<p>DS is in full “make the most of your time with friends” mode now. Went to a party last night at a friend’s house to celebrate everyone’s college acceptances. All of his “tribe” have been accepted into great schools and all are so happy now and ready to relax a bit. Tonight he is out with a smaller group of friends for a boys’ night out watching basketball.</p>
<p>DH has booked all the flights for move-in day (a few days early because he needs to report early for his sport), Thanksgiving, Winter break, and Spring break.</p>
<p>DS has been perusing the Facebook page but is not actively looking for a roommate yet. In a couple of weeks he will receive info about the rest of the freshman recruiting class and there is a good chance his roommate will also be a teammate.</p>
<p>@TitanAPBioTchr - Thank you so much for your response. I will share it with my S as he compiles his lists of pros and cons. Best of luck to your D! :)</p>
<p>I’m just going to have to check this site several times a day!</p>
<p>Does it seems weird to you to say I’m a little jealous of those of you boarding the Indecision as guests? There’s something exciting about all the possibilities.</p>
<p>@2014novamom - Wow, I’m so impressed by your DH having booked all the flights already!! I was just telling my mom once D makes her final decision, assuming she goes out-of-state, I want to go ahead and book her Christmas flight. Also, what wonderful hs counselors and what great advice!</p>
<p>@staceyneil - I’d love to see your shopping list for Ikea too! I’m really looking forward to that part!</p>
<p>@mathmomvt - Thanks for the list of dorm room essentials!</p>
<p>@jasmineRose - please include me in on the recipe! Hopefully, the admitted students’ weekend at the both the schools will help your DD in her decision. I, too, think about the possibility she may change her mind on the major she wants to pursue. Wish both student weekends were were early in April to help her decide.</p>
<p>I think I’ve mentioned this before, but my son loved this pop-up laundry hamper. It’s light and breathes, but very sturdy and has a pocket for carrying softener, etc. </p>
<p>@vandyeyes - congrats on the nice scholarship at Tulane! My S2 will be visiting next weekend. He’s driving me a little nuts right now with wanting to work every night and not deal with schoolwork or scholarship apps. His little rebellion, but it’s getting a little old!</p>
<p>Hey everyone, I’d like to officially welcome @TitanAPBioTchr to the thread - he also happens to be my DH! He’s been hearing me tell CC stories for 4 years now. As you might guess from his screen name, he’s a high school AP Biology teacher. I think he can learn a ton from you all that he can then share with his students who frequently discuss college application issues with him.</p>
<p>Congratulations to all! We are excited to finally be boarding the SS Indecision - though also a little terrified as it looks like it could be a rough ride. Hope there is some Dramamine on board…D has some great choices, but it is all going to come down to the financials. This is what we have:
Accepted
Tufts
Oberlin
UCLA
Barnard
Scripps
Occidental
UC Irvine - honors and Regents</p>
<p>Wait list
WUSTL
UC Berkeley</p>
<p>Rejected
Yale
USC</p>
<p>Tufts is the big favorite, but we are waiting on the financial aid package to see if it is even possible. Trying to figure out a schedule for visits for overnights in the next few weeks - but really can’t even do that until we have all the FA info, so I guess we are still waiting…the stress never ends.</p>
<p>Lots of nice acceptances and FA packages! Awesome!</p>
<p>TitanAPBioTchr: My son loved his AP Bio teacher! He only got a 3 on the exam last year, but he always says that she challenged him more than other teachers did. BTW, the two bonded over a love of banana pudding!</p>
<p>Son '14 started his outdoor track and field season with two nice performances. Finished third in a distance medley race, breaking the old school record by 29 seconds. Then took a fifth in the 4 by 400 relay. But, boy was he wet when he got home! It rained steadily throughout the meet. But, at least it was not snow here in VA!</p>
<p>And for those who have been following the continuing saga of my older son and his law school admits. He has all but decided that he will accept an offer from UVA Law. Which means he will be 90 or so minutes from home, and on a full tuition/fees scholarship. He probably will call regularly and ask if I could visit … and bring leftovers.</p>
<p>Many congratulations ! I love reading the post ! Welcome TitanABio teacher! My son really enjoys his Bio/ physics teacher ! Great guy- teaches honors Bio and AP physics. S was lucky to have him two years in a row.
