<p>soze - I would second dudedad’s suggestion of American. Not exactly NE, but lots going on and close to a city, good for his interests.</p>
<p>mamabear1234:
I’m sure American is a fine school, but frankly I’d like to see him do better.</p>
<p>He’s 300 SAT points above the average accepted applicant to American from his HS, and has a higher score than anybody who even <em>applied</em> to American from his school in the past five years. Looking at Naviance they even accepted quite a few applicants who scored 800 points below him. I think he’d thrive better in an environment where he’s more academically challenged.</p>
<p>Soze - your Lehigh comments may be some of the most ignorant I have read on this forum. Lehigh’s campus is beautiful. Attending college about an hour outside of the largest and arguably most influential city (NYC) in the country is fantastic!</p>
<p>LehighMH:
Don’t be so touchy…I never said anything negative about Lehigh or its campus (which is indeed quite nice).
The Bethlehem area is a bleak and depressing place and I don’t think my son would like it very much</p>
<p>And P.S. I <em>live</em> in NYC, so you don’t really need to explain its benefits to me.</p>
<p>P.P.S.: What sort of reality distortion field do you live in where Bethlehem is “about an hour” from NYC? </p>
<p>It’s over 80 miles away and have you ever experienced NJ traffic? It’s a 2+ hour drive at least on a very, very good day. On a bad day, well it’s pretty much the whole day.</p>
<p>soze… I am a parent from the 2012 thread. I have a S who was very similar to your S. He had a 3.6 GPA at a top rigorous private prep. He has 2290 SAT’s. He also had 1500 volunteer hours with tons of leadership. He is an Eagle Scout and his teachers loved him. He applied ED to his #1 school Colorado College and was deferred then denied. I am totally with you on the Naviance insanity with this type of kid. The Common data Set is also a mystery. I can only tell you that half of his schools rejected him outright and the other half accepted him with HUGE merit awards… He did not get into any top 50 schools.</p>
<p>5boys: I’m stunned at your son’s rejections. Those are better stats that 97% of the country. Ninety-nine if you only account for the SAT score. I can understand Colorado College as they are looking for a “type” due to their unusual set up and for whatever reason, assumed he wouldn’t thrive there. But the others? I simply don’t get it.</p>
<p>5boys:
I’m stunned as well. My older son had about that GPA, also at a top private school, had a 2190 SAT, so-so ECs and got into WUSTL, Wesleyan, Oberlin, NYU, Rochester… All top 50’s. </p>
<p>Which “top 50s” did your S apply to?</p>
<p>No One was more stunned than we were, believe me. The schools that rejected on top of Colorado College( and he was as an absolute fit there), were, Bates, Hamilton, Colby, Whitman, Bowdoin. Midd, Colgate and surprisingly Lewis and Clark( who deferred him, then rejected him). It was mind boggling to say the least. I will say that I am almost certain that if he would of been a full pay applicant he would have gotten in to most of these. You have to be really careful with the small LAC’s that are need aware. I think if you are not a top student and are not a URM, if you need money you are at a HUGE disadvantage. He is a great kid, who has almost finished his gap year. He hiked by himself at 18, the entire Pacific Crest Trail, 2650 miles form Mexico to Canada, he got his Wilderness EMT and has been working for a National Park as an EMT, that he NO ONE his age has ever been hired before. He is going to St Lawrence University, that won him and my H and I over big time, on an almost a full scholarship by the time you add merit and aid. He got an early assurance to med school to pursue his dream to be a rural/wilderness ER doctor. Everything all worked out, but it was a crazy and stressful year to say the least. You can look back at some of my old posts, but he also go into, University of Puget Sound( 18,000 a year merit), U of Denver( ? merit), UVM( merit), Tulane, Sewanee( 12,000 a year merit), Hobart and William Smith( 20,000 merit), and Western Washington( merit and Western Exchange).</p>
<p>I will add that, he was anything but a good writer, and this probably hurt him. His B’s were all from not turning in homework, but he got A’s on all of his tests. He took 5 AP’s with 4’s and 5’s, 1 self-studied. He went to a boarding school 2nd semester Junior year to work and live on an Organic farm… he was anything but typical. The 3.6 was W</p>
<p>5boys–I agree with you about the need-aware LACs.</p>
<p>SOZE – OK I may be a little touchy but I really thought Lehigh was/is a great location to go to school. It is a short driving (or bus) distance from NYC, Philadelphia, New Jersey, the Jersey Shore and Atlantic City. It is within driving distance to other interesting locations like the Catskill Mountains or Washington DC. We would often travel to Vermont to go skiing as well.
