@Zinnia203 Thanks for your post. He’s never seemed particularly interested in anything, from any of the museums we used to go to! Wasn’t a leggo kid. Never tried to take anything apart and put it back together. Hasn’t taught himself to code. He was obsessed with numbers from a young age and math comes easy to him. He was very interested in the math part of Hidden Figures (not that he understood it!). And he’d been interested in a program dealing with space, time, distance ladders and such. So, I’m guessing that more math/physics than anything. Although, some people tell me they weren’t tinkerers and they’re engineers. I’m now looking for schools that have a flexible curriculum with fewer gen ed requirements, like Rochester. Where he’d freeze!
Ahhh - husband is in Arizona right now working in Navajo Nation related to COVID…maybe he can get the score on Thursday so we don’t have to wait until Friday!
Yes, use other states VPN where results are coming tomorrow, for example CA. There is also one site called earlyscores dot com which I heard gives out scores early.
S is working on his apply TX essay and hoping to have everything ready to submit his app in mid/late Aug.
He will be using the same essay on the Common App and will have a handful of supplemental essays to work on.
I think DS used the earlyscores.org once and I checked for him once using tunnelbear. It is very easy to use as I am not very techy and I managed just fine. DS scores will not be out til early August as he was one of the unlucky ones and could not submit so had to do a retake. Good luck to all!!
@havenoidea My son really likes U of Rochester. Good size, research opportunities, curriculum not too restrictive. But brrrr.
Has your son ever taken any AoPS classes? Perhaps Prob/Stats or Number Theory? They’re shorter classes, parallel topics to most high school math, and provide some practice at writing proofs. If he really is interested in theoretical math, he may be writing a lot of proofs?
But maybe there’s plenty of time to explore these things in college. I think your focus on schools like Rochester is a good one.
Just so we are clear, there is not a college in California called “SDU”. There is the University of San Diego (USD) and San Diego State University (SDSU).
My take on USD (attended a graduate program for a semester) v. Santa Clara University (SCU):
USD
- beautiful campus overlooking Mission Bay;
- awesome architecture
- a fairly rich, white and moderate to conservative student body. When I was there I saw a few students driving ferraris
- weather can't be beat
- according to the CDS, 4,000 apply ED and only about 850 accepted (21%)?
- it's seems that everyone is good looking and takes care of themselves (i.e. so they look good on the beach!).
- big on Greek life and parties
- not as highly ranked as SCU
- Forbes rank: #142
SCU
- located in Silicon Valley, great for jobs and internships
- beautiful campus but not in the most desirable location (traffic/urban)
- housing is expensive
- the student body will be a little academically stronger than USD
- higher ranked and building an impressive new Engineering building
- less of a party school, no official greek life on campus but off campus
- Forbes rank: #51 (has been moving up the ranks recently
- student body less “superficial” than USD and will be more moderate to liberal
- High ED acceptance rate.
I didn’t read through all the responses here, but this caught my eye. Isn’t your daughter a dancer? And does she intend to continue dance in college even if it’s not her major? If so, USD is not a particularly good choice. They are sorely lacking in the fine arts for undergrads (unless something has drastically changed recently). LMU would be preferable. (I’m a double USD grad, and my best friend attended LMU, so I’m very familiar with that school as well. Their dance department is very good.)
That sounds really familiar. I have it kind of narrowed down to 30 or so schools based on her parameters, but she needs to do the next cut. She is aiming high, and I think her biggest issue is that she doesn’t want to fall in love with any of them, because none of the ones she really wants are guaranteed. So she is procrastinating figuring out which ones she wants to avoid the disappointment.
She keeps having people ask her where she is going next year, and then telling her she really needs to decide. That isn’t helping frankly, just adding to the stress. They don’t realize that when you apply to schools with 20% acceptance rates you don’t really get to pick, the colleges pick for you. Only a small handful of kids do that around here, even the smartest kids tend to go to the state flagship or even the local directional.
She is stil taking the ACT Saturday so far, and her activities have largely resumed so she has been pretty swamped the last couple of weeks. I do think that starting next week I can get her to focus. She is leaning pretty heavily toward ED at Amherst, and someone on the board with a daughter there offered to have the girls speak to each other. She did tell me this morning that she wanted me to get that contact info so she could call her next week. So hopefully she is getting ready to move forward with the next step.
