<p>Last year I wrote about and asked about how your child (and you) found out about the first/early decision/or coveted school admission acceptance. After so much time/discussion/and angst I would love to start a thread to share the joy of what happened when our kids got into college.</p>
<p>In our case: Our daughter applied to one school. It is very selective and frankly she didn’t think that she was going to get in unless it was as a transfer. This university doesn’t email acceptances, just snail mail. On the day that I knew the decision was coming I waited and paced the house until mail delivery, which was of course, late. (I will say that I “knew” she was going to get in…my husband was sure she wasn’t). </p>
<p>I went outside to get the mail and saw the big envelope with the “YOU’RE IN!!!” on it. I quietly went into the house, hid the letter and called my husband. I very quietly got past the secretary and said, “Come home! She got in!”</p>
<p>Fortunately my husband’s office is 5 blocks away and including the elevator ride he made it home in 5 minutes. </p>
<p>We stood at the bottom of the stairs while daughter was upstairs blissfully unaware of anything. I called in my most you are in such trouble voice, “GET DOWN HERE!!!”</p>
<p>As daughter emerged from her room, with huge confusion on her face (What did I do/How did I get caught?/I didn’t do anything look) I pulled the envelope from behind my back and screamed, “YOU GOT IN!!!”</p>
<p>Her feet touched two stairs on the way down…and then I just remember crying.</p>
<p>My son’s first-choice college, our flagship state university, sends out its acceptances several weeks earlier than most other colleges do in the spring – something I was not aware of at the time. I hadn’t even started to think about acceptances and decisions on the day when his notification arrived. I don’t think he was thinking about it, either. He came downstairs with a slightly startled look on his face and told me that he had received an e-mail saying that he was admitted and that he had answered the e-mail to accept the offer of admission.</p>
<p>I congratulated him, of course, but inside my head, my reaction was “You mean, that’s it? No thick and thin envelopes? No agonizing decisions? No fuss, no muss?” Somehow, I felt cheated.</p>
<p>As it turns out, I didn’t even know what “cheated” meant.</p>
<p>Three years later, my daughter applied to a different college (one of the Ivy League schools) Early Decision. When she got her online acceptance, I was in the hospital recovering from surgery for a broken leg. She called me on the phone to tell me that she had gotten in. I tried to overcome the fog of drugs enough to be suitably congratulatory. That was it. Our family was in such a state of chaos as a result of my injury that nobody paid any particular attention to her good fortune until weeks later.</p>
<p>Fortunately, I did get a taste of fuss and agonizing a year later when my son applied to graduate school. He applied to a dozen schools and, over a period of about three weeks, received acceptances to seven of them. There was a nice long chaotic period during which he was flying all over the country (at the graduate schools’ expense) visiting campuses and meeting professors, followed by much discussion over the phone about which offer to accept (so much discussion, in fact, that for the first time in our family’s history, we went over our allotted cell phone minutes). The process was quite exciting, and in the end, he made a decision that I think was good for him (although it means that he’s on the opposite side of the country).</p>
<p>My son’s first acceptance (to the school he now attends) came by e-mail, which he opened on a weekend afternoon. My husband and I were visiting my mom in a nursing home, where she was in rehab for a broken leg. He called to tell us, and it was terrific that his grandmother could share the news in real time.</p>
