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Formal tours when school is in are optimal. We did a couple visits over the summer where we just walked the campus (no formal tour or sessions), just to get a feel of the campus. Definitely better than not visiting at all, and helped with the decision to apply, but a follow-up trip for decision-making purposes is now necessary.
UNC is all over the place. Only school my son didn’t get in (waitlisted but he didn’t want to follow up) that we thought he would. He had a bunch of friends who did, one was a girl with an SAT score 300 points less. They both had good other stuff, just pointing that out because it seemed more arbitrary or maybe the opposite very much picking and choosing what they wanted more so than the full resume speaking for itself. According to his scores he was in the top 25% so we were pretty surprised. Anyway, he’s loving Clemson (in the honors college) and got the president’s list for his first semester (have to get a 4.0). Unfortunately for me, it’s out of state and even though he got a nice scholarship they don’t give out nearly as much as some schools because their applications have skyrocketed. Still way cheaper than private schools.Sweet Love said:
Flagship state schools are getting astonishingly competitive these days. UNC is at the top of that list, along with Virginia. Michigan as well. My son ended up getting into Engineering at Texas, but it was about a 50/50 shot we think. There are kids that aren’t getting into their flagship state institutions while gaining admission to elite privates. The value proposition is really starting to tip the tables.Sweet Love said:
University of Washington as well. Much easier to get into the private schools in WA, if you want to fork over 6x the money.
Knowing a lot about the wackiness of UNC's admissions lately, I wouldn't suspect that at all. UNC was my son's top choice. One thing to remember is that there aren't interviews for these big universities. It's almost hard to make it obvious that she didn't want to go there. It's a little easier with the EA, but even still there's no real contact point to express desire.
It's possible, but she took an official visit and applied EA. She did not apply ED, but I would venture to guess EA shows more commitment than general admission. Even social media is pretty tame, and there aren't posts of her wanting to go to a specific school.
Incredibly so. If the public schools could (or decided to) add 10,000 seats to each flag ship school, a bunch of private schools would be out of business. I always wonder what the relationship is (in general) between public and privates, but publics could put the nail in the coffin, if they wanted to.
I feel your pain. Our son didn't get into UNC either. We pretty much expected it. Our HS has had valedictorians not accepted there. It's probably been over a decade since they took anyone from our town. Our son had a "nice" resume but nothing truly distinctive. Not sure what kids need to do to get in, but not having an unusual attribute is almost a death knell.Sweet Love said:
Nice. I went to Trinity at about the same time. Luckily, my kids are smarter than I am.
I remember what a relief that initial acceptance was. Regardless of what happens with the rest of them, our kids are going to college!
Not sure. My son has a lot of friends that go to UNCC. It’s definitely a little more of a commuter school than UNCW but I think all but 1 of his friends likes it there. His close friend loves UNCW. I think they all offer some sort of merit scholarships but I have no idea on those.
Funny, I started at Trinity and transferred part way through my sophomore year...I would have been class of 1996.
I am on the eastern side of the state, so more familiar with UNC-W. I can say as someone in HR, the few people I know from the workplace that attended there are very locked in. It has a good general business admin program, and of course, can't hurt going to school by the beach. Also, and excellent film studies school. I will say there are very few professional jobs in Wilmington (considering the amount of kids graduating each year), so if she falls in love with the area, she is likely going to have to move for work. However the Raleigh-durham area is ripe for employment, and is only about 2:15 away from the beach.
I graduated in 92 so would have just missed you. Was on Dean's List and pondering transfer as a sophomore myself because it seemed easier than my high school, but instead joined a fraternity after which it became a continual struggle to stay off academic probation
Good stuff. My daughter is interested in marine biology and likes the state of NC a lot (from PA). Been meaning to look into what UNCW might have in that realm.
That is great - and you can throw my prior advice out the door - great program, and I bet she could find some good opportunities up and down the coast.
That. Is. Nuts. But if that level of demand does not tell you that school prices are way too high, I am not sure what does.
You're out of state, right? Guessing those valedictorians were not full-pay. More than just about any other elite public university, the percentage of UNC's budget that comes from the state has been slashed. So they are using full-pay out-of-state kids to fill the gap. The percent of freshmen that can be from out-of-state is capped at 18%. So it's already very competitive and it gets more competitive once UNC starts looking at who wants financial aid.
