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College Admissions Questions (1 Viewer)

James Daulton said:
So weird since many school are the opposite.  .
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I think it has to do with the public money.  Since it is state taxes that fund the state/public schools, the acceptance rules are slanted towards the people who live in the state and pay said taxes.

Private school don't have these issues and can be as location diverse as they choose.

 
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James Daulton said:
Accepted at Duke but rejected by Michigan?  WTF?
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I think a lot of factors (excuses) may be involved:

1. The admissions game is a crap shoot.

2. Mich had an early admission deadline of Nov. 1. I didn't have any input in the creation of her application (the only early one I cared about and helped on was UMD's) and, frankly, it was a weak offering. She left a lot of stuff out and her essay was a rush job. I was stunned she was deferred and not rejected. That deferral decision gave me optimism that her later, better applications would have a shot, which proved to be true.

3. D applied to Michigan's engineering school and not Duke's. If she goes to Duke (likely) she can transfer to engineering fairly easily, whereas i think it's harder at Mich.

4. We're out of state.

5. An admissions adviser told me that Mich is tired of offering admission to students in our district/school only to see the students decline. She advised me to show the seriousness of our attempt by having our D write to the area admissions' officer, telling him/her that Mich was her top choice and that she would go if accepted. She never did because, for one thing, it wasn't true.

6. Mich sent out an "interview with an alumnus" offer, which my D didn't act on. She did write to them after the deadline but they wrote back that it was too late but that the missed interview wouldn't impact the decision. Don't know if that's true.

7. D received some positive notoriety (TV interview, etc.) and awards in the intervening months. I had her high school counselor send those things to the admissions offices at Duke and Notre Dame but not Mich.

8. We poor, at least by FFA standards. Maybe Mich (very expensive) could see that it would be very difficult for us to pay their out of state rates and figured why waste their time.

The truth is, after her initial early acceptance by Georgia Tech, she'd lost interest in Mich and, perhaps, it showed. She never would have gone to Mich over Ga Tech if both had accepted her.     

 
At my daughter's swim team banquet on Saturday, one of the seniors (who had been accepted ED at Duke and had spoken of nothing but Duke since) spoke in front of the crowd and said that the only way out of an early decision commitment was for financial reasons. For that reason he said that he was backing out of his early Duke acceptance and, instead, accepting an offer from Stanford, who had just accepted him.....April Fools!

He definitely caught the crowd (though, not my daughter) with that one. His father even admitted to me that he was taken in. The kid's a stud.

 
D got her Ga Tech financial aid award, resulting in an annual $35,130 shortfall.  :shock:   Well, that's that. And Michigan would have been worse. Oh, well. I'm guessing I erred by saying that she wouldn't be interested in work/study at Ga Tech? My thinking then was that we didn't want her burdened by work distractions, at least during her freshman year. Maybe Ga Tech thought that if we were in a position to turn down work/study then, perhaps, we could afford more. In subsequent applications I put her in for work/study.

 
NewlyRetired said:
### #### schools are so friggan expensive.  Are you going to go back to them to ask for more or is the gap to big to even bother?
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No, Tech is yesterday's news. She'll decide between ND and Duke. Spring break plans call for about 3 days at each. Those private schools are definitely offering more aid.

 
Fear The Turtle said:
No, Tech is yesterday's news. She'll decide between ND and Duke. Spring break plans call for about 3 days at each. Those private schools are definitely offering more aid.
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excellent choices!  

3 days at each is a long time.  Are you aligning those dates with some sort of "Duke/Notre Dame Day" for the admitted kids?

 
NewlyRetired said:
excellent choices!  

3 days at each is a long time.  Are you aligning those dates with some sort of "Duke/Notre Dame Day" for the admitted kids?
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Exactly. Duke Devil Days and something similar at ND. The third day at ND will be of the "shadow a student" variety, attending classes, eating lunch, etc.

 
Fear The Turtle said:
D got her Ga Tech financial aid award, resulting in an annual $35,130 shortfall.  :shock:   Well, that's that. And Michigan would have been worse. Oh, well. I'm guessing I erred by saying that she wouldn't be interested in work/study at Ga Tech? My thinking then was that we didn't want her burdened by work distractions, at least during her freshman year. Maybe Ga Tech thought that if we were in a position to turn down work/study then, perhaps, we could afford more. In subsequent applications I put her in for work/study.
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When I started at Georgia Tech in 1994, it was cheaper than my high school.  

Bottom of 1st page has total annual cost to attend.

