@yearstogo I’m sure so many of those July ACTs will be cancelled and likely at the last minute. This is what happened in June with the ACT too, no? There’s so little communication between ACT and the high schools and then with the kids. College Board isn’t any better. Also, now that it’s summer, it’s hard to get in touch with the guidance offices at the high schools to find out their plans are.
I still think there’s a good chance we will not see tests in the early fall.
@flyawayx2 Yes, they were able to walk the campuses and get a sense of the area. She said there were others doing the same thing, as well as people running, biking, etc., so it hasn’t seemed desolate. They’ve seen Swarthmore, Villanova, UMaryland, Penn, GW and Georgetown.
@Momof3B, as if being exposed weren’t bad enough, the way the handled it is appalling. I’m glad he’s okay.
@yearstogo I wish we could get some kind of confirmation on the July date. The lack of communication is so frustrating!
@dogmomof2 Brown is a very nice campus just on the edge of Providence. We really liked it but no admission for D18. Penn an urban school. So if he wants to be in a city Penn be a great choice. Duke we did not really like the campus that much. The biggest downside is the fact that the freshman live on a different campus than where the classes are held. There are other schools that have similar issues UMICH and BC but that type of situation took all three of those off of my D18’s list.
With the schools your son looking at I would highly recommend putting Vandy on that list. Beautiful campus in within the city limits of Nashville but completely separate. They have all the freshman living in dorms in the same area of campus that would seem to help transition the kids to college. SEC sports and school spirit and supposedly highly ranked campus food. If you are sold on Vandy and don’t have any need definetely do ED.
UMich has freshman living on Central Campus, where the majority of freshman classes are held. And roughly 30-40% of freshman will live on North Campus where the engineering classes are held.
If you’re an freshman engineering student, you will have classes on both campuses.
My D18 is an LSA (not engineering) student and lived on Central Campus freshman year. All her LSA classes are held on Central Campus and she has always lived about 5 mins from her classes.
So it depends on what school you you’re enrolled and which campus, as a freshmen, that you’re placed in. As a sophomore you can live off/on campus anywhere you like, North Campus or Central Campus.
If you have any questions about UMich, I’m more than happy to answer them.
Thanks, @burghdad! I am familiar with BC and agree that the drawbacks of a separate freshman campus. We did the Duke live virtual tour and they did a great job of selling the place - much better than Penn did.
We have Vandy on the list but don’t know if it’s going to feel too Southern (we’re from New England). Also trying to better understand the Greek scene at Vandy and Duke and what life is like if you’re not in a frat. He loves the idea of a school with lots of school spirit and pride and wants to have fun while working hard.
We don’t live too far from Brown so I’m hoping we can go down and have a friend walk us around the campus.
I’m trying to get him to prioritize his list so we can possibly get to a couple of these campuses (by plane, if that’s safe) prior to school starting. Most of these places are reaches based on his school’s scattergrams (even with his A- average/36 ACT in all honors/APs) so I think he’d have to choose one and apply ED to have a chance at Penn, Duke, Brown, Northwestern or Vandy. Rice, Georgetown and WashU stats are a little better.
@Momof3B aaack…glad your S seems to be okay and hope the other employees end up being okay as well. I’ve been debating whether my S21 should go back to a volunteer gig he has had in the past which involves some time indoors in a place full of other people’s giveaways/donations/discards, plus some interacting with those dropping such items off. I am torn between wanting him to do it and thinking it’s not worth it, and your experience is helping me land on the latter for now. They don’t really need him - he’s more of a nice-to-have extra pair of hands to do cleaning and unloading. Our area isn’t trending all that well in general, in terms of the COVID numbers, so I think we’ll just stick with the status quo of pretty much staying home.
Just for clarification, at BC, about 40% of the freshman class lives on the Newton Campus, with 60% on Upper. (Upper is part of main campus; this fall will be weird, not sure how they plan to have no triples on Upper, so they’re finding room for another 300+ students somewhere.)
We were also worried about all freshman living on the east campus but it also has some positives as all of the freshman are together for socializing, they have there own marketplace, dining hall, theater, library, gym, main quad, and they can even walk to downtown restaurants. Interesting enough, for this fall since they are eliminating most doubles, some freshman will be housed in the main west campus which some freshman ironically are now not happy about!
Review of Brown, Duke, Penn, and Rice:
Brown - Very good for econ/poli sci/math, not as strong in physics/engineering; the most liberal of the four colleges, probably the most flexible curriculum, not heavy in greek life, cold winters;
Duke - top programs are econ/public policy/biomedical engineering but not overall for engineering (however new $100 million Pratt School of Engineering building to open in the fall 2020), somewhat pre-professional vibe, tons of school spirit, good weather, southern charm. Some don’t like that freshman housed on the east campus and have to take the bus to the west campus or walk 20 minutes, 30% in greek life.
UPenn - tops in finance/econ/business, not as strong in poli sci and engineering. Most pre-professional of the four colleges, urban campus, an ivy with high prestige/brand, big on greek life, cold winters.
Rice - tops in pre-med, STEM, & architecture; not as strong in econ/math; world-class medical center for internships/research, smallest campus of the four with 4K undergrads, some of the happiest students, no greek system, urban environment, can get hot and very humid May - Sept.