Momreads - I am so glad you will have your older son close by and maybe he will settle down near you once he graduates from Law school- debt free! </p>
<p>The nephew story - applied to 16 colleges - 3-6-7…ouch…he will join several WL but is strongly considering Oberlin and University of Wisconsin.</p>
<p>I had a long chat with our private college counselor yesterday and she said this has been quite the crazy year for admissions (as many of us have seen!) She said that she saw most of her students get into at least one of their favorites but than were shut out at similar stat schools. She also said that this year she saw a huge rise in schools accept ED students to protect their yield, leaving far fewer spots RD. And if you were a STEM kid applying at Top 20 schools, those SAT 2s had to be over 750. For engineering especially, anythign less than a 750 took you out pretty quickly. The Ivies, in particular, were brutal to kids who were not doing consistent research. My kid is not a STEM kid so fortunately it did not hurt her. But a lot of her friends who wanted to do science got shut out. </p>
<p>GotoMom- thanks for sharing - my nephew had the stats including the SAT 2 - stats . I think he had too much internal competition at his HS. You wonder how much colleges really do look at the entire application with so many apps to review…my nephew who never finished his app to Haveford got on the wait list? Odd…probably only looked at his stats…I feel sad for him …he works really hard ( like many students) but he feels it did not pay off for him. But I feel he has a strong knowledge base to enter college and he will do great where ever he lands…
It is what it is…maybe I need to offer my brother a ticket on SS Indecision and buy by him a Guinness! </p>
<p>@go2mom—I agree with your counselor’s assessment, just watching the admit cycle here in our town. Our HS sends many to NESCAC and Ivies as athletic admits & a few legacies, and then another handful or so to Ivies (+Stanford, Duke, etc) as true academic ED/SCEA admits, leaving the RD round with a much lower hit rate. I haven’t heard of any total shutout stories, but even my son commented that he feels that one or two friends’ outcomes weren’t ‘fair’. (I don’t want to trigger the conversation taking place on the SWF NE thread! My son just feels bad for his friends as he knows their stats and abilities.)</p>
<p>Also agree about the increased percentage of class filled via ED. Penn had 54% of its class locked up in December, while a few of the other Ivies (and Hopkins, Northwestern, etc) filled 40+% of class via binding ED. </p>
<p>I keep thinking something has to change in the college admission world. It will be interesting to see if there is greater use of WLs this year. There also seem to be more Jan admits or sophomore year admits, or maybe I am just noticing them more. </p>
<p>@onlyonemom—interesting about your nephew’s incomplete app landing him on the WL!</p>
<p>Still waiting for the snail mail from Swarthmore before we can truly be ready to board SS Indecision. </p>
<p>I keep wondering why in the world I had my D’s four years apart. D10 is making grad school decisions while D14 is working on the undergrad list. What a world of confusion…</p>
<p>@elkaydee If you have any questions about Barnard, feel free to ask </p>
<p>For those with students weighing Oberlin or Brown against other schools, I highly recommend any other school (Ok, so I have ulterior motives). </p>
<p>I spent the morning getting know everything I could about Kalamazoo from their website. From payment plan terms to Res Life “what to bring” lists to rules about cars, dining hall options and menus, and the academic calendar. I compared payment plan terms to Michigan’s payment plan terms and I really, really, really love what a bargain we’d be getting at Michigan- this year anyway. Since I’m not allowed to talk about college this weekend, I just took a lot of notes. </p>
<p>I’m also getting very used to the idea of being able to go get the boy for a weekend or take a ride out there to take him out for lunch and drop off “supplies” (hygiene items, medicines, snacks) which I cannot do with my girlie in NYC. I’m thinking his work study money would be his spending money and I won’t have to provide an allowance for those types of things. That’s a real plus. And both schools are close enough to do that. Ann Arbor is close enough to stop by to take him out to dinner. I don’t know if he’d see that as a plus or not! LOL </p>
