Letter came today from a college telling s15 that he made it into their Honors Program with additional scholarship. Hmmmm. Would have been nice to have this before the deadline. It wasn’t a school on his short list, but still. No email sent to check status. Nothing.
Other schools sent emails in the last 2 days saying that ‘your financial status has changed, log on and check it out’ and nothing was different. That was a waste of our time.
Waiting to see if we’re off the waitlist, or we get to plan his gap year.
Congrats @Threesdad!!! Spawn is going to love it at Lehigh! I spent some of the best years of my life on The Hill! One thing for sure – she will build stamina for softball climbing those hills! If I thought wrestler could have cracked that lineup, it would have been at the top of our list.
@twogirlsmom - Congrats to you and your D, too! UNC is a great school!!
On the homefront, I think wrestler found a roommate through the accepted student’s board. They missed yesterday’s deadline to request each other. But hopefully if they call early enough Monday the school will let it happen.
Threesdad congrats on Lehigh!! Lehigh is a great school and was one of D’s top picks- one of the reasons why this decision was so difficult.
Congrats on wrestler finding a roommate! Still going through the process here…
It’s pretty cool how many places everybody is going! By the way, were there any other students that were asked by their schools to become Student Ambassadors? I was invited to become one for WSU just a couple weeks after I visited. I decided it was too much to take on for my first year, but I might do it the second year.
A quick ‘hello’ and congratulations to all from a class of 2016er (and '13, '10 etc…S '16 is the last of 5) that has been following along.
@Felicita- a big welcome to the Cardinal family! S '13 is there and loves it…in fact he just hosted another pro fro.
@Kelowna- Congratulations on Yale to a fellow '13er. S has a good friend at Duke on a full scholarship as well, having a blast. That was S '13’s dream school when he was growing up. He really thought he’d end up there and Yale made it to the top 2. Small world! What talented kids you have! How are you with both of them ending up on the East coast? We’ve come close but haven’t had that happen yet.
@sbjdorlo- Wow, U Penn! That’s fantastic! Thanks again for your help in our last go-round. Maybe I can get S '16 to look there. He will be back East this summer (actually in your S '12’s neck of the woods) so maybe he will warm to the idea. Penn doesn’t seem overwhelmingly urban to you guys? What do you think of Philadelphia? I do remember you had a positive visit with S '12.
Again, congratulations to everyone. You have a great group of kids and it’s easy to see where they get it from! It has been fun and informative reading along. Now you can exhale. Then on to the next big adventure!
Funny you mention the urban feel. Actually, my son said he would not like to go to a school in a city, but it was not the defining factor. And to be honest, he’s actually not visited Penn, so it’s true, he might not initially like it, but we hope once on campus, he won’t feel the city-ness of Philly. He got really sick when he was supposed to be going to Quaker Days, so only my dh went. My son and I will plan to visit some time this year. Since he’ll be taking the gap year, we’ve got more time to really dig into Penn.
He chose it because he felt it was the best fit in terms of his interests, the flexibility, and yes, the fact that it was an Ivy and what that could mean in terms of alumni connections, etc. (And this is a kid who didn’t know what an Ivy was until this past fall) Because he’s much less STEM-y, but could still do the DMD program if he wanted (he applied as a Fine Arts major), there are a lot of good choices for him. Unlike a UC school, he can explore during his first year.
I really liked Penn and Philly, though my initial impression of Penn was, whoa, how weird. This is in the middle of a city. But once on campus, I thought it was beautiful. My dh thought it was nice, too, but he wondered if our son wouldn’t like it. I guess we’ll find out! The thing about our son is that he will try to make it work even if he doesn’t like the urban feel. As he said, that wasn’t a deal breaker. And honestly, it’s not like NYC. I stayed with a friend nearby, and her house was practically in the woods.
Feel free to get in touch if your S’16 is interested, though maybe he is a STEM kid through and through?
@critter Thanks for the Cardinal welcome! Looking forward to many future visits…especially in February!
Regarding Penn. S visited for Quaker Days and really loved the campus. Yes, it is in a city, but once on campus, it really feels like a campus…beautiful buildings, green spaces, kids hanging out on a nice day. It’s kind of the best of both worlds. S didn’t end up there because he’s truly more of a STEM kid. But we both LOVED Penn and Philly.
