<p>With my D, she kept saying, well, I don’t know…I will tell you when I have decided</p>
<p>THen one day, a friend of ours asked her, and she said Oh I am going to XYZ…just like that</p>
<p>It like when Charlotte got engaged, all righty then</p>
<p>She entered our bedroom after midnight a couple of days before national deadline and was wearing one of the sweatshirts we had purchased while visiting prospective schools.</p>
<p>She called from accepted students weekend and told me she bought a sweatshirt.</p>
<p>wonder if males inform with clothing as well</p>
<p>Umm, I told my mom. I don’t get it, are some kids secretive about it? When I made my choice, I mentioned “Oh yeah, and I decided on UMich”…</p>
<p>Hah. My mom doesn’t know what Yale, Dartmouth etc even is - were I to get in I’d probably just vaguely tell her it’s an ok school for fear of getting the standard “uh-huh… that’s great honey” response on something I’m trying to be, and keep being, happy about.</p>
<p>My son informed me with clothing – I sent him off to visit, and he came back with a t-shirt in his luggage. Once I ascertained that he had actually paid $15 for the t-shirt, I knew the decision was made – even though he did keep on wearing the free t-shirt another college had sent after admitting him.</p>
<p>After dinner on April 29th, we wouldn’t let my son out of the kitchen until he decided. It was really down to the wire with him. </p>
<p>With my daughter, everything hinged on the financial package from her first choice school. When I saw how much it was, I knew that’s where she was going.</p>
<p>“Er, about Dartmouth… do you think I should just go ahead and order the sweater?”</p>
<p>I can’t make decisions on my own.</p>
<p>In our case, it happened last summer. After weeks and weeks of discussing the merits of various colleges (mostly Brown, with a side order of Columbia), my daughter simply announced that she planned to apply Early Decision to Cornell. Whatever. Since she was accepted, there were no more decisions to be made, except that more recently, she announced that she wants to live in the only all-women’s dorm on campus. Whatever X2.</p>
<p>When my son was in 4th grade, he mentioned he wanted to go to UVA. He never changed his mind and applied ED to UVA last year. He is a very very happy freshman there now.</p>
<p>It wasn’t that it was a secret or anything, it was that they really weren’t able to verbalize their decisions yet…because they stilll weren’t 100%</p>
<p>It was someone asking an it just naturally coming out that we knew</p>
<p>This happened with several of my Ds friends</p>
<p>I could see Smith coming for D from a long way off. But she was very diligent, visiting both Wellesley and Smith for final look-sees and overnights in April after acceptances were in. </p>
<p>She was very matter of fact when I picked her up from the Wellesley overnight, very even keeled. It was a gray drizzly morning and I really didn’t press for much detail as we drove west on the MassPike towards Smith. And then in a Frank Capra moment, we burst out of the gray and into bright sunshine under blue skies. A sign! A sign! Boy, was it hard to keep my lip buttoned. More than a year later, comparing notes, D had been thinking the same thing.</p>
<p>There was an almost audible click the moment we stepped on campus and the clicks just kept coming at encounter after encounter, presentation after presentation. We were at the presentation about internships and this one student’s experience was just a grand-slam home run with D, I could tell. I turned and said, “You’re going here, aren’t you?” She couldn’t even speak, just nodded, looking so sublimely happy that she was on the verge of tears.</p>
<p>She left an envelope on the kitchen counter that said “D’s” College Choice. Inside was a folded green sticky note that said OSU.</p>
<p>I have no idea why she did it that way. At that point I was too relieved to care.</p>
<p>Mine stepped on the Smith campus (having been at Williams three times over a two-year period) and, within an hour and half, bought a sweatshirt.</p>
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<p>That is really funny! Relief is the word, after all these months! </p>
<p>My S was very practical about the whole thing. After he received a really nice FA offer from Tulane, plus admission into the Honor’s program, he seemed to be leaning towards that school. We had gone on a visit there, and it really boosted Tulane up a lot in his mind after that. At the regional reception for accepted students, I could tell he nearly had his mind made up. Many parents and alums got up and talked about how much their kids had loved the school (some were on their 2nd and third kids at Tulane). S said to me on the way home, “Mom, I don’t think there’s any way GW (his other top choice) is going to come up with a similar FA offer.” He had also been saying how much GW’s tuition was going to go up this coming year. After receiving his acceptance into GW, but no merit aid or honors admittance, he said, “Well that’s it then. I don’t care about the others, I’m sending in my acceptance to Tulane.” He had also been admitted to SUNY Geneseo and Bard at that point, but he realized he wanted to be at a larger school in a city. He ended up getting a very nice scholarship offer from Bard, but at that point he had already been to the Honors Weekend at Tulane and registered for his fall classes!</p>
<p>D, both times, just tons of conversation which finally led to her decisions. Totally agony the first time, then more the next time, as she was deciding not only whether to transfer, but to where.</p>
<p>S, a yell from his room 11 at night when he opened the ED email “I got in!!!” So much easier.</p>
<p>We sent S on his own to revisit colleges that had accepted him, and joked that we’d know his choice by the sweatshirt he wore off the airplane. He got off the airplane wearing a Columbia t-shirt and said that he wasn’t sure enough yet to spend the money on a sweatshirt. Two more weeks of agony, more revisits, check made out to another school, his request not to send the check yet, and finally he chose…Columbia. Not sure if he ever bought that sweatshirt.</p>
<p>My daughter called excitedly from admitted student’s weeekend and announced, “I’m going to Rice!” With DS - he’s sure already, but I’m holding him off on a final decision until he has been to the admitted student’s weekend at Rice and also checked out the competition (his flagship U.)</p>