Re: engineering, maybe it’s just my college friend group, but a few of them put in a couple years as an engineer and then got their MBA. They are all still working for engineering firms I think, but they only spent a couple of years actually being an engineer. Now they are on the business side, but techy enough that they can communicate with the engineers and get the general idea of what they are doing.
S19 isn’t studying engineering, but a different techy field and that is his plan too. He can’t see himself in a lab for the next 40 years, but he can do it for a couple and then have the experience to work in the front office but really understand what they do in the back and communicate with both sides if that makes sense. He has always done well with math/science, but his real strength is interacting with people. He interviewed someone in his field who did that, and he said she is exactly where he hopes to be in 15 years.
@southern55 We toured last week and loved it. Had a private meeting with the engineering dean but I did not ask about the scholarship so thanks! D and I loved the campus and it is #1 on her list.
@amsunshine Thanks for the info on USD and LMU!
Question for the collective wisdom of the group:
D has been a JV golfer for 3 years (fall sport here). She is unlikely to make varsity this year. Theoretically she could be cut if too many girls go out, but I think the numbers will be low enough she will still have a place on the team if she wants it.
She is leaning towards not going out. I don’t love that she did it 3 years and then quit. However, she has played travel soccer all through HS (spring HS season, fall and summer club season)and will continue to do so. Last fall she missed quite a bit of travel with the soccer team due to golf. Not sure if she will this year or not, as the schedules for soccer in particular are very up in the air.
She has a couple of offices with her main EC’s, one of which can be a pretty big time sink if she chooses to do so. I’m thinking if she is doing that and still doing soccer then quitting golf doesn’t seem like a big deal because she is still super involved. Plus I’m hoping she is at least a bit lighter scheduled so she can do essays.
So do you think quitting golf is neutral, slight negative or big negative?
Thanks for any opinions.
I hear you on the dilemma of having two kids on opposites sides of the country. Covid and logistics make it less desirable for sure. D19 visited a bunch of schools in Oregon/WA in February. With D21 in NC, us in CA and family all on east coast, even schools like Univ of Oregon are less desirable now as it’s not easy to get to. While it feels so late in the game to be putting together a college list, D21 really only has a few ‘for sure’ schools to apply to now…due to lack of visits and one set of ACT scores…is also looking for more safeties/matches…but wants to go out of state:). The good thing is that CA is easy access, as you point out, flight wise. And if any areas can survive a covid wave during the next few winters, I have to think it’s temperate climates that will benefit (we have our windows open all year round here in SoCal). D21 is looking at schools in NC/SC now that we could visit when we bring our D21 back to school in a few weeks (if that in fact happens!). I would just rather have them closer together. Good luck!
Do you think she will have sports in the fall? DS has played soccer since kindergarten and in all likelihood would have been captain of his team this year but it is highly unlikely they will play.
In the past, it might have looked bad to stop something but not now, at least as long as she is actively engaged with something that fits what she wants to do or thinks she wants to do.
In our family’s experience, It’s not a negative. D19 did JV tennis 3 years/captain two of them and opted out senior yr. varsity due to the time commitment (the rigorous academic class schedule and college apps as well as the the difficulty of making pre-season practice all summer when she had an internship and a job). The topic came up during the only college interview she had because the interviewer owned a tennis club, and she was honest, that she didn’t think she could do everything to the best of her ability if she did tennis too, and she didn’t want to give less than 100% to tennis either if it wasn’t her top priority. She was admitted (top 10 school).
@Zinnia203 I’m following along but wanted to say, your insights are very helpful! My S21 is struggling with some of the same questions as @havenoidea 's S regarding a potential major. He loves math and science, particularly physics, but is overwhelmed with all the different types of engineering majors. Recently he has said maybe biomedical engineering but I think that’s because a class of '19 friend is majoring in that and he’s talked it up this summer.
When I think of what he used to love and be drawn to as a kid, he loved bugs, animals, nature, collections of things, Legos, math games and solving puzzles (like Rubik’s and those little metal things that you can’t get apart) but dislikes actual puzzles. No real interest in robotics or CS. He seems to grasp difficult math/science concepts immediately but he also overanalyzes other things to the point of procrastination. Which doesn’t bode well for putting together a college list or selecting a potential major, so here we are! Lol.
Oh goodie! D invested in a VPN a couple of weeks ago so she knows about proxy server!
Neutral. Kids are expected to quit things. Their interests and priorities change all the time.
If my daughter stays instate, I believe this is where she will go. She’s still hoping to see the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the University of Arkansas before she can make a decision.