@socaldad2002 Thanks for those descriptions!
@dogmomof2 Our S had almost the same list (minus brown, plus Hopkins) for visits to choose a possible ED. He’s a legacy at Duke and Penn. Not sure of his major, but something having to do with math. He was considering engineering, or math/data science, or (lately) econ (though I think that’s just his brother’s influence)… he just doesn’t know. Per his school’s scattergram, it looks like he’d have a good chance ED (probably not to Rice though) but not RD. So, therein lies the dilemma when he hasn’t visited any of them. I’m also swayed by how easy it is to get to each of them from where we live, and the best would be Northwestern, which I’ve never seen either.
I bought a book called The Hidden Ivies that gives a more in-depth review than Fiske on the schools, but it looks like the data is from 2014 and it’s still not like visiting.
On a different subject, are any of you familiar with YouScience? It’s a tool that gives you your aptitudes plus your interests to help you explore majors/careers. It’s part of Scoir (which is like Naviance). Our S just did it and, like I’d suspected, he aligned aptitude-wise with a bunch of engineering careers. But, his interest profile shows he doesn’t like physical/hands on work! So, he’s yards apart for engineering on that. Does anyone have any ideas for majors/career direction for a very lopsided math-heavy kid (doesn’t have equal verbal/writing skill) who doesn’t seem drawn to CS, hands on things? Or, does this change with taking classes? He knows he doesn’t want to be a math teacher, and on pure math PhD on aptitude, he was a bit below anyway. And, he doesn’t want to go to a LAC, which means he at least has to know whether to choose engineering/not for apps.
Sorry this is so long!
@socaldad2002 - Thank you so much for these helpful summaries. I have drawn similar conclusions from the online research we’ve done, but am so curious to see how the schools “feel” to my son. Any thoughts on WashU and Northwestern?
@havenoidea - funny that your S has almost the same list and great that he has a legacy connection to Duke and Penn. Do you have plans to get to any of the schools this summer or prior to ED?
And thanks for the info about YouScience - that sounds really interesting. My S doesn’t think he wants engineering but I think many of his skills and interests would align. I’ll look into it!
@dogmomof2 Yes most of those schools are lottery ticket type of applications. Similar to your son My D18 had 35 ACT all A’s in honors and 8 AP classes. Musicals, softball, President of Interact. Volunteer tutor in intercity schools…ect… Rejected Brown, Princeton, UNC, UVA and waitlisted at Vandy.
@burghdad - yes - it does feel like playing the lottery and I do understand that these could very well all be rejections. Where was your D18 accepted/decide to enroll? How has his experience been?
@dogmomof2 We don’t have any plans yet, as we’re waiting to see if visits open. If they don’t, he (and D21 with different school interests) may just have to forget ED and, therefore, those schools. None of us feels comfortable with EDing without being sure. I don’t know how internationals do it.
@dogmomof2 Well She only applied to two other schools. Clemson and Udel. She got honors college at both and merit scholarships at both and even though Udel was giving her more money she wanted the big time sports.
She a BS Econ major and public policy minor with a 4.0. With all of her AP credits she is going to graduate in 3 years and is currently studying for the LSAT. So we have a whole other world of schools to look at an apply to.
@havenoidea , D did “YouScience” too. D’s results were aligned aptitude-wise with a bunch of engineering careers also.
She too is not the kind who builds things, but does like to code, but would not like to code all day long. She went to an engineering camp last year where each day was spent in the project lab of different engineering majors and lectures giving an overview what the major and careers would look like. She liked the circuits lab in electrical engineering and hearing how broad the field is as well as it is the most math heavy and physics heavy of the different engineering fields was the ticket for her. She also liked computer engineering with is a blend of EE and CS.
@dadof4kids I’m catching up and saw your post asking about College Kickstart. Our school used it for the first time last year. I like it quite a bit for cooking up a balanced list, strategizing about two waves of applications. I’m not sure if they have added stats from '20 admits yet. We had researched elsewhere and entered the schools - it wasn’t really for finding schools. They have some handy summaries of early options, deadlines and requirements. Potentially you can save fees using their plan if you don’t need to apply to all of the schools on your list due to early an admission decision.
After reading up here in CC, it seems to me like Kickstart is pretty optimistic as far as chances go and some of the schools have a different entry for more competitive majors while others don’t, so the latter are miscategorized. I asked our counselor about that and she actually felt that the program was pretty conservative chances-wise. It gives you a grade for your list on balance, but the counselor said not to worry about that too much.
Illinois parents - looks like fall SAT with essay is a go: https://www.isbe.net/Documents/Fall-SAT-Essay-FAQ.pdf
Wow thanks! I thought it would be in Sept. Guess D is taking two SATs in Oct. lol
D school is opening on campus this fall and also confirmed they are a Go for Aug SAT unless CB says otherwise. We will see
I’m really hoping she gets to take it as she really studied and was ready for the March one the May then June. Ugh. Even though all the schools she’s applying to are TO id prefer her submit a score IF it’s in their midrange or above.
She’s above or well outside the 75% for her Match/Safety schools so she’s good there.
Our school doesn’t rank but based on the last 7 yrs she is set to be in Decile 1. She worked hard for that which also allows her to apply for Val.
Fun times ahead. Still can’t believe how fast these 3yrs have gone.