Colleges

No problem. You are definitely right. You are also doing a great thing in helping out your son as much as possible. You are starting at the right time as well. My dad didn't start helping me out until late in my junior year - by then it was too late. I wasn't able to get into the program that I really wanted to get into or any of the ivies. I am still happy and go to a good school, but you know...

College admissions is a really complicated process and the more advice you get from the more people you can get it from the better - besides, I really enjoy the chance to talk and talk and talk about something that I pretend to know about

 

My daughter is at Rhodes College, an excellent Lib Arts school. She's a history major and appears to be getting a decent education. The campus is beautiful and the student body numbers only about 1500. Downside is it's in Memphis, a big hick river town with a serious crime problem. I know there's a music department but know nothing about it.

Daughter had a 3.8 GPA in high school with lots of AP courses and better than average but not outstanding SATs. Like 10,000 other kids. Her leg up, I opine, is the novelty that she's from Hawaii, which makes her unique at Rhodes. Now when the school sends out its brochures it can color in Hawaii on its map of the USA indicating its great appeal throughout the land. . . . They wanted her enough to offer a small scholarship that will pay for one out of four years.

It seems that admissions officers are looking for something out of the ordinary. Your son seems to be extraordinarily talented. Good luck to you and him, and enjoy the search!

 

True to a point. But, GPA does make a difference if you have two candidates with equal or similar SAT/ACT scores.

Some schools, (I have familial experience here) look at a disparity between GPA and SATs as a problem. If you have very good SATs, and lousy (2.5 or under) GPA, they aren't interested. Underachievement in HS does not translate into overachievement in college.

The opposite, I'm sure, would also apply, and this may be the instance you are referring to. High grades + low SAT = no admission.

DM

 

GPA is 1,000 times as important as SAT. Every kid at the top schools will be in the top 5-10% of their highschool class, it's a given. They will also have 1400+ (now it's out of 2400 so equate that [2100+]). I heard what makes admissions eyes light up are that 98%'ers on SAT and up. But even with a perfect SAT score if you ain't high in your class, you aren't getting in.

 

My comments were based on my experiences with my daughter (in 2002) and my son (in 2006) in getting into a top-20 school as defined by the USN&W ranking. IIRC, the only public schools in the most recent top-20 ranking were Berkeley and UNC, but I could be wrong.

At any rate, the top-20 ranking is dominated by private schools. In my recent discussions with admission officers, the competition for admission is freakin unbelievable. Not only was the class of 2010 the largest group since the 70s, but the qualifications are through the roof. Forty percent of the Dartmouth class of 2009 were valedictorians.

To make matters worse, every school wants "Gay, half-Black, half-Hispanic, Jewish Kids that play the tuba in the bathtub and whose parents (if they are known) are both doing life in the pen." In one of the ironies of political correctness, kids of Asian and Indian descent have joined white kids as part of the shunned group. The final insult is whether your parents have a college degree. For reasons that are not clear to me, all the top schools want potential first-generation college graduates.

So if you are Asian, Indian or White, you will need to very high SAT score AND a high GPA based on taking every possible AP course that you can find to even make it past the first cut.

The final irony is that the typical kid who would have gone to a top-20 private school, say, 10 years ago, will now most likely end up at a top state school. Simpy put, because they all charge the same fees, it doesn't make sense to pay the big bucks for a lower rated private school when the state schools are better.

For example, at $45k a year, you are wasting your money at SMU when you can go to UT for $15k a year.

Dale

 

Dale,
Why bother going through all that work for yourself, your daughter/son, and the amount of work your kid will have to do once they are in that top 20 school? I am not saying you shouldn't go to a top 20 school, and I understand the work that needs to be done. But, why push your kid and yourself to get them in paying $45k+ a year so they can graduate and make almost the same as someone with a college degree from another school? Plus what fun is being in a school where everyone was the validictorian number 1,2,3 in their class. The thing I love about my school is the fact everyone is different and the classes are small less then 30 kids in a class. The fact every teacher knows everyone's name is worth its weight in gold to me, and my parents as well. I feel it helps me get more out of my education. So you can keep the top school with large lecture halls etc. Most parents miss how some schools might be a better fit for their kids then a top 20 school. I got into "better" schools then the one I picked (st. joe's) but I picked it because all around it was/is better for me. While I was never top 20 school material 1340 SAT and GPA of 3.8 with a class rank of 62/347 IIRC I wasn't at the bottom of the ladder either. Just my two cents.
Erik

 

Erik, I hesitate to use the word 'kid' with you, but kids that think along the lines you do are very very rare, the majority don't care where they go or what they study, until year 3, then it's almost too late (to pick up the intangibles they should have been noticing the prior 3-6 years).

