I am not sure it adequately considers major. Case in point: University of Iowa has a high overall acceptance rate (80%) but a very low acceptance rate for their direct entry nursing program (18%) – it calculates my D’s chance of acceptance at 98% with nursing as her major. There is no way this is accurate.
1 Like
I think it might have limited information about major at some schools, but for most schools I don’t think it considers major.
2 Likes
We are still trying to finalize our college list here. Its still too long, 15 colleges. No way my kid can write that many supplemental essays. Trying to bring it to around 10. We are looking at mainly on West coast, plus a few states on the East coast.
Anyone has any input about applying to more technical colleges like WPI/RPI/RIT for a pure sciences majors like Biology, Ecology, or even Biochemistry. Long term goal is to get into research, so grad school is definitely happening.
1 Like
Have you started a chance me / match me post?
What is drawing your kid to these three schools in particular?
I can’t really answer from a pure sciences standpoint, but my D26 is applying to both WPI and RIT, and we’ve toured and researched both – so I can share my thoughts in general.
No I haven’t.
Nothing deep other than that his closest friend is applying to those 
, but his major is game design or something adjacent. So S26 is suddenly looking into these. Says RIT seems like a good choice considering his GPA and other stats.
We have the opposite issue in that we’re trying to find more colleges to add to S26’s list to cast a wider net. I may do a Chance Me/match me post.
My S26 told me he got the AP Scholar With Distinction Award which is nice to add to his Awards list but is it too common among applicants? He just discovered Young Arts and is planning to submit a short story. I think Young Arts is more noteworthy if he gets an award. He wishes that he knew about these writing competitions last year.
1 Like
They have to be really set on their major at WPI otherwise there are very few non-engineering majors to choose from. I say this as a parent who really loved WPI — and from what I’ve read - students seem happy in Biotech. But for my daughter is not entirely sure she will stay with bio and that would leave her with limited other options so we had to take that off the list.
RIT on the other hand, has a ton of good major alternatives! I don’t see any issue there.
Unsure of RPi but you could easily look.
2 Likes
Well that’s a valid reason to look! 
RIT seems pretty strong in biology, biochem and adjacent fields like biotech, biomedical, bioinformatics, etc. WPI offers pure biology only as a minor, but they do have “biology and biotech” as a major, also with biochem and bioinformatics.
I don’t see ecology at either school, so I think your kiddo will need to consider what his core interests are, and whether he’d enjoy a more tech bent on biology. RIT has a very scripted path of what students take for each major, and they also require co-ops for many majors, although I’m not sure if required for the sciences.
WPI has a really different course structure than the norm – students only take three classes at a time for a 7-week quarter. There are two of these quarters in the fall with a week break between them, and then two in the spring, with spring break between them. And then there are several mandatory group projects, and often students study abroad to complete these requirements.
My D26 found the vibe at RIT to be welcoming, friendly and deeply nerdy, LOL. We didn’t see as many students at WPI because we toured in the summer, but our tour guide told us about sci-fi club, his D&D campaigns, and the store he frequents to buy Magic the Gathering and Pokemon cards on Friday nights – so we got an idea. My kid liked what she heard, although she wasn’t blown away by WPI like she was by RIT. (I actually think it would be a great fit for her.)
There’s a lot of overlap in the kids who apply to both these schools – they both offer smallish class sizes, lots of hand-on experience, etc. But yes, I do think they draw the kids who are into game design or something adjacent (like my kid!) as you mentioned. Maybe have your son look into the exact course requirements for the majors he’s considering and see if they suit him.
Oh, and RIT is doing some free online workshops for career exploration on July 29 and 30 – I saw there was a biomedical one. Maybe this would be of interest? https://www.rit.edu/admissions/college-and-careers
I’m not as familiar with RPI, although looking quickly at their major list, they do offer a number of sciences. I just haven’t looked into it that much.
3 Likes
My kiddo is making me a little cuckoo with the college list. Her school counselor recommends that each student have one rolling admissions school, and I thought she was settled on Pitt. Yesterday, she told me the campus is ugly and the Cathedral of Learning (their main building) is scary because it’s so tall and the floor is tile instead of wood.
Ok, Let me see if I can research for rolling admission schools that have engineering, with building that are not more than 5 stories and wood floors.
Oy vey.
9 Likes
There are schools where EA works as rolling admission early in the season. For example U Minnesota, Oregon State, Colorado State, U New Mexico.
6 Likes
Oof. So, I’ve also been pitching a rolling admission school, and Pitt is my D26s one as well. However, I think we’re making a conscious decision to NOT visit in advance (she’s attended a bunch of the virtual sessions, though) so that it doesn’t get thrown off the list too soon. We visited Seton Hall (another rolling admit school in our area and also a nice safety), and my D26 hated it. So now we’re going with “get the admit and then you can say you hate it and look for more.” This might turn out to be a terrible strategy, but I’m wary now of seeing more colleges getting thrown off the list because it’s easy for her to say no! Like, “Kid, you’re going to want to go somewhere, and you don’t want to apply to a million schools, so you better find a rolling admit that lowers how many you have to apply to.”
2 Likes
I just watched a video that talked about the activities section of the common app and it had a bunch of advice I hadn’t even thought of – what resources do you all recommend to assistance in the actual application process? The one I saw was the Road to College “Secrets to a Great Common App”
2 Likes
College Essay Guy has tons of free resources, including lots of advice for the activities list.
4 Likes
That’s basically what we did with our just-graduated twins. We actually did go to Pitt’s campus, but the tour was going to be the day of the eclipse last year, so we did the Cathedral of Learning tour the evening before, stayed overnight, then headed off at the crack of dawn to a random town in Ohio in the path of totality, so their exposure to the campus was fairly minimal.
The school never really won their heart, but they acceded to my strong encouragement and submitted applications in August. As others have noted, the acceptance letters they had in hand were a useful bulwark against anxiety when they got their SCEA rejections later in the fall and then had to wait another three+ months for any other feedback from other schools. And if their preferred options hadn’t worked out and it ended up being a destination for one or both of them, we’d have absolutely visited at that point, gotten the t-shirt, etc.
3 Likes
University of Oregon also has rolling admissions early on. My D22 applied in mid October and was accepted by Halloween. We had brief exposure to the school and town—a nice campus with a fun college town attached. For S26, I’m hoping he will apply to Pitt as well as Oregon. He prefers a city school so I’d like him to have both as options.
And ugh! The random things our kids get hung up on! My S26 was about to write off Vassar because they had a Quidditch team. I had to tell him that pretty much every college has a Quidditch team. And then he said, “well they talked about it too much.” I was like… then don’t join the quidditch team!
5 Likes
My guess is that there are probably quite a few that offer rolling admissions early on! It’s not typically advertised on their web sites, either. The way I originally found out about UMN and Oregon State was by visiting the previous years’ admission threads here on CC, and noting when people started to post admissions. So that’s one way to find out…
4 Likes
Mine wanted to write off a school because she didn’t like their colors. Wrote off another school because the students described themselves as “quirky”.
4 Likes
Yes! I’ve also seen Reddit posts where people post their acceptances and found it useful. TCNJ is one of those in our area that looks like they send out early acceptances, so that’s on the list too.
1 Like