middle son shockey...

[shockey]

is finishing his junior year of h.s. is in the process of selecting which colleges most appeal to him. his grades are excellent -- low 90's average in all honors program -- as are his extracurriculars --on football and lacrosse teams (but far from scholarship material; on editorial board of school paper; officer on s.a.d.d. committee and other stuff) -- and he just kicked butt on his sat's (1400 -- 700 verbal and math; on the neuvo third part for writing(?) he scored a mighty-fine 620, for a total of 2020. though i believe the 1400 is still the most influential. whatever.

anyway, you get the idea. he's also a very cool and popular kid, nowhere close to nerdy. as you can see, i'm a huge fan.

anyway, thanks to the ridonculous (to me, anyway) sat scores (i barely hit the 1100 mark back in the day, as i recall, and eldest son shockey scored a sterling 1250 to vault himself into binghamton), we think he now has a legit shot at squeaking into cornell, which may be his first choice. wherever he goes, we think/hope/understand he should be able to get a pretty good chunk of scholarship money, which he'll need plenty of to go anywhere outside of a state school, which he understands.

at the least, he's perfectly okay if he follows his big bro to the bing. my kids have a great understanding that we are po', but it would warm our hearts if all his fine work has earned him enough money to leave the state.

besides cornell, the other schools presently on his radar include the university of delaware and ... here's where i could use anybody's knowledge... the UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, which, truth be told, i am totally unfamilar with.

i know it's got an excellent rep, but what's the skinny on what it's known for? he's interested in writing/journalism/communications and we just want to be sure wherever he decides to go is strong in these areas.

obviously, i'm just in the beginning stages of investigating this stuff to assist him. i haven't even gone to chicago's web site yet; that's my next stop. but i rely very much on input from my knowledgable SportsJournalists.com brothers and sisters for this info, too.

so this was simply a rambling. way too long and overwritten way of asking: WHAT'S THE SKINNY ON THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO? ??? ??? ???

 

[Care Bear]

It's probably ranked among the Top 10 universities in the country. At least I think it was last year, according to US News & World Report. It's located in one of the greatest cities in the world and would afford the richest opportunities available. It's also one of the most expensive schools in the country. Any kid that had the opportunity to attend The University of Chicago would be a lucky person, indeed. What else do you really need to know?

 

[Rumpleforeskin]

is finishing his junior year of h.s. is in the process of selecting which colleges most appeal to him. his grades are excellent -- low 90's average in all honors program -- as are his extracurriculars --on football and lacrosse teams (but far from scholarship material; on editorial board of school paper; officer on s.a.d.d. committee and other stuff) -- and he just kicked butt on his sat's (1400 -- 700 verbal and math; on the neuvo third part for writing(?) he scored a mighty-fine 620, for a total of 2020. though i believe the 1400 is still the most influential. whatever.

anyway, you get the idea. he's also a very cool and popular kid, nowhere close to nerdy. as you can see, i'm a huge fan.

anyway, thanks to the ridonculous (to me, anyway) sat scores (i barely hit the 1100 mark back in the day, as i recall, and eldest son shockey scored a sterling 1250 to vault himself into binghamton), we think he now has a legit shot at squeaking into cornell, which may be his first choice. wherever he goes, we think/hope/understand he should be able to get a pretty good chunk of scholarship money, which he'll need plenty of to go anywhere outside of a state school, which he understands.

at the least, he's perfectly okay if he follows his big bro to the bing. my kids have a great understanding that we are po', but it would warm our hearts if all his fine work has earned him enough money to leave the state.

besides cornell, the other schools presently on his radar include the university of delaware

I stopped reading after that. Visit the campus and he'll pick UD in a heartbeat.

 

[DisembodiedOwlHead]

U. of Chicago is like a colder Delaware.

 

[shockey]

I stopped reading after that. Visit the campus and he'll pick UD in a heartbeat.

he's been there -- his best bud's sister goes there -- and agrees it was lovely. but not so sure it wowed him any more than cornell surely will. i could certainly envision him at delaware but if he is accepted at cornell, too, it would be mighty hard to dismiss the ivy league cache.

take cornell out of the equation and i'd certainly put my money on delaware at the moment. beautiful place, excellent school.

 

[slappy4428]

The Big Ten wants to re-admit it so it can have a foothold in Chicago, since Northwestern hasn't been delivering...

