@momtogkc That is a tough situation. I think its too much to ask her to be happy about any of her safeties. At this point, she just can’t be because she is under too much stress. But she does need to make sure she has somewhere to attend next year if everything else falls through. I suggest trying to get one or two EA or rolling admissions to a school that you think would work for her, just in case. If the worst happens, at least she has those in her pocket. A lot of kids who insist that they won’t go, change their mind when it actually comes to a choice between the safety and no school at all.
A “good name”? Well, we can help with that! Here are some possibilities:
[ul][]Georgetown College (Georgetown, Kentucky)
[]Cornell College (Mount Vernon, Iowa)
[]Notre Dame College (Euclid, Ohio)
[]Columbia College (Chicago, Illinois)
[li]Cambridge College (Boston, Massachusetts)[/ul][/li]I’m sure there are others.
(All offered in an attitude of 8-} , of course.)
@KatzHerder I’ve already been through that situation of D changing her mind on majors and what she wanted to do for a career. That did flip me out for a bit, but now I’m okay with it. It made me focus on finding a bigger school with many majors. If she’s changing her mind now, she will probably change her mind again once she’s in college. I did all this research to find schools that had her major last year, and then basically threw all of that knowledge out. So now we’re focusing on a new list of colleges, and it seems to be going well.
Your S can still take some classes in the neuroscience/ biochem area and see how he likes that. He might even change his mind back. You just never know with kids. ~X(
@gallentjill love is subjective. Is it passionate can’t breathe love? Love for a good friend? Love for a great cup of coffee? I’m not saying it needs to be the first but if the student would truly NOT be happy to attend and experience all the drama that goes with that…there is a problem that should be addressed. How to best address it is completely unique to each student, family, etc.
@KatzHerder I’ve been through that with my S17 and I agree that for many students a choice that allows flexibility should they change their mind later is a really prudent thing to focus on. Understanding the cost of change is key. Sometimes switching is easy, sometimes it really can cost time and money, or the desired change isn’t offered at the school they are at.
Interesting discussion regarding safeties. No Naviance over here so not sure how that helps with identifying options.
Safety in our house means a school you will definitely get into and one that we can afford without relying on merit. We will most likely be a full-pay family but that doesn’t mean we are willing to pay $60k+ per year or OOS public costs when we also have an S21.
S19 is totally comfortable with this idea of a safety. And he has two options that fall under that definition. One is the actual PA state school he just got accepted to. Sure we knew he’d get accepted. And sure, it has the typical “party school” rep. But hey, at least right now we know he is going somewhere and that takes the edge off.
The other safety is a Penn State branch campus for the first two years and main campus for the last two (2+2). PSU main campus (University Park) is not a safety under our definition because admissions are so competitive. And, Penn State is not a true state school. The in-state tuition for PSU will be around $12k more per year than what the actual state school will cost us. We are fortunate in that we can afford PSU’s elevated in-state cost (our limit) but many others in PA cannot.
It totally sucks that our highly-regarded flagship main campus (also a notorious party school) is not a true state school. Same with Pitt and Temple. It also sucks that our actual state schools take a resourcing and reputation hit because of the more expensive state-related schools having greater name recognition. To compare, our Maryland neighbors to the south can attend the highly-regarded University of Maryland College Park for the price we pay for the actual PA state schools.
All this said, S19 would be ecstatic if he ended up doing the PSU 2+2 from his preferred residential branch campus. He would do this over attending the actual state school for four years. So, I guess that means he really loves one of his safeties and is okay with the other?!?!? 
@eandesmom Great points as always. As for the influence of family, this is SO true. I’d like to think that I’ve aged into not caring so much about prestige and keeping up with the Joneses, but my mother-in-law is a hectic force for caring about reputation and not wanting to “settle.” She actually once wrote to me in all caps that “anything is better” than going to our less-selective state publics, which is just so silly. Since D19 is not naturally competitive and doesn’t seem to have the FOMO that I have, I think she might’ve been content to choose something non-selective and not widely known outside of its immediate area, and be content with that. For example, when she was a sophomore I took her to a small regional Jesuit school in my hometown and she got an hourlong personalized tour with a friend of a friend who’s a prof there, and she was just happy as could be. I’ve been thinking about that lately, how she spent pretty much her whole sophomore year contentedly focused on that school. Ugh. I’m not blameless here because I’ve focused on top-40 types of schools with her, and I think we’ve all ended up drumming some of her pure heart out of her, if that makes any sense. I don’t know. She’ll be happy at any of her actual list and will get a great education, but one could argue that I could’ve let her be and not emphasized SAT prep as much, and she would’ve been fine either way.
