Yeah but I’m talking about the entire thing. Including oos tuition. It’s bad enough in-state with all the expenses. I think I read college had bumped 300-400% 15 years. Can’t remember. Is it worth it??? Does it ever get paid off. Man. I’m burnt out.
Agree, we will end up in-state 99%
generally true, but our OOS with merit is comparable to our in-state, with cost of living (off campus rent) factored in.
That’s true. It’s less about # of schools as it is understanding the true probability of being accepted to them, or at least getting a good understanding of it.
I’ll add one of my students had an aid package from Duke that was significantly more generous vs any state school- it was a no brainer and unexpected. You begin to understand the endowment and ability to cover anything without a state funding cap.
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Has anyone that paid their $300 aed have a wolfpaw portal that shows their enrollment as ‘complete’? I paid the aed today on the mypack page but the wolfpaw portal still says ‘your enrollment is not complete’ on the main page.
I understand the frustration and it’s justified. That said are you blaming the game or the player? It’s a confusing and complex system where kids are trying to get the best opportunity in a system that is for the most part uncertain.
I do agree that if someone has no intention of attending a school they should not apply. I also think if someone is deferred or accepted elsewhere they plan to attend they should notify the school. Those are both problems but on a limited scale.
The issue is the best strategy is to have safeties, likelies, and reaches. How many of each depends on the student and what they are applying for. It gets more complicated when merit scholarships are included or costs in general. Schools do what is in their best interest and so do students. If your kid has worked hard to have high stats why wouldn’t you want them to try and get into the best school they can or to get the biggest scholarships they can? There are few guarantees though so you better keep a lot of options open, you also can’t go back later and decide to apply to a school you had a great chance at because you were denied at a school you took a shot at. You have to apply for most everything before you get decisions back.
So once again I agree if a kid has zero intention of going to a school they shouldn’t apply and if they have moved on they should withdraw. Outside of that though kids are smart to keep their options open because the system forces them to.
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And, at the end of the day, these kids are 17 or 18 years old. What they think they want in September when they apply, may not be what they end up wanting in April or May. Teen years are like dog years – they grow and change so much in a short amount of time. Mine left all options open until decision day.
Schools have formulas for acceptance/yield and expect this. No one is taking up someone else’s spot, which is evidenced by how few kids are pulled from waitlists at schools like this each year (20-30 students). Many people may feel like their kid would have been accepted, if only those top students who didn’t think they’d attend had not applied, but it simply isn’t true.
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I agree, it can feel brutal.
Already having two children go thru the process, I’ve continued to advise our youngest to try to compile a list of 25 schools for next years application process (start Fall 2026), and consider applications to 15-20 of those - breaking it down to 3 “safety” and 3 “dream” with the rest split between Reach and Target. I would not have her apply anywhere she would have little to no intention of attending (even as a “safety”) but my feeling is there are a lot of schools she might ‘like’ attending, and some she would ‘love’.
As the cost of application isn’t a factor for us, it’s simply a numbers game to try to ensure she won’t get completely shut out if we limit her Reach to 3 and her Targets to 3 - since we seem completely unable to judge the difference between ‘in the pool of candidates’ with high probability of acceptance even in the target ranges. Thus far through two cycles, I haven’t been able to make hyde nor hare of In/Out with kids who appear to be quite qualified by the schools own published admitted classes. So applying to 10+ Reach/Targets could end up 7/3 or 3/7 but unlikely to be 0/10 where as applying to 5 or less could leave one 1/4 or even 0/5 and then looking solely at a “safety” school with no other options.
To your other points, once each of my other two had received acceptances to a couple of schools they knew they would accept as first choice, or accept if their first choice did not accept them (either decision pending or deferred or wait listed at first choice), they either notified the other schools they were declining their offer or asked to have their application pulled. I doubt everyone does this, as I’m sure some kids/parents like to stack acceptances like trophies, but that’s just not our way as we’ve seen other kids have to sit on the deferral or wait list having to wait out the deposit deadlines at schools so the schools know by default who’s not attending.
We are fortunate in that aid/scholarship outcomes really wouldn’t impact our decisions between schools of significantly different ‘rank’ - so paying full boat to go to their top choice/top program (I’m looking at you UT-Austin 
) wouldn’t have us choose a ‘cheaper’ alternative that wasn’t academically similar. However, having our kids peer groups have many kids who absolutely needed scholarship/aid details in order to figure things out, I know some of them did hold onto multiple acceptances until they felt secure in their decisions to accept and decline those offers.
Sometimes it takes up to 24 hours for their systems to sync. If it doesn’t correct within 24 hours of the change you should contact the help desk.
I’m sorry to hear this, I got in with a 4.19 and was anxious about it not being good enough. I think it really depends on the school. Especially the more competitive ones like engineering usually want a higher GPA than what the college likes to state their average is which is frustrating. I got into the college of natural resources which is smaller, so that’s probably why I was able to be accepted.
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Accepted OOS.
With NC accepting significantly more in state, can anyone share the school community for those kids coming out of state?
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This might be related to what you’re looking for? They do regional “Summer Send-offs” and other stuff.
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This is great. Thanks for sharing. I’m also wondering in terms of inclusive, welcoming of the out of state students?
I don’t recall anything specifically designed for out-of-state students this year, but I might have missed some things. There is an overnight orientation during the summer for all families and then Wolfpack Welcome Week has lots of inclusive programming for all students. It is the week after move-in before classes start.
was being rejected an option for ea? or was it just accepted, waitlist, and deferred
we’re in agreement that it’s broken, which explains the need to apply to multiple schools. As a CA resident, our top public flagships (UC schools) have low acceptance rates that are unfortunately almost equal in state and OOS (including international). For example, UCLA is about 8-10% regardless of where you come from. Same for the other UCs. At UCSD where I attended, the in-state, out of state, and INTERNATIONAL acceptance rates are all fairly comparable at about 20-25%. Ridiculous. International students comprise >20% of undergraduate student enrollment. To compound the problem for us, states like NC (and others) generally take care of taxpaying / university-owning residents and have a differential acceptance rate that is very low for OOS (e.g. NCS is about a 50% acceptance rate in state, but only 25% OOS, Chapel Hill is about 40+% in state, 8% OOS). So, this clearly explains the need for my kids to apply to more schools and also explains my profile name. If my current S25 has the same fate as my S23 and does not get into a good UC option, I’ll be stepping away from student mentorship/alumni advisory boards that I’m involved with, and focusing those efforts into OOS schools that accepted my kids
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Sometimes your safety, a school you didn’t think you’d attend, gives you enough financial aid that it moves to the top of the list. This might happen for my son who was recently deferred to NC State (OOS applied for sports management and probably his first choice).
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It can.
My S24 had one friend (also 24) applying for Engineering. COA was a big factor for him. His stats/resume exceeded NCSU FYE average acceptance. I believe deferred at EA then waitlisted. Tennessee was a ‘safety’ school, and he was accepted by a couple schools with ‘higher’ engineering rankings but UT offered him scholarship/aid which essentially brought is COA down close to being instate at NCSU. He put his deposit down on UT almost immediately.
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The schools understand how many kids are going to enroll. Its their job. They know how many have applied and how many will likely land at NC State. The things you are talking about in terms of uncertainty around travel and housing, etc. that is to be expected. Your son is going to be an adult. That is the complexity of life.
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