@suzy100 A little funny play on Fear The Tree… At graduation, the entire undergrad class attends commencement in the stadium in the morning (to hear the commencement address) and then they attend the various dept graduations in the afternoon to actually “walk” and receive their diplomas. Well, Stanford being the odd place that it is, calls the morning ceremony “Wacky Walk”. The graduates wear all sorts of CRAZY costumes and parade around the perimeter of the stadium waving at the audience and just soaking in the moment. My daughter and her sorority sisters wore full body pea pod costumes, and carried lime green balloons and signs that said “Fear the Pea” and “Peas get degrees”. Truly irreverent, and wonderfully fun! @Felicita I’m so jealous you are at the start of this wonderful journey. Good luck and enjoy!
@sbjdorlo, congrats! I feel your pain being in a high NMSC scoring state…DS also got 215 but we’re in NY. How wonderful though that your C still got the award! And it works out fine here too, since the school DS got into is taking good care of him and wouldn’t have done any NMF awards anyway.
But it was so nice to have that early safety net for DD and DS would have greatly appreciated it…
Wow, D & I just spent 15 minutes doing a survey from UNC, asking Why didn’t you pick us??? I was shocked that they asked all the questions that were so true - “Did admissions not make you feel special? Would you have come if we had given you 6k a year? Are there too many people from your HS going here?” It ended with how would you like us to contact you? Odd, too late for that…
@hoosier96, @classof2020, my D15 went to the Santa Fe summer academy two years ago. As far as college summer programs go, I thought the price was far more reasonable than many. D loved the program, applied, was admitted with merit aid (minimum 15K to summer academy attendees). As a rising 11th grader, the program was exactly what she thought she wanted in a college. Since then, she discovered that she preferred a more flexible curriculum (e.g., the “design your own major” idea) so she’s not attending. But, we sure have a soft spot for SJC. I love reading Christopher Nelson’s (Annapolis Pres.) blog posts (like SJC on FB and you’ll see them whenever he writes one) and will continue to read them while D is at another school.
@ITBgirl Was that a survey as to why your D declined? For 3 of D’s schools they asked for a list of all the schools she had applied to. She was willing to tell them where she matriculated, but there was no box to enter that information unless you listed all the schools first, so she opted to leave it blank.
Yes @green678 it was about why she declined. But it was the longest most detailed one she has had so far. Others did ask where she planned to enroll when she declined, UNC we let just time out bc it was her second choice. She applied and was excepted EA, then there was very little contact until she timed out, just seems like bad marketing.
@ITBgirl yes, DS completed the same UNC survey. I, too, felt, so NOW you want to contact him and ask a bunch of questions?? He said his survey asked him if he would have considered them if they offered him $5000 per year. He wasn’t offered anything except excel@carolina. I think it stung him when he wasn’t invited to Scholars Day a few months ago.
ITBgirl my D filled out a survey asking why she DID pick UNC. They asked what schools she applied to and where she was accepted, they asked her where she received merit money and what honors programs she was accepted to, asked the HS question as well - but as an OOS kid she is the only one. We had a very different experience. She was accepted EA and she received emails and mailings almost on a weekly basis. They were also very generous with money- ( the NPC was very accurate- within $50) and were very up front with us about money moving forward. She is receiving other perks as well ( ie an almost free Mac which is slightly more upgraded than what she has now and she needed a new one for school). We attended an accepted students event near our home where the head of admissions gave us his home phone number and told me if there are any questions, concerns etc please do not hesitate to call him at home. So far we are very pleased.
My son was also accepted EA (OOS) to UNC. He will be attending another school, but I wanted to chime in to say that we were fine with the amount of contact he received from the school. I imagine he too received the survey – but at this point, he is ignoring all college-related e-mail. I’ll have to ask him to check.
@twogirls and @gradygrad and @Joe2015 I guess I am just frustrated with UNC (need to change my profile pic) I really wanted D to go to UNC but ALL the other schools gave her so much more attention, and she took that as a sign that she would be a face in the crowd at UNC. I guess since she would have been 3rd gen, UNC just assumed it was a done deal and they didn’t need to try.
my son was also accepted EA OOS from UNC. But with nothing… no honors, no money… I will have to ask him if he got the survey in the mail. He would have gone there in a heartbeat if they would have shown him any love at all.
It sounds like it’s a good thing (for their marketing department at least) for them to be sending out this survey. I guess a little love goes a long way in terms of yield.