@homerdog @ninakatarina Yeah the categories are kind of exhausting.
@KatzHerder I actually don’t totally understand how any kid makes a decision about their school based on a specific major. They’re all young and inexperienced right now – how can they really know, down to the fine-grain details? I know so many people who got a certain degree and are not in that same field they thought they’d be in. I like to cite the example of how it was a total fad when I was in high school to say you wanted to do “broadcast journalism.” I know FOUR women who pursued this in college. One got into nonprofit management out of college, worked in management for Americorps and is now in the Foreign Service. One got into public relations for tech companies out of college and has been doing that steadily ever since. One got into project management and has been working for large companies in consumer products since then. The fourth? Actually is a broadcast journalist on a local news station. So…point being, many people’s careers diverge from their plans. I’d say that your son needs to be patient and give himself time to explore and not make this choice right now. There are also some majors that really are better suited to graduate work. For example, we have friends whose daughter is interested in marine biology. That’s not a field where you can do a lot of meaningful scientific work with a bachelors degree. She was advised by several people to gain more general science knowledge and research skills as an undergraduate, and then specialize for a graduate degree. She actually didn’t take the advice and made her list of schools based on marine bio programs, but that’s beside the point. I don’t know about music therapy but many other counseling and therapeutic professions require more than a bachelors, so I would think it would be worth a long look to see what degrees and background people have who are practicing what he wants to do, and importantly to ask how that very specific degree could be instead leveraged into a different career if the job prospects and/or his interest in a few years aren’t favorable. My tendency is to advise that broader degrees are better in undergrad when kids are still acquiring more general analytical and writing/communication skills, but I’m a product of a LAC myself so I’m biased. D19 is interested in a career in classroom teaching, but since that career has many downsides, I at least want her to understand alternatives, from education policy to research to another career with children such as a therapist. I’m therefore not encouraging her to find schools with Elementary Education majors and sign up for those. She’s got a nice blend of LACs for the most part where she could major or minor in education but also get a lot of exposure to things I think she’ll like, like sociology, political science, psychology, etc.
We gave D19’s GC a soft, aspirational deadline of October 1st to submit her letter and report. That leaves just one working day to go. The school says to allow 3 weeks from the time paperwork is submitted, which would give her until Oct 3. I noticed in D’s CA that she did start the report but it’s incomplete. Main letter writer has also not submitted after 2 weeks. I’m glad we built in a one-month cushion with all this so I don’t go cuckoo with the stress. The real deadline is Nov 1.
This is a lot of work. My poor third child…by the time it’s her turn I’m sure I’ll be so burned out. She’s only in sixth grade right now but keeps talking about her list, which right now keeps being pretty cute. Currently stands at Cornell or the University of Utah. I think she heard that Cornell has some programs related to culinary arts and hospitality, which she thinks sounds fun, and UU I suspect has to do with some sort of YouTuber. But since she’s my third kid she can have a list based on hunches, misinformation, YouTube, fads, and randomness, and I’ll think it’s just fine…
@KatzHerder Are there any teachers that could discuss this new major with you and your S? Particularly the availability of jobs in this field. I wonder if they would suggest education degree for undergrad with general certification for age group he is interested in. One of the schools we visited had a popular music therapy program but not sure if they offered it undergrad or grad only. I would also ask him what was his inspiration for this new major.
Thanks, everyone! I’m thankful to have CC so I can talk myself down! I’m leaning toward trying to talk in the terms of “aim for the broad foundation and specialize for graduate school.” His goal has always been a Ph.D., so I’m hoping he will be able to see that. Your thoughts are all appreciated!
@gallentjill Thanks - thats a good point about her not being excited now but may be happier later if those are her only choices. We have a few EA schools but could not find a rolling school that she would like.
@dfbdfb =)) I love it - I think I will give her that list! Funny thing is when she says “good name school” she isn’t even thinking top schools like Cornell or Columbia. To be honest I don’t even know what she means half the time! I think she means schools that a lot of people have heard of and are not super easy admits? She also wants to be near a “cool” city and she loves Boston. I told her BC and BU are not the only schools there (Harvard and MIT obviously not even options!) and started listing schools like Emerson and Suffolk. her response was - “ugh, nobody even knows what those are.” I told her growing up in MA I knew about them, but down here in FL of course less people will have heard of them.
@gallentjill what is frightening about that attitude (and I’d agree, Ithaca is a fine option and full of plenty of bright ambitious kids though I find them stingy on merit lol) is that it is entirely possible that a gap year may not bring any improved application results! That makes me so angry that someone would suggest that to another, it’s irresponsible.
