@RightCoaster Yes. I hear you about the no mountains or oceans. It’s just four years though. Unless the kids are avid skiers or surfers and can’t do without for four years, it seems like the Midwest would be an option. Maybe it’s just that there are so many schools on the east coast that kids out that way can always find schools they like closer to home.
Just fyi, though, lots of schools out here place kids in jobs on the coasts. I saw a number of NYC internships for kids at Kenyon when we visited and plenty of my fellow classmates at NU got finance jobs in NY.
@homerdog No good reason that I can think of! I think she will end up staying closer to home like maybe the Carolinas in the end though. The reason she is willing to look in the northeast is that my whole family is up there so I think she feels like at least she would be near some family. It’s not just the Midwest, she says the same thing when I mention PA schools- “why would I want to go there? There is nothing there” Thabk goodness there is so much time to still think about this stuff, I am sure she will change her mind many times as we go.
@momtogkc S19 told me he absolutely would not go to school in Ohio. “What’s in Ohio?” Said he was going to Duke. That was at the end of sophomore year. Since then, we’ve been to Ohio and he thought it was beautiful. And he’s talked to a few kids he knows who go to Duke and don’t like it!
I agree with you @me29034 regarding essays . Not willing to risk the prompts changing . Emphasis in our household will be on testing and academics this year. DS16 had no difficulty getting essays and applications done for early acceptance deadlines in Nov even though he waited until early September to start .
We will almost definitely wait until summer. I have to put in the qualifier because if she freely asks what the essay questions may be, maybe we will look and talk about them a bit. But I’m not going to offer it as an idea.
I downloaded (for $8) the ‘my kids college choice’ full tuition awards spreadsheet. Just google ‘my kids college choice’ and it’ll pop up. It is an excel spreadsheet put together by a CC-type parent. Since some of the merit scholarships require early applications, this seemed the easiest way to get all the info. Note that it just has full tuition scholarships, so doesn’t like any partial scholarships. But if a school has full scholarships, they may also have partial scholarships. But also some schools known for merit aid (like St Olaf) don’t appear since they give max 1/2 tuition scholarships.
well, ears must have been burning after my post yesterday regarding super reaches. Son got a note last night from a coach at from one of the super reaches and invited us to visit in a couple of weeks once soccer season wraps up. Kind of exciting. Son unfazed. Still a mega long shot, but at least it’s moving forward.
I don’t have anyone to talk to about this stuff with anyone in real life so I appreciate you all letting me share my thoughts, get feedback, provide updates etc. I don’t talk to anyone in town about sports recruiting, or really even the whole college application process. The college sports recruiting process is quite painful and nerve-wracking, and the kids hardly ever know where they stand in the process. Neither of my kids were superstar athletes either, so it’s not like they have coaches fighting over them. But they were good enough to play somewhere, are good students, good kids, decent athletes, so some coaches like to have kids like them.
For the Juniors involved in sports, the recruiting timeline is now down to less than 12 months, and for a lot of kids it’s probably more like 8 months, when schools want kids to get their year end transcripts in for early reads and commit next summer, and submit ED apps.
I don’t really have anybody to talk about this stuff with in my physical world, either. My husband never went to college, and our financial situation is miles different from everyone at the school my kid attends. So the only person I can really talk to about the college search is my kid himself, and I can’t talk about it too much or I get whines about how I’m putting on too much pressure and it’s too early.
He’s settled at the moment to do Yale SCEA, Temple rolling, Swarthmore and F&M in the January round, maybe a couple of others. But we don’t have any real test scores in yet, so it’s possible that he’s going to score low enough to be laughed out of Yale and Swarthmore. So possibly we’re going to have to rearrange all the plans, look for new matches as what he thinks are matches become reaches.
He also really surprised me when he turned out to like Temple so much. I hadn’t really looked at colleges inside bigger cities because I know he freaks out in high buildings, but there he was looking at a 20 story dorm without twitching an eyelid. So now I’m pulling together data from colleges in cities that I had axed from the previous decision round.
I have the day off of work next Friday, I’m thinking about dragging him out of school and taking a day trip to American University. He has the play Friday night, but he’s not called until 6 and I’m pretty sure we can get a tour in before then. His favorite teacher is an American grad, so I can have him ask her about the school.
NYC schools all seem so expensive, I bet he’d love NYC but I just don’t know how we’d afford anything there.
Well @ninakatarina if your son is open minded about Temple there are certainly more schools he could add to his list.
What did you all like about that school?
My son doesn’t have any real test scores either, and that may end up causing us to reevaluate the strategy too.