In short – close proximity to the nation’s largest metro areas along with ocean, skiing and nature opportunities all with a fantastic campus to go back to makes for a “Great Location”.
Additionally, the campus is beautiful and if a student doesn’t want to leave she can have a complete campus type experience similar to small LAC’s.
P.S. In addition to being a pretty good school academically – we still know how to have a good time as we were just ”ranked” the 10th best party school in the country.</p>
<p>Lehigh is about 1 hour and 40 minutes away from midtown–without traffic. With traffic out of New York and through NJ, you can reasonably add another hour. I don’t think the kids frequent the city on any regular basis, though it is doable for a special occasion.</p>
<p>5Boys: I was going to ask if you were full pay. Yes, that will knock kids out of the running. And you dodged a bullet with Whitman. They are not known to be generous with aid. Whitman was one of Spygirl’s top choices, but she understands she’ll need merit if accepted and that is not likely to happen, so she’s moved on emotionally. She’ll still apply but it’s the back burner.</p>
<p>I’m glad it all worked out for you son and what a fabulous gap year he has had. Both my kids want to hike the PCT. We have done a small bit, but son wants to do the entire trail. DD only wants to do a small portion.</p>
<p>Like I said before, Lehigh has many many great things going for it, but location is not one of them.</p>
<p>Lehigh: is not in the “New York Area” by any stretch of the imagination – there’s no direct train, etc. It’s for all intents and purposes in a totally different part of the country.</p>
<p>Let’s suppose you had an appointment in NYC that you <em>had</em> to be on-time for (say a job interview), we shall say it’s at 2:00 on a weekday afternoon and that you’re going to drive there from Lehigh. What time would you leave? 11:00? that might be cutting it close, you can easly spend 60-minutes-plus simply sitting in traffic waiting for the tolls at one of the Hudson crossings. You really would need to leave at 10:00 or soonafter, just to be really, really safe.</p>
<p>I have collegues that live in NJ (much closer than Bethelem PA) and it routinely takes them 2.5hrs+ to get to work, and that’s using trains which are not subject to traffic jams, etc.</p>
<p>So much for “about an hour from NYC.”</p>
<p>Thanks A99, for the kind words… My DS14 is applying to Whitman,but only because they do have a big merit for theater, and he is going to be a theater major with an impressive resume, but I am sure he will ultimately choose a school in a big city if he gets in to one. If your S wants to follow my S’s PCT blog, pm me and I will send it to you. It has a lot of info about how he prepared and how he accomplished that enormous feat.</p>
<p>Fine - now I see. Your appointment example proved to me that Lehigh really is in a different part of the country.</p>
<p>I’m looking for suggestions for my son, who has about a 3.3 unweighted, and 3.98 weighted GPA. He’s interested in business, and we are both hoping he will be accepted to the LEP business school at University of Maryland. At this point we are looking for back-up schools where he might get scholarships. We will not qualify for any financial aid. Any suggestions? (if I shouldn’t be posting this question on this thread, sorry in advance). He SAT CR/M score is 1390, and he has OK but not great ECs.</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, lucie, I didn’t see this. We did tour Lafayette on his initial college visit, and for some reason he just didn’t get excited about it, so he didn’t apply. I think the problem was that it was right after Lehigh, and before Bucknell, two schools that he really liked a lot. All three have a completely different feel, I agree.</p>
<p>We then went on a second visit to schools that he was accepted or wait listed to, with a different perspective. He decided no on Fordham (though he liked the school), and no interest in NYU or CMU, which surprised us. On second pass, none of us liked Lehigh near as much as we had the first time, and the entire family liked Bucknell even more the second time. It was obviously a perfect fit, and the only school that he was really excited about after the visit. Each school was so different.</p>
<p>What can people tell me about Ohio State and/or Indiana University, especially their business programs? UMD is our state flagship, and my son would like to go there, but it looks like both of these schools may be easier to get into, even though they are ranked higher. I think he has a chance at merit scholarships for these schools also. I know they are both large, and seem to have lots of school spirit. Their business schools are both ranked higher than UMD, according to some sources. Anything else people can tell me that would distinguish either of these schools? Anything bad I should know about? Any other fairly large schools with strong business schools where he would likely get a fair amount of merit money?
Currently he has a 3.3 unweighted GPA and 3.98 weighted, and his SAT score is 1390 for CR/math. He will be taking it again in October.
thanks</p>
<p>I was wondering I have a 3.7 gpa 25 act what schools can I get into top8% texas resident what texas schools can I get into in texas tamu I am also black from Africa if that helps ut Austin or Texas tech</p>