<p>Gilligan here just checking in & passing along orders from The Skipper " to all those ED ship mates - to the Lido Deck for fruity drinks - the first round is on the Captain’s tab!"</p>
<p>Gillian is now off to again swab the poop deck. </p>
<p>I love the term HMFR :)</p>
<p>D, following her friends’ ED results, said something to me last night like “if you had let me apply ED I might be done”. </p>
<p>Uh, revisionist history much darling? I just let it go, she has more supp essays to write.</p>
<p>Thank you, @green678…that is really fun. MIT’s quirkiness is one of the many things DS loves about the school and now I have another example to share with him. Or maybe not, depending on what he finds out at 12/13/14 15:16 
.</p>
<p>We are done and my views of this site after three kids will reduce. D15 accepted ED to Colby. Hard to look back on all the journey without a little bit of sentimentality. I hope all your kids receive great news…Best to all. </p>
<p>I wonder why they went with that instead of 10:11 12-13-14? Or the fleeting second of 9:10:11 12-13-14…</p>
<p>@Goaskdad, I also enjoy your posts. Good to see you! I am curious as to what you mean when you say you are noticing a trend with the merit aid rewards.</p>
<p>CONGRATULATIONS to ALL those who have gotten good news! It’ is exciting to see these rolling in…especially when the acceptance is actually to the school your kids really love! :D/
It makes it seem more possible (See, it really happens!) for those of us still waiting. </p>
<p>D has a deadline Monday for an app, then there is one more, due by Jan 1st, but since there is so much going on over the break I’m hoping she will get that done soon too. She’s written a couple essays for this next one, but scrapped them. She wants to write something 'clever and original", something a little offbeat, but the prompts don’t seem to lend themselves to that, so she is probably going to have to settle on something a little more straightforward. She also needs to submit the honors app for one of the state schools she’s been accepted to. </p>
<p>She is still worried that she doesn’t have enough schools on her list, but hasn’t found anymore to add… and we have researched and visited quite a few.<br>
It doesn’t sound like many (if any) others at her school are applying to real reach schools, with any seriousness anyway. She says a couple have applied to HYP level school…but as she says, it’s more 'because why not" than serious hopefulness. Most seem to be sticking mainly with state schools, our state and neighboring states that offer great scholarships for scores.</p>
<p>Love, love reading all the happy news on here. Congrats to all the families that are starting to have more definitive plans for next year! … wish we were there already :->.</p>
<p>D waiting for 2 big decisions due in the next 3 days. The wait is the worst!</p>
<p>Since wrestler and 16 of his teammates have been pinned by the flu I had a few minutes to stop by and catch up a bit. Congrats to everyone who has received a “fat envelope”! It is great to hear all of the good news!</p>
<p>I love reading the news here too. </p>
<p>D won’t hear from most of her schools until schools until spring, but the kid is now guaranteed to be going somewhere! She got her first acceptance yesterday from a rolling admissions safety. It wasn’t a surprise, as it was automatic with her stats, but it is still very nice to be officially in. </p>
<p>She’s finishing up the last of her RD apps this weekend (says the ever-hopeful mom). D14 is home, thrilled with her school, and sooo glad not to be the one applying this year.</p>
<p>@3girls3cats, thank you. Not sure I’ve ever been called a “ray of sunshine before” and I’m 100% certain that DS would not view me in that light these days 
But I appreciate your kind sentiments.</p>
<p>@shoboemom, I’m probably the last person in the world who’s capable of identifying trends in data or analyzing information, but suffice it to say that I’m seeing a certain percentage coming off the top for each of the schools awarding merit to DS up-front. It’s a range, but not a wide one, and it’s obviously relative to the overall tuition for each school. However, it’s like I can see a certain “mark-up” being peeled away consistently in each instance. Now this does not apply to our in-state schools that use a GPA/test score grid - the ones that award merit based on stats alone. I haven’t listed all of DS’s acceptances in the the acceptances thread either, but putting all the letters side-by-side indicates a certain trend (to me). Not all info is in yet, though.</p>
<p>Now, I should be clear in saying that we are very grateful for what DS has been awarded thus far - and thankful to the many schools that have sent merit awards with acceptances versus making him wait until Spring. If we hadn’t had such high, ongoing medical debt over the past 5 years, we’d be a lot cheerier about these packages, because many are quite generous. And the “scholarship days” or institutional full-rides are still available for DS to pursue at some schools, so not all doors have closed. But we don’t have the funds available to close the gap at most schools and we will not be getting need-based aid, so it is what it is.</p>
