Made the mistake of actually telling a colleague (after being asked) the truth about why I was out of the office at the end of the last week. Apparently, Penn State is an “eye-roll-really-your-kid-wants-to-go-there-?” university. Had no idea! Thanks, colleague!
On a less annoying note, through this same exchange, I discovered that a different colleague attended one of the other schools on S19’s list (not PSU) and had a great experience. And works in my current department. Which speaks to the quality of that school.
@InfiniteWaves I received quite a few of those eyerolls when DS16 accepted CofC Honors over Clemson Calhoun Honors. Pay no attention. I took great glee in gloating when CofC 's Cybersecurity team beat Clemson and University of SC that spring.
@ninakatarina - the July ACT was my S’s “one more try” so we’ll see. Unfortunately he remembered that scores may be out tomorrow so he insisted today that I not check them before he does. Oh well, hopefully he won’t mess with me as usual.
Yes, @InfiniteWaves, people can be pretty annoying about their reactions to colleges. Most people aren’t negative about my D’s college but the majority don’t know where it is and can’t imagine why she would have gone that far from home. No worries, she’s getting a great education.
Yes senior pics can be pricey. I promised D19 she could have a real photo session as a senior, so she’s been looking forward to that. But then I learned that we had to use one particular studio for her yearbook photo session, so I booked the cheapest possible version of that. But then of course I liked all the poses they took and wanted the digital version. All in all I got out of there for $230 for 14 digital images and a 30-minute session. Ordering prints online from a third party photo vendor, even larger prints, is really cheap these days, so I ordered some prints for us and a few relatives for about another $15. If we didn’t want any of her images or to even access them online, the cheapest way to get a yearbook photo done would be $27. For her “real” photo session, it’s going to run another $600-$800 for a session and digital images. We’re planning to do mostly her pics and then a few of the whole family.
@carolinamom2boys@brentwoodmom Eagle Scout is no joke!! So much work involved. They really earn that prestige. My S21 is working a ton right now on his. Just got the bid back for his lumber and supplies…$2002. We’re getting some free wood from our contractor neighbor and the lumber yard will discount that a fair amount since it’s an Eagle project, but we’re still looking at probably $800. He’s raised about $600. He’s replacing a footbridge that elementary school children walk to school every day so he’s in a mad rush to finish by Aug 22…and he’s going to be gone on a backpacking trip for a week between now and then. Most projects take 1-2 days of a crew working together and his is going to take 4-5. Sigh…!!! It’s basically taken over our lives right now…
@homerdog Has S19 encountered any LACs that won’t allow a prospective student to sit in on a class? D19 wants to do this for her one high reach school that’s semi-local for us and I’m wondering if they’d even allow that since they’re a high reach type of school. This is one thing we really haven’t done yet but I can see how it would be informative.
Anyone have any advice or lessons-learned about attaching an arts supplement? D19 is going to do a vocal music supplement. I’m wondering if it’s worth it to get some production help or if me sitting in the voice teacher’s room with my iPhone is enough. Most of her schools accept one. Some say 5 minutes or less, some say 3-5 minutes, some don’t seem to specify, and one says 10 minutes. Planning to submit the same one to everyone, and add in two or three extra pieces for the 10-minute school.
@SDCounty3Mom s19 has sat in on classes at Davidson, Carleton, Grinnell, Mac, and William and Mary. That’s all of the schools we visited during the school year. If it’s not an option when you sign up via the websites, you can have your D email her AO and ask if there are any classes she can sit in on. Good luck!
@SDCounty3Mom I feel your pain. To all Eagle Scout moms, don’t forget that there are scholarships available to Eagle Scouts. The deadline for 2019 is Oct 31, so make sure you get in your applications.
Eyeroll reactions: People really can be clueless. I mean, f’rex, the open-admissions place I work at is, yes, open admissions, and it has some problems, sure—but our nursing program, for one, is among the top in the country, and the communications program supports a debate team that regularly places close to (and occasionally beats) schools like Yale and Stanford and such. So if you want your highly-talented kid to go into, say, accounting or comp sci? Yeah, they can get a solid enough education here, but sure, not anything high-end. But if they want to go into nursing or communications? If they’re willing to put in the work, there’s nothing eyeroll-worthy here. But then again, people who haven’t put in the research effort tend to think in terms of the reputation of the entire school rather than the major, which is why a bright kid wanting to study, say, creative writing would get an eyeroll about Iowa but praise for Yale, even though by any measure Iowa has the better CW program.
