Parents of the HS Class of 2016 (Part 1)

My son was deferred ED Penn last week but he is taking it well since they seem to have rejected some 60% of the ED applicants. He will have a very busy winter break writing applications and unfortunately was also just assigned a physics project over break.

He does have a couple of match school options he really likes so that helps too. One of the programs he is looking at is a joint degree from W&M and St Andrews in Scotland. You spend 2 years at each college. Told him if he goes to Scotland I WILL be visiting him.

Had an interesting discussion with my DS about the results he has received thus far. He is “proudest” of his acceptance to the internationally known school for his expected major but “most excited” about the acceptance to the school that has offered a great scholarship (and probably is the best fit). May each of your children be able to sort through the roller coaster of emotions and be proud, excited and happy with their choices long before May 1st!

@Dragonflygarden Sorry about the deferral to Penn, but there is hope since it wasn’t an outright rejection!

W&M is an excellent school and you may be able to work on the golf game visiting St Andrews/Scotland. I don’t play golf but I’d get on the links anyway just to say I stepped foot on it.

Here’s hoping to some good news to your S as the decisions come in.

@Dragonflygarden The W&M joint degree program sounds amazing. I’m filing away the information to give to S pending the results from his EA school Friday. It may be enough to actually get him going again in case of a rejection or deferral.

Miss an hour miss a few dozen posts!

First @BeeDAre wishing a speedy recovery.

To all who have received acceptances congrats!
To those who received unwelcome news condolences.

Like @carolinamom2boys my DD is done applying due to requirements for trying for merit aid/honors colleges. We are in a waiting mode for the most part here. DD did get news of honors college auto accept to UGA yesterday.

@Cheeringsection it is funny isn’t what the kids are proudest of and what they are most excited about?

@Dragonflygarden Thanks for sharing about W and M. My goddaughter was just accepted ED.

@Themommymommy Fairly certain we are both waiting patiently for one of the honors decisions .

@carolinamom2boys I think we are too. Fingers crossed for both our kids and the others on this thread who may have applied.

@ballerina16 and all those waiting to hear on the ea/ed decisions fingers crossed!

@BeeDAre best wishes for a speedy recovery. When one parent is down, the whole family is affected. You sound really good for dealing with so much stuff right now. Kudos to you!

Huge Congrats to those getting great news. Virtual hugs to those who could use them. I am off to buy junk food and tissues for tonight’s drama. Thank goodness one of her safeties came through yesterday so she has a home no matter what. That first acceptance is such a big deal to her She couldn’t wait to put her school name on the wall and get her picture taken with it. Hopefully that will help make today’s rejection/deferral a little easier to take.

Best of luck to everyone waiting for good news today.

Can’t keep up with this thread. Can only imagine how March will be if it is this insane right now!

@BeeDAre - hope your H recovers quickly. Something like that sure puts admissions and the whole drama surrounding admissions into perspective!

Congratulations to all those with admissions. And yes, ice cream to soothe the pain for those with deferrals/rejections. Deferrals from these REA schools like Yale are the worse in my opinion - you were so anxious waiting for this week and now, you have to wait another three months! S wanted to apply to stanford and we suggested he do that RD rather than REA and I think in our case, it was the right decision.

Count us in with the surprising NE merit aid offers. S did get a Deans scholarship there and will likely move up to the NMF scholarship - but still the offers were surprising. I wonder how they decide who gets what - especially since they don’t ask for a supplemental essay. Ah well - I am glad he’s in - would be close to home, although I do suspect he won’t end up matriculating there.

I am curious how representative the sampling of people here is. It seems like a lot of kids on the NEU thread are saying that they probably won’t go there. A lot may be an overstatement, but the amount surprises me. Also, in the Fordham thread, the feelings have changed a bit since some of those kids got deferred or rejected from NEU or another top choice and now are stressed about getting into Fordham, which they thought was a safety.

D16 has been dropping lots of interesting tidbits about one of the universities that has accepted her. It is the one I think she will eventually say yes to, it is good to know that she has been doing some independent research. Having a difficult time just smiling and answering “No, really?!” to the “Hey, Mom did you know that at “x” university
?”.

@CAMidwestMom
I too have been surprised. I am also amazed a the number of deferrals for students that I would have thought were very good matches. I guess I can’t blame a university for trying to protect its yield. I wonder what a student would have to do to prove to a university that they truly are interested even if it is a “safety”.

D accepted last night to Rutgers University! Yey!

@cakeisgreat
that’s lots of great choices for your D!

Super Congrats to your D @cakeisgreat !

@CAMidwestMom I too am surprised at the sheer amount of deferrals that we saw. So many very qualified applicants but from the ones we read until about 10:00 pm last night the consensus seemed to be that they admitted a majority of STEM field applicants. It appears that Northeastern seemed to pick the tippy top from certain majors. The people we saw that were accepted truly had IVY stats and I wonder if they will getting a more prestigious acceptance and going there. I do not know but I know my D really loves the school and hopes to be accepted there (her choosing a school will depend largely on the bottom line of each school that is why she could not and would not do any binding decisions). I too believe its largely about yield. It is tough on the students because they are so vested in the outcomes but to the school it is most probably based upon some algorithm that was designed to achieve the best students accepting and preserve their yield. It’s just plain and simple business!

@lvmjac1 We are in the same boat. We really cannot quite swing our EFC, but thankfully he already has several options that we can afford. He understands and he’s worked through his disappointment with his test scores. His two friends with the whole package got a deferral and rejection from their EA schools. So he’s seeing that in reality, even with nearly perfect test scores, you cannot guarantee anything.

DS was accepted to Princeton!!

Congrats <:-P @fretfulmother

My ds now has three acceptances - Pitt with full tuition, Tulane with $32k/year and Northeastern with university scholar’s full tuition. He’s applying to two more RD, one of which is out of our price range completely so really we just need one more decision to move things along.

Which is great, but I’m a bit gobsmacked and angry that his true safety school - our state school - has yet to admit him. Someone there slapped a “transfer” indicator on his file that they assured us a month ago they would remove. And yet we wait -8 or 9 weeks now since he submitted his completed app. He likely won’t go there, but it’s Dh’s alma mater and we donate to their engineering scholarship fund each year. That means nothing other than I really don’t want to write them a check this year for a donation if they can’t seem to get it together enough to admit him. They are still waiting for a college transcript from a college class that ends today. Sigh. I know I shouldn’t complain. I just want to call them and say something along the lines of “Really?” but that won’t be productive.

Thank you @petrichor11 & @kandcsmom !