@cakeisgreat Marist is very popular in my neck of Northern NJ. Everyone I know there seems to be very happy with their decision, though I can’t speak to the premed track. Our Naviance stats are 40% acceptance rate with 3.36/1286 avg for whatever that’s worth.
My son does not really have any sort of official list, and his " unofficial" interests are a complete hodgepodge of schools from small engineering schools to large state schools. I have no idea where he will end up at all.
Good to see some of you have a solid plan going into the Fall.
Hi @jellybean5 ! It’s good to hear from another person in Texas. We are in Helotes. It seems that this thread has a lot from the East coast. Strangely, S19 doesn’t like UT or TX A&M. He visited and said he didn’t like the urban vibe of UT and couldn’t pinpoint why he didn’t like TX A&M. After officially visiting 9 TX schools and unofficially visiting a handful more, he definitely leans towards private christian schools. Baylor, Abilene Christian and Southwestern are on the list with a few others. Like your daughter, UTSA is his safety. But, he just threw us a curveball and said that he hopes to play football in college. So, if he gets an offer, his list goes out the window. My oldest went away to school in Colorado, which we were fine with. But since my son is a Type 1diabetic, I prefer for him to stay within TX. I have a question for you. Do you know if students who qualify for assured admissions because of their gpa/test scores at TX public universities have to do the essay requirements?
@4MyKidz I do not know about the essay requirements. Sorry!
I know, it seems that nobody in this class here is in TX. Last year’s parents of the class of 2018 there were quite a few TX parents, so I have that thread up on my computer, and try to read the whole thing when I feel up to it. I learned a lot from them.
Good idea @jellybean5 , thanks!
@SDCounty3Mom we had 5 suitcases (4 checked and one carryon). We also picked up bulk items at BBB that we’d ordered via pack and hold and had a few things shipped to the hotel.
3 nesting suitcases stayed behind and th e other came back with me, inside my largest case.
He took far too many clothes and shipped a box home at the end of the year, and came home with one suitcase and a carry on, which is what he will go back with. The remainder went into storage for the summer.
BrooklynRye, if you are thinking about expanding the “zone,” maybe Northwestern? Very green, abuts Chicago’s north side (four el stops right near campus, around 30-45 minutes to get to Chicago cultural centers for two bucks).Evanston is a great college town, Lake Michigan borders campus. Admissions is getting harder and harder, but thought I’d put it out there! (Disclosure: alum and live nearby!)
When we were helping our son move home at the end of Freshman I was shocked at the number of items that still had tags on them. $$$
New pet peeve: Colleges that, in mid-August 2018, while they’re accepting applications for fall 2019 entry, have changed their pages that normally list first-year scholarships to a page saying something like “The deadline to apply for 2018–2019 scholarships has passed”, full stop—that is, they’ve completely eliminated any useful information at all. Why not state that the deadline has passed, and there’s no guarantee that the scholarships listed will exist for students entering in 2019, but hey, at least it gives you a general idea of past practice?
(This is especially egregious coming from the schools that have NPCs that are negatively useful when it comes to estimating not just need-based but especially merit-based aid. And yes, Iowa State, I’m looking directly at you on this one.)
Common App activity question. Son is finalizing this section and he will be done. Regarding Volunteer work, did your kids list Volunteer as a separate activity and then describe them all in that one box OR did your kid list their ECs and mention as part of those ECs that they did volunteering with that group/activity.
Example
:
Activity Band
Postion: Lead Flute
Description: Played the flute non stop. Volunteered for free Band Camp where we taught band to grade school kids- 30 hours
Most of my son’s volunteer time has come thru NHS, his teams do volunteer camps for local kids, but he has helped out with Special Olympics and soup kitchen stuff thru the years. He has a free spot left on his activities section and he could just name if Volunteer and list everything in one place.
I don’t think it matters all that much in terms of my kid’s application, but was just wondering how your kid would organize it.
I’m hoping he finishes this whole thing in the next few days. This shouldn’t take that long.
S19 only has one volunteer activity and he’s on the board of a local community group so he’s listing it separately.
How many volunteer activities does your S have that aren’t already accounted for in the rest of the EC descriptions? If there are a few, maybe choose the one where he volunteered the most and list that one as his last activity whether it’s Special Olympics or something else?
D19 finished up her Common App yesterday and submitted it the EA schools on her list that use the Common App. I am almost done with my stuff as the guidance counselor and hope to hit the submit button today. If she gets bad news in December, she has RD apps ready to go, but I told her not to send them now since they are not at the top of her list and I don’t want to pay the application fees until we see how the EA round goes.
Now it is time for her to work on the application for the one EA school on her list that does not use the common app. The goal is to get done before we start school the beginning of September, which should be doable.
Well it’s official, today is the first day of school and D is now a senior. I am not one to cry a lot but I was teared up this morning. She was not - she was just annoyed that she has to go back to school so early.
We had a bunch of goals for the summer but of course did not finish most of them. She did get her license and stake the ACT but she did not finish her summer reading projects (has another week or two) or even start her college essay. As of right now she only has 6 classes (taking a free period) and every one of them is advanced (AP, AICE and ED) so she will be swamped with work, hopefully it won’t be too stressful trying to get that essay done in the next few weeks.
I’m hoping to brainstorm with S19 on his essay this week in rainy Maine as he’s done nothing so far. Our public school is really not on this at all and I bet none of the students in his class have started. They just don’t make this a priority and assume the majority of students will apply to our state schools. They don’t even tell students where they stand academically, such as not providing rank or a weighted GPA until the fall, so it’s really hard to even get started.
@4Mykidz @jellybean5 Hello from Austin!
S17 is at UT Austin. He applied as a non-resident as we moved from Colorado last summer.
I think S17 submitted the essays required for A&M assured admission. He did not put too much effort into them though. I would have him do everything required for general admission just to be safe.
S19 will be applying as a resident outside of 10% rank to UT, T A&M, and UT D as a safety. He is only seriously considering UT, but since he is looking at engineering it will be difficult. He is also applying to colleges all over the country.
Sorry to hijack this thread, I’m a student in the class of 2019 who was reading through the thread, not a parent. I was wondering if @homerdog knew if it would be worth it for me to reach out to Carleton’s xc coach. I’ve run about a 4:30 for the 1600 and 16:13 for the 5k in xc, but would definitely need some pull to get into a school like this. I just was wondering if the coach seemed like he had a decent amount of pull for admissions or not.
@RightCoaster it really depended on the actual activity. If the hours were signficant enough, volunteering became its own activity versus a subset of band, or theater, or sports etc.
IMHO “Played the flute non stop” is a terrible description, I’d be calling out the specific bands the kid played in to show variety and progression.
Not that you are listing a flute player lol.
@RunnerPerson Your times are good enough to be recruited at D3 schools. As for Carelton, the two runners from our high school who are there now had similar times. Both were stellar students, though, and did not go ED to Carleton. They only applied to schools RD so got in on their academic merit. Neither of them were recruited in the official way (through the athletic department). I would fill out the recruitment form on their website and send the coach an email. I think the form asks for a transcript or self reported info like scores, etc. Our S19 filled out the form but has heard nothing from the coach. His times are just a smidge slower than yours. Hope that helps.
@eandsmom OMG. I’m sure that was tongue in cheek. “Played the flute nonstop.” Hilarious. I would just love, though, to write up an app like that and see an AO read it.
Yes, I read it as a joke too. 