Sure. I know one, in fact.
in fact, I literally know this one!
My friend was describing PhD admissions to her specific department/program. Still, we found it surprising and disappointing.
Flying into Philly in August for college visits (D25 is most interested in Rider and Stockton). Was going to hit St. Joe’s as I teach at a Jesuit.
Any other schools nearby Philly for an average kid looking at criminal justice and dance that we should check out?
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I think that is a very important distinction to make. It may have just been my interpretation, but your paragraph read like more of a general statement about Stanford Engineering.
How many PhD candidates are in her specific program compared to Stanford Engineering (ie. 349 new doctoral students in 2023)?
FWIW, I think VA Tech Engineering has gotten harder for VA residents, but less so for non-state residents. Putting on my cynical hat, the school knows it needs to take in a certain amount of VA residents, but that’s an overall for the university number, not by specific college. The school also knows that out of state students generate much more income (there is little merit aid for out of state). Finally the school knows that the College of Engineering is likely to be a much bigger draw for out of state students than the other colleges. So I think they lean heavier on out of state students for engineering then they might for other colleges.
I also think they do yield protection. Mind you, I have no legit evidence of this, just guesswork and what we saw in the 22 admissions when my older son was applying. Older son - 1540 SAT, 2x Varsity Captain of Crew team, Eagle Scout, I can’t remember his end of jr year GPA but he never, not even in a quarter, got anything other than an A and was taking all honors and AP courses, regional science fair winner and three years of engineering with a patent pending capstone project. We are VA residents. He did demonstrated interest, even though it was COVID times he did lots of virtual information sessions, and managed to get a tour once they opened. He got waitlisted. His friend who got into Caltech and MIT for engineering also got waitlisted. A friend with similar stats got in, but he applied for corps of cadets, so we figured that showed clear interest in the school. Two friends with lower grades and what would just seem to be less qualifications got in. Maybe his essays were awful (I read them and don’t think they were) or maybe the school decided he probably wouldn’t be attending if they offered him a slot.
If that was their gamble, they likely were right - it was really too big a school for him and he probably would’ve picked somewhere else. But it was a wake up call as we felt like that was a pretty achievable school for him. FWIW, he got in everywhere else he applied - WPI, Purdue, RPI, Lehigh, Case Western, Pitt (and good merit aid from all but Lehigh). He’s at WPI and very happy, but clearly I’m still a little burned feeling about VA Tech. It’s part of what is making me nervous for my younger kid - he’s less accomplished then his older brother, admissions seems to have only gotten more nonsensical since then, and I feel like I just don’t know how to help him build a plan that will generate enough schools we feel confident he’ll have a good chance at and that he’ll be happy at.
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Because I’m thinking about this this morning, I thought I’d share our ADHD meds and out of state college info, in case it’s relevant for anyone.
As folks with kids who take ADHD meds know, these are pretty tightly watched by pharmacies - I have to sign in person and present my drivers license any time I want to get them for my son. Our insurance only allows us to have a 30 day Rx at a time (I know some allow for more). In our state, the doctor only has to physically see my child every six months and they will prescribe all year. I need to ask them to send a new Rx each month and I can do that about 7 days in advance.
My older son goes to school in MA. We live in VA. MA has more tight rules than VA. Our home doctor in VA is not permitted to prescribe ADHD meds in MA. And in MA you cannot have your Rx filled if it is more than 2 days before your previous Rx was set to expire. The campus health center is able to prescribe ADHD meds - they initially wanted to see all the paperwork and history from our original doctor and have a letter. But to do it, they want to see my son in person every month. I don’t know if this is an MA thing or a campus thing - but it seems like the state law requires a consult each month (although I think under the law it could be a phone or video, just the campus health center is more stringent and requires in person).
But not all states are like this - same child will be in NY working for the summer. His VA based doctor is allowed to prescribe to a pharmacy in NY, so we don’t need to try to find a doctor up there, or bring him home each time he needs a med refill.
I will say that the campus health center has done a good job for my son, and I don’t have any complaints there. It seems like it’s easy for him to get in to see someone whenever he needs to and I like that they are checking on him. Before he started I called the health center and talked with someone to make sure I understood the rules (and to ask why he had to go in every month, which seemed pretty onerous to me). They told me that they want to see these kids. Given that ADHD meds can be abused, they want to check on kids and make sure they are doing ok, that no one is pressuring them for their meds, that they are in a good physical and mental place. They spend most of the monthly visit talking mental health and stress and making sure the students are feeling good. And PITA factor aside, who can complain about that? An extra person is checking to make sure my kid is doing well.
