Yeah we heard some of the stories. It honestly reminded me of the school in the movie Real Genius. The rep said they love to have a prank war with MIT. She said one time a group of students flew from LA to Boston to carry out said prank.
TU #195 US News 2024 rankings.
- Thread starter lawpoke87
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So he visited MIT on 3/15 last Spring. When we met with the soccer coach, we could hear some coaches grumbling in the hall. Soccer coach said the lacrosse coach was salty because a goalie he had been recruiting for 3 years didn't get accepted to MIT and he found out that morning AFTER the student told him. Soccer coach basically said they have no say nor pull in getting kids admitted there. His advice to my son is take the highest courses you can, don't get a B and make sure you get A's in Physics and Calculus during your junior year because a B in either of those classes will essentially eliminate you from being considered at MIT.That's pretty much the definition of geeks.
I have been looking up the soccer programs. MIT and WPI play tomorrow in a game that will determine the #2 seed in the NEWMAC (New England W Metro Athletic Conference...not sure what the W stands for). Babson is going to be #1 barring a shocking result as they are the #8 team in D3 nationally. WPI and MIT are both pretty good teams this year. Looking at the rosters, neither one has a GK taller than 6' and as we are finding out, many of the kids listed at 6' are actually 5'10 or below. The kid who started at Union last year was 5'10 and that may have been because he had poofy hair...my son is taller than he is by a good inch or so, is currently at NSU and listed on the roster at 6' which is laughable. Alex Lopez at TU is listed at 5'10 but that had to be on a good day in cleats because my son is actually about 2-3" taller (they were side by side at a game not long ago). I looked at some of the D1 schools he's considering and Michigan is absolutely terrible and giving up a ton of goals this season and their GK prospects are thin.
WPI and Georgia Tech apps are in. There are some weird questions on college apps these days. And I guarantee you, if my son had to fill these out by hand (writing or typewriter), he would only be doing 2-3 and not the 10+ he has in mind.
For anyone who might want to take in a few minutes of what surely must be the highest combined IQ of any soccer game ever:
https://team1sports.com/mitathletics/
The backdrop is beautiful as well.
https://team1sports.com/mitathletics/
The backdrop is beautiful as well.
With a Demonic Beaver as their mascot vs WPI's Goat (The goat's name is Gompei and there is a really interesting story behind the goat mascot)
My wife checked the wrong box when paying for my son's ACT and now she's getting spammed by colleges. Not emails (though there are many of those) but expensive cardboard mailers from dozens of schools. We will literally get 2 identical mailers from the same college on the same day, one addressed to my son and one addressed to my wife, a middle aged lawyer with 2 advanced degrees. Perhaps the very sophisticated universities know that my wife is interested in going back to college and she just hasn't admitted it to me. Or - maybe many, many universities are so unsophisticated and backwards that they can't tell the difference between a 17 year old HS student and a [much older] college/grad school graduate, and haven't noticed that they are sending the same material to the same address. Just a thought.
The amount of mailers my son is getting is just ridiculous. UChicago sent 27 different mailers in a 3 week period. He was actually considering checking them out until he looked into their academic offerings and they didn't have EE. There was another school he was going to look at until he realized they had every engineering program under the sun EXCEPT for EE. Right now, he, my wife and I are getting a daily email from Columbia about how Columbia is the perfect fit for him.
Have you filled out any of the CSS's yet? They're ****ing insane. You have to enter more information on it than your damn tax return. Plus they want you to project what you think you will make in income, dividends, etc. for you, your spouse, and what you think your kid will make in his job. WTAF???
It's too bad he wrote off UChicago, they're really making a hard sell for my wife to come there and she could use some help with the engineering classes since she majored in psychology and journalism and never took calculus. But I guess they know what they're doing if they're trying to get her...
The fact that I don't know what CSS is (assuming it's not style sheets) makes me nervous.
They only offer one engineering degree.
From our visit last year remember it was Environmental.
Cool campus. Hogwarts.
UChicago just doesn't have engineering...maybe Environmental Engineering is the only one.
CSS is the individual school's aid app but it's like the Common App where you submit it once and designate the schools it goes to. And then the school may have an additional app you fill out as well (GaTech has it's own in addition to the CSS and FAFSA...we just got the email to make sure we complete it in time).
Doesn't UChicago have a historically world class Physics department? I believe they were referenced in the Oppenheimer movie.
