<p>calv1n - sorry I am not going to be of much help here - not at all familiar with West Coast schools. Have you visited each one? Met with some Hillel members? Do you have any private Jewish day schools in your area - if so - check their college counseling website and see if they publish their matriculation list - if you see Western Washington on it - that will be a positive sign.</p>
<p>Since Western has made the finalist round, will your son be attending their preview day for admitted students? I imagine that must be coming up soon. Nice area to visit for spring break if it happens to coincide. Make a little detour to Vancouver, the San Juan Islands, or Victoria… </p>
<p>Tea at The Empress sounds excellent right now! I really do need to go make myself breakfast…</p>
<p>Thanks, RVmom. I had seen the WWU Hillel site and found it a bit disappointing. I had not yet seen the Chabad site and it looks awesome…especially the part where they reassure students that they are not out to force them to become orthodox. My son would need to take a Benadryl in anticipation of an allergic reaction if that were the case! Looks really welcoming and knowing that they provide Shabbat dinners does a Yiddishe mama’s heart good. Ideologically, we know that for a gay Jew, a reform shul is going to be very accepting. I’m not sure if, in order to get his dose of yiddishkeit, my son would approach Chabad with a Don’t Ask Don’t Tell attitude. He’ll figure it out. If he goes to Purchase College, this is all moot.</p>
<p>DeborahT, good suggestion re: a trip. We have been to Bellingham once on our way up to Vancouver, but that was before WWU was on the radar. A spring break visit is in order.
I guess the hard part for the moment is waiting to hear from the UCs.</p>
<p>calv1n, I’m not close to this but a friend whose daughter is a Hillel mega-mogul and whose son is a nice kid, but a partier and former hockey player and was embraced by the Chabad in their town. I sense that they see him as a symbol. Cool, muscular, handsome kid who is part of Chabad. They haven’t tried to change him and I have a sense that they accept him where he is and hope that he will chose to move. I don’t know if that is common. Don’t know if they’d feel the same way about gayness, but possibly.</p>
<p>Calv1n: Congratulations to your son on his acceptances. I think it’s a good idea to visit WWU over spring break. Suny Purchase sounds like a good fit except for the distance from home, but having family nearby would help a lot.</p>
<p>hi all…exhausted from spring orientation at Elon but , as expected, it was amazingly organized and productive; didn’t plan for the 28 degrees on Friday morning haha…</p>
<p>anyway, we attended a get-together for newly enrolled freshman at Hillel;about 30 kids showed up from all over the country and immediately bonded; more girls than boys attended, but not a surprise (according to the Hillel director)…our daughter said it was a great thing to do!! (met collage1’s daughter too!!!)…the parents sat and talked with Nancy Luberoff and Jeff Stein for about an hour and found out all the plans for the future Hillel House, the Jewish studies minor (that is in progress), the new Jewish studies professor that was hired, and finally (yay!!) the Modern Hebrew class that will definitely be offered next fall and will count for the foreign language requirement…</p>
<p>There is too much to talk about given the hour and the exhaustion, but I will post more tomorrow…please post any questions you might think of and I’ll try to answer tomorrow…</p>
<p>we met some great parents of incoming freshman, as well as a number of great kids…</p>
<p>Suffice it to say that we were more than impressed and if Elon walks the walk the way they talk the talk, we will have a very happy four years…</p>
<p>Congrats to mhc’s daughter on UDel; what a great choice!!! I’m pulling for you guys on Tuesday…</p>
<p>I am overwhelmed trying to catch up with everything this past weekend…lots of schools released decisions!!!</p>
<p>Sounds so exciting! Glad it went well. Thanks for mentioning the Hillel get together - that’s a nice touch. Did they mention AEPi and how that is coming along?</p>
<p>^^yes, they did mention AEpi; Jeff Stein said that there are a number of frats trying to get on campus along with AEpi; …
He said that the head of Greek Life? (not sure if that’s who he meant) is trying to get the AEpi through separately as a “diversity” frat rather than competing with the other candidate organizations trying to charter…he wasn’t sure if it would work; that’s what happened the last time AEpi tried to get on campus; they were beat out by other fraternities due to sheer numbers of students interested…</p>
<p>I think that more information will be coming on this, but he did say it’s not as “cut and dry” as they would like it to be…</p>
<p>OMG…has anybody read what happened with the UDel acceptances or am I just getting on board here???
