<p>Absolutely DGDzDad! I’m confused how that type of harassment is tolerated at a university.</p>
<p>Remind me never to apply to Bucknell. I’m not even Jewish, but that’s super disturbing. That being said, WUSTL is better in every possible way!</p>
<p>soze - American University would be a good fit for your son. Excellent media studies and a top college for documentary production. Sizable Jewish population.</p>
<p>Here is some info from CMU’s site that may be helpful as it breaks out admission stats by school.
[Carnegie</a> Mellon Admission | Admission Statistics](<a href=“http://admission.enrollment.cmu.edu/pages/undergraduate-admission-statistics]Carnegie”>Admission - Undergraduate Admission - Carnegie Mellon University)</p>
<p>soze, I have kids who have gone to Carnegie Mellon and Bucknell if you’re interested. Both had lower SAT’s and far lower GPA’s than yours. There are ways to game it, for CMU, if he’s seriously interested. </p>
<p>"Yeah, it’s apparently a very hush-hush thing.</p>
<p>The last straw for the girl I was talking about had anti-semetic grafitti drawn on her door and she was encouraged by the administration to ignore it. When she told them she was transfering because she felt unwelcome, they apparently didn’t seem to care."</p>
<p>Perhaps it’s hush hush because it doesn’t exist? Who knows about the specific example you cite, perhaps she was being harassed by just one person. As far as the administration apparently not seeming to care, what does that mean? Does she think there should have been a federal investigation about it? School wide meetings? One incident does not make a trend.</p>
<p>I really don’t believe there are anti-Jewish sentiments at Bucknell. You know how smears and rumors can spread, so I don’t always trust everything someone says. It can be an isolated or exaggerated incident. Bucknell appears to be an incredibly welcoming place, so I just don’t buy it. Then again, I’ll have to ask my son and see what he says.</p>
<p>It’s just that I never trust rumors and innuendos coming from one source. I would like facts. There are all types of silliness going on at all college campuses, as we know…but it doesn’t mean that the entire campus population can be classified as guilty. Sometimes it is just one rotten person, who could be anywhere.</p>
<p>soze - re: your statement “Lehigh: The worst location in the world”</p>
<p>60-90 minutes from Philly and NYC. Beautiful campus. A lot of revitalization in the Bethlehem/Lehigh Valley area. Not sure how you could possibly make a statement like that. DS is headed there in a couple weeks as a Freshman and couldn’t be happier. The location was a huge plus for him. The record applications last year suggest the location is just fine.</p>
<p>busdriver11, thank you for addressing those allegations of anti-semitism at Bucknell, a school we are investigating for our son. I have a close friend who attended Bucknell back in the seventies; she’s Jewish and loved her years there. While I’ve heard Bucknell is more conservative than many selective liberal arts colleges, I’ve never heard allegations of anti-semitism before with regard to the school. </p>
<p>I also am not sure what “worst location in the world” means with regard to Lehigh. Bethlehem, PA? Are you serious? </p>
<p>A lot of hyperbole being tossed around in some of these comments, which really isn’t helpful to anybody.</p>
<p>Yes, I would definitely talk to some kids and families of those who are attending Bucknell. Some of my son’s best friends are Jewish, so I know he would notice that. He is also very open minded, and I don’t think that Bucknell is a particularly conservative school at all. Even if it was, it sure wouldn’t be anti-Jewish. Kids there are from all over the US, and several other countries. Though it is predominantly white, upper middle class, they definitely try to encourage diversity. I will contact my son and ask him if he has seen or heard of any anti-semitism, because he would be very sensitive to that.</p>
<p>In fact, my son loves Bucknell so much, he said he’d rather stay there for the summer than come home. Or even work at his beloved camp counselor job, that he’s been doing for many years. Not because the other places aren’t enjoyable, but because he loves every minute of being there. I never liked any place in my entire life that much!</p>
<p>Lehigh is a beautiful school, it was a top consideration for my son. A couple of seedy streets nearby, but nothing too scary. I’ve certainly seen worse by other colleges, that would not be enough for me to think it was a bad location. We really liked it a lot.</p>
<p>I am a rising senior at a very competitive high school. I have a 3.21 GPA with a slight upward trend, but I had some problems, and also some laziness, mostly frosh and soph year, but I know I can get around a 3.9-4.0 this fall semester, I’ve just been lagging behind my potential I believe so far. I have a 2070 SAT that I hope to get up to 2200+ when I take it again this fall. I don’t feel like posting all my ECs, but you can see them in some of my previous posts. That all being said, do I have a shot in heck at a school like Notre Dame or Cornell? Are higher ivies and other selective schools even worth applying to? I really feel like my passion and drive will shine through in my essays, but I’m anxious as to whether that would still be enough. Thanks for any response!</p>
<p>Would like to echo some of busdriver’s comments about anti-semitism at Bucknell. My D is a rising junior there and loves it. She has other Jewish friends and has attended high holiday services – has never seen a hint of it. She’s in a sorority, has a job on campus, played on one of the sports teams her first year and is involved in a variety of other activities as well so it seems like she would have encountered it if it is existed…could one isolated incident have occurred? Possibly but I’m on the parent board and the thought that the administration would have tried to brush it off also seems very suspect to me–definitely inconsistent with my experience. Just don’t want to see Bucknell labelled as ‘anti-semetic’ on CC when that is counter to both my daughter’s and my experience.</p>
<p>xcrunner121, the best source to answer your questions would be your guidance counselor, who can tell you how your stats match up with previous applicants to these schools from your high school. If your school has Naviance, that may be telling too, although keep in mind it won’t tell you anything about the previous applicants’ hooks, which, like it or not, come into play in these decisions.</p>