He loved the diversity of Temple - we saw women in hijabs, a guy in a Pride rainbow shirt, and a libertarian dude. He liked the dorms that we saw (I wasn’t that impressed) and he loved the food trucks.
But I suspect that a great deal of the attraction was that we visited a kid ® who was a new freshman there, who my kid had been in a play with the year before. While the play was going on the two were cats and dogs, but now that they’re both a bit older they’re fast friends. R is having the time of her life at Temple, she gave us a second tour of her favorite places on campus, and really talked up the place.
R is the only kid from last year’s graduating theater class who is going somewhere other than community college or the army. Depressing, these kids are so bright but their families just don’t have the resources to take the tests multiple times or do test prep.
Those are both good updates @RightCoaster and @ninakatarina
I like coming here to get my college talk fix too because it annoys my family when I drove on and on too much about it.
@RightCoaster I’m in the same boat with not talking with anyone in real life (that includes S19) about college and recruiting. I’ve been following your posts since it sounds like we are on somewhat similar paths. My son might try to play soccer in college at DIII level (def not at DI and actually not interested in that). He is also Junior National team level in another sport, but it is not a sport that is offered at universities much less colleges. It is unclear how much he wants either sport to determine where he goes to college. It is hard to even have that conversation. It is strange because right now every waking moment when not working on school is basically devoted to his 2nd sport. But on the other hand, perhaps December next year, he decides not to pursue this. Only about 5% (1 in 20) on the Jr National team in HS will continue into college, so that this is it is definitely a real possibility.
If he decides he wants to pursue his sports in college, then there are very few schools that will allow him to do that and fit with his expressed academic interests and future goals. And now he getting interested in small liberal arts schools. Arg, that just makes it that much harder.
Also I went through this 2 years ago and still feel worn out and kind of cynical. D16 had top grades and great test scores, but was really just a solid student with solid ECs that meant something to her but were not earthshaking (did not publish research, start a business, or get elected to local government, etc). Waitlisted at all her reaches. Got into matches. Totally fine and she’s happy as it all turned out, but the experience left me cynical I feel. Some days I just have a hard time summoning the excitement I had for D16—and I am a person who is often accused of being too ‘perky’ and having excessive energy & enthusiasm. I find myself biting my tongue not to say something snarky when he talks about reachy schools (and the truly impossible). I want to say ‘You have 2 fine flagships within 3 hrs. What’s wrong with those schools?’ I don’t say that for he would look at me with his boyish puppy dog eyes and a look that said ‘You don’t think I’m good enough to get into xyz?’ And then I feel bad and I wonder if my feelings really just have to do with him being the last kid leaving the nest. Then if I think about that too much, I go off and feel weepy for awhile.
@liska21 - you sound like me. Gone through this already with D16 and it was exhausting. Great student, great scores, great EC’s, blah blah blah and it was still exhausting. I find I have dig deep and muster the energy to do it all again. He is not nearly as enthusiastic, so that makes it hard. Then I start to think about being an “empty nester” - that sounds exciting and liberating for about 2 minutes and then I get sad.
@5050100 and @liska21 we somehow need to find the strength and energy to get our 19’s to the finish line!!
I was so relieved when son17 made up his mind on what school to choose. I secretly wish that son19 would get recruited and be told to apply ED so I wouldn’t have to think about schools anymore
@liska21 that is an even stranger thing to do deal with, a sport that a kid is great at but won’t help in college. Argghhh. Especially argghhhhh because you don’t know that he will want to continue anyways or be offered a spot on the team in the future. Wow, that is a unique situation, I don’t know what I’d do.
My son is a very good soccer player and also does well in track. He loves playing soccer, it is favorite thing to do. But college soccer is quite the grind, its very competitive, and he’s torn between just playing for fun or trying to be recruited for a spot somewhere. He’s had some interest from coaches, but the track coaches seem to really want him at this time. Son19 thinks he’d do track to help him get into a selective school, but it’s not his real passion right now.
He could be really good at it if he worked with the right coach and they set some goals.
I’m just trying to help him figure it all out without being the psychotic “sports dad guy”. I actually don’t care if he pursues sports in school at all, although I do think participating in college sports has many types of benefits.
I don’t really like the recruiting process very much at all, and I don’t like college app process either.
