Fantasy Football - Footballguys Forums
Welcome to Our Forums. Once you've registered and logged in, you're primed to talk football, among other topics, with the sharpest and most experienced fantasy players on the internet.
Free undergraduate admissions advice (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Shirtless
- Start date
El Floppo
Footballguy
Misspell Ivy.
Racial and ethnic identity is all self-identified. You are whatever you say you are and no one is going to check, same as the census. The only exception are Native Americans/Hawaiians/Alaskans. Those applicants were required to provide proof of tribal affiliation, at least where I worked.
The Z Machine
Footballguy
Do they speak Spanish? Do they have any cultural ties to Latin America?My children will also be 25% South American, but we plan on raising them bilingually with visits to South America and interactions with their Spanish speaking cousins.
El Floppo
Footballguy
X, Z.My kids are 25% Mexican. They know only what Dora or Diego has taught them about Spanish and have never been to their grandfather's place of birth. As far as applying to schools- youbetchyersweetass they're "hispanic".
At some point, a human will actually look at the application and make a decision. If your kids can show some proficiency in Spanish or some connection to Hispanic culture, it may help the application. I'm in the Miami area, and a lot of northern schools "recruit" Hispanics from this area. There are a ton of very good Hispanic students who score a 5 on the Spanish AP test, which is not difficult if they speak it at home or spend a couple of summers with family in Latin America. Based on the experiences at my daughters' high school, there is some advantage in being Hispanic (even at FSU and UF) and a big advantage in being African American, with regard to college acceptance. There is a big disadvantage in being Asian and a small disadvantage in being white non-Hispanic. There is an advantage in being a women, if you apply to an engineering school (MIT,GT). My oldest daughter just saw the same trend with her college friends who applied to medical school.
Fear The Turtle
Footballguy
Any books you recommend on the topic? Admissions, high school prep, financial aid, standardized test prep...
2Young2BBald
Footbaldguy
I am planning a series of campus tours for my daughter during her winter break in a few weeks. All of the institutions we want to visit have online options to schedule the tours. Is there any advantage to scheduling the visits by phone versus online (ie talking up the GPA, ACT score,( at one of the colleges my brother-in-law is in their athletic hall of fame), etc)?
Instinctive
Footballguy
For SAT, the Princeton Review book was great for me. Moved me from a 202 PSAT sophomore year to a 237 Junior year (when it counted).I found a lot of value in discussing with my peers their strategies as well - have your kid(s) take a half-semester prep class through the high school, and it will work wonders.
Instinctive
Footballguy
I'm one of the people who runs tours here at my school, and I can say that we don't really see a difference, except that we get occasional no-shows from online signups.I would save the stories for building rapport in-person with admissions personnel.
I do a bunch of tutoring on the side for SATs and math/science classes. The best advice I can give to someone who is at least average intelligence, is to do as many practice problems/ tests as possible for the SATs. By junior year, you have already covered all the content you need as long as you are in the baseline classes. The SATs for math only go to algebra II, so in order to distinguish between a 500 and an 800, they write the questions in ways students haven't seen before. With enough practice, they will get a feel for the wording and timing.
Instinctive
Footballguy
I don't think it's hard at all - I scored around a 2100, with each section above that 500 mark, when I took it cold, and with a little prep, my real score was 2300 - I had an 800 writing and 750 on each of the other sections.The poster above who said it's all about learning how questions are worded is dead-on. There are only so many ways to ask certain things. You can pretty much learn them all if you take the time to do so. It isn't a matter of difficulty, it's a matter of preparation. I'd believe anyone can get at least 2000 with a month or prep each day.
bigbottom
Footballguy
Okay, but you're the guy scoring 180s on the LSAT. I'm guessing you kick the crap out of standardized tests. Do you have any idea where the average junior in high school is scoring on the test? Is a 500 in math for dummies, or is that more of a median score?
Instinctive
Footballguy
I believe the way the test is scored, a 500 is literally the 50th percentile. As in, the curve on the test will be such that 500 is right in the middle. It's been a long time since I took stats, but I believe that yes, that means the median is probably fairly close to 500.I don't think standardized testing has as large a reliance on straight intelligence as people believe: putting in the work should get you to 600+ on every section. Taking into account that a lot of people take the test with no prep, I think that makes up a decent proportion of sub-500 scores.
