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For me, there were three schools in state that had my rare major (Occupational Therapy). One of them was a commuter school, so that was out. One offered me a partial scholarship. The other offered me a full ride (tuition) and was where my boyfriend at the time was a student. It was a no brainer decision. I had also felt "at home" from the first time I stepped foot on Eastern Michigan's campus so it just all fit into place.
Hypoallergenic still has a 4.0 (AP Calc and Physics are threatening that at the moment but her Calc teacher said at conferences that she has the highest score in the class so she shouldn't worry) and has taken as many challenging courses as she can at her school. Her extracurriculars are good with a lot of community service and leadership- NHS, Girl Scouts, Interact (youth Rotary club). Her 1's at state solo & ensemble along with five years of marching band with two of them as clarinet section leader shows her dedication (and an additional talent, even though she's not going to major in music.) She also works about 15 hours a week. Her test scores are not as good as a lot of those applicants and she knows that. She isn't a good standardized test taker because she is slow with test taking. Her recommendations are also very good.
We know that this is true of every single student applying to some of these schools. I believe her essays and her Scholastic Arts & Creative Writing Silver Key will be her strongest assets. She is a writer.. it's what she is, and her essays are very different, very creative. That will appeal to some schools but they may not appeal to other schools. The people who ran the Young Women's Leadership Institute told the young ladies in that program that, while most of the pre-college programs don't help that much, they are much more selective about admission to that program so their participation in that will be a point in their favor at Barnard. She did receive an excellent evaluation from that program but I don't know if there is a way for her to attach to the applications or not. I feel pretty certain that Barnard will have that on record for her though.
Her "match" schools are U of M, American, and Tulane. DePaul is a safety for sure. The rest are reach schools and she knows it. Barnard is pretty close to a match though. They simply don't get as many applicants because of the misconception about it being an all girl's school. She has a slight advantage that we live in a primarily blue collar area and someone in the know has told me that this area, for schools like Brown, are considered geographically diverse because most applicants from our state are from the wealthier suburbs.
We had a long talk the other day, on the way home from Chicago, about rejection and how she will handle that. She hasn't failed at anything in her life because she just has this inner drive and she makes things happen when she wants it. She will get rejected from some of these schools. She said "I will be fine because I know I'll end up where I'm supposed to be". Does that sound like a recruitment thread or what? LOL
We also talked about sororities because she mentioned replacing U-Chicago with Syracuse. She is not at all sure that she would be interested in joining a sorority. She thinks my obsession with squirrels is very weird...lol. I very honestly told her that it would be really hard for me if she went to Syracuse and didn't at least check out our chapter there, especially since it is our Alpha chapter. I would have an easier time if she went to U of M and didn't go through recruitment. It is almost a relief to me that the other schools she is going to don't have Alpha Gam chapters. I told her I don't want to pressure her and the decision is totally up to her but that I will honestly struggle, especially if she was at Syracuse. Personally, I think she will want to join a sorority because she is a joiner person. The sorority would give her the same kind of bonding that she experienced in marching band and she will miss that "family" feeling. I really don't want her to join Alpha Gam just to please me though. At the same time, I really want her to be an Alpha Gam. If she goes to a school that doesn't have a chapter, then all pressure is off for both of us.
She did get in touch with admissions people from Northwestern this week because she's really torn between Medill (Journalism) and SESP (Social Policy). She wanted to know if admission criteria was different for different colleges within the University. She was told that there is not a difference. Her letter to them was very enthusiastic about how much she loved the school... it was cute (to her mom anyway).
And, this is probably my last update for a while because we won't know anything until December 1st for the schools that have early action. My gut feeling is that she's going to end up at Barnard. That's just parent's intuition. We have a long wait to find out if I'm right or not!
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