Barbara H
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Posts posted by Barbara H
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Certainly the process isn't all fair and developmental admissions play a role. It is worth noting though that Toor's book is now over 10 years old and she was writing in a time back when Duke was taking 40% on early admissions and 20% regular decision (now less than 10%) and the book wasn't very well respected even when it came out. Price of Admissions is a better book, but again, the information is getting dated.
The idea of $100,000 buying an acceptance Harvard is ridiculous. If that's how it worked two-thirds of the class would not be receiving some amount of financial aid. Harvard's acceptance rate is now below 6%. They are turning down many perfect scoring, full pay students.
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Great career! I would encourage him to read through the Prospective Student section of the American Physical Therapy Association website.
There is not one required undergraduate major as long as the student completes the prerequisites for PT school. Popular majors include biology, kinesiology, and exercise science. He should know PT grad school admissions are quite competitive and he needs to have really strong grades. He should also plan for time interning if possible. Volunteering with programs like therapeutic riding can also be really helpful.
I would also strongly encourage him to interview a physical therapist or shadow for a day while in high school.
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Swing dancing isn't just a Southern thing. You'll find swing dancing clubs at a lot of college campuses all around the country and many schools also offer competitive ballroom dance teams. That's not to say the majority of students are involved, but it is to say it has become a pretty standard offering on campuses. Here are some examples Yale, University of Iowa, UCLA
Swing dancing is a great activity and I'm happy to see this trend as a great social alternative to the party scene. If your child is interested I'd definately encourage it as it can be a fun way to meet people, learn something new, and get a little exercise too.
I'm not sure where the student post is from and as requested I won't quote it, but I will note that the description of Duke's process as well as the description of the Harvard application are both inaccurate.
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Great career - OT helped our family so much!
Most have a Master's degree and some a doctorate. I would expect in high school that the student take a college prep level of math and sciences. Because most students do incur some debt to go to graduate school, I would look carefully at undergrad debt and consider lower cost school options such as public universities. Graduate programs will have prerequisites they expect to see such as biology, anatomy, kinesology. But, students can choose from a wide variety of majors as long as they get in prerequisites.
Here are a couple of great places to get started with information about occupational therapy careers.
From the US Dept of Labor http://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/occupational-therapists.htm#tab-1
From the American Occupational Therapy Organization http://www.aota.org/Students/Prospective.aspx
On both sites you can find out abouit the typical educational path, job duties, pay, etc.
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Remember people only post a slice of life here... you likely have areas where you don't struggle that others do.
One thing that works for some teens in this situation is to bring in more outside accountability to outside teachers or other adults. Many kids who will give push back to Mom don't give it in the same way to other adults. Is that a possibility?
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There is a question that homeschoolers sometimes answer wrong - it asks if the student attends high school full time (or something like that). If that's what happened the National Merit office can likely help you with that. So, I would check now and make sure there wasn't an error.
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Just in case you don't know, I'll mention that some colleges and universities tie bigger scholarships to National Merit. Here's an article from my site about National Merit Scholarships.
Even if she doesn't make the cutoff for semi-finalist, it sounds like she's likely to receive National Merit Commended and that's a nice thing to add to the awards section of her applications. The fact that she's in the territory of potentially making the National Merit cutoff is also a good sign that she may do well on the SAT or ACT and that can help with merit scholarships too. If she's not already planning to take either the SAT or the ACT more than once that might be something to think about as that might be a good way to increase her odds of a high score.
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DId she take the test last October and she's currently a junior? If so, it is too early to know. This is a long process. Here's an overview. http://www.nationalmerit.org/steps_nmsp.pdf
The cut off scores vary some from year to year. So, if she just missed the cutoff for last year by a point, she may still be in the running and you won't know unitl fall if she makes semifinalist and gets to proceed to the next step.
If you have any questions about the process, don't hesitate to call National Merit. They are helpful.
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They are in a lot of ways very different choices. Private versus public, Texas versus N. Carolina, Baptist versus secular, etc. UNC draws higher stats students and is higher ranked, but both are good schools. I don't really think anyone else can advise what to choose becuase it will depend greatly on individual and personal factors including finances.
