<p>Thank you ThatMom and LateToSchool for your good wishes. </p>
<p>Binx, I had no idea you had two in an admissions process this year. They both got amazing acceptances…hooray for each of them!</p>
<p>Mammall…what an amazing admissions outcome. The odds of being accepted to ALL of those particular schools in total are so very slim. Your D must be an incredibly talented and promising young lady. Lots to celebrate. </p>
<p>wjb…your D as well…pretty incredible. </p>
<p>To ALL…so much happy news for these kids! Terrific! Congratulations to them on their achievements no matter where they were accepted.</p>
<p>Hey- I feel the need to celebrate! D2 got into Harvard today- shocking!!! I don’t think she even considered what she would do if she got in…Stanford was what she had always dreamed of…now she gets to choose!</p>
<p>Thanks, soozie, and congrats to your D, too. Although I’m not a prolific poster, I remember when she was accepted to Brown! She has always sounded like a terrific young woman.</p>
<p>It’s my son who got all the good news today, to top off the good EA news in December. I am in a mild state of shock. I knew he was a worthy candididate – great grades and scores; two “mainstream” interests, one a science, one music, both with regional and national recognition. Also another interest that is hard to quantify, but that played a significant role in his essays. An interesting package, it seems. Still and all, a regular kid – I did not expect this, but I am thrilled. He is, above all, a really nice boy – just a fine human being.</p>
<p>Now that things are * finally* starting to wind down, congrats on all of the amazing acceptances.</p>
<p>cgarrett,</p>
<p>Congrats to your D!! Decisions, decisions.</p>
<p>You know that deep down inside we did have a bit of east coast influence on her. Tell your lovely D that we are more than happy to go back Juniors have some onion rings and talk about this.</p>
<p>Does this mean that there is going to be an east coast road trip? We’ll all crash at Marite’s. Where is she btw?</p>
<p>Yes…I was surprised earlier this year when she mentioned friends in Boston and how she’ll miss them! I know she really didn’t expect these acceptances. Maybe you East-Coasters are growing on her!!!</p>
<p>DS got into Mudd today, rejected at Cornell and Harvard. He has been laughing all evening. He got into the schools he wanted the most, some with merit $$, a full ride from the flagship (which is top 20 in his intended field) and he did it on his own terms. Just set up plane trips to Mudd, Chicago and MIT for a grand total of $300 (love those frequent flyer miles!). </p>
<p>We are thrilled and delighted. There are no bad choices here, just tough ones. The sad part will come when he has to turn some of them down.</p>
<p>What a day… there seem to be many wonderful acceptances and recognition that what really matters is having a choice. I wish one could bottle the sense of relief when the final decisions are known…pass it along to parents of HS juniors… so that the parents of the next HS graduation class could pull out the bottle and take a whiff (like smelling salts) in the interim between your kid filing their apps and waiting for the decision. </p>
<p>Congrats to all the proud parents… savor these days… the next 4 yrs will be a blur…</p>
<p>mamma11: Congratulations!!! I remembered you from some provocative statements you had made about E.C’s:</p>
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<p>I am happy for you and of course your kid. Good to know that some kids can get in without doing sports or performing arts. Good decision, to let your kids be unabashed scholars (nerds) if that is their passion.</p>
<p>^ It isn’t easy being a parent of an “unabashed nerd” but we do feel happy with the outcome - just sheepish about her applying so widely - honestly thought her chances were slim everywhere, as did her GC so she applied just about everywhere to increase her odds. Now this. A good problem to have. I’ll be back for more advice from the wise and wonderful parents on CC. </p>
<p>P.S. DD1 says this was the year to have the perfect scores - made it easier for the schools swamped with so many applications to pluck you out and give you a good look. Maybe won’t be the same type of hook in coming years.</p>
<p>Soozie - thanks. I didn’t really post about either S in the admissions process because the absolutely wonderful part about applying to grad schools is that I had nothing to do with it! Both kids sent personal statements to me for editing, but other than that, nada. </p>
<p>S1 withdrew his other aps (or didn’t finish; I’m not sure) once he got the Georgetown acceptance, since that is what he wanted. Being an economist, he knows exactly what his budget will be for the next 3 years.</p>
<p>S2 has a tougher decision. I talked at length with him yesterday, helping him weigh options, but making it clear that it’s his nickel (and then some) so it will be his decision. His scholarship is a few thousand short of tuition, and he still has to cover living expenses. We hate to see him take too much in loans, so he needs to figure out how cheaply he can live, and how many gigs he can expect. He still is waiting for word from another school, and may choose to appeal for more aid, or take a year off. Ideally, he’d just get a job, but that’s much easier said than done.</p>
<p>We’re just hoping that whatever he needs to do will become very clear to him.</p>
<p>We have heard from all 8 schools DD applied. We are going to visit 3 ~ 4 of them and let her make a decision with $$ as a big factor. </p>
<p>There are two strategic mistakes we made in this process underestimated our EFC and overestimated the probability of getting merit aids. We should have applied to several schools that offer merit aids.</p>
<p>This has been a long journey that has been full of ups and downs. I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincerest appreciation to the CC family. You guys helped me past the most difficult times and gain invaluable experiences.</p>
<p>I would also like to apologize to those I inadvertently offended during these past months. With a limited vocabulary, I many a times could not articulate my thoughts clearly. You should see that I never use fault languages nor do I lie. I was just writing down what was on my mind and wanted to have an open discussion. I did not ever mean to be offensive to anyone and I did not trash any great Universities.</p>
<p>If there is one advice I would leave for other CCers, it is the importance of selected disclosure of information. Dont give out exact test scores nor any thing that could be used to identify your child. I strongly believe that people from many universities are reading these forums. They could and would retaliate against your child because what you said here. </p>
<p>At then end, I do see it is the drive and ability within a student that makes the ultimate difference. </p>
<p>Thank you and wish you all of best of luck.</p>
<p>We made exactly the same mistakes when DS#1 was applying 3 years ago - underestimating EFC (which was my ENTIRE teacher’s salary - gulp!) and overestimating merit aid.</p>
<p>With #2 son we probably didn’t reach as far as we should have - still stinging from the experience of great schools we couldn’t afford with DS#1…</p>
<p>With #3 son, I’ll try to follow the advice of the full-ride mom, and find a few schools that might offer a full ride to kids with my son’s stats, apply to the FL schools, and then compare the total package (fit, finances, etc.) of the schools to which he is accepted. I’m glad we only do this one more time.</p>
<p>Dad II, I think that was a lovely post. I wish you all the best with your daughter’s decisions. You will love watching her, wherever she goes, as she transforms from a wonderful teenager into a delightful adult over the next 4 years. Let her spread her wings and fly and you will be completely captivated by what she will accomplish.</p>
<p>Let me tell you, as the parent of a college senior (and high schoolers), the years will absolutely FLY by and you’ll be planning the trip to graduation sooner than you can imagine…(getting nostalgic already here!)</p>
<p>Nice post Dad. Actually vastly too many folks underestimate their EFC and way overestimate their merit aid possibility. This is because colleges encourage applications as much as possible.Most colleges give very unrealistic expectations regarding aid.</p>
<p>I have been warning people about this problem for years to little avail. CC keeps taking this thread off of their featured list. Frankly, the thread that I have cited should be made into a permenant sticky thread,but they don’t feel that way.</p>
Both kids sent personal statements to me for editing, but other than that, nada. </p>