<p>@overtheedge,</p>
<p>Thank you! She is VERY VERY excited about her UNC acceptance… I am not. Talk about a logistical nightmare to get her there. So much cheaper to stay in the NE. </p>
<p>Received a call from D (who was at UVA for “Days on the Lawn”): “Mom, I got the Regent’s Scholarship from Pepperdine!” So wonderful to hear her so happy, especially after a week of mostly redirections. </p>
<p>Admission decisions all in with 4-3-3 result.</p>
<p>Accepted:
Alabama - full tuition plus $1,000
Rhodes
UVA
Pepperdine - 39.6k scholarship</p>
<p>Waitlisted:
Washu
Tufts
Vanderbilt</p>
<p>Redirected:
Duke
Rice
Stanford</p>
<p>@TitanAPBioTchr - I also think it depends on the kid, assuming you are fine with the travel, storage considerations, and other costs inherent with a long distance school. On the one hand, my D can’t wait to go somewhere new where she doesn’t know a soul (even to the other side of the continent where we’d only be able to fly her home at Christmas and during the summer); on the other hand, her twin, my S14, would be miserable going far away, and is very content to attend the local CC his first two years, with the thought that he’ll go away to school to finish up his degree. Hopefully, one more visit to each school will help your kid decide where he/she would be happiest.</p>
<p>Great news @1dile! Is Pepperdine her top choice? It certainly is in a beautiful location. </p>
<p>Congrats to @NewHaven, @KaMaMom & @KC for the good news and great choices!</p>
<p>Hugs to @onlyonemom on the redirection.</p>
<p>Was it you @eyemamom who mentioned parents involvement due to the cost? I’m right there with you. It’s not like we have a crystal ball, but I want to make sure before any money is handed over, that Spygirl has really weighed her options. She doesn’t love either top school. She likes them well enough and would be happy to attend but she never did find that fabulous fit. </p>
<p>Plot thickens here-working on the spreadsheet.</p>
<p>Accepted to following (all money is merit)
Tulane ($30K per year)
Santa Clara ($22,500 per year)
USC (withdrew from Presidential Scholars consideration–would have been 1/2 tuition)
Univ. of San Diego ($25K/ per year)
Emory ($15K per year)
Wash U (no $)
Vanderbilt (Ingram Scholar–ful tuition)
Univ. of Notre Dame (Hesburgh-Yusko Scholar-$25K per year)
Claremont McKenna ($10K per year but still being considered for full tuition)
University of Pennsylvania</p>
<p>Rejected
Yale</p>
<p>Go2girl is processing. Will have to win the real lottery to attend either Wash U or Penn. I feel like we picked a good amount of reaches/safeties and focused on the reach schools that also had significant merit opportuities. Double lottery but looks like she did all right!</p>
<p>@2016BarnardMom - My son is right there with you. He needs some “college-free” time. I think he is more stressed about the prospect of leaving than he is letting on. So no college talk until we tour UCSD on Wednesday.</p>
<p>@go2mom - Spygirl’s BF just told me that Santa Clara’s total COA is $62K!!! He has full tuition so will be attending. But Holy Jesuits, Batman. I’d say go for Vandy, but what is go2girl thinking?</p>
<p>@Agentninetynine - Thanks! 