The other challenge is picking up the meds. The health center doesn’t have a pharmacy (I know some bigger school health centers do) and our insurance doesn’t allow for mailing these types of meds. So my son has to get to a pharmacy off campus. There are a few choices that are reasonable walking distance, and the health center knows which they are. But with recent shortages of ADHD meds, he’s had to go all over town to find meds - when there’s only a two day window between when they can be prescribed and when you run out, if a pharmacy doesn’t have them in stock that day they may not get them before he’s out. He doesn’t have a car so he’s ended up taking some fairly pricey Ubers and now has some friends with cars who can, occasionally, give him a ride.
So. May not be relevant for any of you, but I figured I’d share. As you’re thinking about schools, if your kid takes meds you may want to be thinking about a plan to get them prescribed if they are out of state. It’s doable anywhere, but it would’ve been a lot easier in a different state so this does require more planning on his part.
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That’s really excellent info, and could be worth making into a new thread so parents from future classes can benefit from it.
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This may not be allowed for ADHD meds but for my daughter’s medication for acne we are using Amazon Pharmacy. Her dermatologist prescribes it here and Amazon mails it to her at school.
There may be restrictions on some meds but for anyone else looking for a way to transfer meds, it’s worked for us.
There’s a whole sub forum for learning differences and challenges where they talk about ADHD a good bit. I know I’ve posted the same (or similar) info there before, but it was a few years ago. I haven’t looked there recently, but it’s a good resource for random ADHD type things.
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Ursinus has dance but not a defined criminal justice program. It does have American studies as a major which looks like an interdisciplinary program covering many of the same aspects. It might be too small though but they have great merit. University of Scranton has criminal justice and is Jesuit. I’m not sure if their dance clubs would be robust enough for your D though. It’s a couple hours from Philly. Was Messiah ruled out? They seem to have many of her requirements and is about 2 hours from Philly. Widener University has both dance and criminal justice and is in Philly. I don’t know enough about the merit money from them. I know a few grads from them but are in healthcare fields that are very happy with their experience there.
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College Navigator is down, but a couple of schools you may want to investigate include:
DeSales: About 2200 undergrads, 6% black, 15% Hispanic. It offers a fairly popular dance major and its criminal justice major makes several mentions of forensics. It’s a Catholic college and you can read more about its mission and vision.
Eastern U: About 2k undergrads, 28% black, 15% Hispanic. It offers both a BA in dance (and a minor) as well as major in criminal justice. It also offer a major in social work, which I think was another field you indicated that might be a possibility for your D. It appears to have strong religious ties, which you’d want to make sure your family was comfortable with.
Rowan: I think your D has been aiming for small to medium schools, but if she’s interested in going a bit bigger, Rowan has about 14k undergrads, 11% black, 14% Hispanic. Several people on CC have reported about how happy their kids have been at Rowan. Has a dance major and its human services major might be of interest, which also contains a concentration in criminal justice. The university’s homepage says that its average class size is 20.
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If you need any info on Rowan I live 15 minutes away a TON of my friends go there as my schools a feeder and I’m on campus every weekend.
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I wouldn’t mind hearing about Rowan! They have an interesting modern languages major that has a linguistics option that’s actually a linguistics option, and not just an extra course or two in the subject. (Probably ultimately not the type of linguistics C25 is most interested in, but still.) So yeah, what’s the word on the school?
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I have a young teacher out of college who majored in French so I’m not sure if that’s what you mean by linguistics.
I’ll be honest. I don’t like the town but I know a lot of people do. It’s near pitman which is extremely artsy and has a lot of mini shops and it’s a cute little town. Rowan’s like 30 minutes from Philly 2 and a half from New York? I should probably know this more in depth
A lot of people who don’t like Rowan is mainly because it’s in our backyard. I wouldn’t say Rowan is a commuter school really because a lot of people stay on campus but it’s kinda a bit of everyone already knows a bit of people but I don’t think that should be an issue for your child
Weed is legal not sure about drug presence on the school but I don’t think I’ve noticed anything
Lots of festivals in the town. I personally would drive to cherry hill, collingswood, or Haddonfield (esp cherry hill) for most of your shopping and for anything bougie with it being a half hour away
There’s also the beach on some warm weekends which should be around an hour away if going to ocean city/Atlantic City. There’s closer ones I think like margate though
If your child is into frats/sororities Rowan has that and if not they make an effort for students to find things they enjoy. Literally everyone I’ve talked to who’se gone to Rowan loves it there. I think Rowan honors is relatively easy to get into? And they have very good financial aid and are extremely generous. I know they also have a partnership with raise.me
If your child wants to do sports just know that a lot of people from local high schools tend to opt into recruiting pretty fast and a lot of my friends are doing soccer, track/XC, lacrosse, etc.