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Particularly at big college fairs or at these five college at a hotel type of events, I would not take anything anyone tells you about homeschooling as the final word. They may know the policies or they may not. At the big college fairs (conventional hall events) it is sometimes the regional representative for your area but not always. Some out of area schools staff their tables with alums who may know next to nothing about admissions policies.
At these five college type hotel events it may be a person who is a very good speaker but not someone who represents your area. I would not count on it for any personal contact or accurate homeschool information. You might get it, but no guarentee. At the last one of these O attended the line to meet he rep from the most popular college was probably 75 students deep. Nobody was having a deep discussion.
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If you are talking about a program such as Exploring College Options. A typical format would be: There will be a panel school has an admissions representative that makes a presentation, pictures projected up on the screen, tells about some of special programs or features of the school. After all present they may at that point answer a few questions from the audience. Then the admissions representatives will divide up to different places and students will line up to speak with them. Some representatives will be more popular than others. Particularly for the schools that are really "hot" for students from your region, it will likely be hard to get much in the way of real personal interaction. You can though get the representative's card and contact them later. I'd say the main value of the event is 1. Exposing your child to some schools that they maybe haven't thought about. So, maybe they went to the presentation to hear about Stanford but came away interested in researching Duke more. 2. It gets the college conversation rolling.
If you have to travel much of a distance I don't think it is worth it though. There won't be much in the way of personal interaction and a lot of the information will be pretty general or stuff you could have figured out from the website. That said, I am always impressed with the admissions representatives. Schools know how to get people who can really speak and do a good presentation.
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In addition to looking at college requirements, it is important to check if your state has requirements for graduation that apply to homeschoolers because they may include foreign language.
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I am so not looking forward to this with my teens. My daughter (gr11) has already pointed out to me that there are things called "promposals". She says you can catch some on Youtube. Boys asking girls to prom with an airplane banner. She heard about a girl nearby who was asked by following rose petals into a room that he had decked out at the school. I've told her to please not expect this kind of thing (her boyfriend is very down-to-earth).
Yes, I was just talking about this with a friend who is a high school teacher and apparently it has become really popular. It is consuming a lot of energy in school and it can be stressful both for boys and girls. Boys feel this pressure to produce something more creative. Girls who aren't getting asked publicly feel left out - or if they get asked by a guy they aren't sure they want to go with pressured into accepting.
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I would suggest she take "real" practice versions of both the ACT and the SAT at home and see which one she scores better on and focus on that test. The SAT is not better than the ACT - one doesn't impress more than the other, it is just a matter of what of what gets that individual student the highest score.
I haven't seen that prep book, but personally I'd be wary of anything that claims to have "secrets" because the information about how to improve scores isn't really secret.
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You mentioned she is "in range" for ACT scores. Of course you'll want to look at where in the range - obviously near the top are better odds but still stiff odds because Duke is a very "hot" school. Duke accepted less than 10% this year during regular decision. Applying binding early decision is also an option.
The community college work is great. If she doesn't have SAT subject tests or APs that might be also something to think about. While Duke's homeschool admissions policy says homeschoolers are required to submit the same testing as other candidates (ACT with writing or SAT plus two subject tests) it has been my experience they some like to see more testing from homeschoolers. It is variable but some admissions officers at selective schools think community colleges are so variable that they don't entirely trust the grades compared to the information they get from SAT subject tests.
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It does vary widely by area but the first person you talk to may not have the full information. I also, though, would not go into the meeting blind. If you have access to any local homeschool email lists - yahoogroups, etc. I would try to talk to parents who have been through transitioning kids back from homeschooling into the public school and see if they can give you any pointers.
I would also arrive at the meeting confident and armed with an official looking homeschool transcript including grades, textbooks, methods of evaluation for each course as well as any records you have with testing or demonstrating compliance with state law. Districts vary in how much information they have on their websites, but if you access any information about the courses they offer, I would try to look at them and use titles as similar to what they use as possible. In other words if their US History course is US history to 1877, that's what I'd call my course (assuming that's an honest description and it is just a matter of semantics).
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It is exciting to think about the future.
Do you have a community college in your area? If so my suggestion would be to see if there is an office for non-traditional students and make an appointment for advising. They should be able to talk you through the different program options and give you a better understanding of costs. The one thing I would recommend avoiding is any for-profit type schools - they often are really good at advertising to adult learners, but the cost for what you get isn't worth a lot and you may be left with credits that aren't worth a lot.
