My older D did have some of the schools specific essays completely change between junior and senior year. I would caution against spending too much time on those, but I think the Common App ones are pretty safe.
@homerdog We donāt know if they will be the same prompts. Which is why I suggested not showing it until the summer. We should know by February if Common App changes the prompts. Though some believe that itās on a two-year cycle, meaning they arenāt likely to change, thatās not 100% positive.
The Common App prompts are deliberately meant to be open ended, as opposed to the school specific prompts. So if a student started working on an essay for the CA and the prompts changed, the chances are that the new prompts would work for the essay, maybe with minor changes in the essay. The CA prompts are mean to give the student a chance to tell their own story and speak directly to the adcoms. Hereās a blog that argues you should actually start by ignoring the prompts. http://www.redbrickwriters.com/common-app-essay-blog/prompts This is basically what we did with my D15. After several false starts trying to answer the CA prompts, she came up with a story she wanted to relate about a specific incident and she just wrote that and then figured out she could plalusibly say it related to one of the prompts. (I related the story in my post #4282 several pages back when we were discussing summer camps).
Good info on Common App, maybe weāll get to it over the winter when things are less crazy. With son17 we had most everything completed by late August, so when he went into senior year he could just focus on grades and enjoying senior year a bit. He did his essay over the summer, we paid an essay lady a small amount of cash to work with him to get some ideas sorted and keep him on target for completion. It was nice not having to deal with that. I think we may end up doing the same thing with son19, as Fall is really busy with soccer, clubs, new classes etc.
@mom2twogirls Olin is a great suggestion thanks, however he has virtually no chance on getting in. Very tough school to get into, and we live about 15 minutes away, so we have the geographical preference working against us. Iām not sure he has the credentials to get in there, but heās close. Itās also very small, no sports teams, etc. He might like it there, he might not. Iāve visited there before and really liked it, and my older son has a girl friend that was accepted last year, the 1st person from our school to be accepted I think. She was brilliant, great public speaker, very curious, heavily involved in STEM, quirky and nice. Perfect candidate.
I donāt think my son19 will be accepted to any top āprestigeā type of school unless he gets recruited for track/soccer. His grades are good, all A- and above, has good ECs, but I doubt heās going to crank out a 1500 plus on SAT. Heās smart, outgoing, driven, but I wouldnāt say heās a student who loves to just sit around studying for the sake of it. Heās more of a doer, He grinds and gets it done. If he could apply this energy into test taking, he might be able to do it, but I donāt think itās that important to him. I think he knows he can get into some sort of engineering school at his current pace, and he just wants to enjoy his college experience without being super stressed. I think he feels stress now to keep his grades at a high level, perform sports at a high level, manage his other ECās etc.
If you could take WPI and move it into Boston or another equally cool college town, he would just sign up for that right now.
@eh1234 if your kid applies to safeties/matches I donāt think the essay really matters much. Especially if your kids stats are anywhere near the 75% level. So donāt stress about it.
My kid has a lot of senior friends who are stressing about the essays, so I made the printout in order to demystify it for him. He knows they change things up, but itās good to get started thinking about things. He had been worried about, āMom, I donāt have a good story about overcoming adversity, what if I donāt get into college?ā. But seeing that you donāt have to write about working twelve jobs while battling with two sorts of cancer and saving the rainforest helped, I think.
Reading the common app website, it looks like of the 7 prompts from this year, two were completely new, two were unchanged, and three were very slightly revised. So if you wrote two essays from the current prompts you would most likely have at least one that works for next year, though thereās a chance you might have to rework it a bit.
@Corinthian The last Common App prompt is basically āwrite an essay on any topic.ā
@RightCoaster I would love to get S19 to look at WPI! His SAT would be in the top 25% there and his GPA is reasonable, but I feel like theyāre looking for kids with demonstrated interest in STEM outside taking APs in those subjects and having a good Math SAT score. (they seem to be looking for supplemental materials including inventions and independent research - I can barely get S19 to plow through his regular homework and all his ECs are music). They do at least have a minor in music, although I had to dig around to find it.
