There are a lot of reasons other than GPA that kids choose specific schools and SAT’s useless now as a majority of kids don’t even report them.
OT: My Son Is Accepted To Rutgers!!!
- Thread starter KnightFan
- Start date
Going through that process at every school my daughter applied to. Almost all of them allow you to provide an update or supplement. Makes sense to do so if your child received any recent awards, etc., and of course if they boosted the GPA or SAT
Can you regally boost your GPA after one quarter when you have over 3 years of grades in already?
Where I think that would help is if junior year grades were better than soph. year and the 1st quarter confirmed the upward trend.
Most of these kids were home for two years cheating and collaborating. Their GPA’s are only going down. Lol
+1
Almost all majors that include the word "studies" are useless.
Yep. For us South Jersey kids (I grew up around Cherry Hill area), going to RU-NB felt like going away to college being an hour away.
Grew up in Audubon and went to Camden Catholic as the academics at Audubon HS were less than stellar. Would've played football alongside Joe Flacco had I attended AHS but I wouldn't trade my CCHS degree which helped me get into RU-NB.
Sure. But absolutely no one believes Moravian is on the same academic plain as Rutgers. I don't even think it's as good as Rowan.
It was pre COVID but 3 of top 5 OOS schools I saw listed for NJ kids were UDel, Drexel and NYU. So I'm not quite sure about the "going away" narrative when huge chunks of the NJ population are closer one or two of those than RU. And I get going to NYU over RU but not the other two.
What I am VERY sure of is the salience in the Shop Rite line of Clemson or Moravian or Tampa or Central PA Cult or whatever. Gotta up the Joneses and the way in a thankfully shrinking portion of NJ is to spend a lot of money on a college that isn't worth it.
Again. You are years removed from this process. Things are different now post covid and kids are choosing “lesser” schools left and right for a myriad of reasons. Plus schools that in the past you have talked crap about are harder to get into than schools you perceive to be better. My daughter has five friends alone that applied to Clemson and Rutgers. All 5 got it to Rutgers. 2 got into Clemson.
The number of applicants to Clemson has jumped significantly over the last 20 years which means the acceptance rate will get lower, and it becomes more competitive.
This makes sense because Clemson can’t take that many OOS kids from the same high school. State school can accept unlimited number from in-state. Unfortunately, It’s a numbers game.
NYU is worth the cost of admission OOS. Drexel while a solid STEM school isn't worth the price when Rutgers is on par or better than Drexel in most STEM programs. UDel is laughable. A fine school but weaker than RU-NB in nearly everything academically, not to mention B1G sports vs CAA sports when comparing RU to UDel. I'd take UDel over Temple or St. Joe's as a South Jersey kid, but not over RU-NB.
Rutgers has definitely tightened its admissions. Several kids in my daughter's HS honors program were either deferred from certain RU programs or simply didn't get in. These kids all have GPAs well above 3.7 and 1300+ SATs.
BTW, I agree with JTung230 about OOS acceptances. Unless you are a feeder HS to certain colleges (go look at Delbarton - they send all of their kids to like 6-8 colleges) admissions have to make tough decisions on classmates. They won't take them all.
BTW, I agree with JTung230 about OOS acceptances. Unless you are a feeder HS to certain colleges (go look at Delbarton - they send all of their kids to like 6-8 colleges) admissions have to make tough decisions on classmates. They won't take them all.
Rowan as crazy as it sounds isn't a bad 2nd tier state school for NJ at this point, I'd say on par with TCNJ and probably cheaper.
SAT and ACT were optional for most school including RU. We visited many schools over the last 2 years and were told not to submit SAT/ACT unless they are higher than the school range. i.e. if a school range is 1100-1300, don't submit a score in that range but do submit if you scored a 1400+. A few schools said not to submit them at all because they don't look at them.By the way, are SATs or ACTs even a thing anymore? I read that only 10% of universities require test scores and only half of applicants submit them. Very different times!
I was also told that most schools will be SAT/ACT optional in 2024 as well, but expect some schools to require the test scores again for 2025 HS grads. We will see when we get to 2025 if that changes.
Agree with you here. Even pre-covid, kids were choosing "lesser" schools, whatever lesser means. My kid was one of them. He happily chose Quinnipiac over Rutgers, even with admission to the Honors College and a scholarship. Quinnipiac had a better and more comprehensive program for him, and he liked the smaller, more intimate campus and class size. He chose wisely.