I think you're right. It's a great school by all measures but if they don't have the major you want to study, it's a bit tougher to sell the school to a 17 year old.
So my son had his interview with an MIT alumni admissions rep yesterday. He chose to meet at Barnes & Noble. So he arrived early and bought a book, The Myth of Sisyphus (he bought it because he had recently come across a quote from it and it intrigued him enough to buy the book). And of course he was able to work that book into their conversation. We've heard varying degrees about how much attention schools pay to these types of interviews. Stanford VP for Admissions said she doesn't read them unless there's a note about a red flag. We've heard MIT uses them to a degree to differentiate between all the crazy smart, on paper equally qualified kids, same with CalTech.
"The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
"We build our life on the hope for tomorrow, yet tomorrow brings us closer to death and is the ultimate enemy; people live their lives as if they were not aware of the certainty of death. Once stripped of its common romanticism, the world is a foreign, strange and inhuman place; true knowledge is impossible and rationality and science cannot explain the world: their stories ultimately end in meaningless abstractions, in metaphors. This is the absurd condition and "from the moment absurdity is recognized, it becomes a passion, the most harrowing of all."
I really enjoyed Albert Camus when we read The Stranger in High School. The idea of life being purely absurd is one which I sometimes identify with, although it becomes so depressing at times that as of late I endeavor not to ponder it at all. Ignorance is bliss.
"We build our life on the hope for tomorrow, yet tomorrow brings us closer to death and is the ultimate enemy; people live their lives as if they were not aware of the certainty of death. Once stripped of its common romanticism, the world is a foreign, strange and inhuman place; true knowledge is impossible and rationality and science cannot explain the world: their stories ultimately end in meaningless abstractions, in metaphors. This is the absurd condition and "from the moment absurdity is recognized, it becomes a passion, the most harrowing of all."
I really enjoyed Albert Camus when we read The Stranger in High School. The idea of life being purely absurd is one which I sometimes identify with, although it becomes so depressing at times that as of late I endeavor not to ponder it at all. Ignorance is bliss.
This is the one that caught my son's attention. My son has a very eclectic taste in his readings. When he was 10 he wanted Assassin's Creed: The Odyssey game and I told him he needed to learn more aboutThe Odyssey so he read The Odyssey and realizing he needed more on the back story of Odysseus, decided to read The Iliad. I told him he should also read The Aeneid which was a different sequel to The Iliad from the Trojans perspective, specifically Aeneas, and how they founded the civilization of Rome. It's ironic that the Greeks went to Troy and conquered them, the remnants of Trojan civilization flee and eventually land in Rome to begin that civilization that then goes on to conquer the Greeks. I told him I would give him bonus points if he read The Aeneid in the original Latin...which I had to do and translate in high school.
Anyway, he reads all sorts of stuff. His favorite app on his phone is the news app (followed closely behind by some soccer head to head game, and Pokemon Go).
My son got notice of his official acceptance to TU along with an invitation to apply for the Presidential Scholarship. TU's admissions office went around to local schools to deliver acceptances to students at those schools. Goldie was there, members of the band and spirit squads. Big hype production. My son of course, was not at school at the time they came because he's taking TCC classes in the AM so he doesn't get to Union's actual school building until about 10:45am. <Facepalm> Several of his friends got their boxes. Not all of them got the invite for the Pres. Scholarship. And it's going to be like pulling teeth without novacaine to get him to do this application. 1, there is a 45 second video component. That ain't my son's thing. 2, he has to set up an official admissions visit...to which his response was, I probably know more about TU than the tour guides do (which is true).
MIT's early action decisions come tomorrow. He's expecting he'll get deferred but he's OK with that. One of his friends got accepted at Duke with a full Questbridge scholarship. While he's not eligible for the Questbridge (need and income dependent), he suspects he has a good chance of getting accepted there now. He actually thinks he has a better than average chance at getting accepted to Cornell and Columbia just from interactions and history he's been reading about.
MIT's early action decisions come tomorrow. He's expecting he'll get deferred but he's OK with that. One of his friends got accepted at Duke with a full Questbridge scholarship. While he's not eligible for the Questbridge (need and income dependent), he suspects he has a good chance of getting accepted there now. He actually thinks he has a better than average chance at getting accepted to Cornell and Columbia just from interactions and history he's been reading about.