She is definitely leaning toward Pepperdine at this point. It’s wonderful to feel the love from a school when redirections are coming in from others. Amazing to think that a school with a sticker price that we could never consider paying looks like it may end up costing several thousand less than our instate public school. DH and I are very grateful for UA’s and Pepperdine’s generousity. D really wants to go to the accepted student and Regent Scholars’ reception next month. As she reminded me, the coach has said she and the other incoming athletes would get to meet their teammates. Of course, I’d love for her to go and I am so thankful for the scholarship offer, but looks like it would cost close to 1.5k with hotel, car rental, and flight for the two of us (would send her on her own, but they don’t do overnight visits) for a 1-day visit, and that just seems hard to justify when that money could be going towards tuition. I told her we could look at flights, but there would have to be an amazing deal for us to be able to go.</p>
<p>Wow! Been busy for a day and just caught up! Congrats to all those with the new acceptances and scholarship awards!</p>
<p>DD is taking the day off from college thoughts but we’ve asked her to set aside an hour tomorrow to focus on where and when we will visit schools. Last night was the first time she was actively looking at Facebook groups and other pages for her accepted schools. It was only late Thursday night after her BFF was accepted to Harvard that she finally was happy about her success. She was screaming when she heard the news!! Her own news was a much more lukewarm reception. And once she found out that the girl who is also # 1 in their class had some good acceptances, she was finally able to enjoy and look forward. I think she was so worried about others and that maybe she had taken their place at Brown that she wasn’t happy for herself. She didn’t tell her favorite teacher until after school on Friday when it just came out from someone else that she had been accepted. And of course, her teacher was so excited for her!</p>
<p>Her final tally was 8-0-2:</p>
<p>Accepted:
Brown
Smith
Mt. Holyoke ($15,000 Leadership Scholarship)
Marist - Honors ($12,000 Presidential Scholarship)
Providence College - Honors (80% Tuition Aquinas Scholarship)
St. Michael’s - Honors ($25,000 Deans, Catholic HS and St. Michael’s Scholarships plus $1,000 visit grant)
University of Vermont ($12,000 Presidential Scholarship)
University of Massachusetts Amherst ($2,000 Deans Scholarship)</p>
<p>Rejected:
Yale
Princeton</p>
<p>It’s hard to determine some of which were matches/reaches/safeties. Some of the more matches (Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Providence) we assumed she would be accepted but the reach would be what, if any, merit aid she would receive. I think she actually received about what I had thought she would except she received more at Providence than I expected. But she doesn’t feel the school is a good fit for her so it’s off the table.</p>
<p>So please book us a spot on the SS Indecision! I’d love a pomegranate martini (probably more than one!) and we probably won’t be disembarking until after the Brown visit days end on April 24th! But I’m hoping by April 15th to have all the other visits done!</p>
<p>If you go to Collegenavigator’s website and click on “National Center for Transparency” (or something close to it) you can click on schools with the highest net price. You will see that Santa Clara is right near the top. There are many Catholic schools on that list because they know Catholic families will pay to send their children to a Catholic college. </p>
<p>@go2mom-one of my son’s friends turned down Stanford to attend Vandy on a full scholarship. He had a great experience and is working for Google today. I loved Vandy and it hurt me more than my son when he was rejected. Good luck with making a decision. </p>
<p>So what do you do when your child is leaning one way and you think the other school may be a better fit? DS doesn’t seem to want to discuss and I think he’s just hit his limit on college talk. Only one of the schools has an admitted student day that we’ll be attending next weekend but we may be on the SS Indecision for a while. I’ll just take a large water, some tylenol pm (or something stronger) and some sunshine please!</p>
<p>It’s fun to be in this “next phase”… D is spending tons of time on the Class of 2018 facebook page making friends with her future classmates. She’s already best friends with a young woman from Uzbekistan.</p>
<p>This morning we had an hour-long family meeting and info session about student loans and financial aid. Very sobering for her, and a relief for me to be sharing all the info, as I’ve been the only one researching/learning about it thus far. She completed the required entrance counseling and signed the promissory note. She said she really feels like a grown-up now.</p>
<p>Next up is dorm-room planning. A trip to Ikea is planned for the Accepted Students weekend roadtrip (the closest one is near her college, and far from our house.) I’m so happy to see her so excited!</p>
<p>@staceyneil - You’re moving fast! I feel like I am 3 months behind on my life as it is. Not sure I’m quite ready for the next phase! May I first have some time to just drink Martinis on the Lido deck?</p>
