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mominva
Member
| Joined: | Sun Mar 5th, 2006 |
| Location: | DC Suburbs |
| Posts: | 343 |
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Posted: Tue May 1st, 2007 02:02 am |
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Consolation, with regard to your son's lack of interest in looking at 'sure bet' places--go to the websites of places you think would suit him and send for info in his name. Once their paper is in your house, you can point out the interesting programs and options that you noticed. The kid will just think it is part of the post PSAT/SAT avalanche.
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WestrnMom
Super Moderator
| Joined: | Fri May 26th, 2006 |
| Location: | West Coast, USA |
| Posts: | 1267 |
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Posted: Tue May 1st, 2007 02:37 am |
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Orchestramom, we were pleasantly surprised to find excellent music programs, either conservatories or top music departments at some of LACs we looked at, all completely unexpected. Just about every private school we visited has an awesome music department, depending on the instrument. We were also surprised at how many don't have enough students on some of the instruments to even fill up an orchestra, so they were very excited about students who perform, even those who don't plan to major in music. Of course, if she's aiming for Juilliard, she won't be looking at a LAC, but you never know.
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leftcoast
Member
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Posted: Tue May 1st, 2007 04:16 am |
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What are your son's interests? What is he looking for in a college? What are some of the colleges that he likes? Maybe we can help point you in the right direction.
Keep in mind that the "safety" doesn't have to be *like* the target schools -- my daughter couldn't find safeties that met her criteria, but she selected a couple of schools that would have taken her in a very different direction. I think it was a matter of thinking, "if I can't do X in the way I want to do X .... then maybe I want to consider doing something else entirely."
Keep in mind that a student who doesn't like the safety option can still turn it down and take a gap year -- but a student with no colleges at all doesn't have the choice.
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CarolynLawrence
Administrator
| Joined: | Sun Mar 5th, 2006 |
| Location: | USA |
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Posted: Tue May 1st, 2007 05:30 pm |
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leftcoast wrote:
Keep in mind that a student who doesn't like the safety option can still turn it down and take a gap year -- but a student with no colleges at all doesn't have the choice.
Good way of putting it Leftcoast.
There's a flip side to this as well, of course. That's under-estimating your child's chances and inadvertently pushing them away from more selective schools out of anxiety. To be honest, I am struggling with this as my son builds his college list. I have had to get out the duct tape a few times already so that I don't shriek "REACH SCHOOL! REACH SCHOOL!" to too many of the schools that he's mulling over. Last week, after a duct-tape failure, he looked at me and said, "Mom, you worry too much."
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limner
Member
| Joined: | Sun Jul 16th, 2006 |
| Location: | Tennessee USA |
| Posts: | 831 |
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Posted: Tue May 1st, 2007 05:36 pm |
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CarolynLawrence wrote:
Last week, after a duct-tape failure, he looked at me and said, "Mom, you worry too much."
LOL! Obviously there's sometimes a need for professional-grade, 5-year-warranty duct tape. 
This is how we ended up with so many school apps. My yelling was limited to "SAFETY! SAFETY!" As in, "FIND ANOTHER ONE!" We were awash in reaches.
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HijinksAndSue
Member
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Posted: Tue May 1st, 2007 06:51 pm |
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To Mack and Alum ...
Mackinaw, LOL, I will tell my son. He is going to start writing a column on sports for his high school paper next year. When asked what it would be about, he responded, "Whatever I want, I guess..."
If he became a sportswriter/sportscaster I bet he'd be in hog heaven. I have to admit, I just don't know how it can be that interesting but he thinks my senior thesis at Princeton on Catalogues in Epic Poetry didn't sound too thrilling either
I CAN tell you that if you love doing it (as I do), it's the best job in the world (Mackinaw, would love to know who your son writes for!) ... But ... well, let's just say I REALLY hope my DD gets some financial help from the colleges in which she is interested 
I'm starting to realize that maybe there is no such thing as a true "safety" in her case ... she has one very strong first choice (will apply this summer for fall EA and hopes to know by December) and then there are several other LACs in which she is interested but all of which would entail a different course of study than the one she would pursue at her first choice (which is the only school in the country, really, that offers her heart's desire major).