It didn't seem optional in the invite. It was actually a pretty key component of the whole thing it seemed. He might be eligible for the NMS thing as well per someone on the inside we know in upper admin at TU. I need him to reach out to his admissions rep. Again, getting him to do this is like pulling teeth. TU is probably the last school on his list of where he wants to go...but free or near free for an engineering education of the quality he'll get at TU would be hard for us (as parents) to pass up.
The NMSF deal is technically a better deal and only open to those high test takers. The Presidential doesn’t require NMSF status and adds a bunch of things like classroom requirements. Your son fancies himself a leader, the class on leadership taught by Carson that is required for the Prez he would benefit from greatly I’m sure. The video is required despite my spirited protests and the troubling history of colleges requiring pictures for admissions and financial aid. Maybe they finally made it optional but I don’t think so.
It's a 45 second video to sell yourself and it's a lot easier to get through that as a panel reviewer than 4-5 pages of a written philosophy and what you plan to do with your college experience and beyond. A lot of schools are using the video stuff. I think they're hoping they don't miss out on the next Elle Woods (IYKYK).
As for the leader thing, I think that would be an OK thing for my son, but as an Eagle Scout, he's done a lot in the realm of leadership.
The video was optional but strongly encouraged last year per my recall.
But I am almost 60 and I won't swear to anything on memory.
My apologies, it is an optional additional thing you could submit. What is required & optional (from the web page link they sent)
Application for Admission...since he's already been officially admitted, this is done
Transcripts- Done
Presidential Scholar Application and 1 page resume- Need to do
Visit TU's Campus- um, he lived there for 6 months of his life, we've been to countless on campus events in the past 17 years, and he's actually been to LoPresti's Electrical Engineering camp in the last 2 years. But we probably have to schedule a formal visit with admissions
Eligibility Requirements:
-Weighted GPA above a 4.0- Covered
OR
- Class Rank in the top 5% of your class: He's top 1%
OPTIONAL:
ACT/SAT Scores- this would help him
45 second Video
With a former congressman? I think you are placing the gravity of the leadership thing in the wrong place.
I understand but I'm not sure that would be the big draw for him. I understand the add'l component from TU's perspective
Well, the tactic we took was simply requiring her to apply to at least one in-state school as a condition of us supporting her in college. We also told here our ability to support her financially was limited to about the equivalent of $1,000 per month - the rest would need to be from scholarships, loans, etc. In other words, we were honest with her and required her to have at least one choice that wouldn't get her into a lot of debt.
Otherwise, it was whatever she wanted. Apply as you wish within limits (in other words, paying 20 or 30 application fees would be ridiculous but a reasonable number like 10-ish would be fine). Visits are good too, within reasonable numbers.
In the end, she surprisingly picked TU. KU and OU would have been less expensive and probably incurred her no debt. Loyola and SLU would have incurred more debt for her though, especially Loyola.
Not sure what would have happened if she had gotten into the University of Chicago though. She really liked it and might have been willing to take on substantial debt to make it work. Not sure.
We have been having those hard conversations about affordability and what taking on significant student loans means when he gets a job. We've encouraged him to apply for a plethora of scholarships, and he has been, some of which would cover a large majority of costs and can be applied without forfeiting school awards. While we know he is accepted at TU, he should get official word today of their merit scholarship package for him. We have not completed the FAFSA yet as it is not available and likely won't be until Dec. 31. I can't remember if we had to do the CSS for TU. Also, MIT's early action decision comes out tomorrow at 11:16AM (don't ask but it's some nerd math reference which they seem to incorporate in all their decision notifications. I think he is expecting it will get deferred but you never know. He is hoping his leadership as a scout and earning his Eagle in the midst of COVID at 15 and how COVID influenced his decision on what to do for his Eagle project will catch some attention. He built a little library and put it at his elementary school partly because libraries closed during COVID and he is a certified bibliophile. He wanted kids to have access to books whenever they wanted to grab them and not just when the school or TCCL was open. He involved the community and our church and received more than 3,000 books donated to the project.
Their typical merit award is very good but not spectacular. But it was better than the other private schools we saw.
If he is a national merit semifinalists though I think we wouldn't pay a dime of tuition.
It'll be a fun mystery! I'll give you a hint, it's not on this website. Where would I see a picture of you that's not on here (it's not a work thing, so 2 hints)?
I would definitely say that's a work thing. I'd just tell you but there is a chance that your mortal enemies, if sufficiently motivated, could crack your true identify.
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