2Young2BBald
Footbaldguy
Thanks for the quick reply!! As a follow up, my daughter is very humble about her GPA and ACT score. I can coach her up a bit, but like most 16 year olds, I am not sure she'll listen. I don't not want to do the talking for her, but would like to send up some trial balloon on GPA and ACT score to see where the conversation goes. Any thoughts on if I should just keep my yap shut? I know her transcript will speak for itself what it comes time to apply.
Instinctive
Footballguy
If you're worried about getting it out there (again with admissions personnel: your tour guide only matters in that you should pump him/her for info about the school and be nice to them.) then I would simply ask something along the lines of "Oh, and what are your 75th percentile GPA/ACT scores again?" Perhaps not in so many words, but a question from you, seeking info, may prompt the person youre talking to so that they then ask your daughter about her scores.It's only gonna matter with admissions personnel - they're gonna see the scores on the application anyway. A tour is more about HER deciding if she wants the school as well as putting a face to the name on the application. Shirtless is the expert here, I'm just bored between classes, but I would say that your goal is for her to try out the school, and then secondarily to somehow link her to the application, so that when the admissions person (or people) reads it, they can attach a face to it. For instance, when I toured at one school, the admissions dean talked about how she was from Mount Union and loved football, and how they even had an NFL player now. It was like the 2nd year Pierre Garcon was in the NFL, so he was an intriguing fantasy prospect I knew a decent bit about...including that he was from Mount Union. I said "Oh, Pierre Garcon! He's got a lot of potential." and then connected because the dean followed the NFL. I'm sure that didn't hurt when they were eventually reading my application.
bigbottom
Footballguy
Thanks for the info!
The Z Machine
Footballguy
And good soccer players to prove it.
njherdfan
Footballguy
This is correct. I worked in test prep for a year, and each test has a slightly different curve. 500 simply means you're in the 50th percentile. Another key to improve your score that kids who don't test prep don't know about is to know how the test is scored.A correct answer is worth 1 point, an incorrect answer is worth -1/4 of a point, and an omitted answer is worth 0, and that raw score is then converted to a scaled score on the 200-800 scale.For 98% of students (those who don't realistically plan to get above 700 or so) omitting the hardest questions and focusing on answering the easy and medium ones will always result in a bump in scores.
Last edited by a moderator:
The_Man
Footballguy
Haven't seen Shirtless around lately, but thought I'd bump this up for anyone going through this or getting ready to with their kids/themselves.
Anyone?
My son is only going to be a high school sophomore this year, but we're already being intentional about following a path that will at least give him a shot at being a realistic applicant to the highly selective schools. That being said, getting into the top schools is nearly impossible at this point. Here are some of the acceptance rates for the Class of 2017:
Harvard: 5.8% (school record selectivity)
Yale: 6.7% (record)
Princeton: 7.3% (record)
Dartmouth: 10%
Amherst: 13.6%
Williams: 17%
For example, Princeton had 26,498 applicants. 10,629 of them had high school GPA of 4.0. 13,002 had SAT scores higher than 2100. 97% of those accepted were in the top 10% of their class -- you can bet the other 3% are athletes.
Anyone?
My son is only going to be a high school sophomore this year, but we're already being intentional about following a path that will at least give him a shot at being a realistic applicant to the highly selective schools. That being said, getting into the top schools is nearly impossible at this point. Here are some of the acceptance rates for the Class of 2017:
Harvard: 5.8% (school record selectivity)
Yale: 6.7% (record)
Princeton: 7.3% (record)
Dartmouth: 10%
Amherst: 13.6%
Williams: 17%
For example, Princeton had 26,498 applicants. 10,629 of them had high school GPA of 4.0. 13,002 had SAT scores higher than 2100. 97% of those accepted were in the top 10% of their class -- you can bet the other 3% are athletes.
fatguyinalittlecoat
Footballguy
Don't most schools take a common application now? If so, that's probably why they're shattering selectivity records. When I applied to college 22 years ago, there was a real disincentive to apply to lots of schools because the applications were a pain in the butt. I think I applied to 7 schools and that seemed like a lot. Today I'd probably give a lot more schools the opportunity to reject me because it's so easy to apply.
