General advice for a hardworking, smart kid but without an academic passion?
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Anonymous
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My junior is hardworking and smart, but doesn't have an academic passion yet. He has ruled out the hard sciences and engineering. He is good at math but doesn't think he wants to focus on it. Writing is more of a struggle but one he works at and has gotten better at. He is extremely social and when he takes career tests, they point him towards working with people such as coaching, teaching, or politics. He is also interested in business but not exactly sure what that means...
Academically, he'll apply to UVA and W&M but they're in our "low reach" category...other schools on the list are Villanova, Wake Forest, Pitt, Delaware...also considering playing his sport at a Division 3 school such as Franklin & Marshall or Wesleyan. In general, what advice do BTDT parents have for a kid like this in the college search? Should we be drilling down on schools' general education requirements to make sure he'll get a broad range of classes before declaring a major (although I'd imagine all colleges have that)? Should we be digging into how strong freshman/sophomore year advising is (my older son went to Syracuse with a declared area of interest but I was not impressed with their freshman advising tbh). Are there schools that make more sense or less sense for a kid like this? thanks. |
Anonymous
| What are his ECs? Favorite subjects? |
Anonymous
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Look for the strongest academics/school you can get into with a well-rounded liberal arts education and the best student-teacher ratio, where professors teach more than half of their classes. Look for real engagement with professors and active advising.
May lead you to SLACs? Where does he hope to live post-graduation? Given his lack of an academic hook and strengths in math, consider statistics or even possibly even sociology? |
Anonymous
EC: Top player on high school sports team & outside sport as well, volunteers with the special olympics and officer at the best buddies club at school. Works as a coach and referee. Favorite subjects are the social sciences (AP Gov, history classes). Favorite subjects tend to be very teacher-dependent. One year it might be math and another year it's history. |
Anonymous
Although your schools don't admit by major, a stronger application narrative would have ECs that align to an academic interest. I'd apply Sociology. Sociology of sports is a common undergrad class, and it's a subdiscipline of sociology that studies sports as social constructions (analyzing their role, function, and meaning within culture & society). The various Why Major essays would tie to many of his ECs (how sports influence and are influenced by power dynamics, social structures (gender, race, class), and he could tie it into institutions like media/economy/education) studying both the good and bad. If he has a chance to do an independent research project, I'd go in this direction too, but only if the angle feels true to him. |
Anonymous
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IMO families should be more focused on merit
he'd get money at Mac I bet and that's a great school |
Anonymous
Did she say she needed merit? If you can afford it, I would go to the best private school you can. That’s what we did for our kids. But we had plenty saved and can cash flow with a very high income and net worth. With the world changing the way it is having the best personal / professional network + peer group, the best access to teachers (in a small learning, environment) was extremely important to our family. Those might not be important to others. |
Anonymous
| One of the great things about Pitt is their rolling admissions. If he applies in August, he should have an answer sometime in September or early October. It takes a lot of the pressure off to have a solid option in hand. |
Anonymous
| Economics? Focus on keeping up with doing well in math and don’t take AP econ! |
Anonymous
Its the most popular major for boys and often those kids have crazy ECs....I'd def double major with econ though but personally wouldn't start from scratch trying to make that story as a 2nd semester junior. UVA and Wake have more econ boys than they need. |
Anonymous
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You described my son and yet he wants to go to the University of Chicago lol. My son is legendarily lazy and doesn't like reading nor studying. He is extremely bright 1580 SAT and 5 on AP Physics, calculus and Chemistry.
I was hoping he would study Physics (like I did) or engineering or even philosophy. Nope Instead he wants to study business and be an investment banker. I asked him why? He said he wants to be a billionaire. I am like okay. His sister on the other hand is very academically focused. She has been collecting academic accolades since middle school. Every child is different. At the end of the day we just have to encourage them and support them. But business major? Why just why? |
Anonymous
OP - yes this is our plan! We can afford to be full pay anywhere but he's very practical and thinks he should definitely go to UVA or W&M if he gets in. I don't feel quite as strongly about that. |
Anonymous
ED1UVA and ED2 W&M |
Anonymous
My kids sounds very similar, although he's not not very good at math. Special Olympics is one of his very favorite things. He's decided he wants to be an occupational therapist, although if he was better at math, I think he'd have chosen Physical Therapist. He decided to apply to dual degree programs where he can continue on to the OTD, and complete both degrees in one year less. Those degrees tend to be offered at regional universities, so his list of acceptances isn't one that DCUM would love, but he's thrilled with here he got in, and excited to go. He plans to major in Psychology. |
Anonymous
| Help him figure out what he wants to do after graduation, and then help him get internships. Make it real. |