<p>@stakl70 - I know how you feel. D fell in love with a school that I really like, and can possibly swing financially. There is another school, however, that I think may be a better fit. Her first choice has a strong English program and the aesthetics of the school appeal to her. I’m just not convinced that the “vibe” is right for her. Unfortunately, D is quite stubborn and it has been difficult to get her to seriously consider other options. I am going to try to convince her to do an overnight at both schools.</p>
<p>@akmom - Congratulations on D’s acceptance to Brown! She has a lot of awesome choices!</p>
<p>@go2mom - Congratulations on the Penn acceptance! Sounds like she did far better than “alright!” Despite the great choices, i don’t think I could turn down full tuition at Vandy. That’s really hard to beat. </p>
<p>@1dilecon - congratulations on the Pepperdine scholarship! </p>
<p>Am catching up after a day away–lots of activity today! </p>
<p>@VandyEyes—I thought we were bad with the nineteen school visits. You win!</p>
<p>Son applied and was accepted ED in December so only heard back from a few EA schools. Had a long list of RD ready in the wings, just in case.</p>
<p>Will attend Cornell next year but was also accepted to Tulane with $25K merit (shock of my life) and Fordham. WL @ Babson, which took me by surprise, I guess. They offer both EA & ED so I wonder if applying EA was just a waste since they realize he did not apply ED. I am not really sure why schools offer both EA & ED at the same time.</p>
<p>I saw a pomegranate margarita mentioned above and that sounds really appealing!</p>
<p>@stacyneil—even though we have had the decision made for three months, there has been no talk of dorm decor. He is a bit of a minimalist. I suspect I will buy as much as I can fit in the car and then return whatever does not work. I don’t know if boys ever get excited about shopping for a dorm room. I am more concerned about winter footwear but he hasn’t given any of it a thought. If you have time after your Ikea run, please post your shopping list! I would never have thought to shop at Ikea for dorm room fittings and I get lost wandering around there w/o a plan.</p>
<p>CONGRATS to all on the amazing acceptances. Our school had quite a few admits to the Ivies and NESCAC via ED—mostly athletes and legacies, with a handful of true academic admits. The RD round did not net many Ivy acceptances, but plenty of great options.</p>
<p>@CT1417 for Cornell winter footwear my son wears these most of the time: <a href=“http://www.landsend.com/products/AlpineTrekkerBoots/id_227788”>Lands' End | Swimwear, Outerwear, Casual Clothing and more; (which look like they’re not longer available, but you get the idea anyhow) and also has a pair of <a href=“Kamik canuck black + FREE SHIPPING | Zappos.com”>Kamik canuck black + FREE SHIPPING | Zappos.com; for when something more serious is required. (edited to add: my son does not care at all about fashion, trends, etc. So I’ll vouch for the practicality of the boots, but not for how they would be received by someone who cared more about trends.)</p>
<p>He didn’t need much for the dorm room other than sheets. When we got there and saw the room layout, we bought him a set of basic plastic shelves (at WalMart I think) and we also bought power strips there once we knew how many / how long. He appreciated having a fridge in the dorm room. We didn’t rent the microfridge but bought a decent dorm fridge (pre-ordered and shipped to the Ithaca Walmart, picked up on move-in day), which S’14 will now use since S’11 is now in an apartment. He also appreciated having a printer in his room, though they have reasonable access to printers on campus in any case. Most of the things on my shopping list for him were toiletries and basic meds that he would not have had his own “copies” of at home. All my kids went to overnight camp so we had an abundance of towels we didn’t care too much about that we let him take from. We had purchased a floor lamp and returned it. The room did not need it. The desk also came with a desk lamp, but he kept the desk lamp he had brought to use as a bedside lamp. If he is not in an air conditioned dorm, he will probably appreciate a fan for the room for a few weeks. We had little clip-on fans from camp that he took one of.</p>
<p>DS seems to be 5-1-1 (I’ll attempt to explain) </p>
<p>Attending: Philadelphia U for Textile Engineering (Honors, $15K merit, $8.9 grant. PhilaU stacks merit on top of need instead of reducing need!)</p>
<p>Accepted: (in decreasing COA)
Rensselaer for ChemE ($21.7k merit)
Lafayette for ChemE ($20.1 grant)
PhilaU (in the middle, but much closer to Rowan than Lafayette)
Rowan for ChemE (Honors, $18K merit)
Pitt Bradford for Chem E (Honors, $6K merit)</p>
<p>Waitlisted:
Bucknell for ChemE</p>
<p>Rejected (We guess. They haven’t contacted us, and for various reasons we’re not contacting them)
Webb Institute (Naval Arch, & Marine Engineering)</p>
<p>DS has the most rigorous schedule he can have at his HS (they even made up classes for him) and strong grades (96% unweighted) but just so-so SATs (1390) and OK APs. Has interesting hobbies and ECs (e.g. member of Appalachian Artist-Blacksmith Guild)</p>
<p>@vandyeyes - we visited Tulane last summer and I thought it was great. Great campus vibe, set in a quaint part of NOLA that is far enough from the crazy parts of town that you could do some serious studying, but still only a trolley ride away from the fun. Wish their music program was a better fit for D, 'cause I wanted the excuse to go visit - love that town!