 

I had a similar discussion with a guy from Baylor a few months ago about why choosing Baylor over A&M or UT.

 

I just wanted to put in another idea.

Sure, grades and SAT/ACT are important and everything, but lets not forget the other part of admissions that makes or breaks a lot of people.

The Interview.

So I'm a Junior at Washington and Lee University ( last I checked we were top 15...). My GPA in High School was only around 3.0 and I had a 1330 SAT (this was before all the changes). By what most of you are saying, there's no way in hell I should have gotten in to this school. Granted, I did go to a high school that had a 100% acceptance rate to UNC-Chapel Hill (was not a state mandate, and a 60% acceptance rate to Duke (highest acceptance rate in the world...), but still, with all these numbers being thrown around, don't get too caught up in them.

An interview is one of the best tools you and your son can use for getting accepted into Universities. If he does well, an interview can eeeasily put your son on the 'accepted' list if he wasn't on it before, or, if he does poorly, can easily remove him from that list. With practice, an interview can really bring out what Universities are looking for in applicants when they aren't really noticeable on paper.

I could say more, but I've actually gotta go interview some applicants for work myself.

Good luck, it sounds like he's on the right track.

 

Actually, I fibbed a little bit. Both my kids did the heavy lifting when it came to their college admissions, just like they did when it came to their school work. Other than telling my son when he was 13 that, if you beat your head against the wall, it hurts; therefore, don't beat your head against the wall (in other words, it pays to kiss teacher butt), I haven't been that involved their work.

I also made a commitment to them a long time ago that they would get a full ride for their undergraduate degree. My daughter ended up getting a degree in poetry from Dartmouth. My son will start at Emory this Fall. He may end up studying business (instead of poetry), although Emory discourages specialization for the first two years. The reason for the bias for private schools is that they usually have the better instructors. (Ironically, the state schools typically have better facilities.)

So, even though my daughter's degree in poetry cost $200,000, I am very proud of her. The last thing the world needs is more damn engineers. My guess is that in the long run she will be a lot better off with her poetry degree from Dartmouth than if she had gotten an engineering degree from Texas A&M.

At the end of the day, however, successful people are successful regardless of where they go to college. At age 53, I don't know a single person who attributes their current success to where they went to school or what they got their degree in. In fact, some of the most successful people I know never even got a degree.

Dale

 

Well, as I'm sure most will agree, graduate school is almost a necessity if someone wants to land a nice-paying job anywhere in the US. After going to a state school and now being enrolled in a private graduate school, I see no reason to go to "Top 20 schools," private or not. I'm not at the best graduate school (it does shine nationally in the field I want to practice, however) but there are students from other schools that I couldn't even believe; Middle Tennessee State, Western Kentucky, Florida Atlantic University. Those students are great and did very well in college, but it didn't seem like they were challenged at all relative to my experiences.

One of my friends is attending Georgetown Law (top 15 in the nation...) and I went to a university for undergrad that is far better in every aspect, yet I had to compete for my GPA and other positions at my school to pad my resume, all the while needing to score just as well on the LSAT if thats where I wanted to go.

My point from that story is that if your children want to (and most likely should) pursue a graduate degree, there is no reason (in my opinion) to try your hardest to push them into a top 20 school if they haven't already qualified for it. No reason to pressure them. I pressured myself to take hard classes and graduate my undergrad in three years, but it only hurt me. Let your children have fun in life; its highly probable that they will change their minds once they step foot on that campus for orientation.

Sorry if this seems a little incoherent, I'm under some meds for this cold

 

Actually, if there is anything the US needs it's more engineers...

 

I agree. If graduate school is a major consideration, perhaps a lower level undergraduate might be a wiser choice.

I had a choice between Berkeley Engineering or my current school (Cal Poly San Luis). I went with the latter, I think this decision has helped my GPA immensely (yet I'm learning the same material).

 

If you are referring to my posts, I guess that I'm not being clear enough. While I'll plead guilty to having high expectations, both my kids have set their own goals. Any pressure is self imposed.

Dale

 

Well, actually, I disagree. Between China and India, they will probably produce at least a millenium's worth of engineers over the next 20 years. Moreover, how many different ways are there to determine the necessary load bearing strength of the beams in your home? Do you think perhaps that some of this stuff will find its way into Google?

You see, this is where I disagree with Friedman's "Earth is Flat" book. Insisting that the US ramp up to produce more engineers makes about as much sense as telling China and India to produce more lawyers. Don't misunderstand me. I like the results of what engineers do. I even call an engineer or two as friends (Although their names escapes me at this moment).

However, what the US really needs are people who can think ****AND**** can to communicate their thoughts.

But, I could be wrong.

