<p>Simba, cute answer. :)</p>
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<p>Can you say “Welcome to Lubbock?” LOL. Go Red Raiders.</p>
<p>OK. So back to the OP. IF your kid takes the scholarship, then what are the paths? What are the tips to make sure that remains a good choice? What are the pitfalls to avoid?</p>
<p>Come on guys. We can do this.</p>
<p>"Even though I explained how his preference is probably more related to personality type than anything else - anytime the issue of “ability” is raised - certain people are offended. "
And now you have a better idea of who to ignore. Seriously, there are few posters who always talk about how their Son or D got into such and such college with out hi SAT’s, and therefore there is no validity to hi SAT scores possibly being a valid indicator of the intelligence level of students at a college. I don’t agree with this either, because of my son’s experience’s this year. So focus on the colleges that are a better fit for your son’s personality, [like U of C] and ignore those who post just for the sake of arguing.[ not you cur]</p>
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Yeah, it gets me ticked off to see some newbie here consistently putting down others. </p>
<p>And I’ll repeat what I said before: in my experience, most people who spend a lot of time bragging about their kids’ test scores don’t have much else to talk about. So if that’s not the case with you, then I would suggest you get down off your high horse and show some respect.</p>
<p>Alumother, I am going to sleep and I hope your questions are addressed.</p>
<p>I want to make it clear if a person wants to use SAT averages, gpas, number of valedictorians, the smartest kids in the world (and whatever way they want to judge this), to decide on a school, that’s great. Whatever works.</p>
<p>Not that my opinion matters. :)</p>
<p>Ok almother, I’ll bite. What we forgot was to do was ask ourselves- would he pick Big U with a larger % of lower SAT scoring kids [ can’t ignore this as a factor cause S is very gifted] over small LAC or Small U IF MONEY WAS NOT AN ISSUE. The answer would have been no way. Big U never was the best fit , and we lost sight of that. Now he is reapplying to the Small U [ bye-bye merit $$] he was also accepted at and where he will find a much larger number of students like him.[ This was our first and only time in the college application process, so we were new at this]</p>
<p>I’m not exactly sure what’s being argued at the moment. Or rather, I know, but it just seems to be a lot of “yah huh,” “nah uh” and nit-pickiness. So all I have to say about that argument is that every student chooses which college to attend based on different standards, and if it works for them, then good. </p>
<p>Also, someone mentioned this earlier, but not everyone wants to go into a high-paying job or be at the very top. I don’t, and while prestige does have it’s appeal, it would be more for bragging rights than anything. I don’t need to have one of the highest-paying jobs in the country (though of course, I don’t want to be poor). And paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for bragging rights doesn’t make sense.</p>
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<p>“What’s next” in what area? I’m one of those students who didn’t even apply to Ivies, because I wouldn’t be able to afford them and yet wouldn’t get financial aid. Or rather, I could have with tons of debt, etc., but it wasn’t worth it. However, I did apply to Duke, the top UC’s, UNC-Chapel Hill, and other schools that aren’t at the very top, but are still very good schools. I was accepted at every school I applied to, but I’m currently at Baylor, a school ranked 81 on the USNWR.</p>
<p>Why? Finances were a part of it. There was no way I could afford Duke, for example, and I wasn’t offered a scholarship. UNC Chapel Hill was too expensive, especially since there was nothing that made the school stand out to me. Other considerations were more personal. UC Berkeley didn’t feel right. UCLA was too big and too close to home. And so on down the list.</p>
<p>Baylor offered me full tuition and a little more, and had an honors program that appealed to me. It was a good size, far from home, etc. etc.</p>
<p>Now, do I have regrets about Baylor? Well, it’s too early to tell, as I’m only a freshmen. There are things I like and things I dislike about the school, but overall I’m satisfied with the choice. </p>
<p>I think a large part of “What’s next” is really up to the student. What’s your attitude like? I’m pretty flexible, and I wasn’t set on any one particular other school. If you go into a lower-ranked school, you can’t have the attitude that you’re “settling” or that you have to go there. Also, what activities/programs do you get involved in? If you want intellectual stimulation, there are at least some top students at any school. Get involved in honors programs and the like, and you have a higher probability of finding those people. </p>
<p>Anyway, I don’t know if that helped at all or added anything to the conversation, but there’s my two cents.</p>
<p>Agreeing with mpm. They better love (have good feelings about) the merit school and especially the kids there or else that’s 4 years of hell. D didn’t apply to any school she would have hated, or even to any she didn’t at least “like” (and there was only one of those where the affection was limited to “like”).</p>
<p>Bookaddict, I’m just (north)west of you and I’m a huge lady Bears fan. I also know a lot about your school. 