With SATs coming up this weekend (oy) and subject tests the next month, those will apply more towards the LACs ... her first choice does not require ANY tests (but will accept them if she chooses to submit them and if she does well enough, I guess it might help to make her more "attractive").
It does seem, though, at least if her SATs are close to what her last two sets of practice scores have been, that two of her favorite "other" schools would be good matches (I can't say safety) ... in both cases, her scores AND GPA (even UW) were above the means.
What I've told her is don't worry about what we can afford (let us worry about that, and we will, of course LOL) ... but don't apply anyplace that she doesn't think she'd be really happy to go to ... so right now she has a list of six schools aside from her first choice, and I would say she has a decent-to-good shot at four of them and the other two would be huge reaches (though one of the reaches she would be a double legacy, it's still a huge reach).
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mackinaw
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| Joined: | Mon Mar 6th, 2006 |
| Location: | Michigan |
| Posts: | 794 |
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Posted: Tue May 1st, 2007 07:11 pm |
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HijinksAndSue, my son writes for (and is executive VP for) Baseball Prospectus (http://www.baseballprospectus.com). They put out an annual book and occasional other one-off special books. And they have a premium website. He has also done some writing for ESPN.com, Sports Illustrated and SI.com, and a couple of other outlets.
Last edited on Tue May 1st, 2007 07:24 pm by mackinaw
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Consolation
Member
| Joined: | Mon Apr 9th, 2007 |
| Location: | USA |
| Posts: | 502 |
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Posted: Tue May 1st, 2007 10:58 pm |
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mominva wrote: Consolation, with regard to your son's lack of interest in looking at 'sure bet' places--go to the websites of places you think would suit him and send for info in his name. Once their paper is in your house, you can point out the interesting programs and options that you noticed. The kid will just think it is part of the post PSAT/SAT avalanche.
Now that's crafty!
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HijinksAndSue
Member
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Posted: Tue May 1st, 2007 11:28 pm |
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Not meaning to hijack the safety net here, but Mackinaw, I definitely know OF your son and think I've probably met him (winter meetings maybe?) but I've been having so many pre-senior moments lately that I can't say for sure (hey ... I wonder if the pre-senior moments come from having a pre-senior ... hmmmm).
I do know several of the folks there such as Jonah Keri (well, cyber-know him from our days chatting on the Expos boards) ... I wrote for Baseball Weekly for 14 years (back when it was actually an all-baseball publication and for a little while after it expanded into football and then ... bleah ... NASCAR) and now work for another much-less-stat-driven Minor League baseball website so we refer to Baseball Prospectus often.
OK, sorry for veering off-topic ... I have obviously been following the whole new (scary) trend in acceptances and lack thereof and am starting to wonder if in fact "safeties" are just going to be totally extinct soon, or whether it's something cyclical.
Without mentioning names, there is one school where I was looking at the website and was stunned to see the facts/figures on the admission page ... the average weighted GPA is over 4.0 and the SAT scores ranged in the mid-1300s. This is a school I remember being considered the biggest safety around .. basically, you sent them a telegram with a deposit check and you got back your acceptance letter. (And it is NOT cheap either).
*sigh*
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mackinaw
Member
| Joined: | Mon Mar 6th, 2006 |
| Location: | Michigan |
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Posted: Wed May 2nd, 2007 01:19 am |
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(It could well have been at the Winter Meetings. I know he's gone there at least a couple of times.)
I( also want to back up Leftcoast's point, that your safety doesn't have to be a close facsimile of your target school. It may offer some features that are even better than the target. But it has to be easier to get into. More generally, this logic applies to schools up and down the degree of difficulty scale: if you're looking for a few reach schools, a few match schools, and a couple of safety schools, there is no reason that they all have to be similar. My son's bundle of schools included a couple of large state U's (his surest safeties), a couple of private U's (one a super reach, one a match), and a few liberal arts colleges (most of which were match schools, and one a reach). That way, he kept his options open til the end.