The_Man
Footballguy
Interesting question. More and more schools do take the common app, in large part because there is a major incentive for them to reject as many students as possible.
First, it looks good to say each year that you set a new record for applications.
More important, selectivity is one of the factors in the US News rankings - so the more applications you reject, the better your selectivity score.
More than a quarter of college freshmen had applied to at least 7 colleges in fall of 2010, a new record, according to the National Association of College Admissions Counselors.
Princeton, for example using the stats above, could tell students that unless you're in a special recruitment category - athlete, legacy, underrepresented minority - then minimum admissions standards are an SAT of 2100 and a class rank of the top 10 percent (since 97% of their admits this year were in the top 10). The SAT standard alone would immediately cut the number of applicants in half. But they'll never do that.
First, it looks good to say each year that you set a new record for applications.
More important, selectivity is one of the factors in the US News rankings - so the more applications you reject, the better your selectivity score.
More than a quarter of college freshmen had applied to at least 7 colleges in fall of 2010, a new record, according to the National Association of College Admissions Counselors.
Princeton, for example using the stats above, could tell students that unless you're in a special recruitment category - athlete, legacy, underrepresented minority - then minimum admissions standards are an SAT of 2100 and a class rank of the top 10 percent (since 97% of their admits this year were in the top 10). The SAT standard alone would immediately cut the number of applicants in half. But they'll never do that.
Long Ball Larry
Footballguy
My daughter is 8. Are there any specific things to think about as we make various decisions over the course of her academic career that will put her in the best position to get some type of scholarship?
Last year sometime I read a review of a book that had been written by a guy who documented the year + that he spent trying to get his child into college. All the crazy stuff that was going on. Unfortuantley, I don't remember what it was called, but IIRC, it did get pretty good reviews.
lombardi
Footballguy
Great thread! A couple questions.
We're actually homeschooling our kids right now. We've been travelling around the US in our RV the last year and will be doing it for a year more before we settle somewhere (we're actually considering NC because of the good state schools and very good in-state tuition rates).
There is a lot of talk in the homeschool community about the rise of homeschooling and how much more accepted it is in the college admission system than it used to be. There have even been a few national magazine articles about it. Is this homeschool propaganda or is there any truth to this. Also, how about all of these classical homeschool curricula like more classical history education, Latin, old style math (as opposed to newer Everyday math type curriculum). How are these types of things looked at in the admissions office.
We started homeschooling so we could spend a couple years travelling as a family, broadening horizons, giving my kids an experience of a lifetime (23 national parks later it's going pretty well!). Our plan was to stop when we settle next year. We've also considered homeschooling all the kids through middle school and then putting them in high school so they can have the whole high school experience and prepare themselves for college life. Still deciding. Any advice strictly from a college admissions perspective about homeschool applicants vs. public school applicants? How about the success of those applicants once they hit college. I'd like to hear an objective opinion from someone who is not...
A) the homeschool evangelist that sees no good in evil public education and assumes everything done at home is superior than anything done outside of it or by the government
or
B) the union teacher or school administrator who hates the homeschool movement and thinks all of us ignorant, rube parents shouldn't be allowed to ####### our poor children with home education
Sadly these are the two most prominent opinions I run into.
We're actually homeschooling our kids right now. We've been travelling around the US in our RV the last year and will be doing it for a year more before we settle somewhere (we're actually considering NC because of the good state schools and very good in-state tuition rates).
There is a lot of talk in the homeschool community about the rise of homeschooling and how much more accepted it is in the college admission system than it used to be. There have even been a few national magazine articles about it. Is this homeschool propaganda or is there any truth to this. Also, how about all of these classical homeschool curricula like more classical history education, Latin, old style math (as opposed to newer Everyday math type curriculum). How are these types of things looked at in the admissions office.
We started homeschooling so we could spend a couple years travelling as a family, broadening horizons, giving my kids an experience of a lifetime (23 national parks later it's going pretty well!). Our plan was to stop when we settle next year. We've also considered homeschooling all the kids through middle school and then putting them in high school so they can have the whole high school experience and prepare themselves for college life. Still deciding. Any advice strictly from a college admissions perspective about homeschool applicants vs. public school applicants? How about the success of those applicants once they hit college. I'd like to hear an objective opinion from someone who is not...