Which honors program are you in? And yes. Your post was exactly on point with “what’s next?” as in what did you find? How did it work out? For you and my D, so far so good. For menloparkmom’s kid- not so hot.</p>
<p>I’d add to BA’s post that D wanted to make sure the kids at her school were not kids who wanted to be somewhere else but didn’t get in. That way she wasn’t with a bunch of kids “settling” as BA put it. I think it makes a big differencein feel. The kids are happier to be there.</p>
<p>I’m in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core. Being a part of that, as well as living in one of the honors dorms, has probably given me a different experience than the average Baylor student. The people I know are more diverse (in every way), and are probably more intellectually stimulated than the average student here.</p>
<p>calmom said, “in my experience, most people who spend a lot of time bragging about their kids’ test scores don’t have much else to talk about. So if that’s not the case with you, then I would suggest you get down off your high horse and show some respect.”</p>
<p>Gee, guess you’re as wrong about me as you were about my son. </p>
<p>I never bragged about my kid’s scores. I never mentioned them. </p>
<p>I said he preferred “high ability” to “high achievement” and has found the PSAT scores to be the best approximation of such. </p>
<p>Where do you get your material?</p>
<p>reflectivemom,
I am really curious, how would your son know if his choices in friends correspond with high scores? My S for example will be at a loss if asked about his friends’ PSAT or even SAT scores. 
He knows who he wants as friends, but I don’t think asking for credentials has ever entered his thoughts. :)</p>
<p>Really curious? Or another putdown in “nice voice”?</p>
<p>Forgive me if you are really curious. Based on tonight’s conversations, perhaps I’m a bit sensitive. But, still I find your question interesting. </p>
<p>No one has to “ask”. How “gauche” - or is that what you meant to imply?</p>
<p>According to the posts on CC, every school seems to announce National Merit Semi-Finalists and Finalists. Our area schools certainly release this information.</p>
<p>Can you really not imagine a scenario in which a group of friends find they all qualify?</p>
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<p>Very cool. I have a child I’m helping through the process that may be there with you next year. She’s a good kid.</p>
<p>reflectivemom,
I can imagine your scenario, but what about after HS? Forgive me, but it’s too “out there” for me to even mention in one sentence “PSAT scores” and " choice of friends" . I guess I have to be one of “those parents” , making excuses for not-high-enough scores of their offspring( S was only a commended student on PSATs and considered SATs a pointless waste of time) . For what it’s worth, I’ve always found S’s choice of friends superior, so whatever criteria he uses, it works. good luck to you and your S on the college search. :)</p>
<p>Reflectivemom - I have two kids who thrive(d) at top schools (one has graduated and one is a sophomore transfer student). My son’s scores put him in the highest percentiles of his classmates at Stanford and my daughter’s scores, while very good by most standards, fall within the lower percentiles of her classmates at Swarthmore (due to a relatively low math score which is not relevant to her fields of study). Both kids have many, many college friends and fit in very well with their classmates. Obviously, Swarthmore saw something they wanted in my daughter, and they did not make a mistake in admitting her because she is doing very well there. Are you saying that if your son is admitted to an elite college, he will somehow be able to sense which of his classmates who do not share his ability to get stratospheric SAT scores? That he would not care to be friends with such people? That they would detract from the atmosphere he is seeking in a college? Your posts about your son’s thought process, based on my personal experience, do not not make a lot of sense and seem very simplistic.</p>
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Mootmom, I think you have a tricky problem, because your older son is a full pay student at one of the most selective colleges in the country. I also have two sons, the older of which is a full pay student at a super selective college. One of our issues in allowing S1 to relinquish the merit aid at slightly less selective schools was that we knew we were essentially signing up for TWO full pay kids. I didn’t see how we could tell S2 that he would have to go for merit money over selectivity. I just never wanted to be in a situation where S2 felt that we supported older son’s educational opportunities more than his. Is that your issue, too?</p>