<p>H was home when the mail arrived. He called me to say that it was a large envelope sent priority mail. Then he called back later to say the he held it up to the light and saw the word, “congratulations,” underlined by hand. On the flip side was financial information. We assumed that it was a yes. D came home to an empty house, opened the mail, and - in tears - called me while I was in the middle of my office holiday party. Everyone sitting at my table cheered when they overheard my response!</p>
<p>That was four years ago and D is graduating in the spring, but it seems like just yesterday!</p>
<p>I checked my app status online, was accepted, told my dad, he said he was really proud of me, then he called my mom, she was excited, and after I came home from school I they took me and the rest of my family out to my favorite restaurant.</p>
<p>Yesterday I was accepted to Stanford, something I wasn’t expecting because of the…cryptic statements made by my college counselor. I still would like to share, because Friday was an odd day…</p>
<p>I had actually just finished with a college interview, and was driving home with my dad. I checked my email on my phone, and suddenly “Your Stanford Admissions Decision” appeared in my inbox. I was freaking out, and my dad swerved the car. I opened it, and saw “Congratulations!” I started screaming that I got in. My father literally did not believe me until I showed him the email. Many high-fives were exchanged. He was in greater shock than I was.</p>
<p>Yesterday was actually my sister’s birthday party, and I didn’t want to steal her thunder. So when we got home, I went downstairs and whispered it to my mom. It was clearly not soft enough, because my sister flipped out and started hugging me. My mother was like “That’s great…OK, you can stop hugging me now.” </p>
<p>I stayed home while my sister went ice-skating with her friends. We’re celebrating tonight. Our family is pretty low-key!</p>
<p>My son finished submitting a college app this morning, then decided to check his email. There it was - an email from his dream school, admitting him. He rushed downstairs, where I was on the phone with my mom. My poor mother, her hearing may never recover… and my throat is still sore. I guess that this morning’s college app will be the last one submitted from this household until someone decides to go to grad school.</p>
<p>I got into SSU a year ago yesterday (my 1st choice).</p>
<p>I remember coming home from school and seeing the mail in the box. My parents both work from home, so they usually got the mail before I got home, but senior year I got to come home at 11:15 AM every other day because of block scheduling. </p>
<p>I flipped through the mail, keys in hand and my school ID in my mouth, and saw the SSU seal from Admissions and Records.</p>
<p>I’d already gotten into San Francisco State, and I wasn’t expecting any other decisions for a while, so I thought it was just a request for my transcript or something.</p>
<p>I went into my mom’s office and handed her the rest of the mail, chatting with her nonchalantly as I opened the envelope. This HUGE magnet fell out that looked like a few houses next to each other and paw prints (SSU’s mascot is the Seawolf) across the top, with huge writing that said: “Congratulations on being admitted to Sonoma State University! Check out our campus housing–you’ll be impressed!!”</p>
<p>My mom immediately started crying and put my brother (who she had on the phone at the time) on speakerphone and made me read my acceptance letter to him.</p>
<p>It was an awesome day…I remember it like it was yesterday. :)</p>
<p>^^^^ My daughter would’ve killed me !
I did get the mail …she called me everyday when she left school to see if anyhing had arrived. I told her when it did come , but not the size of the envelope
The news had to be hers, even though I was pretty sure rejections didn’t come in a large envelope !</p>
<p>Last year this time, we heard from three of the colleges my now freshman applied to. It was so exciting. She had been really feeling that she wouldn’t get in anywhere ( silly ) Her first letter really broke the tension, then a few days later she learned she got into her first choice…the third was a deferral from her reach.
