Slow month for news! Only thing I can report is that D20 did not get a likely letter from either Barnard or Mount Holyoke but wasn’t really expecting one so not much of a worry…
3-ish weeks to go for the last round of notifications and then hopefully an easy decision!
@Itisatruth, It’s great that your D has several terrific options! What’s her front runner at this point?
Of the 3 acceptances she has, I think it’s a weird and unexpected tie between Sarah Lawrence and Pitt – weird just because they are such different places! COA is similar for both since she got some nice merit from SLC. She’s revisiting Pitt on 3/27 for their Honors visit day.
Once you add in any acceptances she might get later this month – no idea!?!? I think she would go with Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke OR Barnard over either SLC or Pitt. If she gets just one of those, I think she’ll revisit SLC and whichever HWC accepts her in April and make her choice. If she get BMC and MHC but not Barnard, then I think she revisits those 2 and makes a decision.
If she get all 3…??? If she gets Barnard but not BMC or MHC (highly unlikely!!!) then…???
Good news tonight: Mount Holyoke acceptance with 21st Century Scholar merit award! D20 is delighted!
Congratulations to her! A wonderful time for some good news!
Congrats to your daughter! That’s the same merit award my D was offered a couple years ago! 
Wonderful news!!
Second to last notification tonight: Waitlisted at Barnard. Not a surprise (expected rejection, admit would have been the surprise) and she says it helped clarify that Barnard was not at the top of the list. Guessing she won’t grab the WL slot or send a LOCI.
Just waiting on Bryn Mawr now (Monday, hopefully!!) and then it’s Decision Time (after some virtual accepted student events/visits? Not sure how that’s going to work…)!
Accepted at Bryn Mawr with $30k Presidential Scholar merit. That was the last notification! Now it’s decision time, with only virtual visit options…Seems like it’s down the Mount Holyoke & Bryn Mawr but we’ll see…
My D is also probably deciding between Holyoke and Bryn Mawr! I’m following your posts
@Dashwoods1811 What’s her thought process so far? Is she weighing pros or cons or going with gut feel? Has she been able to visit both?
She is very torn! She visited both twice and they are dream schools for her as a prospective environmental science major who loves music, languages, and art: on the one hand, Holyoke gets the edge for incredible enthusiasm, organization, and supportiveness. Everyone from the professors whose classes she sat in on to the students who toured her to the regional admissions representative who came to her school really took the time to learn who she was and connect with her in a genuine way. And the classes were fabulous: intellectually engaging, creative, and humorous. So the combo of intellectual engagement, mentoring, and close community is pretty unbeatable there, plus she loves to ski and hike, so Western Mass would be amazing. On the other hand, Bryn Mawr is much closer to us, and we have family and friends in Philly. She would also like to be closer to a city if possible. BMC also seems to have great classes and strong community, but as an organization they appeared more distant and less well coordinated. I’m curious if anyone else had that feeling? We got generic and pretty slow responses from admissions, and our tour guide did not seem to have much of a sense of humor. Also the class she sat in on was not nearly as intellectually engaging. These could have been flukes, though, so I’d love to hear from anyone who had different experiences. She has a good friend at BMC who adores it. And overall we are confident that both are amazing! What’s your thinking on the decision?
@Itisatruth @Dashwoods1811 These are D21’s frontrunners as well. We hadn’t really considered a women’s college but decided to visit Bryn Mawr while we were in the area, and she absolutely loved it! She’s sad that our planned April visit to Mt. Holyoke, has – of course – been postponed but hopeful we can get there this summer or fall). Look forward to hearing both of your impressions!
@Dashwoods1811 (nice handle, BTW, we seem to have an Austen thing going here) @kbm770:
I agree that Mount Holyoke seems to work harder to generate enthusiasm and sell the school. Because it’s twice the size of Bryn Mawr, it’s also just a livelier campus (and a way more active accepted student FB page, D20 notes). I think there has been more curricular innovation there in the past 5-7 years @MHC than at Bryn Mawr (examples: Nexus programs, Lynk funding, learning support, LLCs, etc.)
My niece is a senior @ MHC now (though sadly not there actually – what a disappointing senior spring for them!) and has had a wonderful time - very engaged and supportive faculty, terrific friends through her athletic team (equestrian), truly spectacular summer & study away opportunities. The only thing that gives me a little pause about MHC is the “call out culture” – which my niece unfortunately had way too many first-hand experiences with to make me think it’s not that common or prevalent. Truth be told, it’s likely also a problem at Bryn Mawr and at many HWCs and other (wonderfully) progressive LACs.
D20 is thinking about an environmental science major and/or something that would position her for graduate study in art conservation (so, chemistry and/or art history) – I am confident both schools would have terrific offerings in all of these topics on campus, even more through consortia, and more study away opportunities than you could take advantage of. Both schools have really strong alumnae networks and career counseling. Both schools offered her the same (generous) merit package.
Oh, and we live in Philly. So one school is 8 miles/17 min train ride away, and the other is a 5-hour drive or way longer on the train or bus. (We do have family in Noho so that’s a huge plus.) D20 loves the Philly music scene and I think would enjoy serving as nightlife “tour guide” to fellow Mawrtyrs if she were here. Living so close could be best of both worlds – she could ignore us when she wanted but also bring friends (or laundry) home whenever. Finally, she has a very good high school friend who just committed to MHC, and a dear middle school teacher and mentor who is an enthusiastic BMC alum.
Couldn’t place a bet right now if I had to!
@Itisatruth Love the Austen connection–occupational hazard for me 
This is incredibly helpful–great to know about your niece. I’m glad to hear about the curricular innovation at MHC, which tracks with our small amount of anecdotal evidence. Also good to know that the MHC campus is “lively.” During our visits, BMC was actually livelier, but I think this was weather-related. It seems that BMC and Haverford are very tightly entwined, so the effect is of a much bigger school–do you think this is correct? My daughter is also interested in environmental science, and I was not sure whether it was a disadvantage that Haverford seems to be the center of gravity for that program rather than BMC. My concern would be whether Haverford students are preferred for research spots, funding for summer fellowships, etc. Also another of my daughter’s big interests is studio art, and that is centered at Haverford as well. Overall I see it as a big advantage that she can take classes at both, but that would be canceled out if she will be a second-class citizen in her major areas. Do you know how enrollments work? Will she even be able to get in to studio art classes at Haverford? Popular classes can be tough to get.
And thanks for the tip about call-out culture. Definitely a drag, but not a deal-breaker for us. If it were the case that BMC is less like that, that could possibly make a difference. I’ll ask our student connection there. We also have generous merit at both, which vaulted them over Wellesley and Barnard and some other great places.
Keep us updated if you get any more info! Thanks again.
Well, to finish out this sage: D20 committed to Bryn Mawr tonight!! It was leaning that way for a couple of weeks and she made it official tonight. Very hard to pass up some other great options, especially Mount Holyoke and Sarah Lawrence. She’ll apply for her gap year deferral this weekend and hope to have that approved within the week.
Thank you so much to everyone who followed this thread for well over a year. Your advice and support and encouragement was much appreciated!
Anassa kata!!
@Itisatruth Congratulations! So happy for your daughter and your whole family. Thanks for taking us on the adventure. I love a happy ending!
Congrats to your daughter!!
Congrats!