along. Fun times!
@jellybean5 I didnāt know much about it either and only learned about it when dropping the kids off at school. It was on the marquis. There was nothing on the school website, and nothing on the main page of the district website. I found an article about it by doing a search in the search bar on the districtās website. I donāt know why itās all secret squirrel stuff, but knowing my kids, they probably received a flyer and forgot to give it to me. Regarding my S, I think Iām going to give him a few questions ahead of time so that he will feel more comfortable rather than him trying to come up with something to say on the fly.
@4MyKidz good idea!
Went to an outside college fair held at a local college for our older one. It was interesting. Most interest thing was when one representative from a large University who has satellite campuses said and if you donāt get admitted to the main campus, donāt worry, no one will know the difference, our diploma will state University of ***. Well, that put a totally different light on that University.
Wish our school had their own.
@eandesmom Yes we were at the Seattle NACAC fair. I pretty much did the driving, though he was game. He just feels like he has no idea what kind of school he would like and no idea what kinds of options there are. So my goal was to help him get a better idea of what kinds of schools there are out there. He made a little bit of progress in that direction. I think the biggest take-away is that he definitely doesnāt want a school where he has to apply to a major. He is likely to major in math, but doesnāt want to get locked in from the start. What was a bummer is that the UC San Diego rep made it clear that it was hard to switch between STEM fields and very hard to switch into engineering. Thereās a silver lining there however which is that the UC schools are exceedingly expensive for OOS so it perhaps saves us that temptation I suppose. That he was attracted to Swarthmore and Reed is interesting since a friendās son goes to Haverford and I recall thinking āHuh, that sounds like just the sort of place S19 would like.ā Both his older siblings went to LACs, though H and I did not and we still find our kids choices slightly curious.
@Corinthian Weāll definitely be heading down to LA to tour the LACs there.
S19 visited Macalester and Carleton last Friday with my husband. He liked them both. This kid likes everythingā¦or maybe heās just visiting the right schools.
Macalester differentiates itself from the other LACs on his list since itās in the city of St. Paul. All of his other schools are pretty rural with kids living on campus all four years and all social life on campus. He liked the campus and how it was located in a cute, residential part of town. Lots of coffee shops and restaurants. Kind of liked the idea that kids use the town and the campus for their social life. Definitely liked that a huge percentage of kids get internships right there in St. Paul. The director of admissions described the student body as quirky, idealistic, and kind. S19 is less quirky and more sporty so I donāt know about the fit. 93 countries are represented and thatās their other main difference from the other schools on our list. They point out that having kids from all over the world in your classes makes discussion very interesting and lends a global vision to the school.
The dorms werenāt great but kids move off campus into houses by junior year. I donāt love either one of those things. I kind of want him on campus for four years. I think it makes for a sense of comraderie. Our 25-year old nephew lives two miles from campus and he and S19 are close so thatās a plus in his book but I donāt know if I want him so close. Iām sort of worried that he would just be his go-to if he needed something to do on a Friday night.
Mac has all of the other wonderful things of the other LACs weāve seen. Small classes, wonderful professors, good job placement. Thereās most likely some merit money for S19 so thatās good. I donāt know if he needs four low-matches/safeties though. Right now, heās got Denison, Dickinson, and Richmond in that category and Mac would be another one. Iām glad they visited. He wants to keep it on the list for now.
Ah. Carleton. He loved it. Campus was gorgeous (even in the snow/sleet/wind) and Northfield was a cute town that has everything he would need. The arboretum is also a selling point for running and getting out in nature. The admissions dean said thereās no posturing here - kids are friendly, playful, and not full of themselves. S19 went to a class and found that to be true. 25% from east coast and 25% from west coast. Only 12% from MN. My husband and S19 also loved the tour guide. S19 said all of the kids he met seem familiar to him. When he looked around, it seemed like he fit. The admissions dean stressed that the academics are intense (but not a ālearning penitentiaryā) and that students are super curious. The quarter system means class moves very fast. He was pretty direct and told the parents and kids up front that the school is selective. He was unapologetic about it. Itās the first time weāve encountered that but Iām not surprised since Carleton is the highest ranked school weāve visited. I could tell that S19 liked it. A lot.
Upon returning home, S19 told me that he likes so many of the schools heās visited. He really thinks heāll be applying widely, seeing where acceptances fall, and then returning for accepted student days to make a decision. I think heās doing a good job of not getting too attached to one school. Weāve been preaching that he can have an awesome experience at so many schools and, at least so far, he seems to believe that as well.
