@havenoidea My S21 also dislikes writing and, even more than that, writing about himself. He started his common app essay class today and was sighing and hitting a wall on a pretty short and simple assignment. He has such a mental block about wanting to put anything down on paper about himself. But while I was talking through some of the assignment with him, I think we hit on a topic that might actually work for his essay. He’s been trying to come up with a topic for a month and didn’t have anything he liked yet. Here’s hoping this is the one.
@mamaedefamilia Thanks for the suggestions. Rochester is on our radar, and he might be competitive for Mudd (especially if he wins the junior Olympic speed rock climbing competition (jk)). It’s one of the few schools we visited, but it was much too ugly. Seriously. That’s what he said. Plus, it really didn’t look like a fit. Lots of kids were on what looked like impossible to ride skates, with some unicycles thrown in. Our S isn’t quirky, just “regular.” But the curriculum did sound like it would help him figure out his direction. Congrats on your daughter’s forward momentum!
@homerdog We thought that about engineering, so he was supposed to be in an engineering program this summer, but covid. He’s been looking at various engineering jobs online and is in an online materials science and engineering class right now. He says he doesn’t want to major in pure math, because that seems to lead to teaching. His school counselor suggested data science, our neighbor suggested cybersecurity (something with signal processing), someone else said applied math. As a family of non-engineers and CS professionals, we’re not the best at trying to guide him!
@homerdog I loved visiting Santa Clara and a girl I know just graduated and loved it. The students seemed really content and friendly and we had the best tour guide. They would yell “Go Broncos” when we went by. The campus is very pleasant and tidy, though a bit compact - just one large cafeteria. One struggle we are having is seeing some of the other gorgeous, green sprawling campuses in other parts of the US.
My son really wants a smaller school like this with invested, accessible professors, plus they have great internships and placement. We are not religious and you are required to take 3 theology classes of 140 topics, but we liked the Jesuit “whole person education” / soft skills approach. My friend’s daughter had some anxiety and between her experience and a tour guide story, it seems they are a very supportive community in case that matters. They are building a new $250M STEM building and I heard the business school is also very well supported. It’s party-lite.
The location is a pro and a con, in the sense that all that money in Silicon Valley really benefits the school and its graduates but makes the area expensive and crowded. A couple of cons is that nearby housing is very expensive and limited for upperclassmen and there is a lot of traffic in the Bay Area. My friend’s daughter shared a house with 9 other girls. I believe it’s discouraged but not impossible for Freshman to have a car. It’s in a nice suburb neighborhood, but not a lot to do in the immediate neighborhood as far as I know. They have a club you can join to go on outdoorsy trips to beautiful places in Northern California, where I grew up.
Another minus is that you need to apply to the Engineering or Business schools and it is difficult to later transfer into one of those, but easier to move over to Arts and Sciences I believe. Also they are notoriously tight with merit. Some friends of ours were offered $600 off the full tuition price. My other friend got $10k off but only for the first year.
One last thought - this year is crazy so who knows, but I think the school is catching on in popularity and possibly admission is getting more competitive.
@havenoidea We aren’t engineers either. Math does not just lead to teaching. One can be a consultant, an analyst, work in finance or science. Really, they can do any sort of quantitative job they want. They just have to maybe take a little comp sci or physics or econ depending on what they want to do. It’s a very usable degree. One just chooses the right courses within the major and outside the major but that doesn’t have to be done in the first year and a half while the student is still figuring things out. Engineering is a very specific degree preparing you for a specific job. A math or physics degree doesn’t pigeon hole the student.
Data analytics (or data science) is basically a “new” major that just combines math and some comp sci. Even if a college doesn’t have that major, one can easily get the classes they need to get the same education with a math major and/or comp sci major or minor. Cybersecurity could also be a career with a math major with a little comp sci. The college just needs to offer the right classes. I would dig deep into each college’s math department page. See what kind of classes are offered. There’s usually a section on what careers kids have after they get the degree from the college. Sometimes you can see different paths within the major for kids who want a PhD, kids who want analytics, kids who want finance, etc. A math degree is not one thing - it depends on the classes you choose within the major.
@NateandAllisMom Thank you! I haven’t taken the video tour of Santa Clara yet but I will. Curious how compact it looks to me since all of the other schools D is looking at are also small on the acreage. Bowdoin is super small and she’s been there and liked the size but also likes that it buts up to the little town. Wake has no town and Davidson’s town is like one small block and she seems ok with those so maybe SCU is ok too. 
D21 finished her Common App essay with the exception of rewording a couple of sentences. She would really like someone to read it over for grammar editing. I have done that, but she and I both agree a third set of eyes would be helpful.
I think I remember reading somewhere on CC that there are professional editors here who can look at an essay for a student…? She’s just looking for grammar triple-checking, and to make sure she hasn’t accidentally used extracurricular-related words that don’t make sense to people outside that extracurricular, things like that. Apologies if there’s a heading somewhere in the forums that for some reason I’m not seeing.
@homerdog you’re welcome. I should put this into context and say that we did not get a chance to tour many other smaller schools, so I’m not sure how it measures up against other small schools. I’m also not super familiar with the immediate area at this point, but will probably ask my friend’s daughter some more questions later. My impression was overall, that I would be super comfortable sending my son there. Also he’s right in the middle 50% range even without another test score so it’s a great target for him.
Santa Clara: on the surrounding area, there is a movement afoot to recreate a “downtown” walkable shopping area of days gone by that was demolished in the 1960s https://www.santaclaraca.gov/home/showdocument?id=66291. The area in question abuts the northwest corner of campus. It sounds like the redevelopment would be a boon to students if it occurs, though I suspect their timeline has been delayed somewhat by coronavirus.