 

[Baron Scicluna]

U. of Chicago used to have a great football team about 105 years ago, led by a Hall of Fame coach with a star that sat out the big game because he ate seven pounds worth of food before the game to win a bet, then topped it off with 13 eggs.

That's all I have.

 

[Lugnuts]

Shockster,

I'm assuming you're familiar with this, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAFSA

Nearly every student is eligible for some form of financial aid. Students who may not be eligible for need-based aid may still be eligible for an unsubsidized Stafford Loan regardless of income or circumstances.

A lot of parents assume they don't qualify for aid and therefore don't bother filling out the 130-page (or whatever) FAFSA form... only to discover around junior year they do indeed qualify for thousands of dollars in grants, low-interest loans, work-study, obscure scholarships, etc.

To me, the mark of a truly great school is one that will take your FAFSA results and make up 100% of the difference... somehow, come hell or high water.

Here is a list of the only 100% need-blind schools for U.S. students. Note Cornell is one of them:

Amherst College
Beloit College
Boston College
Bowdoin College
Brandeis University
Brown University
California Institute of Technology
Carnegie Mellon University
Claremont McKenna College
College of the Holy Cross
Columbia University
Cornell University
Cooper Union
Dartmouth College
Davidson College
Denison University
Duke University
Emory University
Georgetown University
Grinnell College
Hamilton College
Harvard University
Haverford College
Knox College
Lawrence University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Middlebury College
Northwestern University
Phillips Academy
Pomona College
Princeton University
Rice University
Roxbury Latin
Stanford University
Swarthmore College
University of Chicago
University of Miami
University of Notre Dame
University of Pennsylvania
University of Richmond
University of Rochester
University of Southern California
University of Virginia
Vassar College
Vanderbilt University
Wake Forest University
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Williams College
Yale University

 

[Machine Head]

University of Chicago at College Confidental.

Grain of salt, etc..

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/

 

[21]

If he's serious about journalism/communications, I'd look at Northwestern before U of C, especially for an undergrad. U of C is sort of wedged into a very rough area of Chicago; the campus is very urban and has more of a grad school feel to it. I could be wrong but it has a huge international population that go there for the science and business programs. I never thought of it as a liberal arts/journalism school.

Northwestern is certainly one of the premier journo schools, and is just beautiful--sits on the lake, right next to the north side of Chicago...Evanston is a fun town.

Would not want to pay for either, and the weather is famously horrible.

Does he have any interest in NYU or Syracuse, closer to home?

 

[shockey]

Does he have any interest in NYU or Syracuse, closer to home?

yes, syracuse is certainly in the mix. 8)

and great advice steering us to northwestern as a much better fit in that area of the country.

 

[JakeandElwood]

Yeah, if he's into journalism, University of Chicago isn't a very good choice. For anything else, though, it's a great school.

 

[Smash Williams]

Those SAT scores aren't high enough for Cornell and U Chicago without having some sort of other standout talent or, sorry to burst your bubble (or they weren't when I was applying about 8 years ago in the old-style system. I was 730 math, 740 verbal and a 780 on the old SAT II writing with As and Bs in honors and AP classes at a great high school in Massachusetts).

He's likely below the 50th percentile of SAT scores accepted in math, under the 25th percentile in writing (which is a big area of concern if he's expressing interest in communications majors) and isn't in or about the 75th percentile in reading of last year's Cornell admissions, which includes people admitted on athletic or music or other specialty scholarships where those numbers are far less important than your general student, and he's even further down U of Chicago's averages. They're both excellent, excellent schools, but they're both reaches for him given your descriptions of his grades and scores.

Now, if he has really fallen in love with the schools, absolutely go for it. The worst they can do is say no. But I think you need to encourage him to apply to other schools (Delaware is a great one - my sister went there and loved it). Northwestern is a great comm school, but his scores are a little low for there as well. Maybe Missouri? His scores are great for there (though it will likely be harder as an out-of-state kid) and it's got a good comm school.

If he's got his heart set on Cornell or Chicago, then he needs to retake his SATs and bring up his scores. You can't do much about the GPA at this point, and his extracurriculars look fine.

Again, this is all 2002 or so, but I had a 5.2 GPA on a 5.7 scale (top 15 percent of my class but not top 10 and likely close to what your son's is - ours was weighted towards honors and APs) with several AP classes, good extracurricular and the SAT scores already mentioned. I applied to seven schools, was rejected by Duke, Vanderbilt and UTexas-Austin as out of state applicant, was waitlisted by UNC-Chapel Hill, also out of state, and got into DePaul, Tulane and AlmaMater.