Yes, out of state. In theory, wouldn’t they accept you first and offer you FA second? They could always offer you very little aid and you would elect not to go there. By flat out saying no, they rule out getting close to a full price out of state student.
In the case of our state university (UNH), they have offered us a ton of merit based stuff to the point that our son might get all of his tuition paid for. However, we don't really qualify for much need based assistance. Basically, the full cost of the in state tuition is lower than the amount we would have to pay for annual family contribution for private schools that offer that as a FA package. So for our state school, his acceptance and FA offer was merit-based. Or am I interpreting that wrong?
Merit based scholarships are an entirely different category from need based financial aid.
First...great to hear about your kid. Awesome stuff that he has initiative and wherewithall to do this.
It’s recognized as one of the best values of any school in the country (if you have in state tuition).
The short answer is no and halfway through his season year I would guess that ship has sailed. In all the years he played AAU, the organizations showcased other players. HIs HS team wasn’t very good and plays a ball control offense. So scoring in the teens on a team the media doesn’t cover equaled no publicity. Had he been on a run and gun offense he would have stood out more.
I coached basketball at the D1 level (G.A. role).
I can't speak to what your school does but I can tell you it won't matter what her GPA is that the high school releases.
I am hoping down the stretch he has a monster game like he did several times in his early teens. For folks that played basketball, there are times / games when you are ON and almost literally can't miss. I remember a tournament where he hit 10 threes in a half and ended up with 50 points. But they changed his role in high school to interior defender and close range scorer, so he rarely has had the green light to start bombing threes. He takes and makes some these days but they don't really want him that far away from the basket or settling for long shots.
I'm very reluctant to ever contact the school to complain about stuff, but this would have me in the administration's office in a heartbeat. As for whether it counts that will depend on the colleges to which she is applying. For the most part, the GPA reported on her transcript is meaningless. They will use the grades on her report card to calculate a GPA using their own system. And if there is a C+ on the transcript, they may very well take it into account in that computation (even if her high school doesn't). So screwing over your daughter's transcript in a gym class for seemingly absurd reasons is something I would absolutely be protesting.
Don't lose sleep over this. A vast majority of schools could care less about a C+ in one marking period in physical education.
From the places that we have spoken to, schools pick and choose the classes they care about, the level of the classes, and the number of classes taken compared to the offerings at the highest level as a basis for comparison. None of the schools we have engaged with cared about gym (and several other classes like art, music, home economics, etc.). No way of really knowing without getting a breakdown from each individual college in terms of what they look at. As several others have said, they have their own formula to come up with what they care about.
Well, I don't want to create any unnecessary alarm, but while they may not care about someone getting an A in gym, they may care about someone getting a C+ in gym.
I got a C+ in gym once as a three-sport varsity guy and that was indeed problematic. The alarm bells go off because it generally means something behavioral is off. Or he had to take gymnastics.
My daughter's competitive sports career ended in 1st grade when was more interested in picking dandelions than chasing the ball in rec soccer. Her little sister got whatever athletic genes were available. So this may be less of an issue for her than it was for you.
Ah, yes. That may be problematic. My apologies for jumping in. I sort of always thought that B's in Gym were effort and/or decorum grades. That really may not be the case.
NHS requires documented volunteer hours to qualify. It looks good on the college resume, so most serious students try to get it. You're correct that it's not really "volunteering" though, and with my kids, it barely qualified as work either. It usually turned into social events where they went and hung out with their friends while helping run some program for younger kids. Sure beats what I was doing at that age though. It's a win-win-win really. Good for the kids, good for the teens, and good for the parents.
Our son actually did real work for his volunteer hours. He picked up and redistributed food from grocery stores and restaurants for our local food pantry. Every time he was there he did a ton of heavy lifting and relocated stuff in their storage area and put cases and boxes on shelves. He was beat when he came back. He also did a bunch of physical labor for a church group. Helped build a deck, cleared snow, raked leaves, etc. He also did clean up and maintenance for a non-profit kennel that did specialized dog training. And some of his basketball stuff involved running clinics with like 100 elementary kids for two hours at a time where it was him and one other person (and the adults that were supposed to show up never did).