 
NewlyRetired said:
I never realized Georgia Tech was a public school.  Their price of ~$50k is reasonable especially compared to schools like Trinity which are coming in over $70k.  Luckily as Fear mentioned the private schools seem to be more generous.
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Somewhere during the process I saw Tech referred to as the "affordable public Ivy". 

 
Nugget said:
If only it wasn't in South Bend.   
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As we visited many schools in this process, I found it amazing how so many gorgeous college campuses sit as oasis's in the middle of some really poor area.

Trinity was extremely pretty and yet take 5 steps off campus and you hit a really ugly section of Hartford.

 
Fear The Turtle said:
D got her Ga Tech financial aid award, resulting in an annual $35,130 shortfall.  :shock:   Well, that's that. And Michigan would have been worse. Oh, well. I'm guessing I erred by saying that she wouldn't be interested in work/study at Ga Tech? My thinking then was that we didn't want her burdened by work distractions, at least during her freshman year. Maybe Ga Tech thought that if we were in a position to turn down work/study then, perhaps, we could afford more. In subsequent applications I put her in for work/study.
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Out of state kids are cash cows for public universities who are seeing their state government funding disappear. As a Maryland resident, UVA was like $10k more than Brown or Georgetown. My kid liked it a lot but not at those prices. Also have heard horror stories about kids in popular majors not being able to graduate on time because they are shut out of required classes until junior year because sections have been cut due to budge limitations. 

Just go private if that's a viable option - which it obviously is for your kid. Congrats again! 

 
Got the quick debrief on this year's admissions season from my friend, who's the top college counselor in Baltimore.

It used to be that colleges went for well-rounded students. More recently, they've gone for kids who are individually "spiky" - extremely accomplished in one particular area of enterprise - that, when put all together, made the class "well-rounded" as a whole. This year, apparently, the search was on for kids who made real impact on their communities by achieving something notable outside their school and school-related extra-curriculars. That's all these kids need - make great grades, near-perfect test scores, be a leader in school activities, and now do something noteworthy outside of school as well.

The other big trend was apply Early Decision, or expect to find yourself on the Wait List - and nobody knows yet how the Wait Lists are going to shake out. Schools were taking more than half their class in Early Decision, and then parking huge numbers of kids on the Wait List, so they can sift through and tailor exactly the class they want, based on financial capacity, race and gender, intended major, etc. And it's very tough for men wanting business or engineering, or women regardless of interest. He pointed out Tufts Engineering School as an example - they enrolled 214 kids last year. This year, they took 55% of the class early (118 kids). There are only 96 spots left for Regular Decision - if half go to women, now there are only 48 spots for men left before they even begin reviewing Regular Decision applicants.

The Regular Decision rates are really insane. For schools that break out the difference between Early and Regular, here are some of the Regular Decision acceptance rates.

Harvard 3.4%
Princeton 4.3%
Yale 5.0%
Brown 5.4%
MIT 6.6%
Penn 6.8%
Northwestern 7.2%
Duke 7.2%
Dartmouth 8.5%
Vanderbilt 8.6%
Johns Hopkins 10.3%

 
The_Man said:
It used to be that colleges went for well-rounded students. More recently, they've gone for kids who are individually "spiky" - extremely accomplished in one particular area of enterprise - that, when put all together, made the class "well-rounded" as a whole.
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After talking to a couple of counselors about my daughter, both felt strongly that this above philosophy change helped her.

My daughter was not well rounded at all, but because of that, her entire application(awards, recommendations, extra curricular activities, essays etc) was hyper focused on her one really strong skill and interest (writing) and that seems to have paid off.

 
We came back from Trinity Day today and it went very well.

On top of the normal all day events, they had a separate small reception with the president and other faculty for the kids who won the Presidential Scholarship and I think that sealed it for my daughter.  

I think she finally understood what it meant when the president told her that out of more than 6000 applications, they gave out less than 30 Presidential Scholarships.  You could see all the kids eyes widen when that was said.  It also helped that she found the other kids very friendly and welcoming towards her.

I watched most of the kids during the reception.  Of the 15 kids present, 3 were boys and 12 were girls.  The boys were clearly very shy and quiet and the vast majority of the girls all leaned heavily to the "geek" side of things, like my daughter.  

From what I could see there were no "Captain Awesome" type kids here who you would picture as the class president/star QB/head cheerleader/super star in every way type of kid.  We only saw about half of the Presidential Scholars today but that struck me that they may have been targeting a certain type of kid.

That made things better since my daughter was able to see other kids like her in a smaller setting and that made her feel more comfortable.

Tomorrow the deposit goes in and the mood now shifts from "where is she going to go?" to "I hope she survives the transition"

 
During the reception at Trinity, I attempted to engage some of the admissions staff to see what I could gleam from them in terms of the admission process.

