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from talking to various college admin people, all told me they ignore any weighted GPA's since high schools use various weighing systems making the weighted GPA impossible to compare.
Anytime GB. Would be happy to help. It’s a great path. I did engineering without even the slightest hint I would end up in law school (the engineering job I got out of school was lacking, and even though I was doing a master’s in electrical engineering at night, I just felt bored with all of it, and stumbled into law on a lark). With an engineering degree, he’d have numerous good options (industry job, advanced science degrees, law, medicine).bigbottom said:
Thanks O. We’re sending the kid to an engineering camp this summer that provides a survey of the differents types of engineering disciplines to help him start thinking of where he might like to specialize when he applies. Lord knows his parents aren’t any help in that regard. Hopefully he’ll find a path that he enjoys. Right now he’s thinking mechanical or civil, but who knows.
Yeah, unweighted is the way to go and then factor in course selection. Some high schools treat an A- as 4.0 while others a 3.7. Disregarding the GPA reported by the school and calculating your own unweighted GPA is a good way to get as close as you can to an apples to apples comparison.
Congrats on the Honors program. That is awesome! Is she insterested in joining a sorority? If so, you have whole other wave of hell coming your way, and I understand that it starts very soon. If not, you can relax!UGH...the college saga continues for my daughter. It's the good news/bad news syndrome.
She was early admission into the University of Alabama. The letter came yesterday that she was accepted into the honors program. While she's already received the merit scholarship, she didn't receive the honors scholarship. Not sure if her taking early admissions had anything to do with it since she already committed? Now she's beating herself for not scoring the 1 additional point on the ACT to get the extra guaranteed money from the merit scholarships.
That and the stress of trying to find a roommate(s). I'll be glad once this process is over. It seemed so much easier 2 years ago when my other daughter went off to school.
5 more months until I'm an empty nester.
Does Alabama force the kids to find their own roommates? I thought most schools just matched kids up...
Most likely will rush. Crazy how much that costs on top of everything. My older daughter is in a sorority at Louisville and it is somewhat reasonable there, but at Alabama it's 4x as much.
She can go either route. You can find your own through Roomsurf, Facebook and similar sites or go with the University assigning you a roommate.
With these southern sororities, I’ve heard that they have to start getting rec letters the spring and summer before they start college.
For some that is definitely the case. It really is a political game in the end.
I can't imagine how my daughter would have handled that. One thing I feel her school does right is that rush doesn't start until the beginning of the second semester. If nothing else, it lets the kids get their bearings around school first.
Son is in SC (Coastal Carolina). I was told that in order to claim in-state, he had to meet state requirements if he were to live there without us. One was he had to live there permanently for at least the 12 months prior . Second he needed a full time job showing he could support himself and third was we couldn't be claiming him on our taxes, he had to be independent. They were very matter of fact about it making it seem like the question comes all the time. I think because SC is a place where people invest in properties like Hilton Head and Myrtle. Just paying property tax there did not qualify.
I think at Alabama, rush might even start in the Spring of 12th grade and ends mid-summer - because the new pledges often move into their fraternity/sorority house as incoming freshmen.
Yeah, doesn’t look good for the home team. My sister lives in SC, so maybe we can figure something out for his last couple years. We’ll see.
spending entire days of weekends in classes or with tutors. an arms race we both couldn't afford and didn't have the desire to keep up with. I know we're not alone in this kind of lunacy, but sometimes I hate NYC. floppinho got into a specialized school for middle school this year that continues into hs- so he's already set and doesn't have to stress over getting into hs the way most of his peers will have to. added bonus that he loves the school.
Sounds like your kid is in a great situation as it is. You obviously know your kid better than any of us, so take this with a huge grain of salt - but if that were my kid, I would have reservations about sending him to a school like that where he will be surrounded entirely by kids like that. I get that it is an amazing opportunity and many people in the city would kill for their kids to be able to go there, but you also have to think about the well-being of your son and whether it’s the right place for him. I was never more relieved when my son got waitlisted at what is considered the top private school in Houston. The consistent word is that your kids will breeze through college because their high school years at this school will be harder than any college program. Well, that didn’t seem like a very persuasive selling point to me. The stories about stressed-out overachieving kids suffering anxiety and depression was hugely concerning for us. It’s also why, despite my son wanting to pursue engineering and having at least a shot at the top schools, he would never consider applying to MIT or CalTech. If by some chance he got in, he’d probably feel like every single student there was astronomically smarter than him. And whether or not that’s actually true, I would be concerned about my son’s mental well-being in that kind of an environment. Just my two cents.good luck to all of you awaiting college results, and congrats to those of you who got theirs in already. it's fun/fascinating/heart-breaking/informative reading along here even though mine are only 11 and 7.
not college, but we find out today if Floppinho gets in to Hunter High School here in NYC. public (or at least entirely free) school, that you have to test into- considered the top school in the city (Lin Manuel Miranda is a recent famous alum). entry points at K and 7th grade. we didn't take the test when he was 4 for this. he had already done two others- G&T, private school- and we felt that was enough... but we didn't realize the kid is naturally really good at standardized tests and enjoys them- so kind of hit ourselves for not at least trying back then.