I got an email while I was in NC that a close friend’s daughter was accepted on Friday and now I’m reading that there was a glitch in the computer system and emails were sent in error???</p>
<p>The UDel “glitch” is unbelievable. I’ve been reading the thread and I feel terrible for those who were affected by it. They should all get their mail acceptances tomorrow/Tuesday - then the you know what will really hit the fan. It’s such bad PR for such a great school that is really gaining momentum and recognition.</p>
<p>Rodney: You Elon visit sounds great. Your daughter must be really excited about next year.</p>
<p>I’ve been following the Delaware mess out of curiosity. It seem like at least one school has some sort of online or email snafu every year. How awful for a kid to think that they got in, only to find out it was a mistake.</p>
<p>momjr - I can personally attest to how awful that experience is. S1 was deferred and then rejected by Duke. On about April 5th - he rcvd a congratulatory e-mail from the regional Duke rep - asking if he had any questions as he was deciding whether or not to accept the Duke admission. I called - and the e-mail had been sent in error - which was our guess - but still very confusing and disconcerting. The move to on-line admissions decisions has brought this type of problem every year.</p>
<p>Rodney, I’ve definitely been following the UDel situation since early Saturday morning, and logging on obssesively to My Blue Hen make sure that my D’s acceptance links still show up. I can deeply empathize with anyone affected by the snafu, UDel had been D’s first choice since we began this search and I know that she immediately texted and BBMed all her friends when she saw that she was admitted. I can only imagine the disappointment and emotional kick in the stomach it would be to find out later that you hadn’t been admitted after all. </p>
<p>I’m fairly sure she’s okay, though: all her links have remained up. The most reassuring thing was that while trying every clickable link on her Blue Hen page, I discovered that she had been awarded a small merit scholarship. I’d otherwise never even have thought to look under that link since we didn’t apply for Financial Aid. But I figure it would be too much of a “glitch” to see an award if she really hadn’t been admitted.</p>
<p>So now we wait til tomorrow. I asked her on Sunday if she just wanted to go ahead at UDel, but she said she still wanted to wait for the decision from Elon. So it may be a difficult choice if Elon also comes through. But who doesn’t want that sort of “problem” for their child??</p>
<p>Rodney, if the 30 kids who showed up were all newly admitted freshman, that would be about 2 1/2 % of the class. Did Jeff give any idea of about how many Jewish kids they expected there would be in this year’s class? I saw an article from 2009 in an Almanace local paper where he said there were then about 250 Jewish students at Elon.</p>
<p>I’ve also been wondering about diversity in general. Any word on the numbers of other groups (Black, Hispanic, Muslim, Asian etc?)</p>
<p>Just checking in–yes, the visit to Elon was fabulous and it was great to meet Rodney and her DH and DD. Elon did a terrific job with their program and D is excited to go. She has a few more schools to hear from but is definitely leaning toward Elon, regardless of other news. The Hillel event was very well done. The students were ushered to one part of a room where they socialized for about an hour and the parents to another part where we heard all about Hillel, its activities, plans for the future, etc. There are trips to a variety of countries and, of course, local activities. One thing that had been a slight negative was the need to leave campus to attend high holiday services. We heard that it is likely they will have them on campus this fall. One of the great things about the Hillel event and the way it was structured is that the students had a chance to begin to bond with one another beyond quick introductions. The session after the Hillel gathering was one in which the students went in one direction and the parents in another–it was great to see the kids go in a group and, of course, nice to meet and go with the parents too. We ended up having dinner with another mom/daughter duo and D sat with some of the girls she met at the Hillel event at the following day’s session as well. It really helped her feel connected which was great.</p>
<p>I believe I heard that Elon accepted (actually, those attending the current freshman class) about 8% and the ultimate goal is to have about 8% – about 400 and the school has 5000 kids.</p>
<p>D liked just about all of the housing options, we attended a great session on the major she intends to pursue at this point and there was exciting information about the various study abroad and service learning opportunities. Huge thumbs up for Elon :)</p>
<p>I’m curious as to how all of you heard about the Hillel event? Was it listed on the Orientation Schedule as being amongst a number of meetings that students could attend? Or were you contacted directly because your child was listed on their application as Jewish? etc. etc.</p>
<p>And did you have to choose due to scheduling between going to it or something else? Perhaps other Jewish kids might have been interested but just wanted to attend another event a bit more?</p>
<p>LOL, Debrorah, I didn’t mean it to sound that way at all. I thought 30 was a lot too.</p>
<p>There were a lot of times on visits when I had difficulty getting my Jewish Day School D to visit a Hillel or attend a Hillel event. She wanted to learn about other things when she was there which she couldn’t find out about except in person. Either she figured she already knew all she needed to about Hillel, or could get info on the web or will find out later when/if she gets there.</p>
<p>I’ve also learned from my other two kids that there may be lots of (in some ways just as important) Jewish presence at a school at other places than Hillel. Or that kids may find their way to Jewish life and even Hillel through another roundabout routes like a Jewish frat or sorority.</p>