<p>That being said, and for what it’s worth, my S has a ~3.6 unweighted GPA at a rigorous independent school, scored in the high 1400s on the CR/M portion of the SATs (just shy of 2200 total), and was pretty much told by his counselor that the most selective schools (Penn, Columbia) were “extreme reaches” for him. </p>
<p>So, by all means, shoot for bringing up your GPA and SAT scores, but try to find some schools where your stats place you solidly in the top half (or quarter if you’re unhooked) of the admitted class. If you love Notre Dame, consider Villanova and some of the other strong Roman Catholic universities like Boston College (Georgetown maybe too, although it would be more of a reach). </p>
<p>Also, a lot will depend on what you plan to study–the breakdown of those SAT scores may be more important than the total score (especially since a lot of schools don’t even look at the writing score). I could be wrong here, but I suspect a very high math score means much more to most schools than a very high writing score.</p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>
<p>busdriver11, did your S consider Lafayette at all? I’m curious if Bucknell feels more like Lehigh or Lafayette? As much as those two schools are lumped together, due to their famous football rivalry, our impression was that they couldn’t be more different and that most kids vastly preferred one over the other. Thanks!</p>
<p>Sorry I know this isn’t a chance thread, but I have looked at Georgetown and BC, as well as Holy Cross. I know those schools are also pretty selective, but would I have at least a halfway decent shot at getting into them?</p>
<p>xcrunner121, not sure how you define “halfway decent shot.”</p>
<p>Holy Cross’s 2011 admit rate was around 33% and their middle 50th% SATs (CR/M) were 1210/1380 (the latest available through USN&WR). You can look up more recent stats in their common data sets.</p>
<p>How did your 2070 break down? Retaking the SAT may help, but the individual scores are just as important as the total out of 2400. Keep in mind, not everybody’s scores go up when they take them a second time. Unless you’re doing some <em>heavy</em> prep in advance, there are no guarantees.</p>
<p>Georgetown’s admit rate was 18%; mid-50th% SATs (1290-1490).</p>
<p>BC’s admit rate was 28%; mid-50th% SATs (1260-1440).</p>
<p>Based on those numbers, I suspect they’d all be “reaches,” although Holy Cross is probably your best bet. But your GC will know best. Shoot him/her an email!</p>
<p>busdriver11:
It happened.
I’ve had extensive discussions with this girl’s mother and it happend and it was not an isolated incident.</p>
<p>As a parent who’s been thru this college process once and is about to embark on it again, I know we’d all like to think that the schools that our kids have chosen (and we are paying major $$ for them to attend) are “perfect” but the fact is that none of them are. They all have their “warts” and my alma mater, my kids school(s) and yes even Bucknell are no exception. </p>
<p>Bucknell seems like a fine school, and I’m sure your son is having a great experience and getting a great education but that does not in any way diminish the fact of what this young lady encountered (the details of which I don’t want to go into on a public forum, least it violate her privacy).</p>
<p>Matmaven:
Lehigh is a great school and has many, many things going for it, but location is not one of them.</p>
<p>Sorry, and I know this is really a matter of personal taste but I just think it’s too “bleak” a venue for my son to spend four years there. Obvsiously you feel differently and that’s great.</p>
<p>Of course we want to think our kid’s schools are perfect, especially when they love them so much. Yet I fully realize that any environment where you have thousands of young people interacting, living away from home, you are going to see some inappropriate and rude behavior. I can’t imagine one single school that has never had one person say a mean thing or do something ridiculous. But I can’t possibly imagine listening to one person and making a generalization about the entire environment of the school. My son says he’s never seen or heard of anti-semitism there, but I couldn’t generalize that because he’s never heard about it, it could never happen. From all appearances, Bucknell has an extremely friendly and welcoming crowd. I’m sure there are exceptions.</p>
<p>On a different note though, if Berlin is the sort of school that would fit your son perfectly, Buckell, Lehigh, and Carnegie Mellon are completely different types of schools, so they might not be worth even considering anyways. Perhaps Reed or U Chicago?</p>
<p>busdriver:
It’s less about one person or incident than about the administration (multiple people) having staggering levels of indifference about (several) Jewish students (they were all female as far as I know, perhaps that’s important – I don’t know) concerns that they were made to feel unwelcome there. Anyway potato/potatoe, let’s move on.</p>
<p>Not sure what you ment by “Berlin” but Reed is probably a bit too far and Chicago would be great but I would be flabbergasted if he got in.</p>
<p>It was a typo, I left out the O. I think you mentioned that Oberlin would be a good choice? And you never know about U Chicago, even if it appears to be a reach, he’s got pretty good stats. It’s surprising how it shakes out sometimes. My youngest son got accepted or waitlisted at almost all his reaches, and turned down by his ultra safety school.</p>
<p>XC: Another factor is cost and your ability to pay. It is my understanding that Notre Dame is not generous with merit aid even for very high stat kids.</p>
<p>Oh year, Oberlin…
We visited it for his older brother, he didn’t really like it.
(I’m not sure he’s crazy about the small, remote LAC type environment).
I think he wants something bigger, a but more urban and with lots of “stuff” going on.</p>
<p>I think U of Chicago would be great but I’m looking at Naviance right now and for his HS he would be fully .7 below the lowest GPA student to get accepted.</p>
<p>The average student to get accepted from his HS to U of C had a 4.43 GPA and a 2260 SAT. He’s just way, way, way below the line for it to be a reasonable choice. FYI, by way of contrast, for his HS the average Harvard acceptance had a 4.38 GPA and a 2287 SAT – so it’s pretty much as hard to get into UofC from his school as it is to get into Harvard.</p>