How’d your kid like those schools? Of them, we toured Kenyon and Oberlin with my eldest child in 2024, they ended up at Oberlin and they love it there.
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I think S27 found a lot to like about both of those schools, but a lot depends on whether he decides to do engineering or science and how he ends up feeling ultimately about a smaller school (he goes to a very large public high school that is bigger than both of these colleges). We didn’t get a tour of the science facilities at Oberlin like we did at Kenyon, and just wandered around a bit peeking into the research labs, so I think a future visit where he actually gets to experience a class or talk to students in the sciences would be good. I think he was particularly impressed with the music opportunities at Oberlin (he wants to keep playing at some level in college), and he liked the coaches at both places. The athletic facilities at Kenyon were amazing. I was particularly impressed with the student admissions ambassadors at Kenyon-very articulate and really seemed to value their experience there. I think my husband and I would go to either one in a minute!
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Welcome @GraniteStater and @sammykate1! The group is starting to get going as junior year begins.
I can’t believe some students are already going back to school. We have another month! D27 loved her time at camp this summer and will apply to be a counselor for the whole summer next year. That makes me a little nervous for college apps, but it’s guarenteed work if she is hired. Finding summer employment around here is difficult. We went to Charleston SC to visit family/vacation. Since we were there we walked around CofC. We loved the city and had a great time, but determined we are more made for the NorthEast. Now she may even cut off her VA and Maryland schools, we’ll see how this year goes.
Good luck to those starting school!
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It has been a while since I’ve checked in on this thread. It is hard to believe that Junior year is starting in just a few weeks!
He actually did end up staying more on top of his work in the spring semester. Still room for improvement, but he seems to be taking it all more seriously now.
Interestingly at the end of the spring semester, my S realized that he chose his classes based on the Career Center hard sell and that they weren’t necessarily what he wanted. He decided that he wanted AP US History and was willing to rebuild his whole schedule around that, so he did. Now he’s taking:
AP US History (2 credits)
Adventure Challenge (.5 credit - his 2nd of 2 required PE classes)
Political Science (.5 credit Social Studies elective)
Pre-Calc functions (1 credit)
Honors Physics (1 credit)
Honors English (1 credit)
Spanish IV (1 credit)
This leaves him with 1 credit open in the spring semester. His HS is adding German this year and he wants to take it. He can add German II in his open spot in the spring, so I did what I said I wasn’t going to do with him and allowed him to enroll in our state’s online charter school to complete German I. My D did this throughout HS because she wanted to double up on music classes in school so every year she took 1-2 required classes online. It was a lot with her already busy schedule and ended up causing a lot of tension between us as the classes are somewhat self paced and I had to be on her all the time to get them done. However, it looks like the German teacher is doing a good job of holding him to the schedule they discussed for him to complete German I before Xmas. So we’ll see. German is just an elective for him so ultimately if he doesn’t finish that just keeps him from being able to do German II in the spring and he’ll have to choose something else or take a study hall.
Agreed! Finishing sophomore year and getting his license makes it feel like it went from being too early to do college planning to suddenly feeling behind! We’ve done just a couple of in-person visits and a couple of online info sessions. The online ones have been helpful as we tend to chat during/after those and it has given me a better sense of what he’s looking for.
We did the same, because who am I kidding? I would not have been able to get him to prep for PSAT 10 anyway, lol. He was much more laid back about the whole thing than his sister was four years ago, and he ended up doing pretty well. Hoping that holds true for this year - our HS has all Juniors take the PSAT in the fall and the SAT in the spring, and then some students take the SAT again in the summer. So lots of testing this year! I’ve talked with him some about prepping for these tests but we’ll see. It isn’t part of the culture in our HS so it is hard to get momentum on it.
