<p>My son is now lamenting that he didn’t apply to any schools in Boston. Talk about snooze you lose!! We went to Northeastern, which was great, but seemed way to big for him, as well as a reach given his years of not taking honors and APs, not because he was a slacker, but rather that he was on an IEP and was not allowed/supported to take those courses. We had to fight to get him into them, except French of course, which he’s been in honors and AP throughout and has studied in France twice already.
UVM delivers their decisions today at 5pm. Not sure how that will go…at least we will know one way or another. St. Michael’s is another late notifier…I’m thinking they probably like to coincide with UVM, as many applicants apply to both schools.
Again, good luck to everyone…isn’t this waiting at the end just awful? Happy St. Patrick’s Day, may the luck of the Irish be with you~</p>
<p>UConn is much more difficult to get into than UVM, even for in-state CT students. Anecdotally, S was admitted into both but received a good amount of merit money from UVM, no merit money received from UConn. Of course, UConn is gobs cheaper for us, even with the merit money. Unfortunately, he probably isn’t headed there.</p>
<p>One thing I have heard recently about UVM is that they have a great support department for students with disabilities. Friend’s son with some serious LDs is headed there.</p>
<p>ctmom2boys – I think you bring up a very important point – especially for students whose academic performance in high school might put them statistically below the 50th percentile of applicants at a given college. If you are applying to any rolling admissions college, particularly a public one, the sooner you apply the better. We have had multiple instances in our community this year where students applying to SUNYs procrastinated in getting their applications in and ended up being rejected while statistically weaker students who applied before January were admitted. HS juniors who are thinking about applying to a rolling admissions school next year would be wise to spend some time this summer working on essays and gathering information for their application so they can hit the ground running in September.</p>
<p>CTMom, Did your son get any merit money from Champlain? Son just got an e-mail inviting him to an open house there on May 15. I might see if we can get up there then. Most colleges seem to have April open houses, which is not a good time to take my son out of school. We are going to visit some, but can’t go too far!</p>
<p>Thanks for the info, ReadytoRoll. I didn’t realize UConn was more competitive, but should have realized, with the sports alone 
Just re-checked Naviance from our school and it does appear slightly more selective in GPA and close in SAT scores with UVM. Of course, the Naviance only compares students at our school, so it’s skewed in that regard.<br>
Good to hear about Support Services. I’ve heard the same thing about Northeastern. When touring UVM I was a bit dismayed by the large class sizes, even in the ‘small’ classes. Most of the other schools had much smaller class sizes. I am worried about my son becoming a number, and he most likely will not seek support on his own, though that’s just the worrying mom thing. Really looking forward to his getting out from the high school cloud and branching out. I think he will thrive. He is very smart and has no LDs. Just praying for the right fit [at a price we can afford!]
Cheers~</p>
<p>HudsonValley,
You are so right…great advice for juniors and their parents. Being in the bottom 50% with a GPA 3.0-3.3 is not a good place to be. Colleges love to tout having their student body all be in the top 50% and higher. The absence of merit from some of my son’s acceptances has been hard, especially since it’s partially because he is at such a competitive high school. Clearly with his intellect he should have been in the top 25%, but that’s not the way it went. It’s hard, but it’s life. He’ll have to work that much harder in college, which will probably feel good, since he’ll be doing it for himself and his future.</p>
<p>Okay, first, my son received no money from Champlain, his GPA wasn’t even a 3.0 and he also had an IEP because he has NVLD (Non Verbal Learning Disability). We’re paying the full ride at Champlain and if my younger son gets into Loyola or Providence, we’ll be paying all of that too. Good thing we’ve been saving for 25 years, lol.</p>
<p>He had a great recommendation from a very well respected teacher at the high school who typically doesn’t even write recommendations, but she actually offered to do it for him. I think that was key to him getting accepted at Champlain, and it has not been easy for him even though he loves going there. He is tutored by a grad student an hour every week, NVLD is the kind of disability that makes getting good grades a real struggle, and very few teachers and professors know about it.</p>
<p>Now, WRT the whole GPA issue, I find the admissions process really stupid. Too much emphasis on GPA’s, IMO.</p>
<p>Take my husband, he’s running a large public corporation and is very, very smart, but he was not a good student. He went to community college his freshman year then transferred to a mediocre state college where he graduated from, but by all accounts, has been very successful professionally.</p>