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There are some good videos illustrating migraine aura on YouTube.
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Bellarmine does have some good stuff to offer - their pre-professional type programs are a good fit for a lot of students - and really a lot of kids barely notice aesthetics, but some really care about them. The nice photos on the website seem to mostly of the library - it is a newish building and is much nicer than the other buildings on campus. The thing that got me though was the walkway you can see that runs around campus. It may photograph okay from a distance but what is above your head all the time looks like plywood that wasn't stained very well and you can see staples and nails in it. As I said I bet a lot of kids don't care, but it bugged me.
I've never tried to paste a picture before but let me try this. Sorry it is gigantic and I don't know how to fix it.
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Bellarmine University's campus is one of the most unattractive college campuses I've visited. It has an abundance of ugly 60s buildings and doesn't have much of anything in the way of landscaping. That may or may not matter to your child, but I just thought I'd mention it. Some kids really want that pretty quad old building kind of feel and the campus is the opposite of that. They seem to attract a lot of students from Louisville and I don't know how busy campus is on the weekend.
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Of course it depends on the area - but local and regional gatherings have been helful for our family particularly during the teen years. If there is not activity in your area, maybe look at the directory and think about organizing something. My experience has been there are many people who would love a get together. People are often really hungry for it and even willing to travel a long distance, so try to organize something and publicize and you may make some more meaningful connections.
I agree with Dana kids change and situations change. Often with PG kids it seems like that can happen very quickly and in ways you don't predict Especially for people with younger kids, right now the social component may not seem important but when your kids are 14 it may be a different situation.
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I agree that talking to advisors at the cc is a good idea. Is there a transfer advising center on campus? It depends a lot on your state, but in some areas there is a big move to encourage students with two year degrees to continue on to complete a four year degree. Some universities here offer really good transfer scholarships - for example 3.5 GPA and up from the community college and you can continue to pay the lower cc tuition at a four year regional state university - and that is with no ACT or SAT required.
Also, and you may have already done this, but make sure you have a really accurate idea of what a "not very good" ACT score is. Again that varies a lot based on the school and often parents really overestimate what that score is. Look at the College Board and see what the middle 50%tile is like for the colleges she's interested in.
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Does anyone here think it should be strictly a formula? GPA + Test scores= admissions decision.
Knowing we are all homeschoolers, I'm guessing most of us don't think that should be the full sum of the information considered because we recognize the limitations of both of those measures. I understand when more is considered it can start to look random but that doesn't mean it is really is random. It means that other stuff matters. Some kids have traits - brilliant writing ability, wonderful character even through adversity, maturity and perspective - that don't come through in that GPA + test scores formula.
The point that admissions officers at highly selective schools make again and again is that a very large percentage of their applicants have what it takes to be successful at the school. If they really did it as a random process of just picking out 8% of the applicant pile, probably most would do just fine and would graduate because there is already a lot of self selection in the process of where students choose to apply. It is in a way a lot like creating fantasy baseball teams from a stack of major league baseball players. You would try to choose a combination of players that would play together and give you the representation you need for fielding and batting (why did I choose a baseball analogy when I know nothing aboiut baseball?) The real issue is that there are just very few slots available this very small segment of highly selective colleges).
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We only have our end of the year review (something I do with each of them) as a set time to discuss learning with her. I guess I have been mistaken in thinking I know what she wants/needs because I am around her all the time.
Just to make sure I said it clearly...Yes, being with her I'm sure you do know. It is more just about giving her lots of chance to practice speaking about her ideas and opinions. That's really tough for some kids and the fact that we know them so well... makes it so they don't have to practice it.
If you had to choose between Honors college at UNC Chapel Hill and Baylor University in TX for Pre med which would you choose? Thanks for any input.
in The College Board
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Harvard's endowment: $32,012,729,000. They charge $260,000 for four years and reject over 30,000 applicants a year (a large percentage of which can pay for the full cost of tuition). The students at the 25%tile of the class have 99%tile test scores. I know it is hard to process all those numbers, but $100,000 is like the price of a latte in this context. It is nothing.