I’d love to see more posts about HBCUs. A really good friend has S17, a year behind mine, and it’s something they’re considering. She’s in denial about this whole “college” thing, which I understand completely and even envy right now, but she knows it’s headed her way. I’ll probably point her to CC in a month or two.
I’m sorry to hear that @petrichor11. Best of luck to your S in the next round. I hope that his disappointment wanes and that he’s able to enjoy the weekend.
Congrats @dcplanner!
Sorry to hear that @Undercovermom1 and @petrichor11 Huge Congrats to your S @dcplanner !!! <:-P My best friend also got accepted to UChicago with a scholarship!!! She got accepted to Georgetown earlier this week and I can’t be happier for her. Best of luck to everyone with decisions still to come!
Congratulations, @dcplanner .
Congrats @dcplanner
I’m sorry to hear that @petrichor11 and @Undercovermom1 . Glad your kids got some good news earlier to soften that blow, but it still stings, no doubt.
Congrats to your student, @dcplanner! And money is a bonus!
@CAMidwestMom We also got an incentive grant and I believe it’s from the same school as you (SCU). My D’s grant was for a quarter of tuition off. Congrats to your S! The grant offered is enough to make us consider SCU but still way below another schools’s merit scholarship. SCU is by far my D’s first choice and she will be scouring her HS counseling office for any scholarships out there. I know we won’t qualify for need based scholarships so we are looking for merit based or incentive grants (never knew these grants existed until now). Anyways, do you or anyone else on this thread think it’s worth talking to the financial aid people at the college to see if there was anymore money available through the incentive grant? We are planning on visiting the school for the first time but I am not sure on the best time to go - is earlier better than later as far as money being left over since I hear it might be first come first served. Has anyone heard of someone being offered more grant money simply by talking with the school?
Isn’t this all such a roller coaster ride? This week was a good one for S, but he’s well aware that things will not always look this rosy:) He has good options now, with and without merit aid and I honestly think choices are hard as they are now. And he has several more schools to go, including the schools with auditions for MT! But for now, for the holidays, we are in a happy place.
Congratulations to those who heard good news, hugs to those who didn’t. These college acceptances/rejections don’t define your kid - they’ll do that themselves, no matter where they go. I remember how hurt/upset D was back in 2011 when she didn’t get into the lottery schools - but she bounced back, went to one of her EA schools with significant merit and blossomed there! Having graduated summa cum laude in engineering, she’s taking a gap year working while planning for med school (her ultimate goal) next year. And she just heard that she is in at her top choice med school! No matter where they end up, it all comes down to what they make of their opportunities…I know it’s hard to believe that or hear that when they’ve just received disappointing news, but it is true. So, hang in there…
@petrichor11 Boo! So hard when they are down.
Congrats @dcplanner. I know not all schools give out the merit aid with acceptance and that’s not likely to change, but it sure is nice to know and not have months of waiting to see if it’s even feasible. Yay!!
@SeattleMom1 Yes, I think you should set a meeting or make a call and at least discuss it with them. It may not make a difference but I have heard of people having success. I think it’s a case of there’s nothing to lose.
I wonder if being from out of state is a slight hook with SCU? I had heard that merit aid was a total crap shoot (sorry!) at SCU, so we had no expectations. Truthfully, we are sort of still in shock over here.
I second @CAMidwestMom 's suggestion, @SeattleMom1. It’s SCU where my S received very little merit, contrasted with huge merit elsewhere. But - we’re localish. And honestly, he’ll either decide that the adventure is worth heading somewhere else for four years, or we’ll have some serious conversations about what we’d need to do to make SCU feasible. As soon as his last two RD apps are in, scholarship apps - including one from my employer, not huge, but a start - will be on his plate. 
So yes - talk to the Admissions folks. I think they’ll probably hold off on anything until after the RD deadline & preliminary selection, but it’s not bad to be on their radar.
Congrats to @dcplanner, sorry to hear the bad news @petrichor11 and @Undercovermom1
First semester is over at mine and S school. I got caught up on LOR’s today. One student asked me to write one for her because she is applying to the school S just got rejected from.
Going into the last half of senior year it looks like some top students at my school have taken a tumble. Several of them got their first B’s ever. I had always thought that when graduation came it would be me, S and about 6 Salutatorians on the stage, but after today it looks like it will only be me, S and 3 others.
@Mysonsdad How does your school determine salutatorians? My son’s school only chooses one Val and one Sal based on GPA rank to the hundredth place ,so multiples are extremely rare. It’s interesting how it’s done different places. At our school, the Val, Sal and Sr class president are the only students on the stage at graduation.
@Undercovermom1 I am sorry for your D and @petrichor11 for your S…sending virtual ice cream and other assorted junk food to help ease the situation. I wonder if it is actually harder to deal with being deferred than to know one way or the other? My D decided not to apply to U Chicago even though she absolutely loved the school and loved Chicago. She felt the quarter system would not be beneficial to her. She suffers from test anxiety and because each quarter is only about 10 weeks long all the stress is inherently more compact and from what we understand it is a competitive environment. I did not think (and she agreed) that is not the best environment for her at this time. She may reconsider it for grad school.
Super Congrats @dcplanner!
Congrats dc planner.
Dumb Q that I should know – if our kid applied RD elsewhere, in general, when will they by – March? April? Thanks.
@carlson2 It should tell you on the school’s website .
Just checking in to say - my husband is HOME from the hospital, and on the mend… We’re all happy here, tonight!
Hope you all are, too!
Congrats to those with good and great news! Hard to keep up here. And hoping for soft landing for those with disappointed news.
My DS got into his one rolling admission school back in Sept. (Pitt) and we don’t expect any other news until March. One safety might be out in Feb. So we have a long way to go. This week, DS got a merit aid letter from Pitt but it was very low. I’m extremely surprised as his SAT scores are well above their requirement and his GPA is strong with 6 AP classes and a bunch of other Honors classes too. I’ve seen kids with his stats - or slightly lower stats - getting offered full tuition (as posted on CC). Makes me wonder how the rest of this will play out.
A few pages back (LOL) someone posted about kids keeping in touch while at college. My DS already is terrible about communicating and he still lives with us. When my DD went off to college, I would text her about every 5 days. I’d tell her that it has been almost a week since we spoke and she should pick a day and time in the next couple of days to speak with us. This worked really well as we gave her the control about when to speak with us (but she knew she had to speak with us at least once a week). By her junior year, I could actually just call her now and then and she did not feel we were infringing on her day. I might need a different, more assertive plan will DS otherwise I’ll hear from him once a month or less. 