Count me in as one of the parents that has spent many hundreds on app fees, score reports, etc…glad that will be ending soon. To date for this year we have 10 apps done either EA or rolling, and S16 plans to get 3 more done (RD) by this Friday. We will see if he has enough time! Only a couple of those have been free applications, yikes!
The “one and done” idea has always appealed to me…but alas, it was not meant to be for my college bound kids!
@carolinamom2boys Wow. That’s great. DD is opt out any e-mail from colleges. So she hardly had any e-mail or snail mail related to application. So I was not aware how many different schools have different policy.
One of my memory regarding application fee when I applied several grad school in the US is that one school refund application fee because they rejected me. Application fee was send back to me with rejection letter saying that they did not take application fee from any student who was rejected. I thought it was cool.
I may have mentioned this before, but the one school that offered S basically a full tuition scholarship (we are still waiting for the official acceptance which they told us last year he had if he kept his grades up and he has) charged us $55 for their app, yet they asked my niece to apply and said they would waive the fee. She didn’t qualify for the $25,000 though.
We’ve been fortunate that we’ve only paid for two apps out of six. Two were free for everyone, one we got a waiver for touring, and the other was just a random fee waiver that came in the mail.
We have sent scores and transcripts to two schools she won’t be applying to so there was a little lost money there.
I paid for a few (ultimately) unnecessary score reports. As with many parts of the process I’m telling myself that these were investments and it’s okay if not all investments pay off. And better to find out BEFORE paying a semester’s tuition & room & board. SO glad that all the apps were in by Dec 1. I can’t imagine the stress if S still had apps to do along with the family stuff, holiday travel and (too many) school projects. We were able to spend all day yesterday at a theme park with NO mention of college that I can recall. Whoohoo!
Having an increasingly hard time keeping up with all the good and sad news, but hang in there folks.
Love the subtle humor on this list–on this page, between @Mysonsdad and @LKnomad! Thanks for the laughs.
We also paid for a few applications and many score reports that DD will not use. I think of it as part of the process. DH doesn’t want to think about it at all…
Sounds to me like you paid $55 for a $100K return and your niece’s family paid 0 to incur a 100K cost, @Mysonsdad. Seems like you got the better deal!
Liking the posts about doctors and banks. Lots to think about.
My college daughter uses Capital One 360 for her only checking and savings accounts. No need for in person banking. You can deposit checks through the app or if necessary mail them in and there are ATMs everywhere including in her college bookstore.
Adding your kid to your credit card can show up on their credit report if the bank reports the authorized user to the credit agencies. Just ask them. I added DD’13 to my Citibank card (for books and emergencies) as a user and she has an excellent credit score now. She did get her own Discover credit card (which she never uses) with a low limit about a year later.
@carolinamom2boys Fortunately, the school health center takes my work insurance, so my D will be getting her medical care at the school.
The health insurance offered at her school costs $1,500 for academic year if I remember correctly.
If the school health center didn’t take my work insurance, then I would have paid the health insurance offered at her school so that my D can go to there if needed. Her school is in the suburbs of a large city. I wanted the piece of mind that my D can just walk into the student health center rather than having to figure out how to get to her primary care provider or specialist somewhere in town if needed. She won’t have a car in college so getting outside the “bubble” of her school will be a logistical challenge. My D has no chronic medical conditions at all, but it was important to me that she have ready access to health care if needed.
We won’t even discuss college app fees as my son is not done applying yet 8-|
What is both the wisdom and etiquette for withdrawing applications at this point in the admissions process? DD has acceptances at all eight schools she applied to. She has a top 5 list at this point including one full tuition, one full ride (assuming NMF confirmed), one still waiting to hear on merit and two with half tuition, plus a possible, though super selective second scholarship round. School number 6 if full tuition plus for NMF, and even before then she has been granted an equivalent scholarship via her numbers for the school and departmental award.
I am hesitant to suggest withdrawing her app from school number 6 from an (over?)abundance of caution and because it is a numbers based set of automatic awards, so she isn’t taking anyone’s space on a scholarship that might be awarded elsewhere.
School number 7 was a super safety for a major she really isn’t interested in any longer. She is eligible there for a large major specific scholarship that has not been awarded yet, but that are limited in number. My thought was to have her withdraw that app in fairness to others and honesty to the school.
School 8 gave a completely unaffordable merit/grant package after dropping their NMF scholarship suddenly and have in general done everything possible it seems to turn she and our family off (despite my oldest S attending there) through repeated acts of administrative incompetence. DD has a supplemental app at this school for a guaranteed admit BS/MD program that again is limited in number and is yet to be determined. Again my thought is to withdraw at school 8 now (though I wouldn’t be surprised if they lost her withdrawal along the way, lol).
