Parents of the HS Class of 2019 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
6401

@Samsmom2019 There must be a fourth year of math. Macro cannot sub for calc - it is a social studies class, not math, although it may be a fine choice for senior year social studies. (And even if the student were a prospective econ major, I would recommend calc all. the. way).

Whether the fourth year of math would be AP stats or calc is the real question; if elite schools like Penn/Princeton/Gtown are on the table, much of the competition will have some form of calc, as it’s more rigorous than AP stats. Going down a notch or two in selectivity, the distinction becomes less important or entirely unimportant. Then next there’s the AB vs BC question, though for a humanities, non-econ major, I’m guessing AB would be fine.

6402

This is why I came here first to ask this question, thank you all! :slight_smile:

6403

Chiming in on Dartmouth because we visited recently. I liked it okay, but DH was enthralled by it. (D liked it a lot too). Think the difference between me and DH feelings had to do with access to skiing. If you’re a skier or ice mountain climber (lol- they showed a video of that), then as my DH put it, Dartmouth is heaven on earth!
The D plan seemed interesting and unique too.

6404

^^
The skiing nearby Dartmouth is not all that great, seriously. The best skiing in NE is up near UVM or near UMaine Farmington is. NH is alright. Just an FYI if you have a kid coming from afar seeking awesome skiing. You can get to awesome skiing from Dartmouth, but you are going to be driving quite a ways. Burlington VT is about 45 minutes to Stowe and Sugarbush to the south, and if you heard north you can get to Jay Peak. The Bowdoin and Bates kids hit up Sunday River in Maine.

@Samsmom2019 do they have Honors Calc instead of AP Calc? We have that at our school for seniors. It’s a nice option, not as deep and heavy as AP Calc, but still calc!

6405

@bearpanther my kid was kind of sold on WPI when we took at tour there last Fall. He really liked it. It’s close to us and it’s a nice place. Would be totally fine for him. There is a good chance he will go there.

But he has started thinking of some other options so we’ll see. The biggest issue for him is he’d rather have WPI in Boston vs Worcester. He also hangs around a group of kids that are very smart and academically motivated who don’t like engineering. So he likes to be around those people. I don’t know if he just wants to surrounded by engineering kids all day like at RPI/WPI or would do better at some place that has more of variety of kids.

6406

At our HS, AP Stats does not “count” as a 4th year of math. It is a math elective. When my daughter was in HS, some students didn’t realize this and substituted it for calculus senior year thinking it was a “math” class. And AP Macro/Micro falls into the Social Studies elective category. Our guidance department strongly suggests some form of Calculus senior year…

6407

Our kids have to sign up for AP exams at school in January. There is a reduced fee for kids on free/reduced lunch and the school reimburses you for scores of 3,4,5 on the exam.

If your kid already took the AP Lit exam and is not required to take the AP Lang one, I don’t think they can get more than 6 credits for English, so it might not be worth it to take both if you have to pay for it.

I think D only had to pay one exam fee for AP micro and macro. I thought that was nice.

@Samsmom2019 can he take AP Stats? I think that one would be helpful for any major.
Or some kids take math through DE.

6408

@RightCoaster, except maybe for a few communities near the straight-line border with Canada (e.g., Tok) and those places in Southeast Alaska that are affected by downstream runoff from mines in the Canadian Rockies, Alaska kind of ignores Canada, bizarrely enough. Also, we’ve never had any of the sorts of tuition reciprocity agreements that other Pacific Northwest states have had with British Columbia, so there isn’t even a history of Canadian schools being on the radar.

6409

@ninakatarina, I wonder whether your school counselors should be looking at Questbridge and other similar programs for their students. Some of the students might get matched with a school that meets full need, and this would be one very good reason for your high school to have students apply to and even attend “prestige schools.”

I have to say that I dislike the expression “prestige schools.” It implies that there is no other reason to attend these schools besides their status and that students who apply to these schools only do so because they seek prestige. Typically, these schools have low admissions rates for reasons that are often very legitimate. I mentioned a hundred pages or so ago that there was an anti-Ivy League bias in this group. There was a great hue and cry about how I was wrong. I point to comments like “prestige schools” and this comment to demonstrate what I meant:

I guess I would ask once again that we try to be supportive of every student’s journey to adulthood, whether it includes trade programs, Ivy league schools, community college, state school, gap years, or something else. In the other CC parent threads in which I’ve participated, this is what made them useful. There is enough meanness in other areas of CC.

@homerdog, S13 had a wide, rangy friend group. Another high school friend attended Bowdoin, graduated in 2017, and loved it. This wonderful, amazing, resilient kid is an orphan and had suffered some severe family trauma as a high school student. I was so impressed with what this student told me about Bowdoin and its support system. Two thumbs up.