<p>If so, here’s my two cents. Let him choose the most selective/expensive school he can get into. He’s already dealing with the super-duper older sibling thing. By the way, from your other posts, he sounds like a great kid! But no amount of merit aid is worth spending the next 50 years justifying why he had to take the scholarship and older bro didn’t. Just my thoughts!!!</p>
<p>reflectivemom,
I took a break from this thread when I saw invective being thrown about earlier, & now I return to notice once again the conversation turning to arguments about the value of SAT scores.</p>
<p>I’m trained, credentialed, & work in a variety of educational roles, both in & out of the classroom, which includes tracking the success of individual students through elem. high school, & college years.</p>
<p>“Ability” is a broad term & can be loaded word. I do not deny that there can be a correlation between high standardized test scores and abilities of various kinds, but one does not preclude the other. Mostly, the 2 key sections on the SAT measure one’s ability to take tests. They measure how focused & disciplined you can be, to filter out everything else except what is precisely being asked in the questions delivered. You are further being <em>timed</em> on how quickly you can eliminate & narrow, not how expansive a thinker you are. (In fact, it’s been my obesrvation that the SAT parts one & two punish the expansive thinker.) Your score is also, however, partly dependent on just how well prepared you were for that test, and that preparation is not limited to outside (including paid) help, if any. The quality & the style of prior classroom teaching (particularly for math) can be crucial to the test outcome. Fro example, in the education of my 2 daughters, they were taught refined critical reasoning in the verbal arena, but much less of the kind of critical reasoning/identification that prepares one for the quantitative arena examined on the SAT. Not all math curricula, math approaches, & math teachers prepare for the SAT – and note that my daughters went to private schools. Sophisticated verbal education; unsophisticated quantitative education.</p>
<p>My older d’s best friend in h.s. happened to score equally highly, twice, with my D on one section of the SAT. But the 2 were attracted to each other by their mutual interests, long before they took this test. There were a couple of students who scored equally highly on a diff. section of the SAT, but neither was a close friend of my D. Different interests. Social & even academic association can include a lot more variables than test scores. </p>
<p>My D chose in h.s. and chooses now in college people she can have stimulating conversations with and who are deep thinkers who read a lot. (Note that “deep thinkers who read a lot” are not necessarily discovered by an SAT score.) But a great University should welcome deep thinkers who read a lot, as well as some who can move within a narrow range of possibilities & quickly identify the most important of those.</p>
<p>The other h.s.friends that my D chose were artists. Why? Because most true artists – esp. those multi-talented across several arts – are often brilliant. Paradoxically, too, they often have extremely <em>quick</em>, observant minds, but not the kind of quickness tested on the SAT. That cut-to-the-chase quickness becomes obvious within a 3-minute conversation. (Which is why in “my” idealized college admissions approach, I would offer an optional oral exam, designed to test responses to <em>open-ended</em> questions and <em>expansive</em> thinking, as well.)</p>
<p>(Sorry to distract from the now-back-on-track dialogue about $$ vs. name. As you were, mootmom & others.)</p>
<p>Son has just about perfect SAT…one time…junior yr…no prep and all the other la di da scores to go with it. So what.</p>
<p>He is at his state u. honors program. Challenged in class, enough time for two awesome EC’s, volunteer work, and not stressed out at all. He has sports friends, EC friends, class friends. He does have to step over a few bodies on a Friday night but that’s okay by him. He has limitless opportunities and an unlimited # of all sorts of people to learn with and get to know. His biggest concern is how to fit everything he wants to do into 4 years. </p>
<p>He took the $$ and was humbled by the offer. I for one am happy he is not spending 6 hrs a night on problem sets. This is, after all, his life. It is about learning about the world and what part he wants to take in it. </p>
<p>He could be doing the same thing at Cornell for $180,000,or Duke or Swarthmore but chose not to.</p>