I kind of envy all of you parents who are going through this now…so fun</p>
<p>I wish my parents cared enough about which college I was going to to get accepted. They knew I would get into college and would attend, so didn’t really care about/understand the admission to my first choice. (Which, of course, was the last acceptance I received.)</p>
<p>I, on the other hand, had been obsessively checking the status page of my FC (read: every half hour) for about two weeks before the “Application Status: Acceptance!” popped up. </p>
<p>I heard a “Congrats, when do you get financial aid information?” when I went running into the living room happily. Bit of a downer, that is.</p>
<p>I can’t wait till I start getting accepted to my colleges. Maybe when I get accepted I will be enthusiastic about all of this. I’m starting to feel like some of the colleges on my list where dumb choices. That I should have applied to more privates in a broader region of the US, besides NY State. </p>
<p>Maybe if I get rejected from everywhere I can apply to a college in Cali. (Don’t want that to happen though) </p>
<p>I would also be mad if my mom opened up my acceptance letter. Especially if it was a rejection letter, I wouldn’t want anyone to know.</p>
<p>S got accepted last year. The acceptance was supposed to come by e-mail on a certain date. The date came and went with the website saying there’d be a week delay. I was obsessively checking his email during the day while he was at school so I could text him if something came. But then I had to go to a conference at a deserted seaside resort. No internet whatsoever in the room and no/very sporadic cell phone reception. The exhibit/conference area did have wireless and I had checked all day Friday to no avail. Then I spent the evening in my room. I had just fallen asleep and my cell phone rang. Leaning off the balcony, I could hear S say that he had been accepted, then I lost the connection.</p>
<p>I spent the next half hour trying to call them. Cell phone wouldn’t work. They didn’t have the hotel name because I hadn’t counted on the cell phone not working. I had a phone card, but it was too old. I had long ago had an ATT calling card that charged to our home phone, and I tried it–too old. I finally decided that I didn’t care about the cost and just called them straight from the room phone. Of course, when I got through there really wasn’t much to say because all he knew was they he was accepted. E-mail had come about 9 p.m. on a Friday!</p>
<p>It was one of the most frustrating experiences I’ve ever had.</p>
<p>S1 waited until DH and I were both home and/or on the speakerphone) when he opened the link to his first two EAs (which were his #1 and #3). I thought that was really considerate. He was surprisingly noncahlant – but he cried when one of his friends also got into Chicago, and that’s when I knew how much the acceptance meant to him.</p>
<p>Baelor, I really want to say that I am touched by the caring relationship you obviously share with your sister. It really stood out to me that you tried to keep things low key because you didn’t want to “steal her thunder” on her birthday… and yet, even though she had every reason to be absorbed in her own party, she was alert to your whispered remark and so obviously overjoyed at the news. Congratulations! It sounds like Stanford made the right decision.</p>
<p>Just this past week, I found out that decisions to my “dream school” would be posted online at 3 PM 12/13. (I previously thought that I would not find out until 12/15.) Several weeks ago, I scheduled an interview at another school that I was very interested in, that just happened to fall on “decision day”. It was really hard to concentrate on the interview because I kept thinking ahead to 3 PM, but I tried my best because I knew that this interview was important. Afterwards, my dad took me out to lunch at a really nice restuarant close to the campus, and immediately after we ordered, I had a complete panic attack. “We can’t stay here. I don’t feel like eating. Please, let’s just go home”, I said. My dad asked the waitress to pack up our food to go, and we drove home in almost complete silence. We arrived home around 2:30 PM, and my mom had come home early from work so that she could be there when the decision was available online. At 3 PM, I went online and found out that I was accepted. I just started screaming, and then my parents came over and hugged me, and we all started crying.</p>
<p>We must be the only ones on the planet that didn’t have a celebration when the first acceptance came in. Both of our kids had early acceptances well before Christmas, and one to the first choice school where she is now enrolled. None were ED…all were EA…and both kids had aps where the decisions didn’t come until April.</p>
<p>Once April came, the kids made their choices…but even THEN we really didn’t “celebrate”.</p>
<p>For both…the week before they left, we took them to their favorite restaurant for a special dinner and wished them well as a family. </p>
<p>But we are REALLY “low key”. When the acceptances started to arrive, we simply said “Congratulations” and life went on.</p>
<p>My decision for my ED school (University of Pennsylvania) came yesterday and I had both my parents on speakerphone in New York. I was furiously refreshing the page and then gave a sharp yelp when the login screen finally came up. At this point, I think my parents were just as anxious as I was as I fumbled over the keyboard inputting my information. I clicked the ‘login’ button and, literally in an instant, saw the decision letter, read “Congratulations”, and then fell out of my chair screaming “I’m in!” until I went hoarse. It was the best moment of my life hands down. We did the favorite restaurant thing later last night and I plan to get together with my friends and celebrate more thoroughly soon (and then get back to work <em>sigh</em>). I must admit, the whole thing was soured a bit by the fact that I was pretty sure I’d be accepted going into it (not because I’m pompous or anything, but because, the day before, a few of my friends had some surprising acceptances to Columbia and Cornell). Nevertheless, it’s an almost unparalleled experience.</p>