So applying this logic to D26’s current list that she’s applying to PLUS some schools that we researched and crossed off the list:
Univ of Arizona - leans fairly liberal. It is in Tucson, after all! But big enough to avoid protests if you want to and there’s no conservative rules to follow.
UT-Dallas - haven’t visited yet. Suspect it’s pretty middle of the road.
UT-San Antonio - probably liberal like U of A, but definitely not Reed College or UC Santa Cruz type of liberal. But its cybersecurity programs & low $$ win out + there’s an NSA data center in San Antonio and there’s a lot of cybersecurity internships available in the San Antonio area (and that’s D26’s major).
GCU - has a cybersecurity major but they have rules about no males in your dorm room unless the door is open. Too conservative for D26 and too close to home so forget it. Although my friend’s kid attends there and he loves it.
Embry-Riddle in Prescott - a little too far right of center. Plus would have needed a car in order to do anything off campus. No conservative rules on campus, but the vibe was too conservative for D26’s taste. Also would have been a tad too expensive.
Univ of Tulsa - I suspect this place is a tad right of center, but at least from what I can tell online, the campus is very multicultural…there’s a Hillel organization, very active Muslim Student Association, etc. Somebody from our high school a couple of years before D24 attended there and loved it. Will be able to figure out more in a little over a week.
Baylor - too expensive + requires chapel or Bible study attendance each week. Too much Greek life, too.
Ole Miss - too much ‘Old South’ culture. Too much Greek life, too much bro culture. For D26, feels like for female students, there’s too much focus on dressing a certain way and looking pretty; also feels that it wouldn’t be very accepting of LGBT students (and 1 of her BFFs is non-binary).
Univ of Alabama - crossed off list for same reasons as above.
colleges in CA - crossed off list because of financial reasons + campus cultures (generally speaking) not friendly to students who are not passionately left left liberal. NOTE: this is my daughter’s impression. Am not stating that this is how it actually is.
colleges in OR, WA & northeastern US- crossed off list for same reasons as CA schools + they were in the category of “too far away”
Hillsdale College - crossed off list because doesn’t have right major, too cold, too much conservative politics, although their US history courses & liberal arts focus in general ed was pretty appealing to D26.
University of the Incarnate Word - (reading the tea leaves on this). Majority Hispanic student population. Has a long track record of service, especially with needy populations in the area, so that’s talked about in the college’s part of their website where they talk about their values & mission. Expect this school is probably similar to U of A in terms of political leanings, probably a little more so about immigration politics topics. BUT our family lived for many years in southern AZ so immigration politics have been kind of a regular daily thing that D26 is used to hearing about. This school stayed on the list because of its geographical location, size, ease of getting admitted, major (its cybersecurity programs are accredited as an NSA Center of Academic Excellence) and potential merit scholarship $$.
The 3 LACs that D24 applied to (and she felt, after doing campus visits there, that they were all pretty middle of the road) were Austin College (1 hr from Dallas airport), Southwestern University (30 min from Austin), and Centre College (in KY). If Centre College had been a little closer to home, she would have attended there.
D24 is a choir kid and Centre College has an amazing fine arts program (she’s a bio major at the moment though). KY is a politically conservative state, but the college didn’t feel that way and we even asked a professor about it on our visit there in Feb of D24’s senior year in high school. The professor said it was pretty balanced there, a little left of center and that matched what we kind of felt from our visit. The town the college is in has this adorable downtown area that’s walkable from campus. Really friendly people, like a quintessential “Main Street USA” sort of place…at least that’s how it felt when we were there. She was offered a music scholarship for choir (you don’t have to be a music major to get a music scholarship). It turned out to be the cheapest of the 3 LACs she applied to.
D26 would fit in at Centre really well, too, but they don’t have the major she wants. It’s a really cool place.
Meanwhile, I’m ready to move to downtown Georgetown, TX, which is walking distance from Southwestern University. D26 isn’t applying there because of the major.
The University of Limerick’s common app is officially opened!!!
(part of the 3-way tie for D26’s top choice)
On the website- they state that applications open Oct 15th. And on the Common app it was showing that they would open on Nov 1st. So I doubt they will look at them this early- but supper nice surprise to get her part of the process completed.
D26 is super excited that she can finally get this one done. Especially since we are going up there soon- to have everything completed before then will be nice.
Also- next week is Colorado’s Free Apply Days- So getting this one done and having the counselor get their stuff sent prior to that will be nice- they are going to be slammed starting next week!!!
(The counselors clear out their to-dos on Fridays- so should get everything done this week!!!)
No southern states here too for political leanings and policies reasons, plus diversity is another factor which is high on our list of priorities. Hugs to you and your kid.