6410

My school counselor sent out a good 4 emails on Questbridge. A bunch of the top kids would qualify for it. She said that they didn’t have very good luck with kids who qualify for QB actually signing up for it.

Makes me sad. All that potential…

6411

Hi all! (here is my super long introduction post :slight_smile: )

I am a class of 2017 parent finally trying to join in to get myself motivated to do this again with my S19. I spent the past few days reading through recent post and feel like we have a great mix of parent/kids here. I look forward to seeing where everyone ends up this time next year!

Here nearly all kids apply to one school and go. Mostly Mizzou or a MO directional school. Those that want to continue a sport usually try for a spot on a CC team. The few that want to go out of state typically go off to KU (kansas) or Uof Arkansas.

I find a lot of similarities between my kids and many of yours. I am going to summarize by D17 search as some of you may relate a bit to it.

My D17 had a 30ACT and 4.3 WGPA. She is a good student and works hard for her grades. She is a good writer and participated in a lot of things (sports, clubs, mentoring, part time job, etc) Her application looked great. But I wouldn’t say she was passionate about anything or “pointy” - and she definitely didn’t have any “hooks”. She was what I would describe as apathetic about the entire process; completely paralyzed and overwhelmed by the cost and options. She was (and is still) completely undecided about what she wants to study “I am not interested or good at anything” - clearly there is a bit of insecurity and other issues we had to deal with too. She is an introvert and maybe a bit anti-social by choice. - but not particularly nerdy or studious. I thought that greek life in some schools would be beneficial for her but in others disastrous. Finding the right fit was tough - but a smaller LAC driving distance from home always seemed to look better for her . I pretty much had to take control of the search and force her to make a decision of the very last day.

Our search was driven mostly by our budget. Our EFC is $10K and that is pretty much what we are capable of paying out of pocket (after merit, grants, and fed max student loans) So we sought out meet-full need schools and schools that offered lots of merit. Here is a quick summary of our results:

Wait listed: UofRichmond, Wake Forest, Lafayette. Deferred then denied at Boston College, rejected at Colorado College.
Accepted: (total cost/yr after merit and grants - no loans) at Truman State ($8k), Rhodes College ($24k) Mizzou ($25k) and Drury ($15k)

She wouldn’t visit Truman, thought Mizzou was too big, and couldn’t justify the price difference between Rhodes and Drury (we did love Rhodes though) She is currently a happy freshman at Drury University in MO.

My S19 is a different ballgame :slight_smile: He is outgoing, confident, social, and athletic. He is also sometimes lazy, arrogant, and audacious. I suspect his ACT will be a bit higher than his sisters (maybe 32?) but his “I don’t do busywork” attitude has landed him a GPA much lower (3.7W maybe) He enjoys digging himself in a whole and sweet talking his way out of it - and he is really good at it. I worry much less about fit with him as I am sure he can fit in anywhere…however I am not sure his stats will get him many options in our budget.

He is completely disinterested in thinking/talking about college yet. He is also completely undecided about what he wants to study - but unlike his sister (when nothing was interesting) he is the opposite and thinks everything is interesting and his possible major changes on a whim. He also is a very competitive soccer player who is still kicking around the idea of playing in college - however I think he’s prefer a bigger U and I am pretty sure he’s not good enough for a D1 team (maybe D2 - for sure D3) A bigger U with a good Club team might work (although I am not really convinced he loves it enough to devote even that much time to it in college) He would love to go away to somewhere not like Missouri - but I have a feeling finding somewhere in our budget is going to be tough.

ANYWAY - no lists for him yet - once we get a firm ACT score I will start to get serious.

6412

@stlarenas if his ACT/SAT is good enough, Bama might be a good choice. Welcome and good luck.

6413

@dfbdfb that is odd the kids don’t look at places in Canada. I’ve been told that some of the Canadian schools are fairly good bargains for Americans, is that true? I’ve never looked into it, but a guy in town had a family that originally lived up there and sent all of his kids to Canadian schools and said it was much cheaper.

@EastGrad I’ve had a chance to visit every Ivy League school at least once during my life, except Cornell. What is your favorite? I’m not sure what my favorite one would be. I’ve always liked Brown because when I was a HS teen my girlfriend’s brother went there and we would go to parties there. I always thought the kids seemed cool and I enjoyed Thayer Street and that whole zone. I would like to check out Princeton and Columbia because I’ve only walked thru to check it out. It must be fun to go to Columbia and have access to the city. That being said, son stands about a .001 % chance of acceptance so I don’t think he will be applying. But if Brown was much easier to get in, I might have him visit at least.

