<p>My son received another big envelope yesterday. So excited as they had said he would not hear until mid-March. Only included a partial financial aid piece, the merit scholarship, which was great, over 10K x 4 years. I’m so glad he likes all of his schools. Now he is getting anxious to hear from the rest. Four down, four to go!! Anyone else hearing anything?</p>
<p>Thanks, Historymom. Will do. I had called one of the schools and they did say to send it now.</p>
<p>
Nothing yet. </p>
<p>I just wish I could always make time stretch out like this. This month is going to take longer than the whole rest of his childhood.</p>
<p>yeah nightchef but then May zips by like nobody’s business :(</p>
<p>D and I both got an e-mail last night asking for a correction on the FAFSA so the school could finish its financial aid package (which will equal 0 for need aid–just a formality). This came from a school for which there hasn’t been a decision yet, so reading between the lines was encouraging …</p>
<p>April will be crazy, too. I’ve checked the websites of my son’s schools and many of the Accepted Students Days conflict with one another. Going to try and map that out in advance, just in case. Decision time is going to be hard. FA packages will help in that regard, however ;)</p>
<p>Yeah, I don’t want to travel to accepted students days until I find out if the financial aid would make it feasible to go.</p>
<p>^^yes, it makes sense just to have them do return visits to the top two choices after finaid is known…at least that is the approach we’ll take. S1 has a current favorite, has been accepted, we’ve seen finaid and he’s already done a return visit to an “early” admitted student day a few weeks ago. He’s clearly heading down that path as he waits to hear admit or deny from his other favorite and trying to decide if he even wants to go to admitted day for his “third” choice. If he gets admitted at the #2 choice and finaid looks good, we’ll send him back for another visit otherwise we just might be done I think. S2 holds things close to his chest so it will be an interesting month.</p>
<p>Our son is going to do overnights at his top four schools. I know, it sounds like overkill, but he’s really having a hard time distinguishing among them based on visits last summer. He also wants something other than a prepackaged visit (not sure the overnights will do exactly that, but at least some of his time there will be off-script). </p>
<p>It also helps (in terms of his willingness) that for two of them, he’s going to miss school.</p>
<p>Gweeta, I think it is fine. It will help give him and you more comfort with the most important decision he has ever made.</p>
<p>His Final Four tournament will be as exciting as the NCAA’s</p>
<p>Gweeta,
Our daughter did what your son is doing and the visit with the kids in the dorm is what “sealed the deal” in addition to class visits, etc. All of the schools she was accepted to were comparable with the school’s quality and aid. She was exhausted with cramming in four schools but glad she did it. Two years later she remains happy with her choice.</p>
<p>We are doing the same with our son this year. He has done one admitted overnight and really found it helpful, especially the time with the guys in the dorm. He also got a lot out of interviewing with professors and sitting in on class. We have three schools left to go in his visits (he has four choices that he narrowed his admits to-any of them would be great for him).</p>
<p>Congratultions to your son!</p>
<p>Gweeta I think you should let your son do whatever needs to be done and you know your son (and your travel budget) best! Just because mine is just going back to two is just what’s going on in our particular family circle! If all things were equal (financially) and with my travel budget I’d let him visit as many as he needed, believe me. It’s a huge decision for the student and for the parents if you look at the tuition cost aspect. My mom was visiting yesterday and lamenting what a different world it was and I said well when I went to college it wasn’t an 80-100 thousand dollar decision and was only a total of 10% of just your salary at a private school and my dad was an exec and made alot more than my mom so it hardly made a dent in their day to day life. Heck my husbands and my first house only cost $29,000 and THAT was a major decision and college tuition will eat up a huge chunk of our one and only salary. So we are being abit frugal about return trips but son really has only 2 strong favorites so it works for us.</p>
<p>Thanks to all for the reality check. I guess it seems like overkill to me because we have to run him around to all those places, but the points you all make ring true. </p>
<p>As far as it being a different world, I couldn’t agree more. I graduated from college in 1980, so it’s not like it was another century (oops, I guess it was). In any case, I simply cannot believe how different the whole process is now. </p>
<p>In particular, on the financial side, if you think about the fact that college costs have been rising faster than inflation for years, it makes sense that this wasn’t as much skin off of our parents’ noses as it will be off of ours.</p>
<p>I think that I applied to 3 schools. I remember completing the application with a ball point pen and our family typewriter. In fact, my parents bought a typewriter for me to take to college (a little different than our children taking a laptop and all of the other electronics). I remember the “big” purchase the summer before my senior year. I was one of 2 females in taking physics in my high school. My parents had to spend $100 on my calculator (that calculator can be purchased for about $15 today and it is a lot thinner and smaller). </p>
<p>One could not complete 15 applications via typewriter. What a pain! They did not need to compare financial aid packages and merit awards either and we were solidly middle class. Today my mother says, “Well college was always expensive.” She is just clueless as to how expensive. Oh, and when she attended college, it was a CUNY school and it was completely free for her, and it was a very good education.</p>
<p>S received an email today, he received a dean’s scholarship at his second choice state school. Even though this is not his first choice, they have a very good program in his major and I think he’d do fine there. </p>
<p>We may go to an admitted students day next week at his safety. We never visited, and he would not be directly in his major there, but they offered a decent merit award. And since it looks like the two $$ privates are probably off the table, it would be good to fully check out the reamaining options.</p>
<p>LOL re the calculator. My first TI was $100, too. I remember being so impressed that it could take square roots.</p>
<p>DH and I only applied to one college each, different instate publics. I still have my acceptance letter!
We knew we would get in, each was the best instate public for our respective majors and it was what we could afford. There was no worrying or drama.
That was pretty much the norm in our small town.</p>
<p>Martina, congrats to your S. Who knows? Maybe his second choice will become his first.
Both my S’s have really enjoyed life at our big state u’s.</p>
<p>Martina, congrats!</p>
<p>My S is doing two overnights (one set up by the college, the other just staying with a friend) on the nights before the admitted students’ days.</p>
<p>Do you think they end up sleeping on the floor for these, by the way? The two overnights are two nights in a row, and I’m wondering if my son will be cranky after two nights on floors!</p>
<p>it depends R2R. I have mothered mine through 4 overnights. At 2 the RAs in the hosting dorm borrowed mattresses to flop on the floor, at one D slept in the bed of the roommate who was not there and in another she slept on the floor. A yoga mat rolled up and shoved in a suitcase may soften the floor and take the grouch out of your boy if he’s to sleep on the floor…that is if he will go for it.</p>