@ninakatarina If your S likes the diversity of Temple and doesn’t mind urban living there are lots of schools to look at. If you are looking at Yale, you might want to check out Tufts, BU and Northeastern in the Boston area. Tufts was very diverse, BU and Northeastern have kids from all over the world, direct access to the city so they can enjoy theatre, shopping, dining, sports, music and night life. They also get to meet kids from the other local schools. What about Brown? I think that’s more “diverse” than Yale, I think. I grew up around Brown and have gone there for many visits through the years for different events. I really like it. All types of people, and Providence has gotten a lot better. Access in and out of Boston and Providence is easy too, with trains, buses, planes.
Midwesterner here amused by all of the poor representation of fly over country. One of my college roommates from CT was bummed out for 4 years because she wound up at Michigan. Her safety school and my dream school. But I digress as I this time around we are picking an engineering school for S19.
We toured Purdue for Engineering in September. It was homecoming weekend, so the campus was hopping for a Friday. We did the Engineering tour first. It was nicely done and I liked a lot of what I saw as a parent. I like that they are researching how they teach and trying ‘new’ things and technology to improve their engineering program. The second session was general admissions, and our first tour guide was a dud. After that S19 was done, so we did not stay for the final tour of the dorms.
The funniest thing that happened was as we were walking between the two tour sessions we overheard two guys talking really loud about how they were going to party all weekend and have fun and get down to studying next week. S19 and I looked at each other and we just starting laughing knowing that with engineering as his degree choice, those kind of weekends would be pretty rare.
We went to the football game the next day, they were very polite hosting Michigan.
I forced S19 to do some driving on the way home that Sunday, and his skills are MUCH improved. We talked in the car about where the college search stood He was also so mature sounding when he reminded me that right now he didn’t have to pick a school, he just had a list of where he had to apply. And that list right now appears to be Rolla, AL, and Purdue. We need more engineering schools I think, but I have tried to stop talking about school options. He came up with Metallurgical Engineering when he did the SITE program at Alabama. I was surprised to see not many ABET certified programs and AL and Missouri S&T are on that short list.
We are touring Missouri S&T (Rolla) in two weeks for one of their open houses. This is our in-state engineering option. If you think Cleveland is bad, look up where Rolla is located!
S19 has a girlfriend and surprisingly her study habits are making him into a much more serious student. His online game time is WAY down. He is hitting the books hard for AP Gov. He was really upset about his ACT score in Sept, so we signed him up for a Princeton Review course. I sold him on the classes as I told him they would help him get over test anxiety, over-reading and other foibles he seems to suffer from for much more than just the ACT. I told him if he still didn’t like his score after this class, then we’d invest in a tutor to just fine tune. So that class starts in December.
So that’s where we are on the path. Time is quite fleeting in many ways.
Welcome @MoHeron! I wish my S19’s girlfriend’s study habits would rub off on him!! But he’s made it this far without studying for tests and I guess he’s not going to start now! I have days where I think he should major in engineering and days where that seems impossible for someone with his habits.
The Engineering program at Purdue sounds great and maybe a little friendlier/more supportive than engineering at a lot of big state schools based on what little I’ve read about it. Sounds like you have a good list going and I guess an unusual major makes it easier! If you twist my S19’s arm, he will say he wants to major in “science” or “music” or “science and music.” Doesn’t exactly narrow things down!
We’re supposed to visit Pitt next week, but it’s looking like they might be raising the bar on merit aid to 1500+ SAT scores, so I’m thinking of canceling and picking a different school until I get a clearer picture on whether he would have any hope of getting aid there (I based his chances on last year’s data). I’m sure it’s nice and a lot of kids from his school apply there, but it would really stretch the budget to the max without merit aid.
We have a lot of family history at Yale (my grandfather, sisters in law, cousins), and it was the first college S19 ever heard about. He’s also somewhat in love with the “Why I Chose Yale” admissions video. I had been sort of thinking about Tufts and Brown - have another family member who went to Brown and loved it.
But it all hinges on those damned test scores going upwards from what he got when he took the PSAT in 10th grade. It wasn’t a BAD score, but it’s not Yale level by any stretch.
The kiddo is completely turned off by Harvard and Princeton. Not sure why, but all the same I like having only one tippy-top school to worry about paying an admissions fee to.
@eh1234 we’ve been lucky with Pitt merit at my house - I feel merit may be getting tougher from what you see here but year to year they might need to adjust that. there’s no telling how next yr may go. i’d still visit if only to see how “city” school goes over.
As for Pitt, looks like their University Scholarships start at a 33 or 1480 with an A average in AP/IB classes. Range from $2000-$20,000. The Chancellor Scholarship for full tuition and room and board is considered for students with a “typical academic profile” with a minimum 34 or 1530. There are other scholarships as well for diversity and for PA residents.