That has been a challenge for us too! I really wanted to fit in more visits this summer. With my daughter, we took a week the summer after her junior year and she and I toured 6 schools in PA and NY. We had a lot of fun and found her school on that trip! I should have tried to do that this summer with my son but his summer schedule filled up so quickly! He’s in Scouts, and they did a trip to Philmont High Adventure base almost as soon as school was out. He had 4 weeks of arts camp when he got back and then he did one week of Scout camp to get a few more of those Eagle-required merit badges done. Now he is working as a day camp counselor for 2 weeks and then we head to PA to get his sister moved back in. I did manage to schedule a visit to Lehigh while we are there, so we will at least get one more done before school starts.
Good luck to everyone as Junior year begins!
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Well, my 27 achieved one of his goals for the summer: getting his driver’s license. For the win!
Otherwise, it has ended up being a pretty disorganized summer… he’s still got a month to go though.
Test prep? Nope, hasn’t really happened. In reviewing the materials from the school guidance office, I am actually feeling better about this than I was in June. He’ll take the PSAT and a practice ACT this fall. And in the spring, he’ll either take the SAT or the ACT or maybe both. He is the kind of kid that has some anxiety around testing like this, so I think the opposite approach than what we did for his brother will likely sit better with him.
School summer read and other assignments for Spanish and his AP class? Also nope, or at least not yet. In his defense, he only got into the AP class last week, but the Spanish assignments he has had for some time…
Any college visits? That’s a nope so far.
The next month will apparently be busy.
We deliver his older brother to college next week, so he’ll get to visit that school unofficially and we’ve also scheduled a tour/info session at Macalester while we’re in the neighborhood. I am on the fence about adding a visit to our state flagship before he goes back to school. He is going on a short 3-day visit to the CT/NY area at the end of the month and will visit a few schools then. We’ll see how that goes, since some of those schools aren’t really ones I would have thought of for him. You never know what might spark some interest though, so we’re all keeping an open mind about it. I’ll report back on his thoughts once he’s back from that trip.
We are definitely approaching that point in the summer when a little more routine and structure would be good. Especially for me!!
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Yes, this! I am guessing it isn’t going to happen. I hope at least maybe one SAT practice test and the little bit of review he did for calc this summer helps my son with the PSAT!
My son is in Scouts too–he did a 90+ mile trip at Philmont last summer and really enjoyed it, but wasn’t able to fit in Scout camp this summer with all his other things. That might make getting the rest (about 10?) of his Eagle badges done in the next 15 months difficult! We’ll see. He finally got Life this past weekend. Their troop is doing the North Country High Adventure next summer, so I think he’d like to do that if possible.
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He might find it useful to go to summer camp as a “provisional” Scout, in addition to his troop’s normal week at camp. It’s what I did when I was trying to wrap up my requirements the summer before senior year; I don’t know that I would have gotten it over the line without that “bonus” week at camp.
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The Kid is taking seven classes this year:
AP Lit
French 2
AP Calc BC
Advanced Technical Theater
Principles of Engineering
AP US History
AP Physics 1
He is most excited about physics and technical theater.
The Kid is taking the SAT in a few weeks. He has taken 6 practice tests from the College Board and has done pretty well.
We are tentatively scheduled to visit Tucson in a few months to check out the University of Arizona.
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Busy week upcoming! Kid has their first full school day, and will take the ACT next weekend.
They took a practice test in the spring cold and did quite well, but all subsequent practice tests (even with a tutor all summer) have been pretty mediocre. It feels like a big unknown how they will perform, given that they have been practicing on online tests (the real ACT will be on paper) and the fact that this is one of the earlier administrations of the enhanced ACT, etc. I guess at worst, it is good practice with a real test. (They aren’t looking at Georgetown or any school that at this point requires all takings to be submitted).
We have done a couple more tours, and kid is leaning towards STEM-focused schools, I think for the vibe/culture. We shall see!