Dale

 

It was just kind of a general statement. I know a lot of people that are very concerned with getting their kids into "The Tops" and most of the people end up pressuring their kids too far. I'm too young to be thinking about parenting or anything along those lines, but as a graduate student I thought my point of view might be valid as well.

 

Perhaps, but not having enough high end R&D personnel there will be an extremely large well shift between the US/EU & China/India. Technological development is the way to wealth, and as it stands now, China & India are on the way up.

 

I think Dale has a very good perspective on the college admissions process. Why send your kid to a 45k private school that is ranked 60th when you could send him to something like UT that is going to cost significantly less where they will have a whole lot more offered to them simply because of the size of the school.

Erik, I'm not really sure where you are coming from. Are you saying it is a good thing to go to a private school that costs a lot vs. a public school in that same situation, but not to a top 20 private school? Most of the top 20 schools are private, and most of them are small (or at least claim to be). Ever been on a tour at any of those top 20 schools? All they do is talk about how small their class sizes are and how many faculty members they have per student (the more the better!). I think generally speaking, it is true. At least in my experience (although I do go to the smallest of the "top" schools).

The reason why it is good to go to one of the top schools is access. You are going to be able to go to a smaller school where you will be able to build relationships with people that are going to help you make connections, get internships, and do things that you want to do. I guess I haven't ever attended a UT type school but I would think that it is a much more impersonal experience and you have to be much more self-motivated to go out there and actually get things done. Where as where I go to school, everyone around you is working hard and doing this, doing that. It motivates you to go out and get to know your profs, apply for internships, work on interesting things with people during the school year and during the summer.

 

Only point I was/am trying to make is sometimes a student is better off in a non top 20 school that meets their needs better. Also, as a student I like the fact the kid next to me might have been in the top 10% of his class and the kid on the other side was in the top 50%. Everyone is different as opposed to everyone being number 1 or 2. My parents always left the decision up to me, and I don't feel I am missing out by not going to a top 20 school. Most parents wouldn't do that. If they felt their kid was close to being able to go to Princeton they would do everything they could to get there kid there. Mine just let me do what I want, and so far it has been working out well.
Erik

 

There is some truth to this. I wouldn't call Penn competitive (as in, students fighting each other), but I do get this sense that everybody definitely knows what everybody else is up to, and that does cause stress.

For example, when a class is graded on a curve, and everybody is super smart, its harder to break away from the center of the bell curve than if there was a more diverse set of abilities. Plus, you have a ton of people all aiming for the same jobs, leadership positions, grades, whatever. It can be hard to keep up, let alone get ahead.

 

Thats my point. That is OK for a graduate school, but not at all for undergraduate. I have a few friends who went to Wake Forest and Cornel, and their GPAs are significantly lower than some of my other friends who decided to go on to smaller state schools (University of South Florida, University of North Florida, etc) and when it came time to apply to law schools, the Cornel and Wake friends thought their school's prestige would gain them access to nicer graduate schools...which turned out to be entirely false.

Most graduate programs (primarily concentrating on law schools) look at your college GPA and you standardized test score (LSAT). Unless your LSAT is far above their median/mean, your low GPA is going to keep you out of a law school you probably could have attended had you went to a USF or UNF. I have a friend at Georgetown Law who didn't even blink at his course work at, what some consider, the lowest university in the state of Florida.

How offended does that make you? You push yourself to the limits of your intellect and you're still barely above the average at Penn, whereas you could have gone to a school like UTexas, UMichigan, UFlorida (I'm biased ), and obtained a considerably higher GPA and gained access to better graduate schools.

I guess I just never liked GPA as an element for admissions for graduate school, because admissions officers are looking to make the best median/mean GPA for their school. Although accepting the 3.2 from UPenn is almost always better than accepting the 3.9 from a smaller state school, in the end the school is going to publish the median/mean GPA and that 3.2 is going to hurt them, whereas the 3.9 is going to help them.

 

Yeah, I'm busting my ass off here and am hovering around a 3.6 (median is a 3.3). I could be at a UC and probably easily pull a 3.8+. I think that it will hurt me for grad school, and I'm stressing out big time because of it. Of course, stress just messes your GPA up even more, so its a vicious cycle.

On the other hand, I got a job that I'm almost positive I couldn't have gotten if I wasn't at Penn. Fact of the matter is, if you want to go to an I-Bank after college, Penn is #1 by far, no ifs ands or buts about it.

So, in the long term its hard to say which is better. I guess I'll have to wait and see what MBA program I get into before I can determine whether or not Penn was really worth the extra stress/work over a state school.

 

I completely understand. A lot of friends questioned why I chose my graduate school, but when I told them (and they realized) that this school is number one in the nation for the area I want to practice, it seemed like they changed their minds.