D had a very good day yesterday. She had a phone interview with the director of an LLC at one of her schools and it went really well. She was bouncing off the walls happy last night so I guess she got over the bad AP ES midterm. These ups and downs drive me nuts.
D also took one school off the table yesterday. She got a letter saying that she qualified for their honors program but needed to submit another essay by March 1. She said no. She was a bit put off that this was the first notification of this. This was a common app school with no supplement and there was no indication on the app that something additional was required for honors. We also also didnāt see anything on the website. So that school is now history.
@Skates76 Exactly re: four year COA even with full tuition. Itās still a lot of money! I think of the many people Iāve met over the years, myself included, who have regrets over large purchases. My feeling is prestige of the school (s) is driving her decision and she isnāt able to judge loans vs debt free for UG & what that could mean for her future self. Husband thinks Iām being too cheap. I think heās got his head in the sand.
āSheās trying for a balance of affordability and a good education, and I think sheās got some good options.ā
Thatās our situation tooā¦though my daughter would also like the option of being able to pursue her sports at her final college of choice, and could there please be mountains? LOL
@GoodGrief16 I think Iāve mentioned elsewhere that my ex turned down MIT for an OOS public because he didnāt consider the Boston area as being able to offer skiing at the level he was at. Iām sure he was right-after all, when youāve grown up skiing at some of the best the Rocky Mountains have to offer, New England hasnāt got much. It all worked out though, and he has worked at some of the top software companies in the world. But Iām sure his parents thought he was nuts.
When your best friend send you a text from a mutual friend saying ā3 SNOW DAYS IN A ROW!!! This has never happened in my life.ā The guy who sent the text is a freshman at Georgetown and we are from upstate NY, where the most you ever get is a snow day followed by a 2 hour delay.
@readingclaygirl, out here where I live in California we occasionally get snow. My dad grew up in New York. One day we had snow and because it happens so seldom I called him and was telling him about it. I then said, āWe probably wonāt have school tomorrow because of the snow.ā He couldnāt stop laughing, he actually thought I was joking because in New York they never closed the schools for snow.
@sseamom: Regarding your ex and choosing the OOS public for access to rad peaks and powder: That was a young person who at least knew some of what was important to him. We are asking each of these young people to define themselves both now, and (in the case of some ridiculous scholarship essay questions) years into the future. Impossible for most.
To @mysonsdad: Phew! Glad you have heard something which gives you reason to keep your head up and hold on. I was going to suggest that you double check that all of your contact information was correct with the college, as, crazy as it seems, the names, emails and addresses could be crossed with someone elseās. During the entire college application season a few years ago my son received a plethora of emails updating him on his profile and requesting more information, but the person the emails were addressing was not him. This from the Harvard of the South. Continued forever; finally I had them get their admissions people and their IT people together to find the kid who was not receiving these emails, and get his information to him. The studentās first name was very close to our last name (same number of letters, same letters with the exception of one, and the first initial of both were the same). I think that poor student was miserable for months having heard nothing from this university.
Then the financial package to a fantastic school to which my son had applied did come in the, but with someone elseās financials (though my sonās name affixed), so we threw that in the drawer and forgot about it.
Then my son was accepted to a great school in NYC to which he never applied, one which lots of kids would be so happy to be accepted to.
Human error at input, or downloading, or something can happen.
But, here we are, still with you, waiting for the big event.
What is the equivalent of the cigar for the college application process?
S16 created a new email address about 8 months ago just for all college applications/scholarship apps. He received an acceptance email earlier this month - but on his old email address (that he checks seldom). This was discovered after talking to the admissions office and they insisted an acceptance email was sent, but S16 had not received it. This is a college that has their own separate application. Once the issue was discovered, the admissions folks were completely baffled as to why S was sent the acceptance to an email address that he DID NOT list on his application(and they checked his app and confirmed he did not list it). Really?
We try not to let these glitches color our opinions about a schoolā¦but it does tend to make the student (and parents) a little reluctant to maintain positive thoughts about them!
@sseamom, that could very likely be my daughterās situation. In her mind, all things being equal, her two favorite right now are an Ivy and a western state school that doesnāt even rate its own forum on CC, but has a ski team, a cool climbing community, and proximity to mountains.
@mysonsdad, Iām glad there is still hope, but am incredibly frustrated for your son that he is missing out on the larger scholarship opportunities. Is USC still do-able for your family at full pay?
@Midwest67 Might be helpful to use one of the online calculators that show how much in debt your D will have at the end of her 4-6 years depending on grad rates and then the calculator will break down the monthly loan payment. It is very sobering to see a monthly debt payment taken out of her first year projected salary. It worked in our house with our D.
@Mysonsdad Good to hear that! Yesterday I was thinking about the possibility of papers getting mixed up because of the glitch during filing of the application.
Thank goodness that you hear it from the āhorseās mouthā
Itās really amazing how many errors there are in the process, even by big name college with the means to keep several IT people employed. I have a friend who works at a state directional who sniffed, āIf they canāt keep their portals working and accurate, theyāre not worth the time of day. No GOOD college would make such a mistake.ā I referred her to CC to see for herself the many complaints out there.
One of Dās schools never alerted her that her transcripts were missing. This school had another student with a similar name, so maybe the alert email went to her. We only found out when she finally called and asked why sheād never had an update. And College #1 gave D an ID# for the status portal, except that it is too long to fit in the form. Weāre waiting on the answer to that problem.
Waiting to exhale, thatās quite a story. Just think some poor kid may not have ever known their results if not for you. @GoodGrief16, full pay would not be possible. Deans scholarship yes, it is doable, but they told S they were still going through the applications or more specifically, they said they are not done.
I have four kids that have dealt with applying to collegesā¦two of them had issues with one of their apps not being complete/processed, etc. totally because of the impaired system of those colleges, not through any issue with what my kids did or did not do in the application process. We had to be pro-active, insistent, etc. to straighten out the mess that was the schools fault, not the applicants fault.
With current kid, S16ā¦worst that happened is the issue mentioned above with wrong email being used for notification of acceptance. We learned that both student and parent has to contact every school, sometimes multiple times to double check whether they received all required parts of application, etcā¦and we learned that online portals are not always accurate, and phone calls can nudge people to address discrepancies personallyā¦find missing documents, etc.
Back in the day (lol), I applied to one college, was accepted, attended happily, end of story. I really wish that was the case for the next generation (ie: S16) that is dealing with college apps right now! S16 is so exhaustedā¦but continuing to muddle through this insane process (that NEVER ends)ā¦