<p>For those reading who have younger DCs, our primary strategy here has been to have DS apply to schools where his stats put him above the top 25% of admitted applicants + schools with fewer male students than female students. If DS had been open to schools farther from home, we would have possibly been able to add “regional diversity,” but Alabama is basically the only one that’s not within one day’s drive (Roll Tide!). </p>
<p>DS is the oldest of 4 kids, so he is going to the most affordable option (whatever it is) and he accepts that. He’s lucky to be going to sleep-away college at all, which he understands. </p>
<p>So that’s what I’ve been observing, fwiw. I think @giterdone had perhaps made a similar observation about CSS PROFILE schools, but DS is not applying to any PROFILE schools (well, except for one that we didn’t realize was PROFILE and we are just letting that one fall away because DH is not submitting the PROFILE). The one single thing we have is a bit of home equity, and we are not tapping that for anything. However, if the PROFILE really asks for the model year of each vehicle in the house, then we only have 2 and they are both old cars. DH drives a car as old as DS! So maybe that might balance us out…but I doubt it ;-)</p>
<p>D got into a nice match school with a generous merit award. And she will be able to continue her swimming there. It’s a little far. But, we are so relieved that she has an excellent option. </p>
<p>I’m so happy to hear all the good news! We have been busy scheduling auditions. 2 trips west, one will be kind of awful - leaving Thursday after school for an 8 hour drive to Rochester for her audition at Nazareth on Friday, then leaving after the audition for a 4+ hour drive to the Cleveland area for her Saturday morning audition at Baldwin Wallace, then going home after that audition. One will be slightly more leisurely - again, long drive Thursday after school to go to the Cleveland area for her audition at Duquesne on Friday morning, but her next audition isn’t until Sunday at Seton Hill, and she’s going to stay overnight with a music therapy student and attend a few classes on Monday before we head home. </p>
<p>If she gets into College of Wooster, we might try to attach an audition there onto one of these trips. </p>
<p>DS is deferred…a bit disappointed, I think, but the door isn’t closed. And now he can add his new awards, so who knows?</p>
<p>S has been accepted with top merit award to a school he really likes. The pressure has lifted and as a result he has decided to go full-force with applications to HMFR schools!! This feels good! :)</p>
<p>Well - he got in to his ED school 
He is very excited, I even rated a hug!</p>
<p>But we have to wait because they did tell us FA, and it was 10K per year less than our EFC, and our EFC was kind of high for us.</p>
<p>Cost went up at least 5K for this particular school, which didn’t help</p>
<p>Going to be checking out the FA forums about this - it’s so confusing. </p>
<p>I’ll feel better if the two EA schools give worse packages, but if one gives something great, making up the 10K difference, it will be a difficult decision (though one that is nice to have to make!).</p>
<p>Congratulations @VMT and @veggylover, and @rhandco! Matches with merit 
and Ed admission…with a hug! :D/ Wooohooo! On that FA confusion…although we are hoping for multiple offers of admission, figuring out that FA is one aspect of that I am not looking forward to trying to sort out.</p>
<p>@mdcmom, I’m sorry to hear about the disappointment. It is nice that he has that new award to add. I hope he is not taking this too hard. </p>
<p>Sigh, I’m reading the thread of ED acceptances, deferrals and rejections at one of the D’s very favorite schools …ok her favorite…(She is applying RD), and it is scary. 
It reads like acceptances for those with the types of awards in HS that I doubt my D has even heard of, connections, hooks… I was really starting to imagine admission to be a real possibility. I’ve been up and down and up and down on that…now down again. [-O< </p>
<p>BHG accepted to Clark U & College of Wooster (2 weeks early at Wooster) with more merit aid than expected–also, accepted to Beloit but they stated they needed us to provide income information, and BHG will hear back within 2-weeks after receipt information about merit aid, which is weird, since BHG checked no to the aid question on the CA. I am going to call on Monday, because the site states merit award information is provided with the acceptance letter. There is one award that is up to 40K per year, but it is based on minority status, and low income, or 1st generation college. We are far from being low income, BHDad is an M.D. and I have a Ph.D. I am Black and BHDad is White, so BHG meets the minority requirement. This award is given 2 weeks after acceptance but I do not think BHG qualifies for it since we are not low income and both parents have more than 4-year college degrees.</p>
<p>Maybe I am reading the criteria wrong for this award:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Congratulations on the acceptances @BunHeadMom! I’m sure BHG is absolutely thrilled!</p>
<p>S had a wonderful audition at his ED school yesterday. We will find out about acceptance at the end of this week! Exciting! S is totally behind in school work because of this cross country trip (we don’t get home until tomorrow due to the quirky flight schedule of where we fly out from). S is hoping to get an extension on a paper that is due Thursday for AP Euro.</p>