This is how we end up with a generation of kids who will not settle for less than the “perfect” first job at the “target” salary in the “goal” town or city. So they live with their parents, save their money for a down-payment when they finally either cave or find something palatable and never, ever, learn how to deal with disappointment or a less than ideal situation or eat top ramen for dinner because it’s all they can afford. Heaven forbid someone has to settle for less than perfection.
Conceptually that’s nice. It really is. It’s also like a participation trophy and isn’t entirely real. In the real world people are laid off. Companies go out of business, stock markets rise and fall as does the real estate market. Protect the kids from having to navigate less than ideal situations and figure out how to come out on top and when something like this hits them as an adult? They have zero tools in their toolkit. They can also be nightmare co workers.
Ok…I will climb off my soapbox now… clearly I was up way too late working last night and am cranky but the entitlement sometimes is just…ugh.
@eandesmom great observations and I completely agree. I don’t believe in generalization regarding " kids these days", but I will say that in my profession , I am responsible for supervising college students and volunteers attempting to be admitted into therapy programs. There has been a shift in the ability to problem solve, execute a plan, and communicate with others in quite a few of these students. I can’t help but believe this is possibly due to limited opportunities to practice these skills. Quite a few of these students can’t even tell me why they chose their major or say things like" to make a lot of money" or " my parents think it’s a good idea" . I have always received those answers in my 33 years of practice, but not as frequently as I do now.
D19 had an overnight revisiting one of her top choices. I was relieved when my husband and I picked her up from the overnight that the school is still at the top of her list.
The day before we left, my S17 had an injury that needed minor surgery. I was impressed by how his school managed the injury: the personal trainer referred him to a doctor who then set up the appointment with the surgeon. Campus security then drove him to the surgery and brought him back to campus afterward. I have no idea if all colleges follow the same procedures, but it was a relief to me to know that he was in good hands since I am 10 hours away.
S17 is doing fine, but is disappointed to be missing a big tournament this weekend. Luckily, the bulk of his events are in the spring so he is not missing much.
@shuttlebus That’s a relief that your D still likes the school! S19 going to his first overnight over Columbus Day weekend. I keep saying Columbus Day weekend in my head and I just realized that’s next weekend. LOL. It’s kind of a haul. I was originally planning on flying but the school is a 1.5 hour flight plus a one hour drive. Since we are only staying one night, we decided to just suck in up and drive the six hours each way. Easier for S19 to hunker down in the backseat and get homework done.
While he’s meeting the XC team and coach and going to class, etc., I can go to parents’ meetings. We’ve visited this school before but it was the summer before junior year so we haven’t been there with kids on campus. It’s a match school for him and I will be thrilled if he hits it off with the team and likes the classes. It’s the only school he’s visiting before decisions come out, not because it’s a favorite per se, but because the coach asked if he wanted to visit and it’s one of the few schools he hasn’t seen during the school year. At six hours away, it’s actually one of the closest schools and it will be good if he has a few closer schools to choose from in the end.
Sorry about your S17. What great care he got. Hope he heels quickly!
They canceled our school’s college night last night.
Yesterday was the Questbridge EA deadline.
59% of the kids who go to our school get free or reduced price lunches.
Angry? Yeah, I am.
I wasn’t expecting that I would learn much. But those kids, those bright, strong kids… I just burn angry with how many of them could have benefitted and now aren’t going to.
@momtogkc My son is also struggling with safeties. He did finally tell me that when I call a school a “Safety”, he automatically doesn’t like it. So yes, I have changed the terminology. I’ve also put GPA ranges and ACT ranges on the list so he can just look and see for himself what his chances are (having told him that as a white, non athletic kid with average ECs that he needs to be in the upper range). I’ve thought about printing the little graphs from niche.com but then thought that might be discouraging.
He also tended to focus on name value at first, as in if he or his friends had heard of the school. I told him that, in our community at least, it seems as if about 90% of kids in his HS stay in state, so his friends just won’t hear about all the other great schools out there. So I’ve tried just presenting him information about a school such as reputation, rankings, things I’ve read in books or heard, etc. so he can try to consider it on his own.
Agreed, not trying to generalize as honestly I this is not a new issue, it was there when I was in college! However I do think that the special snowflake factor, helicopter/lawnmower parent factors…are real. And do not do our children any favors.
Omg. Heals. Not heels. It was s long day yesterday. Still recovering.
How does the group feel about submitting SAT Subject tests where none are required? Specifically, if there is a particularly strong score on such a test that works with the student’s projected major, is it worth sending it in anyway?
@BrooklynRye absolutely. Do it. Most schools say that they will consider them if sent.
@BrooklynRye Send the scores. I only know one school that said they would not consider scores if sent.