for the 7th grade entry, they invite the top 2k 5th grade state test results in the city to take the test which is multiple choice math and ela along with an essay. they review the top 20% of the 1st part's essays and then take I think 50 kids. when we found out he was invited, we downloaded their sample test... had math nobody in NYC's 5th grade had ever seen in their 5th grade class- which seemed... interesting. this of course meant that we had to provide tutored prepping (something we've never believed in) just to get a pretty math-savvy floppinho up to speed. we found out people had been prepping for over a year... even before they had gotten the test results
we don't have high hopes that he gets in- he's a really smart kid, and while we think he might advance to get his essay read, he's never been a reader/writer and while I'm proud of his abilities there- we've read kids read things like The Economist and Wall Street Journal daily to get their ELA skills to the kind of level this school is looking for. floppinho still uses made up words like "jubilate" hopefully isn't spending a single second reading the economist or wsj.
eta: I should add that NYC's typical public school process is hell- you have to apply from elementary just to get into middle school... and from what I'm hearing, high school applications are equivalent to college applications here.
good stuff, bb- thanks.
To second NR, this thread is the greatest resource. If someone here can't answer your question you will be directed to someone who can. Since you mentioned financial aid, let me throw in the one thing I really regret not knowing when I went through the process: some schools will deduct $ you obtain from outside scholarships from the amount you owe as opposed to the school's contribution. My daughter goes to Duke, where she receives a lot of financial aid. I mistakenly thought that any outside $ she brought in would be deducted from Duke's contribution so I really didn't pursue outside scholarships as I should have. Big mistake. Definitely check the policy of the schools that your children are interested in.
Depends on the kid. The smarter you are, the easier it is to just work smart.
Honestly, I have always been more of a procrastinator. I can’t tell you how many all nighters I pulled in college for my non-engineering/computer science courses. Usually it worked, but it made for a bit more stress than being prepared without not sleeping. I have tried to instill the get ahead of work and studying. It’s worked well with my oldest and youngest. My middle son is another issue so I’ve got to work on that.
what's important is learning the rubric for things as best you can- which is what it sounds like you and your have done (I was the exact same way- worked hard, but knew exactly what I needed to do to get the A without expending much more effort... also competitve sports and music).
True, assuming the vehicle is just going to sit there and not be driven. With my daughter going to school in Louisville and us living in WI, you can basically remove the insurance and it's basically like you are storing the car. If you want to drive the car, you call and they activate the insurance for the day(s) you are going to be driving it and then call back to take it back down.
LOL - if you area the typical FBG, the FAFSA is a waste of time. You fill it out, only to be told that you make too much money and your kid qualifies for the subsidized student loan. But the process itself is about 10 minutes to complete.
Oh, I thought it was more burdensome.Fishboy said:
Once you've finished your taxes for the year, keep the info handy and go to the websites of a few possible target schools. They are required by law to have a Net Price Calculator (NPC) - usually on the Admissions or Financial Aid page. In about 5 minutes, you will get a very reliable ballpark estimate of how much each school expects you to pay. It's an excellent starting point to figure out what might or might not be realistic for you.
that's a great attitude, and I'm sure things are going to work out very, very well for him.
thanks gb.
Answered in a PM but thought this should be out there for others:Bull Dozier said:
FYI, it appears that sorority participation at Alabama is 52%, which is very high. It also routinely tops lists of colleges with the best Greek life:
How does the funding get to the school? The above is all correct, but most scholarships are sent directly to the school, eliminating the middle man (student), who could spend the money to cover something else unintended. So even if its non-reporting if the funds are sent to the school they are still aware.
NO. NO. NO. This is not universally the case. You have to check the school's policy. My daughter gets needs based aid from Duke and the school deducted our outside scholarship $ from our expected contribution. Can't imagine Duke is unique in this. As I stated above, my biggest regret about the admissions' process was incorrectly believing what is in your post and not pursuing more outside $. Please don't perpetuate this belief. Sorry to be so strident about it but you've got to CHECK WITH THE SCHOOL.
ZERO such restrictions on our GEICO policy. Massive discount with no loopholes. I couldn't believe it. The funny thing is when I priced umbrella policies with them they offered no such discount.Fishboy said:
Non reporting go to the student-hopefully the parents. You have to find out which are reporting and non reporting.
You are right, check with the individual school. Great advice. However , most do it the way I described. Google has a lot of articles on it. Link
Most colleges "gap" people in financial aid (don't meet full need of the family.) If that's the case, external money will be used to fill that gap.
This is really astonishing. Though the Penn basketball coach did the same thing for $300,000 a few years ago. Ironically, he was just testifying about it in court yesterday:
when I was on my recruiting trip to Cal, when the coach had finished his spiel he asked me if there was anything else that would entice me to come there. I wasn't sure where this was headed, but pretty quickly responded- "a couple of leggy blondes and a ferrari?". it apparently wasn't headed there.