* All remained very guarded when talking about admissions, staying a 500 foot level almost as if they were protecting state secrets

* One lady did back up, almost exactly, what @IvanKaramazovsaid earlier in that "you would not believe how poorly written some of the essays are.  Bad grammar, boring topics, topics that do nothing to tell us anything about the individual" etc etc

* I spoke in length to the lead of the admissions team about the test optional philosophy.

- He said this is the 3rd college he has worked at where they have transitioned to test optional

- he is very passionate about the subject

- he said all 3 schools, the transition was identical.  All the math/engineering based faculty and staff did not want to go test optional, the science based groups were ambivalent, and the humanities group loved the idea

- he said he spent most of his time at the 3 schools convincing the math/engineering group.  He found the best way to do this was to simply interview a ton of teachers and ask them to describe their ideal freshman student.   When each did (and the general description was always similar teacher to teacher) he then would ask them how does one 3 hour test on a Saturday help us in admissions determine any of those traits?   When he was met with shrugs, he was able to get them to sign on.

- they are keeping track of how all test optional kids are doing but he said it is likely to have little meaning as Trinity as a whole is de-emphasizing test scores even for the kids who choose to send them in.  Trinity does not even request what the scores are after kids accept like other test optional schools do

- I found out later talking to another dad this his daughter who also received the presidential scholarship, also went test optional, which really hit home that they are truly practicing what they are preaching.

 
one day after we send in the deposit, my daughter gets an email from Trinity asking her is she wants to apply to a special program they have for select students.

While the application was small and probably just ceremonial, I don't get why they just did not use the main application she sent to the school for the admissions process.  Seems like added work for everyone.

 
My son has 2 classes this last quarter.   I HATE HIM....

That's how my last semester was also.   I partied a lot :lol:

 
Fear The Turtle said:
He probably deleted it not wanting to seem like a Debbie downer. I, too, wished he would have left it. He made some interesting points and comments that future readers of the thread should hear. 
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Exactly!

After I read it later that night, I felt like crap being all negative in a thread in which so many are so happy. It will all work out for my girl, I have confidence in her. It just doesn't seem like the playing field is very level these days.

 
NewlyRetired said:
We came back from Trinity Day today and it went very well.

On top of the normal all day events, they had a separate small reception with the president and other faculty for the kids who won the Presidential Scholarship and I think that sealed it for my daughter.  

I think she finally understood what it meant when the president told her that out of more than 6000 applications, they gave out less than 30 Presidential Scholarships.  You could see all the kids eyes widen when that was said.  It also helped that she found the other kids very friendly and welcoming towards her.

I watched most of the kids during the reception.  Of the 15 kids present, 3 were boys and 12 were girls.  The boys were clearly very shy and quiet and the vast majority of the girls all leaned heavily to the "geek" side of things, like my daughter.  

From what I could see there were no "Captain Awesome" type kids here who you would picture as the class president/star QB/head cheerleader/super star in every way type of kid.  We only saw about half of the Presidential Scholars today but that struck me that they may have been targeting a certain type of kid.

That made things better since my daughter was able to see other kids like her in a smaller setting and that made her feel more comfortable.

Tomorrow the deposit goes in and the mood now shifts from "where is she going to go?" to "I hope she survives the transition"
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Meaning a uniquely talented kid who has a chance to bring great credit to the school. Check.

 
Well, one thing I learned on our recently concluded school tour that I'd like to impart: not all schools deduct outside scholarship money from the grant/scholarship $ that they give a student. Duke doesn't, and I'm sure there are others. Duke deducts the outside scholarship money from the student's work/study requirement and then from loans and finally from the family contribution before they take it from the free money they provide. Suck, I wish I had known that a few months ago. I sort of lost some interest in applying for these things when I assumed that it was going to be deducted from the school's contribution. Now, I'll be scrambling to find the crumbs that are left after most of the deadlines have passed.

Hope someone benefits from this little tidbit in the future.

 
Fear The Turtle said:
Meaning a uniquely talented kid who has a chance to bring great credit to the school. Check.
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that is what I like to believe :)  

The other parents we talked to during the reception all mentioned their kid had a singular super strength while still being really good across the board.  I think this is in line with some of the things we have talked about in this thread of schools starting to target kids with specific singular strengths.

I don't give my daughter enough credit some times but she is now published, just having Amazon accept her first 125 page novella which certainly something unique among-st the general teenager.  Every school talked about her passion for writing so I think that had a big effect on her.