And you make the city of Worcester sound so appealing, ha!
Heh @RightCoaster I wish I could move WPI in so itās only about 2 hours from where we live because it sounds like a place my d would like but itās just a bit far.
How about Rowan? Itās not prestigious but I was reading something about their ECE program that might interest your son (heās thinking electrical engineering and is into robotics IIRC?)
@eh1234 Worcester is not horrible, but itās not particularly pretty in any way. The campus of WPI is quite decent and is in a safe spot, easy access off the highway, lots of buildings have been refurbished. Worcester has some restaurants, shopping, etc, so the kids have stuff to do off campus. The kids could go into Boston, but itās at least an hour away with traffic. If your kid is in the 25-75 range for stats Iād have him apply. They actually care more about grades and other things vs test scores. Test scores may get you some merit, but I donāt think a low test score is a deal breaker for admission there. I think they really want kids who show interest in the school and want to come there.
@mom2twogirls the schools most ike WPI are Harvey Mudd and Rose Hulman. I think heād love Harvey Mudd, but he might not make the cut there, very low acceptance rate. Rose Hulman looks OK, but itās in the mid west and I donāt think there is much interest on his part to consider that. Ditto with Case Western. Good engineering, good vibe but itās in Cleveland. So heās looked at RPI and WPI and liked them both, and prefers WPI for a few reasons. We havenāt checked out Rowan or NYU Engineering ( formerly Polytechnic NY). He probably would like NYU, but I think the education is better at WPI/RPI from what Iāve read, Heād probably like living in NYC for a bit. Heād probably fit in ok at Carnegie Mellon too, but again very hard to get in and very hard once you are there it seems. MIT would also be great, but he has about a 0.01 chance of acceptance unless he gets recruited for a sport there, which is a decent possibility. Heās kind of scared that the academics may be too intense for him though.
If you are looking at Carnegie Mellon, visit Pitt as well.
I think my d will apply to both RPI and WPI as well. I think they will both be a reach financially though. And as I said, WPI is a stretch geographically but itās not impossible.
I am so far behind! As for the common app essays I donāt think we will talk about those until next summer. Right now she is already sick of me hounding her to do her online French class work so I canāt like on too much else. Also have been trying to squeeze in time to have her look over the ACR science section so I can get her to take a practice test. Seems like that always gets pushed aside for everything else from homework to Halloween parties!
I did print out an old Common App for her at the start of the year just so she could see the EC sections she would have to fill out (thought it would motivate her to be more Of a joiner this year) and to see the form the GC has to fill out (thought it would make her realize the consequences of what classes she picked.)
@homerdog Your Sās school
Visits sounded great! D still has no interest in the Midwest. I would like her to see Denison since I loved it so much but not sure we will go all the way there for one school that she doesnāt seem interested in. We had s friend there this weekend for a lacrosse prospect camp and he loved it but he is from Chicago so doesnāt mind the location.
We have a relative at RHIT who loves it, but itās not financially friendly for us and seems such a huge hassle to get to that she ruled it out.
@mom2twogirls your d may get some merit $$ at those schools. At both schools I heard admin basically begging for girl applicants. This year I think WPI managed to get closer to 50/50 ration than ever before, and they have a huge push to get girls involved there.
You might also consider Clarkson and RIT, 2 more schools looking to add more females. Rochester is about a 6 hour drive for us, which is definitely pushing the boundaries for us, otherwise RIT and U of R might be decent choices for my son to apply to. Iāve been to Clarkson and I liked it, and think itās a good fit for the right kind of kid. It is pretty similar to WPI, except itās in a more remote area and is kind of a pain in the butt to get to.
Rose Hulman looks like a neat place, I just doubt son19 will be excited about it. He met a coach at a camp from Harvey Mudd a while back and that would be his ultimate place I think, but he probably wonāt get in, and the reality is that it is very far from the east coast.