Does this seem reasonable/right at this stage of the process, and if so, is a polite thank you, but no thank you email to the admissions offices in question sufficient? I know kids that were accepted ED and can afford those schools have to withdraw other apps. DD is not in that situation and has not made a deposit at any school and won’t until at least March. Just looking for general thoughts and advice, much appreciation in advance as always. Thanks (-:
@ballerina016, I am so sorry to hear that your daughter is feeling discouraged. I am very impressed that she was deferred and not rejected by Stanford! It sounds like the vast majority of applicants ended up in the “no” pile. Engineering is tough, and that California pool of applicants is so strong. But she is already distinguishing herself, and her acceptances are coming soon.
DS only had 3 application fees out of 6 schools so the cost was minimal. We used the free score reports efficiently and only had to pay to send three more so minimal cost to get ACT scores to the schools as well. I do think at least one of his fee waivers came because he had sent his ACT scores with the free score reporting.
I feel for all that are still working on applications. DS is often a procrastinator but thankfully, he has been done for a while. He is very interested in setting up his college banking so I plan to do some research this week. He has his list narrow enough that I think I can set most if it up now without having to change it later. I may hop over to the 2015 parents thread to ask for tips. Somewhere there is a specific thread on checks vs debit card vs credit card.
Anyone have big New Year’s Eve plans? We rarely stay up to welcome the new year here.
@Cheeringsection my two teenage boys will be watching the Orange Bowl. Other than that, it’s a regular work day for me. Husband and I were invited to a neighborhood party, but I’m not sure whether we’ll go or not. Most of my neighbors are at least 15 years younger than we are, and my “geriatric friends” are out of town and won’t be attending.
@EastGrad, I know the scholarship is a better deal, but I guess $25,000 is their limit, $25,055 is just too much lol. If S ultimately decides to go to this school the program he is interested in, the government will actually pay him $30,000 a year for his last two years. This is on top of the $25,000 scholarship. It is a program for jobs that the government needs (hint: Homeland Security) kids to go into.Jobs starting at around $60-80000 a year in DC are all but guaranteed upon completion. According to the HS agent I met with after a former student of mine who was going through the program used me as a reference, he told me that they pay the kids to go to school because "They don’t want them working at McDonalds, they want them to concentrate on their education. The student who went through the program told me it was fantastic and she had many job offers. The only problem is, most kids who qualify for the scholarship or program want to go to a more prestigious college.
@Cheeringsection, out here on the West Coast wife and I celebrate a New York New Years which is 9:00 pm our time. Then we go to bed.
@carolinamom2boys, GO CLEMSON!!! I’ll be rooting for them simply because your S got accepted there. Whenever I watch a sport I need a team to root for and I always find a reason. Now, with so many former students at so many colleges I usually just pick the college that a students attends.
My niece goes to Clemson. She’s made absolute fanatics not just out of her parents, but of my other sister and brother in law.
@Skates76, if number 7 and 8 are no longer going to be of interest then I agree that it makes sense to withdraw now so another applicant might get into the program.
Re: application fees…
S had three fee waivers of nine. Oddly, one of those fee waivers got him to look a bit harder at a school he wasn’t sure about, so it served its purpose, I guess, from a marketing standpoint. Another was from the school he just got deferred from, and a third is to his token LAC (the one mom insisted he apply to just in case he decided at the last minute that a smaller school was a better option).
Sending scores and CSS adds up though, especially since they got sent to a couple of extra schools.
D had one fee waiver, but almost all her schools were state schools so they were in the $30-40 range, and there weren’t many. I only had to pay to send scores once.
Re banking. Bank of America offers a student account. Students can deposit checks via the app. They also offer a low credit-line visa card. When D13 went off to college, she opened the bank account as there are BofA ATMs on her campus and all over. We waited to get the credit card until her sophomore year when she was buying groceries. This particular card offers 1% cash back on all purchases and 2% on groceries. After a year, her credit limit was increased, so she is building her own credit.
Also learned from her, she rarely uses cash. She charges EVERYTHING - even purchases as low as a few dollars. In the olden days, I would just use cash for that!
@Skates76 we have a similar dilemma. She actually paid enrollment fee (refundable until May 1) at school that for sure she won’t pick. I’m reluctant to ask for it back until she does pick a school though–what if totally unforeseen things happen and she does pick it. Honestly it is hard to imagine–but what if…
Of her 10 schools, she is in at 8, 2 won’t hear until March. I’m pretty sure 3 have been eliminated. One because they don’t start until mid-September, and she “can’t wait” that long.