I have no Ivy hate, nor any disdain for any school really. Wherever the kids and parents end up being happy is the only thing that matters. I went to my “safety” school I guess, didn’t even think about prestige or any of that, and had a super fun 4 years. When I applied to colleges I wasn’t even aware that kids were really trying to get into all of these “elite” schools, I was totally ignorant of the whole thing. It just didn’t matter to me and I don’t think it mattered to most of my friends. I hope some kids feel the same way today.

6414

Re Ivies and the ilk. I’m a sucker for beautiful and grand colleges and I always take the opportunity to visit famous colleges. I have visited Cornell, Dartmouth, and Yale. I’ve also been to Oxford, U Chicago, Stanford, MIT and Berkeley. I’ll visit Princeton and Harvard as soon as I get the chance. Actually I have been on the Princeton campus, sort of. My friend and I pretended to be a students to snag a shower at a gym during an East Coast college road-trip eons ago. So far Yale was my favorite, not counting Oxford which is really something to see.

Re AP tests. We have to sign up by March 12th. S’s school does not offer any AP classes so the kids have to study on their own for them. D16 took Calc AB and Calc BC, but didn’t see the point of taking AP Physics even though she was in Adv Physics (2nd yr). What a mistake!! D had no intention of majoring in physics. She was going to major in math. Then sophomore yr, she decided to double major in math-physics and had to take freshman physics. This meant no semester study-abroad. She can do interim (J-term) abroad but can’t take off a whole semester. At least she did Calc AB & BC. That got her out of the 1st year of the math major reqs.

For S19, I’m encouraging him to take a bunch of APs. Not every school will take AP, but he doesn’t know where he’ll end up. He might end up a a place that does take AP and has heavy distribution reqs. It’s worth the cost and effort because if he can get some of his reqs covered with AP credit, it’ll really free up his schedule in college and give him flexibility.

6415

I agree, there are some excellent deals north (east, for some of us! :slight_smile: ) of the border—the Memorial University of Newfoundland, in particular, stands out cost- and qualitywise among those I’ve looked into with my D19.

6416

@homerdog We are considering a Massachusetts trip for fall break. Given how “meh” my D19 is on college visits, I see no purpose for us to spend a finite travel budget on touring campuses when nobody is there. The problem, as you point out, is that it’s hard to take a full week in the fall. We can only do 3 days off (though that’s really a constraint imposed by my own work schedule and budget considerations as both our kids have a full week off at school). So folding in a travel from the western US, that really means we can have, at best, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (if available) to tour schools. And since we would look at schools both in Western Mass. and – potentially – Boston, that limits us to probably 3 schools at most, especially since the Western Mass. schools would need to include an interview as part of the day.

6417

I may as well put a list of schools that D19 is considering, though I feel like this list:

  1. hasn’t really changed much since it was initially assembled
  2. reflects my input more than hers since I did most of the assembling (and she hasn’t specifically kicked schools off the list)
  3. hasn’t resulted in her gravitating to any one particular school

Anyway, in no particular order:

Smith
Mount Holyoke
MIT
Caltech
Harvey Mudd
St. Olaf
Carleton
Macalester
Bryn Mawr
Swarthmore
Haverford
Reed
Arizona State

There are a couple schools on there that I don’t think she has the scores yet to be a reasonable lottery candidate for, and then some others that while she’s more in the 50th percentile range of scores, I’m not sure her non-score materials would necessarily give a great shot at the lottery that those reach schools represent. (She’d definitely have to figure out how to emphasize her strengths and write some great essays.)

I’d be happy with just about every school on that list, and she’s said she’d be fine going to ASU (local safety), as would I. I’m worried the list doesn’t have enough matches (let alone safeties), but given that ASU is already an acceptable alternative for both her and us, I’m trying to be more OK with that fact and not try to force a safety she’s not happy with onto the list.

But there are some other schools on that list (and a few not on that list) that I think would serve her better than ASU, even with Barrett Honors College, at which I feel confident in her acceptance.

6418

@BorgityBorg So your east coast list includes Swarthmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, MIT and Smith? I would first look to see if any of them care about demonstrated interest. I bet Swarthmore and MIT don’t care but I’m not sure about the others. I bet you could do them all. Swat, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr are close, right? Then off to Boston and then a drive to Smith. Better fuel up on the caffeine though.

Forgot Mt. Holyoke but that’s close to Smith, right? Yikes. Ok it’s a lot.

6419

Our NE college trip could never be just one trip. In an ideal world, I would like S19 to see Bowdoin, Colby, Dartmouth, Tufts, Haverford, Skidmore, Vassar, Dickinson,Hamilton and Brown. :frowning:

6420

@BorgityBorg I wrote a ‘campus vibe’ report for St Olaf. My D is a student there and I ‘interviewed’ her about the school over winter break.
https://www.collegeconfidential.com/vibe/st-olaf-college/4129201.html