NYU is only worth it if you are in certain schools/majors. Delaware seems to be the UVM of a generation or two ago.
Most kids take them but unless your crush the average score of the School you want to attend, they don’t include them. They can help with Merritt aid.By the way, are SATs or ACTs even a thing anymore? I read that only 10% of universities require test scores and only half of applicants submit them. Very different times!
Same here. My daughter applied to quite a few schools out here and all were test optional with the exception of the UC schools who were all test blind. Any SAT or ACT averages reported by school the last few years are likely inflated over years past because as you said only kids who did well are submitting them now. Big question will be if schools see any differences in the success of their students the past few years absent test scores among other things which may inform the decision to bring them back or not.
We visited Delaware and liked everything about it. I thought it was a nice campus and easy drive down the turnpike.
My younger son just got admitted to RU Engineering as well as a PSU and Pitt. Now he is waiting to hear back from the privates(MIT, JHU, Upenn, BU and Tufts).
While RU is first choice for him against PSU and Pitt, if he gets into Upenn, MIT or BU its going to be tough to convince him to pick RU. Even if he has to pay the diff in cost, he feels like for what he wants to do, the opportunity advantage provided by those schools outweighs the cost. Of course the fact his older sister also went to RU probably has some impact as well....
While RU is first choice for him against PSU and Pitt, if he gets into Upenn, MIT or BU its going to be tough to convince him to pick RU. Even if he has to pay the diff in cost, he feels like for what he wants to do, the opportunity advantage provided by those schools outweighs the cost. Of course the fact his older sister also went to RU probably has some impact as well....
If he gets into Penn, MIT, or BU, I'd say go with them provided they give a ton back in financial aid. Hopkins and Tufts probably are worth it as well. Otherwise I'd say go RU.
Tell him mildone said that if he gets accepted to MIT, screw all the others. Surely that will sway his decision.
I should mention that one of my boys did undergrad at RU (history/philosophy) then got his law degree from BU. I believe he really enjoyed his time at BU, and liked Boston a lot, although obviously the law school is most likely non-representative of the undergrad engineering program.
So... it might be smartest to do undergrad wherever he can get the best money from the school plus be accepted into the honors program. Then go to MIT for grad school.
The best thing about these reoccurring threads is that no kid or parent of a kid would ever listen to any of the so-called advice that gets posted in them. The misinformation is funny.
Really? I've seen lots of really good advice here over the years. What advice posted in this thread strikes you as misinformation?
My son is specifically interested in Biomedical Engineering and BU has a top 10 program in that. However, it is one of only 5 engineering majors at BU. I would rather he didn't go to BU as I don't think it is that much better than RU and almost twice the cost(we are OOS for RU so 48K to 82K), but I think that is his third choice behind MIT/UPenn. Chances of getting into MIT/Upenn are slim to none(<7% acceptance), so I am worried.....
Just the same stuff that appears every time one of these threads are started. The strongest opinions come from the posters who have never had a kid go through the college application and selection processes. Posters who have sent kids to college understand that there’s a hell of a lot more that goes into it than picking the school with the highest USNWR rating or lowest cost.
If he gets into MIT, he is going to go, no doubt. Too much opportunity there to skip. My son also loves Boston, so double whammy.Tell him mildone said that if he gets accepted to MIT, screw all the others. Surely that will sway his decision.
I should mention that one of my boys did undergrad at RU (history/philosophy) then got his law degree from BU. I believe he really enjoyed his time at BU, and liked Boston a lot, although obviously the law school is most likely non-representative of the undergrad engineering program.
So... it might be smartest to do undergrad wherever he can get the best money from the school plus be accepted into the honors program. Then go to MIT for grad school.
I have debated the whole undergrad vs grad thing internally. And while it makes so much sense to save money undergrad, the whole getting into MIT for grad school seems like even a worse crap shoot then undergrad, so if he gets in MIT undergrad, I think you have to grab the opp while you can.
Unfortunately(or fortunately depending on your viewpoint), we are in that anti-goldilocks zone where we make too much to get aid, but not enough to actually afford private college. If he wants the prestige schools, he is just going to have to take some loans.
yeah agreed, but the BU one is the tough one. BU has some prestige associated with it, but not sure it really that much better than a good state school.