A) the homeschool evangelist that sees no good in evil public education and assumes everything done at home is superior than anything done outside of it or by the government
or
B) the union teacher or school administrator who hates the homeschool movement and thinks all of us ignorant, rube parents shouldn't be allowed to ####### our poor children with home education
Sadly these are the two most prominent opinions I run into.
The_Man
Footballguy
College Confidential's message boards are the college admissions equivalent of the FBG forums. There's an entire forum on home schooling - more in-depth info and discussion than you can imagine.
I really don't have any insight, other than to say that the most important factors in college admissions - by far - are making good grades while pursuing a rigorous curriculum and standardized test scores.
If your kids are likely to have high test scores, then maybe they can make a compelling case that they pursued a rigorous course of study and did well under your tutelage. If their test scores aren't going to be that high, then it might look better for them to have some traditional academic credentials to bolster their applications.
I really don't have any insight, other than to say that the most important factors in college admissions - by far - are making good grades while pursuing a rigorous curriculum and standardized test scores.
If your kids are likely to have high test scores, then maybe they can make a compelling case that they pursued a rigorous course of study and did well under your tutelage. If their test scores aren't going to be that high, then it might look better for them to have some traditional academic credentials to bolster their applications.
kutta
Footballguy
James Daulton
Footballguy
I'll add to make sure your kid takes some kind of SAT prep class. Improving their score 60 - 120 points can mean the difference in getting into the school of their choice.
johnnycakes
Footballguy
Every week, for at least the past year, the WSJ has had articles about how the cost of tuition has run amuck, and all but the most prestigious schools are feeling the squeeze. These days, the #1 deciding factor in where a kid goes to college is the overall cost... people are looking at that cost-benefit relationship. Think about it carefully... unless your kid can graduate in, say at least the top 50% of their class - preferably the top 20% - you need to assess that cost-benefit relationship carefully. Lots of people have figured out it's better to graduate with a really high GPA from a lesser school than a fair-to-middlin' GPA from a top school. And I know of at least one 800/800 high school graduate who turned down Stanford, among others, to go to Carleton College because she could do so on a 100% scholarship. Think about it.
sporthenry
Footballguy
This. Unless you go to a top HS which is a feeder to these Ivy league schools, admission officers will struggle to compare your grades. The SAT's provides them a great way to calibrate students who have taken different course loads. The SATs won't necessarily get you in but they can certainly keep you out and trying to compensate for subpar SAT scores will be very hard.
I agree with this too. After you get beyond the top 10-15 schools, the benefit probably isn't worth it. Add on that many of those schools have the best endowment/financial aid and that gap grows larger. If you aren't getting into one of those schools and can move as someone alluded to earlier, state schools give you a great cost/benefit. Schools like UVA, UNC, or the UC's give you great bang for the buck. Pretty much 25% of their private school competitors. And even other state schools still give you great education for the price.
Additionally, if they have no idea what they want to do, I'd say get as many internships as possible or even take a year or two off for work/internships. Not only does it add to your resume but saves you from wasting time/money in college so you can have a plan. Or look into schools with co-op programs like Northeastern or Drexel. They can be expensive but you get 2 6-month jobs and some places will look at work experience as important or more important than GPA (which is more like the SATs in that you won't get a job b/c of your GPA but will certainly miss a job if its too low).
Another option is going to state school or a school that gave you scholarship money, killing it there, and then transferring to a top school/dream school. Saves you 2 years of tuition and if your grades are good enough, you can transfer to a better school than you originally got into. You still get the degree from the better school and you can take advantage of OCR for the 2 most important years.
lombardi
Footballguy
I'm a programmer and I've worked from home for years. I have a mifi and a cell phone and I can work from virtually anywhere with cell service. I have someone renting out my house so that covers my mortgage. I'm certainly not loaded and we travel in a fifth wheel trailer and a diesel pickup. I actually spend less money total per month on the road than I do when I live at home, we're actually saving as we travel.