The town is dead when the students are gone for the summer. It’s kinda sad 
I know someone was concerned with dance? Their music program is so strong at Rowan and they are SO SO immersed in the community. For the music program in particular some of the professors there are literally world class with many awards. My brothers music teacher played at that one Carnegie place in New York I think?
I’m trying to think about what else you would want ti know
Religious groups are abundant and you can pretty much find your people
There’s an active Muslim student association, Christian group, Hindu, like your people will be there
They’re also HUGE on DEI so if your child is a minority or LGBT they should be fine
I think Rowan’s prestige is quickly rising. I know they just built an engineering facility? There was construction there for awhile. Theres pretty good school spirit too.
OH next to Rowan there’s a cute little strip of restaurants in which students can redeem their Rowan bucks or whatever. I get ramen at Oishii Ramen so if you visit I reccomend that or Ry’s Bagels.
Rowan’s working really hard to expand programs such as combined degrees like BS DO, BS MD, BS JD and I think the 3+2 options as well. Rowan is striving to be an all around school with a high quality education
The dorms are so so nice. Not sure of the dorm name (I’ll ask my friend when I’m able to) but there’s this yellow and gray rounded dorm which everyone vies for. I know the honors college housing is literally apartment style which is nice (above the food strip?)
But yeah I feel like Rowan is literally strong in everything which sounds kinda crazy . I can ask what my friends hate about Rowan though or if you have any more questions I didn’t cover
I’m not really sure what’s important to a parent in terms of college or not. I’d be happy to answer or expand on anything else 
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Someone bumped this with a ‘like’ so I thought I’d provide follow-up.
My kid’s dSAT math score dropped 10 points compared to their 3 paper scores, using only their TI-84 (no desmos.)
Fwiw, their dSAT verbal score also dropped 10 points compared to their highest paper score.
They didn’t do any bluebook practice tests (nor did they prep for any of their SAT exams.)
I’m nervous about my D25’s test Saturday. She already has a pretty good score but hoping to bump up above 1500. She’s inconsistent though. Took one practice test (#5 on bluebook) and got a 1460 (lower score than her March test) and then took #4 on bluebook and got a 1580! I have no idea what to expect at this point!
D25 is taking her first, and hopefully only, SAT on Saturday. She is applying to mostly test optional schools, but there are 1-2 schools that require it that I don’t want to rule out just yet. If she ends up not applying, no harm.
But it is a busy week. Finals, MIL is coming into town for D30’s dance recital next week, I have an interview for a promotion, then last day of school, SAT, dance recital practice x2, and then a birthday party on Saturday. I’m sure next year will be even busier, but I’m not sure how.
So with new input from C25, and adding my own filters (at this point, mainly the possibility of good merit aid, however remote), this is our current working shortlist:
- Fordham University
- Hofstra University
- Michigan State University
- Saint Joseph’s University
- Syracuse University
- University of Alaska Fairbanks
- University of Maryland College Park
- University of Nevada, Reno
- University of Oregon
- University of Pittsburgh
- University of Rochester
- Washington State University
- Western Washington University
It’s possible a couple others will be added to this over the summer, and some need to be taken off it (we’ve agreed that 8–10 is a good number).
Further notes:
- Hofstra, Syracuse, and Rochester are definite applies
- Washington State and, to a lesser extent, Nevada Reno are pretty much guaranteed to stay on the list as financial safeties (because C25 is nearly guaranteed NMSF, and they both have really good automatic scholarships for that)
- Fordham only has a minor in linguistics, but it turns out that C25 really likes the neighborhood in NYC it’s in, and so I think it’s staying on the list at this point on the strength of the Bronx alone
- Maryland, Oregon, and Pittsburgh all have really amazing linguistics programs and have really solid merit aid, but it’s extremely long-shot merit aid
- Fairbanks is the in-state option and would honestly be very, very appealing both in terms of finances and quality of the linguistics major, but you have to live in Fairbanks to go there, and um, yeah, Fairbanks (like, everyone should go look at its December sunlight and temperature numbers and quiver in fear—and the local politics aren’t appealing to C25, either)
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Great list–we have overlap for major and some institutions. D25 has a long list that includes Syracuse, UMD, and UO.
UNR is very nice. I think it is overshadowed by the UCs but provides cheaper overall costs and no 3 undergrads to a dorm room. I’m surprised it isn’t a more desirable alternative for folks who want to stay close to CA (or kids who want to ski their way to a degree). It is only a 3 hour drive away from the Bay Area!
UO guarantees the same tuition for 5 years and the campus is incredible. Is your child outdoorsy?
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No.
In fact, the aptest description for my child would probably involve whatever the precise conceptual opposite for outdoorsy might be.
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Would that be indoorsy?
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