My guidance counselors told me I didn't have a shot at the Ivy's or similar schools like Duke, Vandy and Chicago, and they were right. I would've needed near perfect scores to do that with my GPA, and I think your son does too.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Smash, Cornell doesn't offer some of the scholarships you mentioned, but I think your point may be on. The top schools have gotten competitive in a way we didn't conceive of 20+ years ago when I was choosing a school. What may have been considered the next tier of schools then, are now as difficult to get into as those top schools were way back in my stone age application days. I have a nephew who just finished his freshman year of undergrad, and he had top grades, all honors classes and high SAT scores (I don't know what they were; and I am not even sure what the SAT scores mean nowadays with the changes they made), and I remember my sister surprising me with how competitive things have gotten. The schools he was looking at were all very good schools in my day, but with his transcript he would have been looking at a set of schools 20 years ago that he didn't even bothering applying to today. For example, Princeton rejects more than 90 percent of its applicants. A few years ago, in what was a particular competitive year, it rejected 83 percent of the class valedictorians who applied. I was blown away when I read those numbers.

 

[shockey]

University of Chicago at College Confidental.

Grain of salt, etc..

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/

oy. sounds like a joint for eggheads. that ain't middle son shockey.

smash, points taken. one of the cool things about middle boy is he'd be fine with rejection from anyplce; his heart is set on nothing. he could be happy at any of his op-tier choices. those who reject him? he'll scoff and say, "their loss. their mistake."

"settling" for delaware or syracuse or binghamton would be fine with him. and i'm all for applying to schools beyond those who are sure to accept you. nothing ventured, etc. 8)

 

[JakeandElwood]

Sounds like he's got a great idea. And for the person who mentioned Mizzou, if he's interested his test scores would easily qualify him, and if they have the same scholarship system they had when I went, should automatically get him money to offset the out of state costs.

 

[YankeeFan]

If he's serious about journalism/communications, I'd look at Northwestern before U of C, especially for an undergrad. U of C is sort of wedged into a very rough area of Chicago; the campus is very urban and has more of a grad school feel to it. I could be wrong but it has a huge international population that go there for the science and business programs. I never thought of it as a liberal arts/journalism school.

Northwestern is certainly one of the premier journo schools, and is just beautiful--sits on the lake, right next to the north side of Chicago...Evanston is a fun town.

Would not want to pay for either, and the weather is famously horrible.

Does he have any interest in NYU or Syracuse, closer to home?

U of C definitely has more of a reputation for its graduate school, but being unfamiliar with it before moving here, I was pretty impressed with its campus.

Hyde Park -- the neighborhood in Chicago it's located in -- is surrounded by some pretty tough areas, but the campus is pretty nice.

While its urban, there's more of a campus feel to it than either NYU or BU in my opinion.

Some really nice old buildings that give it a New England/Ivy feel.

They just build a big new dorm on the south end of the campus.

If he can get in, you should definitely plan a visit.

 

[shockey]

it's taken me a half-day's worth of homework to realize middle man needs to take the sat's again in oct. to further pad his scores if he hopes to land at cornell. and i'm going to talk to him about northwestern being a better choice for him.

sounds like he could use better sat scores for there, too. wow...

 

[Smash Williams]

Think of it this way - he's looking at the top 2 percent of colleges in the country if he's looking anywhere in the top 100 ranked universities (UNESCO says there are 5,758 colleges in the US), so he's either got to have a huge standout talent or skill or fantastic grades and test scores. Cornell, Northwestern and UChicago are likely top 1 percent. The SAT scores, I believe, give you percentiles, so he'd be looking for at least 98th in his top category and nowhere below 90 in any. From a quick google, his writing score would be 85th percentile in last year's scores. His SAT sheets should have his percentile next to the grade.

The race for the top 100 schools is insanely competitive, and scores that everyone thinks of as awesome often aren't enough to guarantee admission. It's why there's such a cottage industry around test prep, personal statement writing and the general admissions process.

The great news is he's got the right attitude, because he's going to get rejected by somebody, and he can't take it personally. And the cliche is true: Even if you don't get into your first choice, and I certainly didn't, you can have a fabulous college experience at wherever you end up and not feel like you missed out because you didn't go to Columbia, Brown, Stanford or Penn.

 

[Rumpleforeskin]

What's taking your son? Come on! The adventure awaits.