@mommdc weālll take a look at Pitt. I know itās a good school and that Pittsburgh is on the upswing. Iād just have to figure out if the cost would be worth it comparable to some other places. My son knows a kid from Carnegie Mellon that plays sports there so he is sort of intrigued by it. Again, very hard to get in, so weāll see.
@Rightcoaster, have you looked at Lehigh? Looks like itās 5 1/2 hrs from Boston.
Also URI, and U Delaware might be worth a look.
Clarksonās location is a no go for her. She refuses to go anywhere with worse weather than where we live now, lol. We also have a neighbor who went for a semester and hated it, which I think would color her impression.
Iām about 99% sure RIT would be way too expensive. Iāve run the NPC and itās actually more than U of R for us. Additionally, they donāt stack merit scholarships and the highest one would still leave us way too short. If she chooses to apply just in case, I would let her but I think she has even less a chance than she would for WPI or RPI.
Her biggest academic reach will be Cornell. It would be ok financially. It might be a little too high pressured an environment though.
Most likely she will end up at University at Buffalo. Itās going to be really hard to beat financially and in the built in support system she would have there. I am hoping though that between the others, she will at least have some that would be doable so she feels likes she got to choose.
@momtogkc Out of curiosity, what is the downside of the Midwest for your D? Iām sure Denison (or Kenyon or Carleton or many others for that matter) look and feel exactly like a school on the east coast. They are full of kids from the coasts. If you look at the breakdown of students by geography, the northeast and CA are well represented. Unless she wants a city location, these schools are very similar to east coast LACs.
My husband and I lived in NYC for three years and we know plenty of east coast families. I donāt see a difference between their kids and ours, especially if theyāve grown up in the suburbs of Boston, New York, Philly, etc. I donāt get why kids dismiss the Midwest schools, especially the ones with students from all over the country.
Iām wondering, on schools that have out-of-balance male/female ratios, would being trans be an asset? My kid is F-to-M and weāre looking at applying to mostly LACs with a higher percentage of F than M. If the colleges accept him, does my kid count in their F percent or M percent?
Maybe I can use that as an extra hook.
@mommdc I looked into Lehigh and that might be an OK fit. My son would probably like it, although he kind of likes a geeky vibe vs a traditional vibe if you know what I mean. He probably wouldnāt get any merit, although I could be wrong. And at full price heād probably just go for a full on tech school like WPI/RPI. Iāll have him read up on Lehigh though and try to get some literature from them.
URI and UDeL are OK too, but for state schools I think heāll just apply to Umass and UVM. We are in state for Umass and he might get into honors dorms there, and UVM he loves the town and scene and they have a new engineering building and dorms coming.
His list might be something like this:
Safety: Umass, UVM,
Match/ sort of Match WPI/RPI, U Rochester,BU
Reach/Super Reach: ??? Northeastern, Harvey Mudd, Cornell, Brown, MIT
He wonāt get into any reaches unless he gets recruited, probably for track, His times are excellent for D3 right now and heās close to standards for D1/Ivy. He just doesnāt have the typical ECs for an Ivy, he does robotics.math team, varsity soccer, track, etc. And he doesnāt have the academics focus either, he is definitely slanting towards STEM only .
Weāll have to see if he even applies to any reaches, although I think he should try. I just think heāll fall short academically ,and Iām not convinced his act/sat test scores will warrant it. If I was to guess heāll end up with something between a 1350- 1450. Heād have to do better on the English sections to get a higher score and I just donāt know if that will happen. So those are good scores, and his grades are good, and he has good ECs, he really is just another average excellent student.t Heās just lucky he can run fast 
@homerdog my kids wonāt look in the midwest because there are no mountains, no ocean, the weather isnāt any better, etc. They want to be able to do internships, summer jobs, co-ops in a tech focused city like Boston/NYC or in CA. Thatās it. So, I guess we are not even going to bother. Good opportunities for the coastal kids in the midwest though for sure!