So my son received some info from an Ivy League track coach that I found interesting. The coach has one of the top Ivy track programs and is looking for very fast times, and my son right now does NOT have the times to be recruited. He said he might have the potential to reach them by this summer when recruiting starts. He then went on to mention his standards for academics and Iām surprised they were kind of low. He said the kids needed a 28 ACT and a 3.5 GPA minimum to be considered. That seems sort of low donāt you think? Way more relaxed than MIT standards for sure, you would vomit if I told you the bare minimum standards for recruitment there, ha.
Maybe those are the bare minimum requirements for the fastest guy in the world, who is a first generation student, URM , from north Wyoming High or something, lol.
I talked about this with my son, and he said heās not sure he would even want t attend a school with high demands on both academics and sports, that it might be too much for him. Too cutthroat and competitive, with little time for downtime and fun. He mentioned again that he really liked the atmosphere at WPI, how it was group project based, less competition and more about learning and figuring stuff out. The kids seem to have lives outside of studying and get involved on campus with clubs, activities, parties etc. He doesnāt just want to study 24/7 and be stressed out.
It was good to see he is at least thinking of the types of schools he might fit in and enjoy. I need to find some schools like WPI I guess, to add to his list.
Back to the common app. People here were talking about how the information gets reset at the end of the year. Apparently, thatās changed. See:
http://www.commonapp.org/whats-appening/college-counseling/five-things-know-about-account-rollover
http://www.commonapp.org/whats-appening/application-updates/account-rollover-faqs
Apparently, you select the year of graduation when you create the account and all information is saved.
I tried to check the account I created for D19, but the common app site is incredibly slow. I guess the November 1 deadline is having an effect. (Thatās definitely something weāll keep in mind next year, though itās doubtful that D19 will apply early decision anywhere).
@RightCoaster isnāt Olin project based?
@gusmahler I was just reading on the 2018 thread that the Common App was slow all yesterday and they actually took it down for a substantial period of time. I had a talk with the kid last night. Heās planning to start writing essays on August 1st and have them in the teachersā hands on the first day of school. We will see how plans intersect with reality.
I went in to the front-runner colleges and found all their essay prompts for this year, printed them out and handed them to him. We had a long conversation about them on the way to opening night last Friday, helped ease opening night jitters. He riffed on several ideas. I think he might actually draft essays for a few of the CA prompts before August. He likes to write, I guess Iām lucky. If only he were as enthusiastic about math.
@ninakatarina Thatās a great idea to print out the prompts. I did find the supplemental essays on the common app for the schools we know S19 will apply to so far. I didnāt think to print them out though. I guess some may change, but most are pretty basic - asking āwhy X collegeā - and I doubt those will change. S19 could probably write those types of essays pretty well by August.
Having them on paper made them more real and less scary, and seeing that most of the colleges give him a choice of things to write about, or have very short word limits for some questions, also makes them less scary. Many of the schools heās interested in donāt have supplemental writing prompts, and I included them on the list too just to show that he can be ādoneā with those colleges once the Common App essays are done.
Here are the essay prompts, if you are interested.
Iām going to see if D19 wants to work on them over summer break. Though Iād be surprised if she does.
Itās probably helpful for you guys to look at all the essays from all the systems. E.g., here are the current Apply Texas essay prompts: https://www.applytexas.org/adappc/html/c_share_essay_topics.html. Only for state schools in Texas, so it may not be applicable to you.
@gusmahler but do we know that our kids will have these same prompts?
Thanks @gusmahler for that info on the Common App.
My kid is not much of a writer (has never really tried), but since heāll likely be applying to safeties, low matches and matches where admissions are more stats-oriented, Iām hoping his essay wonāt make much of a difference. Heāll just submit whatever the English 12 teacher reviews in class and I probably wonāt see it.
If I showed him an essay prompt a year ahead of time, heād probably stop talking to me for the rest of junior year, at least.
@eh1234 I think most of the talk about essays on this thread right now is prompted by parents looking at the 2018 thread and seeing all of the kids who are waiting until the last minute to finish essays and send them before Nov 1st! Iām definitely not mentioning essays to S19 right now. In fact, Iām feeling like heās a little tired of college talk. We donāt have any more visits lined up until March and heās done testing so I think itās back to putting all of his focus on junior year for now.