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mathmom
Member
| Joined: | Fri Apr 14th, 2006 |
| Location: | USA |
| Posts: | 260 |
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Posted: Wed May 2nd, 2007 06:04 pm |
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Mathson's safety schools - WPI and RPI - both have very high average SAT scores and GPAs, but coupled with high acceptance rates. In addition RPI had a Candidate's Choice application that gave you a decision with in a few weeks of receiving first quarter grades. We heard from them by Thanksgiving. If you can find a rolling admissions school, or a school that lets you know early, you might not need a really safe safety.
Last edited on Wed May 2nd, 2007 06:05 pm by mathmom
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CarolynLawrence
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| Joined: | Sun Mar 5th, 2006 |
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Posted: Thu May 3rd, 2007 02:21 am |
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| Mathmom, I think you have hit on a good point --- while they take a bit of time to find, there are schools with higher average stats and relatively high acceptance rates out there.
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riviera
Member
| Joined: | Tue Jan 30th, 2007 |
| Location: | California USA |
| Posts: | 108 |
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Posted: Thu May 3rd, 2007 03:20 pm |
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| Aren't these schools also more self-selective? Usually, students that consider tech schools like math and science and apply with relatively high math/science SAT scores. In this case, are these really easier to get into?
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mackinaw
Member
| Joined: | Mon Mar 6th, 2006 |
| Location: | Michigan |
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Posted: Thu May 3rd, 2007 04:10 pm |
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Historically these haven't all been sci-tech schools. You need only go back a few years to see schools like Chicago and Reed with acceptance rates in the neighborhood of 60% or higher. They were both often described as "self-selective," but I think that the adcoms also did their best to be selective for students who "fit" the school's intellectual style.
Even now you can find a number of liberal arts colleges (LACs) that have "high stats," and are not nearly as selective in terms of acceptance rates as others. This is true, for example, of some of the excellent LAC's in the midwest that aren't as "popular" as some in the east but that are at least on a par or better as schools (IMO). I haven't looked at latest admission rates, but I would include Beloit and Kalamazoo as examples of this type. Even Grinnell, which has historically had lower admission rates than the first two I mentioned, tends to have a "relatively" high admission rate (relative to peer quality schools in the east), and also does very well for students in the financial aid category.
Last edited on Thu May 3rd, 2007 04:35 pm by mackinaw
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Thu May 3rd, 2007 04:24 pm |
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| I agree with Mackinaw. Once you get out of the Northeast, there are still some great admissions values = places where the admissions rate belies the quality of education being provided. Mack mentioned LACs, but there are also some good universities out there that are admissions values (Case Western, for example). Actually, there are even still some LACs in the Northeast that I think are still good admissions values -- Hobart & William Smith, for example. Last edited on Thu May 3rd, 2007 04:25 pm by CarolynLawrence
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Descartes
Super Moderator
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Posted: Fri May 4th, 2007 04:00 am |
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Non-tech schools with median CR+M SAT scores over 1250 (85th percentile) and over 50% admission rates (2005 data)
Austin College 67.30% 1,255
University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign 68% 1,260
University Of Florida 57.20% 1,260
University Of Wisconsin-Madison 71.20% 1,260
Villanova University 51.40% 1,265
Hampshire College 64.20% 1,265
Furman University 57.70% 1,270
American University 51.30% 1,270
University Of Michigan-Ann Arbor 57% 1,280
Illinois Wesleyan University 57% 1,280
Kalamazoo College 67.90% 1,280
Lewis & Clark College 64.50% 1,280
Trinity University - Texas 63.20% 1,295
Thomas Aquinas College 81.50% 1,296
Boston University 55.50% 1,300
New College Of Florida 59.60% 1,300
Mount Holyoke College 53% 1,317
Wheaton College - Illinois 50.70% 1,345
St John's College - Maryland 75.90% 1,345
Grinnell College 50.50% 1,390
I suppose you could say some of these are rather self-selecting (Wheaton-religous, St. John's-curriculum, Grinnell-rural, Mount Holyoke-female) but many of are just plain good schools with both adept student bodies and relatively open doors.
Created, BTW, from this very useful database search site:
http://www.collegeresults.org/
Last edited on Fri May 4th, 2007 04:46 am by Descartes
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