<p>He turns down job applicants from ivy league B-schools regularly, so for those kids thinking that graduating from an elite school is the ticket to success, not true.</p>
<p>As he says, give me a B student from a no-name school with street smarts, a great personality and great work ethic and attitude over an entitled scholar with book smarts any day.</p>
<p>So good luck to all the 3.0-3.3’s who would be turned away by shortsighted admissions kidselors (let’s face it, most of them are kids with zero real world experience, I know, I read their bios.). Sadly these are the people deciding whether our kids are worthy and most of them don’t look at the whole student, only numbers and test scores. Both my sons’ worked year round throughout high school but I doubt that counts for much when it comes to college admissions and I think it should.</p>
<p>I want to emphasize others’ assertions that applying early action to many schools makes a huge difference in changes of admission. We have heard many stories of kids with incredible stats being rejected from UConn while kids with lower stats who applied early got in. (I actually think it also helped with Tulane and UMiami; S applied to both in September and was admitted to Tulane in November and Miami around late November I think, while kids who appeared to have higher stats are being deferred or rejected now.)</p>
<p>Amen, CTMom. Good luck with the decisions.</p>
<p>On another note, I just got the mail and there was an envelope from St. Michael’s. It wasn’t big and it wasn’t small. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. And it was purple. It did not look like a decision letter by any means, more like an invitation or something. Having just been on the UVM site checking to see if they might have posted their decisions earlier than 5pm, I was a bit anxious, and thought what the heck, I’ll open this letter…
It was the decision letter [and now I feel like a jerk for opening], and YAY, my son was admitted. [I wish I knew they sent little purple envelopes!] I tucked it all up carefully closed and cannot wait to see my son after school. Guess we’ll be re-visiting Burlington in April afterall! Very excited.
He is now 6/6…can this be happening? Guess we really focused on the right schools for my son and didn’t sugar coat what the process would be like. I know they deliberated over my son’s application, because he was deferred initially and even got a C+ first term in Economics which didn’t help matters. It’s so nice to see someone was pulling for him up there. There was also a nice handwritten note at the bottom, in purple as well. Nice welcoming letter. I know that my son’s guidance counselor also wrote to them after his deferral and I think that helped alot…Having someone believe in our kids is really special.</p>
<p>Now that just made my St. Patrick’s Day for sure :)</p>
<p>Cape Cod Lady Congratulations to your S. </p>
<p>Happy St. Patrick’s day Everyone!</p>
<p>Awesome, CCL8!! </p>
<p>
I’ve been having this feeling too. It’s wonderful to reflect that somebody out there has been making a case for my kid to their colleagues (and a successful case at that).</p>
<p>Congrats to your son CClady! That’s fantastic news!</p>
<p>If your son ends up in Burlington I have some great recommendations for hotels and restaurants.</p>
<p>The mail should get here in another hour…keep your fingers crossed for us.</p>
<p>CapeCodLady - Congratulations on your great news. Your synopsis was very touching - nice to hear that there is a chance of being accepted after being deferred.</p>
<p>Bad news…my son was waitlisted at Loyola, I can see through the envelope. I understand that last year only 11 out of 631 kids got in from the waitlist.</p>
<p>He is going to take this very, very hard.</p>
<p>ctmom 
so sorry. Do you think he will opt to stay on it?</p>
<p>Oh CTMom,
I’m so sorry Good luck this evening.<br>
UVM posted their decisions too. My son was waitlisted as well…Getting the earlier decision from St. Mike’s during the day softened that blow, thank goodness.
One hold out left: Clark
We’ll see how that goes, they are ‘funny’ with their selections and all over the Naviance grid with acceptances.
Thanks to everyone for your kind words, and again, so sorry CTMom. Hang in there.
CCL~</p>
<p>ctmom2boys,</p>
<p>Is that the Loyola in Maryland?! I just got my wait list letter today too, but was accepted into the other two (Chicago and New Orleans!), did he try either of those?</p>
<p>CTMom and CapeCodLady - I’m sorry about the waitlist status. It is really upsetting at first but after a few days you begin to focus on the schools that sent acceptances. </p>
<p>My S was waitlisted at Stonehill and deferred from Marist. He knew they were both reach schools but was still disappointed - all part of the process.</p>
<p>Best of luck to those sweating out waitlists; in this economy, there may be more kids turning down acceptances for better packages than in most years.</p>
<p>The value of applying early if you are not a stellar applicant is yet another important tip than few GCs pass on, even at schools where parents pay lots in schools taxes.</p>
<p>yabeyabe2 - agreed - best thing is to apply early action if possible. This approach definitely helped my son.</p>