<p>@gotomom and @CT1417 – The pressure applied by the upper-tier schools to get kids to apply binding-ED, or risk facing long lottery-type odds is disgusting. This year at my son’s fancy-pants competitive private high school the two college counselors told the kids that if they wanted to get an elite school, they needed to apply ED (or SCEA). That was largely shown to be good advice, as there were a lot of happy ED kids, but a lot of unhappy RD kids. But we do know kids who were pressured by parents/counselors to go ED, but who very likely ended up at schools that were chosen more on the basis of name cachet as opposed to ‘fit’. Not all of those stories will end well.</p>
<p>@2016BarnardMom – my son’s best friend in high school is headed to Michigan. He’s a wonderful kid – bright, hard-working (but not a nerd), funny, etc. My son sometimes gives me a hard time, saying that if I think his buddy is so perfect why don’t I just adopt him. If the WL schools don’t pan out (fingers here are crossed), well, he’ll find a lot of great kids at Michigan. . . And I would die to have my son so close that I could see him for dinner every so often . . </p>
<p>Congrats to all on acceptances, scholarships, and FA pkgs!</p>
<p>D returned home late last night after spending an extra day with friends up north after her UVA visit. Although she is so happy with the Pepperdine offer, she really likes UVA, and her first love is Vandy where she accepted a spot on the waitlist, saying she’d probably go there first if given the chance (FA would need to be there). So, looks like we need to climb aboard and get going on the spreadsheet.</p>
<p>@momreads - wow, 29 secs - that’s huge! Congrats to your S14! And Congratulations to your older son on his full tuition scholarship to UVA Law! Sounds like a lot to celebrate in your house!</p>
<p>@onlyonemom - I feel for your nephew. It has to be discouraging to kids at the top of their class, with high stats, who feel like they gave it everything they had, only to be rejected by most of their schools.</p>
<p>@CT1417 - very enlightening. For those who have a definite favorite among all their schools, it seems ED really works in their favor. As much as my D loved several of the schools she applied to, I don’t think she was ready in the Fall to make that ED commitment to any one of them.</p>
<p>@MImama - how hard to still be waiting on a school! Keeping my fingers crossed for your D to get good news from Swarthmore tomorrow!</p>
<p>@1dilecon—I know NOTHING about Vandy other than the little I have read in this thread (all wonderful), but my understanding is that FA is very limited once a school moves to the WL. This may be different at Vandy, but at many schools, being full pay can move one off the WL more quickly. My understanding is that many schools have already awarded their FA $$s. Now, one would think that if the school is moving to WL that perhaps some of those previously awarded FA may not use the FA….</p>
<p>@go2mom - I agree with your counselor’s comments. I perused several other threads and sites and found some stats related to Stanford that fully support your post. It appears their overall admit rate this year was 5.1%. With the ED admits including athletes, their Questbridge admits, special legacies, etc., it is estimated that their RD admit percentage is something in the low to mid 3% range. That means if you applied RD, you had a 97% change of failure (rejection / redirection). Throw in the STEM details and it got pretty thin for those non CE/IT applicants.</p>
<p>@AsleepAtTheWheel - Again, I agree with the ED SCEA recommendations. D only applied to 6 schools and two of them were EA. She got into both of those colleges. We didn’t apply to any ED due to the potential FA concerns. Knowing what I do today after two application cycles (2011 and 2014), I would definately advise any parent with a child considering a top school to go the ED route. If they are full pay it is not an issue. If they will need FA, the upper tier schools that are need blind seem to be meeting the full or nearly full need based on what I have experienced and heard from others.</p>
</p>
(Ok, so I have ulterior motives). </p>