@Meddy I have the opposite concern and one that I think @homerdog mentioned namely if a sibling was accepted to a school and went elsewhere will that be something that could impact the younger sibling’s chances.
My D18 as a high stat kid was selected at UDEL to compete at a weekend for additional scholarship over and above the highest OOS merit award. She ended up with a 25K per year scholarship which as you can see from my aviator she obviously declined to go to Clemson. My D21 also a high stat kid and is very interested in UDel. I am not worried she won’t be accepted, but I am concerned that she might not get invited to to that weekend because her sister decided not to attend. Probably over thinking things but who knows.
@burghdad Trust me when I say I have had concerns like that, too. If there is anything about following a sibling that had much success in the application season that has me concerned, it is those offers she turned down lol I may be overthinking it too, but remember those little surveys they invited them to fill out as to why they didn’t accept and the impressions of the school, etc?
I have to assume that schools would understand how different kids within the same family have different personalities, interests and priorities? AOs are usually siblings or even parents themselves, so they must know that one kid isn’t necessarily going to follow the same path as his/her sibling? I even heard an AO joke in an info session once that they have seen this play out plenty of times. A student goes on a tour, their sibling is forced to tag along, the older sibling doesn’t end up going, but a few years later, the kid who hadn’t wanted to be there in the first place ends up attending!
Thankful to have read up on some posts and learn more about college life in the US. COVID-19 has really thrown a wrench into so much and impacted everyone globally. We’re 100% online for high school and our Canadian schools have a much different timeline, in that we begin our school year in early September and finish in mid-June. We have so much remaining of our school year (2nd Semester), and the message from our school district at this point is, grades are in place from before going online, but moving forward it will be learning-focused and the remaining lessons and testing will be graded ‘slightly easier’ than before and weighted accordingly.
It’s such a different experience planning for American schools vs our Canadian universities. We don’t require SAT/ACT (we have entrance exams), we don’t use class rank, and don’t calculate a GPA.
My D21 is a high performance volleyball athlete and has been heavily recruited by D1 schools the past couple years. To prep for that, she did take her SAT in spring of her Sophomore year but didn’t study at all, it was more of a baseline to see where she landed. She scored 1050 which is definitely in the low end for admissions but she hadn’t taken “Math 10” yet (your Sophomore equivalent) so we figured retaking it again this spring would be a much better result now that she’s completed Pre Calculus and finished with a 92% in her Junior year 1st Semester.
Now that we aren’t able to retake the SAT it’ll be interesting if they hold her original result as her ‘final’ SAT mark - I hope not, as she was only 14 at the time!
In September 2019 we went on a few official visits and she verbally committed to Arizona State University to play beach volleyball in fall of 2021. It helps a LOT to know where she’ll be going to school during these uncertain times, but I’m still hoping for SAT testing and high school grades provided so she can increase her academic scholarship money in addition to her athletic offer.
I didn’t see ASU as one yet who is waiving the testing, so guessing we’ll be trying to figure out how to rewrite…and we have fewer test sites here in Canada too. Not all dates are available
We’re pretty excited about ASU, do any of you know students who go there? Would love any feedback or suggestions.
@CdnStudent2021 Welcome! We toured ASU with our oldest girl and it’s funny that the post right before yours mentions the tag along siblings on college tours falling in love with the campus. That happened to us. The palm trees, the Frank Lloyd Wright designed building on campus and just the vibrant college feel of Tempe made up for the extreme heat warning that day. The Honor dorms are the nicest I have seen. They treated us well, had front row parking that had a printed sign with her name on it. All in all a nice experience. Congratulations to your family!
Two of my daughter’s AP courses had finished covering new course content before the switch to online learning, but I was happy to learn today that the others are finishing the course content, even though it won’t be on the AP test. I’m glad they didn’t immediately switch to review, especially since most tests are now a week later than planned.
Welcome @CdnStudent2021!
As far as the online schooling. D’s teachers give the weeks worth of assignment on Sunday. In her typical style she does all the work in 3 days. Leaving her time to dive back into the only math curriculum she has ever loved, Art of Problem Solving. the girl loves a good proof.
@TVBingeWatcher2@Meddy thanks for the welcome! It’s great that the tag along younger sibling got to see what the campuses looked like.
When we went on our official visit to ASU in September I brought my 20yo son with us. He’s at UBC here in Canada and in 3rd year Kinesiology. He was blown away by the campus and the team took us field level to a home football game too. Such a cool experience! She’s going to love it there.