 
Fear The Turtle said:
Well, one thing I learned on our recently concluded school tour that I'd like to impart: not all schools deduct outside scholarship money from the grant/scholarship $ that they give a student. Duke doesn't, and I'm sure there are others. Duke deducts the outside scholarship money from the student's work/study requirement and then from loans and finally from the family contribution before they take it from the free money they provide. Suck, I wish I had known that a few months ago. I sort of lost some interest in applying for these things when I assumed that it was going to be deducted from the school's contribution. Now, I'll be scrambling to find the crumbs that are left after most of the deadlines have passed.

Hope someone benefits from this little tidbit in the future.
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How do the schools even know about outside scholarships that the kids get when it is not part of the CSS form (since the outside scholarships typically come well after the css form is due)?

Is it up to the parents to inform the school?  I am trying to remember if Trinity asked for any documentation but I don't think they did.

 
NewlyRetired said:
How do the schools even know about outside scholarships that the kids get when it is not part of the CSS form (since the outside scholarships typically come well after the css form is due)?

Is it up to the parents to inform the school?  I am trying to remember if Trinity asked for any documentation but I don't think they did.
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Right, you have an obligation to inform the school of these awards. As I understand it, some of the entities actually make out the check to the school and send it directly there.

 
NewlyRetired said:
that is what I like to believe :)  

The other parents we talked to during the reception all mentioned their kid had a singular super strength while still being really good across the board.  I think this is in line with some of the things we have talked about in this thread of schools starting to target kids with specific singular strengths.

I don't give my daughter enough credit some times but she is now published, just having Amazon accept her first 125 page novella which certainly something unique among-st the general teenager.  Every school talked about her passion for writing so I think that had a big effect on her.
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Amazon: very nifty. I hope you'll still talk to us lowly FFAers when your D hits the big time.

 
Fear The Turtle said:
Amazon: very nifty. I hope you'll still talk to us lowly FFAers when your D hits the big time.
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I have much lower ranged goals for her.  I am hoping she makes it to Thanksgiving with out giving up.

This transition is going to be awful for her with all of her issues but if she can some how persevere, it could finally mean she is taking a path to adulthood.

 
First college visit this weekend.  :oldunsure:

The boys has near zero desire to go there, but the financials are more than i could hope for. I hope he sees something he likes. 

 
FYI, my nephew got into UC Berkeley in Computer Science.  Looks like he'll be attending my alma mater.  Not sure if he got any financial aid, but he's out of state, so that's not going to be super cheap like it was for me 15-20 years ago.  I'll be able to help him understand the school and make course choices though, which could be fun (for me).

 
NewlyRetired said:
I have much lower ranged goals for her.  I am hoping she makes it to Thanksgiving with out giving up.

This transition is going to be awful for her with all of her issues but if she can some how persevere, it could finally mean she is taking a path to adulthood.
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Well, I hope that she finds her place and settles in.  I'm sure you've looked at what support groups might be available for her already.  I can tell you that schools really hate losing students that are enrolled.  It looks bad on their numbers and bad for their rep.  Most places have support groups to help retain students at risk of leaving.

 
Cjw_55106 said:
First college visit this weekend.  :oldunsure:

The boys has near zero desire to go there, but the financials are more than i could hope for. I hope he sees something he likes. 
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How old are the kids and what school did you sample?

Depending on the kids ages, I found it best in the beginning to almost ignore what the school was teaching when we first visited and just let the child decide on atmosphere first.   

Big vs small

City vs rural

and things in between.

If the child can get a sense of which school size/location they prefer (some kids won't care either way), then you can start focusing more on majors to see if you can then narrow the choices down a bit.

 
My daughter returned from a spring break college tour last weekend.  She visited Franklin & Marshall, Lafayette, Gettysburg, Bucknell, Haverford and Dickinson.  She loved the first 3 and will definitely be applying to all 3 of them. She's not sure about the others.

Anyone have any personal knowledge of those schools?

 
The Dreaded Marco said:
My daughter returned from a spring break college tour last weekend.  She visited Franklin & Marshall, Lafayette, Gettysburg, Bucknell, Haverford and Dickinson.  She loved the first 3 and will definitely be applying to all 3 of them. She's not sure about the others.

Anyone have any personal knowledge of those schools?
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My daughter and I toured Lafayette and Bucknell (where she applied and was accepted) on the same day. She liked Bucknell more than Lafayette but, in reality, she was interested in a bigger school closer to some action. I think she only applied to throw a bone to her old man. I really liked Bucknell, maybe because our tour was led by a former student gov president there who really sold the school well. All classes at both schools are taught by professors and not graduate assistants, etc. A big plus for me. 

Don't know much about the other schools, though my daughter has an ex-teammate who is going to Dickinson and really likes it.

 
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