Instinctive
Footballguy
Put me in the group of people who believe that whether or not your kid plans on grad school should have an impact on where they pick undergrad. If you're at the top of your class at any state school, with strong test scores and such, you can pretty much write your ticket to grad school. Saving money at undergrad makes a ton of sense then. That was my experience in picking OU over American, Georgetown, and the like.
Long Ball Larry
Footballguy
johnnycakes
Footballguy
I'm sure it is... but, let's face it... you get your degree from Stanford, and you can go anywhere in the country, possibly in the world, and they have heard of Stanford. First thing I had to do when I heard "Carleton College" was to look it up on google to find out where it was... had literally never heard of it before.
tri-man 47
Footballguy
Scholarships are generally driven by GPA and test scores. For example, schools might have a spreadsheet grid, so for x GPA and y test score, the scholarship is z.
The real shark move is getting a job at a university. Children of faculty and staff commonly can attend for free (and at the undergraduate level, it's a specific tax-free benefit in the tax code). Most private schools are also in consortiums so you are not limited to just your own place of employment. My son passed on the opportunity (to instead attend Illinois for engineering and club volleyball), but my daughter did her UG for free at Drake University under one of the exchanges and, after a year in Sydney, is now doing her graduate studies in Social Work at my university (though this is taxable to me).
High school AP courses can reduce the college courseload and help to ensure the student finishes in four years. (Taking inexpensive summer classes and transferring in the credits helps with this too.) Many schools do not extend scholarship beyond four years, so it can be costly when a student changes majors and extends into a fifth year.
The_Man
Footballguy
We just got a big kick in the teeth when it comes to this. My wife works for Johns Hopkins, which offers its employees a tuition remission benefit: half of JHU's tuition - which is more than $44K this year - portable to wherever my son goes to college.
We're still in the early stages of the college search, but for now we're looking at schools with tuition in a similar range to JHU. Their websites have Net Price Calculators, which enable you to figure out how much of college you have to pay for and how much will be covered by financial aid. Most of the schools he's aspiring to don't offer merit financial aid but promise to cover your full demonstrated need - based on our income, they figure we can afford about $25-30K per year (which seems staggeringly high, but that's another story).
We had always assumed that the Hopkins tuition benefit would provide $22K of our $25-30K contribution. But it turns out most of these need-blind schools will reduce their financial aid grant, dollar-for-dollar, in the amount of any tuition remission benefit. The argument is that their financial aid grant is based on "need" and so we don't need the $22,000 that we'll get from her employer. This sucks. My wife has passed on higher paying jobs because we thought they would have netted us less than the tuition benefit.
Also, from JHU's point of view, this seems perverse. Their employee ends up realizing no gain from the benefit, as our out-of-pocket contribution would be unchanged; the beneficiary is whatever rival institution my son ends up attending, who gets to pocket the $22K of JHU's money that they would have previously extended to us as a grant.
There are options that will still allow us to take advantage of the benefit - going to a state college that costs less than $22K, for example, and it's free. Or going to a school that offers merit aid in addition to need-based aid - in that case, we would package together the merit aid plus the tuition benefit to cover most of it.
But if he gets into one of the highly selective schools, the four years of 22 thousand tax-free dollars that we'd been counting on to help pay for college are gone.
Coincidentally, the same is true at these schools for any kind of outside scholarship you earn. Let's say you're going to Princeton, and you earn a local $1,000 Rotary Club scholarship. Princeton will then reduce $1,000 from their grant to you to make up for it.
bigbottom
Footballguy
It could be worse. My brother works at a top private univeristy that provides few tuition for kids of employees. He has four kids, so that's probably a $750k benefit. His first two kids are in college application mode and neither have any interest in going there.
Last edited by a moderator:
johnnycakes
Footballguy
bigbottom
Footballguy
MAC_32
Footballguy
Yep. Definitely need to know institution rules. Mine is free tuition and fees. Same rule as my schooling as my mom worked at a university.
tri-man 47
Footballguy
Sooo, wouldn't you be looking at a school that provides merit aid? There's tons of top quality schools in that pool!
[As an aside, I just got off the phone with a student who concluded with a "to hell with you" since I won't let her waltz back in for her sophomore year still owing $4,000 and with an incomplete FAFSA form. <_< ]
Similar threads
