I am a ScholarMatch volunteer and it is a great organization. It is very helpful to have a good knowledge of California colleges - I didn’t and it was hard the first year to feel like I was doing the best for my assigned student. Some kids go silent and others engage at different levels. In my 2 cycles of volunteering - it has been 100% Calif (i am not located in CA), high need and financial assistance with the FA forms plus the students needing/wanting to be close to home. They offered very good training on FA and working with undocumented students - it was having a deep understanding of Calif publics and all the options that kept me on CC to learn from others.
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Thanks for sharing and I’m glad you love the organization. I’d better start learning more about CA colleges!
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Thanks for the info. ScholarMatch is a San Francisco based non-profit started by author Dave Eggers. It sprung out of the 826 Valencia project, stared by Eggers and an educator, which helps under-privileged kids in the area with their writing. They also started a national 826 org that helps other cities start their own tutoring programs. When Scholar Match first began, they focused on first gen youth in the bay area, but now have gone national. I think most of the kids find out about it because they have received tutoring help from 826 Valencia.
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If law school is a goal, pick the school that has grade inflation. It may be a cynical view but GPA and LSAT are the 2 most important factors in law school admissions.
If law school is not a definite, I’d pick the school that has the best career outcomes and the strongest alumni network.
That’s just my personal thoughts.
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Regarding grade inflation, this applies to anyone considering Medical school too.
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I was thinking the same 
!
Pitt only has about 20K undergraduates.
As @CFP mentioned if law school the goal go to a school she can knock it out of the park GPA wise.
My D18 attended Clemson and got a BS Economics degree. Had a 4.0 and is in her last year of Law school at UF. She got a full tuition scholarship and a living stipend.
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Me 4
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I know that. Any idea which one of these is going to be grade inflation school?
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@Swimmom2006 OK, as a mom of boys, at this point my husband and I would absolutely do the paper for him. And it’s an ugly truth to admit. They’re almost at the end, and they’ve all worked so hard, and relationships at their age are brutal…please send me his assignments so I can do them for him?! xoxo
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I find myself in a weird place with C24 right now. They have 3.5 acceptances, 2 at schools they like and would be happy to go to (yay!), but they’re somehow firmly convinced that all that’s ahead in March is rejections.
In part, that’s a rational expectation: they have 4 academic reaches to hear from, 3 BFA programs that are also almost definitionally reaches (no audition-based school seems to be a safety or even a target, regardless of academics), 2 targets and 2 schools that, stats-wise, could be considered safeties.
I’m trying to help them be a little optimistic, while not getting their hopes up: it’s not an easy needle to thread. But I’m a little sad that they’re feeling so defeatist right now.
(And for this reason, I really need to give a shoutout to Drew University. My kid applied and, even though it’s not my understanding that Drew uses rolling admissions, had an acceptance in hand within 10 days. That helped C a lot).
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Upside is every kid (or at least boy) is going to go through the lovesick/ devastated phase. At least he is going through it after admissions and NOT in his freshman year of college. He is getting this rite of passage out of the way with pretty impeccable timing.
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Yeah, if you figure that one out, please let me know!
I think my S24 also at least sounds irrationally pessimistic at times about RD, but I tend to think that may be his way of protecting himself, and I don’t want to interfere if that is going to do more harm than good. So basically we have a lot of conversations that are kinda cliched and repetitive, and short. Of course if he wants to step outside those limits, I am happy to oblige, but mostly he seems just to want to focus on other things in his life right now.
Which is not all that helpful in terms of advice, but at least know you are not alone.
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Bfa is so hard. Acceptances seem absolutely random and dependent on so many external factors. Congrats to your C that they have any acceptances and are going to college!’
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Mine is dealing with his entire friend group imploding and feels so alone and sad right now. It is so hard. I keep telling him that college is a clean slate and will be so much better. But in the meantime watching them hurt really sucks.
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Hugs to everyone, parents and kids. Senior year is so emotionally fraught whether it’s academics or social-emotional. We went through it and they have to go through it. But it’s tough to watch and not try to fix.
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My daughter’s group imploded around Thankgivings, and we’re still dealing with the aftermath.
We got a 1page ad in the yearbook with these girls and it would cost us $5000 to get the books reprinted w/out this ad. So we have to live with it.
I’m hoping that over time, the hurt will subside enough where they can tolerate each other.
Hang in there.
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OMG that sucks. I hope they see the ad and it makes them all come back together and be kind. (me in pollyanna world)
I remember when there was a mistake in our senior yearbook they had a sticker to cover the issue/ correct it. Same thing happened to my son’s junior year yearbook when they allowed something offensive to be printed. I am just imagining the reaction if you put stickers of happy faces or something over all the girls faces.
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I’m sorry you are dealing with it too. It is awful.
Drew is awesome. They really made us feel welcome when we visited.
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