But there is a problem with looking at only your kid’s desired major. Many kids switch. My D started out as English, changed to Politics and Philosophy, and finally settled on economics. Unless your kid is completely 100% set on something, you just don’t know. Even then, mine was set on a double major in music. We spent a lot of time looking at music programs and looking at the ability to double major. We ended up ruling out one school that gave her a decent amount of merit just because double majoring in music would be so difficult there. So she gets to college, takes her first music theory course, and decides that she’s just happy playing in the orchestra and doesn’t really want to take any more music classes. I always get concerned when I hear about kids picking schools specifically because of their strength in one program.
Oh, I agree, @me29034, but only to a point—if a kid starts out wanting to go into creative writing, after all, they’re unlikely to end up in electrical engineering (or vice versa). Switches of major are the norm, but they tend to be the norm within a narrow range. I mean, there’s a reason that a disproportionate number of engineering students who make the biggest of switches, into the humanities, end up majoring in linguistics and [biological] anthropology rather than, say, philosophy or history.
(And philosophy to econ—well, I remain convinced those two are actually the same discipline, they just represent the mathematics involved differently.)
@me29034 agreed. I thought I was 100 percent sure when I went to school. I was bent on biomedical engineering. Math and science were always my strongest subjects. I had done my research on the major. And yet, I ended up a Econ and Political Science double major for a bunch of reasons.
If I had a son or daughter who wanted engineering, I would support that but I would insist on them going to a school that allowed them to transfer to the college of arts and sciences just in case. Engineering and premed kids have a very high percentage of switching out.
With a kid who is going to apply for a fine arts degree, this is a never ending source of consternation at our house because some really good BFA programs in the area he wants are at schools we never even heard of before starting to look into this process. While it’s a no-brainer to apply to those programs, what happens if he does change his mind and want to major in something else? In the end, we did our best to come with a balanced list and if he changes his mind about his major, transferring out of a BFA program is always easier than transferring into one. And I’m sure we’ll get lots of eyerolls about the schools on his final list but it will be easy to ignore because very few people understand the BFA application process unless they’ve done it or are preparing to do it.
My S19 is only willing to major in music and won’t consider a double major so our entire search sort of has to center on finding a school that might take him for that major. His grades are generally good and his test scores are pretty high, but he has no interest in math, science, languages, business, engineering, economics, social sciences, technology, medical fields, etc., and his musical accomplishments are not going to get him into a top or second tier music school. If he didn’t want to study music, I’m not sure it would even make sense for him to go to a 4-year college and maybe we would be trying to find a two-year program to minimize the torture of continued academics.
Hopefully he can at least get some merit aid out of his accidental academic achievements! There is one school on his list (in state and I had never heard of it) where I think his test scores would be in the top 1%. Generally, I’m trying to steer him towards public universities with fairly good music programs and hoping for the best, but this process is going to be stressful. This was supposed to be my easy kid.
My point was more about people being so stuck on schools based on the ranking or the prestige of the entire school , when it’s quite possible that a lesser known school actually has a better program, but goes unnoticed because some can’t get past the prestige factor. Most schools do allow for change of majors. And BTW, there are quite a few people that never change majors and continue to work in their field of study for years. I’m one of them.
If a rising senior has some interest in math/physics and mentions there’s some small chance of an interest in engineering, but that hasn’t been confirmed due to lack of exposure, does anyone have suggestions? How do most kids learn about what engineering involves? Kid will be more involved in FIRST robotics this year; might that experience provide any insight (albeit too late, in the winter)? Current plan involves applying EA undecided to arts and sciences schools of medium-sized universities, some of which have eng schools too.
@evergreen5, do you have any engineers (preferably from a selection of multiple sorts of engineering) in your friendship/family network who the child could job-shadow for a couple days?
Yes, there are plenty of schools that have good film program with great options (USC, NYU, UTexas). We are delighted that DS is targeting these types of schools also.
If he switches majors, it will be certainly be something creative (as previously posted)
I think the main reason to be careful just looking at programs is that, if they switch, it could mean they end up in a lesser situation than expected. I’ll use our state school as an example. The engineering and computer science and business programs are strong at UIUC but, if a kid decides to change majors to say English, I don’t think it’s really known for that. Let’s face it. It’s just hard. These kids are so young. S19 likes everything except computer science. That leaves a ridiculous amount of options. Plus there are majors he doesn’t even know about yet like anthropology or sociology. I can’t wait for him to discover something and run with it.