(BTW, I’m a huge Michigan fan, it’s a great university, but full tuition scholarships are a wonderful thing)</p>
<p>@mathmomvt—Thanks for the shopping list!</p>
<p>I brought a fridge from home when I started college and passed it along to each of my siblings. Best $99 ever spent! Good tip on picking up at Wal-Mart. I assume the lounges have microwaves so I hadn’t considered buying one of those.</p>
<p>I had planned on sending a monochromatic laser printer as I think that would be useful.</p>
<p>Son is used to hanging jackets & hoodies on one of those Pottery Barn Teen peg boards/coat hook things. I am guessing they won’t be allowed to mount anything on the wall? I have read many times of Command strips or hooks but I need to google to figure out what they are.</p>
<p>Reading @Quagmiro’s results above just drives home how arbitrary this process is. I wouldn’t have expected a WL from Bucknell after a $20K grant from Lafayette.</p>
<p>@CT1417, yes there was a microwave on each floor. I think maybe a fridge in there too, but that’s an iffier thing to share 
</p>
<p>Indeed, they can’t mount anything on the walls. So they either use command hooks (my son uses these) or something that hangs over the closet door. The command hooks are just these plastic hooks by 3M that you glue to the door using their special adhesive, and they can hold several pounds, and then at the end term they come off clean. </p>
<p>The other thing was my son took a 14 meal plan and did breakfast in the dorm room. He’s a cereal and milk guy and he could buy both in the little store near the dining halls on North campus using his “big red bucks” (dining dollars), and we also occasionally sent him assorted packs of the mini cereal boxes using Amazon Prime (which college students can get free for a year btw). So we sent him with some Corelle dishes, mugs, a couple of plates (for microwaving pizza or whatever), couple of utensils, and a small thing of dish soap. (Then the second year, because he was on west campus, he was required to take an unlimited meal plan, which was more pricey :-/)</p>
<p>I can explain that partially. Lafayette was need-based grant not merit. Rennselaer merit was based on being a Rennselaer Medalist (which might be the easiest merit aid to get in the country if you’re from the right high school). Lafayette draws admitted students from the general pool of applicants. Bucknell selects students based on their intended major, so DS was really competing for one of 25 ChemE positions.</p>
<p>@kc1214mom - D went to Temple in Feb for an audition, reported that she “loved the campus vibe”, and that Temple scholarship is fantastically good. I often have students asking me advice about college prestige, and if your S is going into engineering, then prestige <em>might</em> make a difference in that first job he gets out of college - but his GPA and what he does during his summer internships will matter so much more. After that his career is going to be all about him and his skills. Engineering is more of a “merit” career, where the quality of your work is more important than your old boy network in your career advancement, so coming out of college debt-free is going to put him so far ahead of graduating from a more prestigious school in the long run. Good luck! </p>