I like to keep track of the new STEM building, live camera https://university-operations.scu.edu/planning-and-projects/campus-projects/sobrato-campus-for-discovery-and-innovation/live-construction-cam-2/ And thanks for the reminder of all the things we like about it. It is definitely in the sweet spot on the list, the ultra-match. We’ve been tossing around reach ideas, but we too would be very comfortable sending our kids to SCU. (As in, “ok, I can relax now, they’re good.”)
@evergreen5 this is hugely helpful. Thank you!
I’ll weigh in on the math conversation just to say that my D18 discover applied math in high school through our state’s school for high achieving math and science students and now in college she’s combining it with her interest in biology and is planning a biology research/academic career where she uses math to understand biological systems and structures. It’s a lot of modeling and she’s picking up coding along the way – needs to take another formal CS class or two. Her profs say math and computational bio are ‘hot’ tools in bio research these days, and I think this applies to other science disciplines too.
I think if you don’t want to do the academic route, there are undergrad and master’s programs in biomath that lead to jobs in industry, esp. pharma and clinical trials.
Briefly flirted with Santa Clara for my S b/c of his interest in the tech industry but lack of merit $$ and distance from home took it off the list. Have a former co-worker who went there and she speaks very highly of it!
@homerdog the redevelopment? There’s more, e.g. https://www.santaclaraca.gov/our-city/departments-a-f/community-development/planning-division/specific-plans/downtown-precise-plan and https://www.santaclaraca.gov/home/showdocument?id=68101 (recent survey results on plan options). There’s also a FB group devoted to it.
@homerdog, if you’re looking at Santa Clara type schools, have you checked out University of San Diego…similar student body size about 5,600 undergrads, absolutely spectacular campus, and It’s also Catholic but not Jesuit. Compared to a Notre Dame or any midwest Catholic school they are very liberal. D19s high school (large Catholic) typically has 5 or more graduates attend both schools every year. I’ve toured both campuses multiple times. I think they have similar feels, not only in the aesthetics i.e. mostly Spanish architecture, but in the interactions we had with students…friendly, nice kids, very positive vibe…a lot of Californians, but definitely sprinkles of students from all over. I actually had a few friends who attended USD from my east coast high school and they loved it and are still close with their college group 25+ years later. USD campus feels a lot bigger than Santa Clara, but that might just be because it sits up on a hill and you can see forever from campus, whereas Santa Clara is on flat land. Santa Clara has become more competitive in the past few years than USD and for business majors, its hard to beat the connections in that locale. But San Diego metro area has absolutely everything easily accessible to campus, and for its size, a lot of connections with local big companies including major biotech (and Your kid might never want to leave the perfect climate of San Diego). I think they are both terrific smaller size (but not too small schools) and both very well respected here.
@havenoidea This is something D and I do together. We look up engineering job descriptions such as:
“Would you enjoy the challenge of designing integrated circuits for extreme environments and unique applications – from outer space to inside the human body? The Analog/Mixed-Signal IC Group at XXXX develops analog, mixed-signal, and RF application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) for national security, space, biomedical applications, and more. We regularly engage with other engineers and scientists from all of XXXX’s divisions in a dynamic, interdisciplinary environment”.
Then a deep dive into what (for example) ASIC , RF, mixed signal, analog is and looking up the courses in a school’s flow chart, reading about the courses, then looking for jobs on Indeed with those terms to see what else is out there.
Hope this helps.
The recent talk about essays made me think of this thread that still makes me laugh…
@2ndthreekids Thanks! I have a good friend in San Diego and she says the same about USD. I worry a bit that it’s more Catholic than a place like Santa Clara. We don’t practice any religion in our house. D21 is not at all antagonistic against religion but certain schools (like ND) would definitely not be a fit. I’ll have her look into USD and see what she thinks!
We’ve gone back and forth on CA schools. A few years ago, D was all “CA or bust” when it came to college. Now that seems to have cooled a bit. I think she started feeling like it was too far. Both San Jose and San Diego are easy for us to get to via direct flights so I think it’s ok. It’s just when she watched the Santa Clara tour video that she started considering CA again.
It feels a little weird to have S19 in Maine and then D21 possibly in CA. Our hope was that they would go to school in the same direction at least. Can’t count anything out yet, though, and she definitely needs more safeties & matches…
Speaking for the communications and English majors in my house, bring on the app essays! LOL!
I was a journalism major. Have worked as a journalist, copywriter, and content strategist for the entirety of my still-going career.
S19 is currently an English and writing major at Penn State.
S21 wants to do English, writing, and art. He’s been working on his Common App essay this week and actually enjoyed selecting a prompt.
Those apples. Not falling too far there.
OUR SAT MATH SCORES DON’T DEFINE US! LET US WRITE ESSAYS! 
Not to worry, Mr. InfiniteWaves was a business major and works with numbers in spreadsheets all day. We met in college. He knew this could happen. 
@InfiniteWaves hoping my D will be the same way! She’s a great writer, just struggling to get started! Hoping once she does, it will flow!
Funny tidbit - cleaning out the toy room this weekend. The time has come were we don’t need a toy room anymore! Anyway, found a print from went D was born - you know where you can send away and they send you back sheet with things that were popular that year, who won the World Series, etc…? One item was “The cost of a 4 year college education at a private university (2021-2022)”. The prediction? $229,800, or $57,450/year. Pretty close, depending on the school!
@homerdog we visited USD last summer. Absolutely beautiful campus. I really liked the size about 6K. Much lower key religion than ND or even BC.
@SammoJ Tried to send PM but for some reason you name would not pop up. Any ways. My D18 suggested your son reach out to the Economics department head Scott Baier sbaier@clemson.edu or Molly Espey a professor she had that she really liked mespey@clemson.edu