It is relatively easy to track website clicks with analytics, @JenJenJenJen. If a student accesses the school’s website through an email sent by the school, the school can see whether the email was opened and track the clicks. Also, if the school embeds cookies and/or snippets of code to track unique users, they can track if someone visits their website and where they spend time on the website. This is why if you search for “St. Patrick’s Day Products” on Google, you can get ads later for St. Patrick’s Day boxer shorts on FB, or, perhaps more relevant to this list, if someone spends a lot of time on a financial aid page, a school might send them specific information about financial aid. If schools sell data (I bet most schools don’t, however), ads for loans or other schools might pop up on FB. I would be interested to know whether College Board and ACT sell their data analytics. Anyone know?
Even if people are relatively computer unsavvy like I am, they can do this on something as basic as MailChimp or any contact management program. I have a list on MailChimp. I can see who opens the email I send, how many times they open the email, and whether they click through to any links provided in the email.
Not sure if this is stalker-y or not; it is a fact of online life!
Unless the kids aggressively use tracker blockers like Ghostery and adblockers, as mine does.
Fortunately, she isn’t really all that into schools that track demonstrated interest (more of a big state school kid, she is), but if she were, this would be rather annoying.
Just wanted to check on something. Are Mr. InfiniteWaves and I the only annoying parents that start singing “A-PUSH it. A-PUSH it. A-PUSH it real good!” at the dinner table when their child mentions the APUSH test he’ll take in May?
I’m thinking we are not the first ones on that.
Also, I am now obsessing over his sudden re-interest in Penn State and wondering if there are other schools we should now consider. Other than our actual PA state schools, the others on his list are very small LACs. If he is open to larger schools, we might have to put Temple and George Mason back on the list. Not sure if Delaware or UMD would even be viable. And he is ruling out Catholic schools but Nova might be worth a look.
And no Pitt for him. Pittsburgh and western PA might as well be another planet.
I hear you on Pitt. Kiddo is not a huge sports fan, but he has been indoctrinated in Baltimore sports enough that he absolutely refuses to consider any of the very good options in or near Pittsburgh.
Pity, but it does impose a bit of structure on the search so I guess I should be happy for it. I have such strong FOMO.
I am almost the thread champion for Pitt so don’t be hating on Pitt pls. A very good school with excellent merit. Doesn’t necessarily depict another planet, or require one to love the Pitt sports scene.
Have to laugh about the reference to the Pitt sports scene. Anyone here follow basketball? Pitt went 0-18 in the ACC, fired their coach, all their committed prospects are decommiting, and players currently on the team are looking to transfer. It’s been a complete meltdown. S19 is wishing he were a senior this year because it’s probably going to be really easy to make that team as a walk on next year, plus they have lots of scholarship money freed up.
I hope I didn’t come across as hating on Pitt, @amandakayak , my intention was to say that I am bummed that kiddo will not even consider Pitt because of the city’s sports teams. And I don’t think he has ever watched an entire football game in his life, so it’s a silly filter. I think he would have done fabulously at Pitt and I would have loved to visit Carnegie Mellon, on paper it seems like a nice place for him.
@eandesmom – we sent the SAT scores to the schools that said they required all scores to be sent, or at least to 4 of those schools. (I think there were at least 4 of those…)
I think Pitt and CMU both look like interesting cools, different vibes between the two. But it seems like Pittsburgh is a fun place for college kids these days from what I’ve read. I know a kid hat is at CMU right now playing football and he says he likes it there. I don’t think I know of any kids at Pitt. I know some kids at Drexel, St Joes and Penn and they seem to like it there too. I haven’t been to Philly in a long time, and I went to Penn a long time ago to visit a friend. I have heard Penn is nice, we have some friends with a kid there now.
For whatever reason I just can’t convince son19 to look at other places, so I’ve given up even mentioning them.
@amandakayak No hating on Pitt over here. I would love for S19 to consider it! It is too far away for him. We are in PA but Pittsburgh is 4+ hours away. PSU and Temple are the closer state relateds. If he likes PSU, we can consider some bigger schools. Like Temple or Drexel.
And @ninakatarina we moved to PA from MD. We are Ravens fans. No Steelers love in our house. But we don’t hold that against Pitt.
Has anyone visited University of Michigan? We’re in TX, close to UT Austin. We’re wondering if it’s a similar culture. S19 is looking at the Screen arts program in LSA.
S19 may be and auto admit at UT Austin next year, but Michigan’s NPC comes very close to meeting full need. He’d prefer UT by far, but want to see if there’s anything about Michigan he may not like. Is the weather extreme like Syracuse? Campus beauty and safety? I know nothing about UM, except the academics are stellar, so anything would help.
@romns116 I currently live in TX ( near dallas) but am originally from Michigan. Have spent many hours in Ann Arbor… As a matter of fact it is D19’s #1 choice. Ann Arbor is more of a small town feel than Austin (Ann Arbor population 120,000 versus Austin population 947,000). The weather is definetly not as extreme as Syracuse but definetly will be cold with a chance of snow from late October thru March. Definetly a safe campus. Beauty, hmm IMO I think it’s prettier than UT but not the prettiest campus I’ve seen.( I guess it depends on your idea of pretty. )
I don’t specifically have knowledge of the screen arts program but traditionally LSA is the hardest college to get into at U Michigan because so many majors/ pre majors are lumped there.
Also not sure about your exact financial situation but I find it hard to believe you would get full need or even close at U Michigan. They are notorious for not giving aid to OOS students.
Thanks @Boilermom !
Yeah, I was skeptical of the NPC results, even if we don’t have unusual circumstances. When I emailed the FA office to confirm, they pointed me to UM FA non-resident page. Basically, they meet demonstrated need (IM) for families with less than $90k income and less than $50k assets.
@romns116 I don’t follow U Michigan closely but I think I’ve seen it referenced on CC that it’s moved more and more towards meeting full need for everyone. Sounds like it would be worth a shot for your s19
@Kona2012 Welcome! My junior son is also in an IB diploma program. Some parents on this thread have been talking about plans for their kids’ senior year schedules. I’m hoping senior year is slightly easier (for academics) than this year. How has it been for your son?
More snow tomorrow, ha! Maybe a foot in total. That’s on top of the pile on the ground right now. Spring sports started yesterday in our area, and hardly any of the kids have a place to play.
The kids are already scheduled to be in school now until the end of June. It’s going to be a rather short summer for son19, as their soccer season gets going mid August before school starts. So he’s looking at a 6 week summer break. He better get some serious rest in that short amount of time, lol.
I hate that I have this bad habit of not checking over my posts before hitting send. And then I see them way after the edit time has passed, when it’s too late to fix them.
Anyway, @Kona2012 I believe I was trying to say that I hope you are finding it helpful. Does your son have any idea of majors or are there colleges he is more insterested in?