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First day of 11th grade for ‘27 today! Very exciting. College tour this year was quite fruitful in figuring out what they are looking for in a school. Definitely not a city - even fairly small-sized. When we visited F&M they said Lancaster was “too much”. I actually loved it. I had no idea Lancaster itself was a city and a cute one at that! Lots of small, independent shops and restaurants. I found it charming and just the right size, but I’m not the one going to college! They really liked Gettysburg, weren’t a fan of Bryn Mawr or Haverford, and felt okay about Lafayette, but worried the students at Lafayette were not “their people”. I have to agree after visiting the campus twice. During the tour it felt like we saw the exact same girl everywhere - dressed the same, hair dyed the same color, etc. Not their vibe at all.
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We have felt that way a few places too…my 25 was turned off by it, for sure.
Bennington? Grinnell? Kenyon? Williams? (super hard admit of course)
Are you suggesting those schools for my 27? Or saying they are the same vibe? Sorry - wasn’t sure how to read it.
Top schools right now are: Smith, Dartmouth, Gettysburg, Conn College, UMass Amherst.
Sorry, yes, they were suggestions of schools that were very rural/ very small towns. if they thought F&M was too much, these would be even further away from big towns IMO.
Though reading the rest of list, maybe that isn’t really necessary. UMass, Conn College aren’t super rural (though not big city of course!).
Good luck!
Week three of junior year over here and all seems to be going pretty smoothly. Her school gets a lot of colleges coming through for visits, so she asked me to go through the list with her to narrow down which presentations she should attend. I tried to hide my complete shock at her actually wanting MY opinion on things and played it cool. She’s clearly been doing a lot of research on her own but is not sharing much with me at this point.
Any tips for what kinds of questions to ask in these larger group-type presentations? She’s very introverted so who knows if she’ll actually speak up… She is undecided for major and our go-to question on tours has been to ask about the exploration/major choosing process for undecided students, so she might just bust that out again.
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Hi All and Ha! “I tried to hide my complete shock at her actually wanting MY opinion on things and played it cool.” Is that your child or mine? I’m new to this thread with a ‘27, I also have a ‘12 and ‘15 (grown and flown), so I was here a LONG time ago when ‘27 was young, time does fly!
I’m used to the eyeroll and ignore it with this last one (mostly). ‘27 is looking for STEM schools, the higher ranked the better in her mind, we’ll have to work hard at managing expectations. She goes to a tiny STEM private school and has done well on the AP exams and recent SAT, so now it’s crunch time. She is [over]loaded on APs this year (what does Mom know when I suggested she might want to ratchet it down a bit?). So, I’ll probably be here whining about her whining.
Long, long time ago I posted here about ‘12 getting rejected from his first choice. He did great where he ended up, lesson learned to “bloom where you are planted” and he now has a PhD and is actually a professor! ‘15 applied to one mid-tier state school where she knew she’d be accepted and where she wanted to go and went there, so bizarre nowadays and so, so easy. And round three, here we go!
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I was actually surprised by how “un-rural” F&M was. I was expecting horse and buggies and typical Lancaster County images, but Lancaster (the city), is actually a good-sized city with so many restaurants and shops and things. Much bigger than the other towns on the list.
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Hi and welcome! I was also here with an ‘18 and ‘21. And back again!
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Hi Roonil! Third time is a charm! Hopefully less angst than with our oldest, youngest wants to apply to a lot of schools as well (unlike our middle child). Fingers crossed this round is not TOO hard.
I think your child has an awesome and unusual demographic from that alone, probably some excellent essays!
Lancaster has like 50k people… that isn’t really very big IMO. Not that different from the Amherst with 40K..(and lots of other nearby towns). And I always get stuck in horriific traffic in the New London area so never think of that as remotely rural or off-beaten..I know someone who commutes to NYC from there a few days a week (nuts, but true!)…It has an Amtrak to NYC or Boston on your doorstep practically 
The campus isn’t walking to town, so maybe that is what is makes it feel rural?
That said, I can see how the downtown of Lancaster can see more like a “city” but I guess I was thinking the overall area, not just the center. I susppose as a college student that is what matters though!
Certainly, Hanover is definitely small, though very upscale.
Anyway, to each their own! I wish your kiddo best of luck!