D26 has a geographically diverse list of schools, west coast, Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and South. My wife and I nixed DC as an option early because we didn’t want her to be at the focal point of politics if stuff went down. D26 was going to potentially drop some California schools she was less excited about (We are in CA). Her college counselor at school wisely convinced us a couple months ago to keep those on in case the climate in the country changes so much by spring that we want the option for her to be closer to home. Things have changed so much in that little time that I’m glad we did. My main concern about her top choice that she’ll likely get into, is the state it is in and what her being there in a year might look like to us come spring. It is sad that that may be a major factor in where she decides to go.
Different topic, but still related to current affairs. Does anyone know if the shutdown impacts FAFSA? We were going to start looking into what is required this weekend but now wondering if the shuttering of the Department of Ed impacts completing it or processing of it if this thing goes for awhile. Any veterans of admissions or others know?
If she lands here, we’re not far – DH and I will be empty nesters (with an elderly yellow lab and two naughty cats) – and our home is always open to a college kid that needs a refuge! We have a spare bedroom, and chances are I will still be cooking for five people.
I searched for an answer to this question yesterday because my daughter’s FAFSA was still marked “In Review”. It looks like, for the most part, everything is automated and should work regardless of the shutdown. If there is a problem with the application, however, that could delay things. Fortunately, my daughter’s FAFSA went through last night without a hitch! Unfortunately, the SAI was $10k higher than it was last year (no idea why).
Chime in about the impact of a particular teacher for a class. It seems mostly we agree that a great teacher has tremendous effect on learning.
Yet from the Chance Me/Match Me threads, very often we saw claims like most engineering/medical/law schools following the same curriculum, thus you will learn basically the same stuff, and the conclusion would be school choices do not matter that much. When I see these, I cannot help laughing.
thank you all for the empathy and ideas for helping reduce and redirect some of my S26’s anxiety about the state of things. It is awful and scary and sad … and I also hate hearing him worry about his (and the world’s) future and talk about things with so much pessimism.
We have been talking a lot about how he can use his “straight white boy” privilege for good. How can he be an advocate for others, speak up when he hears something hateful, do something in his community to help. He volunteers regularly in a soup kitchen and a couple of his clubs raise money for food related causes.
But those headlines and the resulting TikTok and instagram reels are hard for him to escape (and he does get sucked in). I think one tactic I need to talk more about is regulating his social media consumption. I want him to be informed and it’s important to care about these things but learning to recognize his spiraling is more important.
As for how it’s affecting his school choices—absolutely no red states. He will apply for CA schools but prefers to go out of state. I want them as options. It will be his choice of course, but having D22 in CA and being able to get her home relatively quickly has been helpful.
Someone mentioned up thread about pursuing dual citizenship. DH is an Italian citizen but his passport lapsed years ago. And now we can’t find it. We are deep inside the labyrinth that is the Italian consulate but if we can get EU passports I will feel better about things too. I don’t want to have to use them but I want an escape hatch for my kids since one is available.
To be fair, great universities do not always have great teachers, especially for undergrad. You get tenure from research, not teaching. Two of my colleagues were TAs at Ivies during their PhDs. Judging from our interactions, one would have been an excellent teacher, the other one.. not so much.
Yes. The stress is definitely impacting our family. My middle child is in college in DC and the rest of us live in another targeted city. How can it not impact daily life when you have to pass masked un-uniformed men (presumably ICE?) on the streets?!? Or when the school district has to regularly send safety and know-your-rights email messages to our families?!? We talk about it often, which helps. But this is a strange time in some cities…
I asked this on the Pitt forum but wanted to see if anyone here has more experience. Does Pitt sort applications in anyway? I saw someone posted that they received feedback within 2 weeks while still waiting for ours. The stats are 1550 SAT, 14 APs, 3.97 UW. Been a while since applied (9/18) and wondering if there is an issue or continue to wait. In state and common app.
My D applied in August and also hasn’t heard yet. I wouldn’t worry about it… in the past it seemed to be quite variable how long it would take to process applications. Back when my S23 applied, it seemed to take extra time for his application to be processed as well, and then others were getting merit long before he was… but he ended up with honors + the highest merit award. So who knows?
I believe they sort apps by college (e.g., Engineering, Arts & Sciences, Nursing, Business, etc.) so decisions might vary depending on which college you applied to.
Mine applied 8/16, app completed in portal 8/19, decision 9/22.
I have not heard of Pitt doing yield protection, so I imagine its just about waiting…
One more Pitt question – for the STARS, when D26 imported her transcript info, it didn’t put anything for 12th grade because the current in-progress classes aren’t on the school transcript yet.
Anyone know if she needs to input these manually, or will they just get that info from where she entered it on the Common App?
D26 isn’t applying there because of the major.