I think the weekly assignments will be shared at the start of the week and there is a quiz on Thursdays. It’s funny D21 had the textbook to work from but hadn’t logged in to the PreCalc website. The teacher emailed us today saying she’s flagged that she hasn’t logged in yet and the assignments are necessary to know how to do the quiz. Good follow up on the teacher! They’d have a lot of kids to keep track of.
About the Barrett Honors College at ASU. We’re so torn about it, does she try it and if it’s too much balancing athletics and travel for tournaments, etc then she can scale back? Or should she go for a regular degree and move up if she thinks the first year is manageable. Is it better to get an A in regular or a B in Honors? ??♀️
@CdnStudent2021 Wow congratulations to you daughter. She must be a very talented VBall player.
As to the honors questions keep in mind that doing Barrett may not mean the difference between and A in a regular class or B in honors. It really is the difference between a class with maybe 100 kids and class with 15. Obviously some students do better with smaller classes. It is also the difference between having more inquisitive and serious students which can make for a much better learning experience. They besides the awesome dorms they also normally get priority on class selection, and other academic study abroad programs that are not available to regular student.
Also although in your daughter’s situation she will already have her teammates a friends group, the honors college also provides a peer group for the kids in a large university like ASU. If she is in fact an inquisitive and serious student I would say go for it.
Lots of kids from our kids’ school go to ASU. We’re in a neighboring state, and the New American scholarship makes the school very affordable (about 30k w/room/board). Plus, there’s tons of school spirit and so much to do! I was just saying yesterday that I’ve never heard of anyone not liking it. It will be on our twin21s list.
Re, Barrett, lots of kids choose it because they like the separate living/dining/workout facilities and it makes it easier to make like-minded friends. Obviously, your D will have a built in friend group. I don’t think it’s harder, just the Honors classes are smaller and everyone takes the first year Human Event. Also, they have additional mentors and help for applying for prestigious scholarships. I just read yesterday they had 3 goldwalter scholars from Barrett this year. A friend’s daughter graduated in 3 years (with AP credit) and is now in med school, so it can’t have too many extra requirements.
We know plenty of kids who didn’t choose Barrett (some engineering kids and others who just wanted more freedom), and they have all found their niche and done well.
You’re lucky to not have to go through the college search, especially now!
@CdnStudent2021 what @burghdad said + at the Honor’s College presentation we attended, it was mentioned that a good portion of the Honors dorm residents were students in the Engineering dept., which sounded very quiet to my D18 I imagine that you could obtain current info. on what the make up is now.
Anyone have opinions on U of AZ vs ASU for physics/engineering/neuroscience? How does merit aid compare? I know U of AZ has a auto merit chart-does ASU?
@1lotus I was just looking over the ASU page and it seems that U of A is the more generous. Most of the honors acceptanced with ASU came with $15,500, still leaving about $35k out of pocket, i think? Browsing that page may give you some insight.
I think quarantine is finally messing with my head. Hard time sleeping last night because of storms, then it popped into my head it’s APRIL!! D21 can start applying to school in a few months! And all our April visits are canceled we have no idea what are list is! AAGGGHHHHH I feel stressed out.
@NJWrestlingmom Thank you! I was looking at the ASU website as you posted. We had a couple of college visits planned for our spring break that were cancelled as well which was disappointing. I felt like I was all prepared for the year to come after having been on College Confidential for years and now the game may be changing!!
Sorry I have been so distant. We are on a state pause as our governor calls it and my D21 and I are not doing well with it. I’ve been reading.
We are on week 4 of elearning. It’s really just assignments given and they do them and submit. The teachers give places to go for resources if they need it. No virtual classes. We just got a notice today that grades for this 3rd quarter that ended today will not negatively affect their grades as of 3/13, the last day of in school classes.
Looks like in NY we are reaching the apex or at it, we have had a few days of steady or declining numbers, so that is reassuring. As of now we are on our shutdown of non essential businesses and schools until April 29th. I expect it will be extended. We end our school year end of June, officially but in HS exams start mid June and our Regents have been cancelled.
U of A has a merit chart that’s based on gpa and act/sat. If the student has a 4.0 and 32+, they get 35k off. So, it’s cheaper than ASU for high stats kids. But, maybe because Barrett is one of the top Honors colleges in the nation, way more kids go to ASU from our kids’ school. U of A has beefed up its honors program lately, though, including building an Honors village.
When your student signs up for this, try to minimize how much data they give them…same as everyone should be doing when registering for ACT/SAT for example.
Strive will share the registrants’ data with all the participating schools…name and email are one thing, but try to avoid things like gpa, test scores, desired geography of school, major, blah, blah, blah. The less data you have to give them the better. IMO.
