Parents of the HS Class of 2016 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
19221

@fretfulmother S’s choice is down to H or M, being H the cheapest. Everyone at this point is pulling for H, including his school’s principal who almost passed out upon learning about S’s acceptance to H :slight_smile:

At home we try not to be too upfront with our preference, but some times it’s just a “no-brainer” for us. I’m happy that S has such wonderful choices but, at the same time, I’m growing a little anxious with the whole decision thing.

I really want S to be happy with his choice but I can’t help wishing that that happiness-inducing choice be the best financial deal for our family :frowning:

We’ll see what happens after Visitas this weekend.

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The personal touches are huge in a lot of cases. D’s original first choice gave her a nice scholarship and bombarded her with plenty of mail and email about attending there, but not a single interview for the additional scholarships she was considered for, no notes, no get to know you calls from alumni, etc. Really, no personal touch at all. Her three finalists all took the time to interview her, to set up alumni meet and greets, to assign an adcom that kept in personal touch.

After the Scholarship weekend at U of Delaware she received a call from the head of the Honors Program, and one of her interviewers at the scholarship event, telling her which scholarship level she was awarded and simply having a very collegial discussion with him that made her feel very much wanted by the University. It took her a week and a final look at the campus before she was completely willing to commit, but really that call 99% sealed the deal for her and them.

19223

Thanks @fretfulmother !

With regards to Yale, may I ask, since you surely researched it (and anyone else please feel free to jump in as well!) - is Yale going to tend to not be the best choice for an engineering student (especially a research-oriented one)? It seems almost unbalanced how strong they are in say Chemistry or Biology, versus the engineering departments. Are there cases you can imagine where Yale Engineering would make the most sense for someone? (Given the that, Yale is so difficult to get into, the student probably has a lot of other interesting choices, if that makes sense.) I.E. what do you consider their niche?

Clearly they have so much to offer as a college overall.

19224

Its interesting to read about all the personal attention many of you have received. My D does not have stats that are as high as many of your offspring and we have received no personal communication between applying and decision making. Many schools have sent lots of mass mailing type things, but nothing directly targeted at her.

Most interesting to me is to read @carolinamom2boys write about her son’s chosen school. My D also applied and was accepted there and our experience was the polar opposite. After D applied we received a total of 4 items in the mail - her acceptance letter, a letter saying she was waitlisted for honors, a letter saying she was accepted to honors, and a postcard invite to a local reception and basketball game because the basketball team was going to be playing a local area team. That’s the sum total of contact they had with us. They never even sent any mass marketing materials. I think this is why she eliminated it from consideration so easily. She was not feeling the love at all.

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@inn0v8r - I think Yale would be a fantastic choice for many, many students, including some engineering students. I will give you some answers both from my family’s story and also in general:

For my son - he honestly wouldn’t have thought of applying to Yale or having a chance to get in - except a relative suggested it, because admissions can be very random and it’s a great school at the perfect distance from home with a strong Jewish community. He was bowled over to be invited to “YES-W” and had a fabulous time. In fact, for him, YES-W put Yale on the map and became a real contender. The idea is that they have a smaller engineering program that they are actively growing, including a wonderful Maker Space and lots of funding, attention, undergraduate research, etc. And of course it’s in YALE which is pretty special for a zillion other reasons.

However, the financial aid offer came in with us paying about 25 K per year MORE than Princeton’s did. At that point, it would have had to be a much better choice than P (in which case we might have tried to get them to match, but that’s not guaranteed past the first year). Also, Y’s way of calculating FA, apparently, excludes consideration of K-12 expenses for siblings and includes [primary] home equity.

That said, Y is still in third place for my DS - in spite of not having been on his radar before his visit. I would say that’s a big thing and something that Yale should be pleased with, in terms of the success of YES-W, that they really get kids to put Yale on the map.

For kids in general - if someone didn’t need quite the same kind of Jewish community as my DS wanted, as an engineering student, they might add to the application list places like Stanford, UC Berkeley, UIUC, GaTech, Caltech, UT, RPI, and a bunch of others. None of these schools made it to our list, and we were mindful not to have too small a list, in case most did not come through since there is so much randomness. So Yale had a leg up in that way for us, but for a typical kid, its lower rankings in engineering (even compared to many public universities) might lead to less interest. Our reaches of “HYPM” would be replaced in general, I suspect, by “HPMS” for STEM kids.

Also for kids in general - not everyone is sure they will be an engineer, and some who are sure, change their minds. So if you can get into a place like Yale, that seems pretty awesome because you could go into basically any field and do great there.

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@fretfulmother Hmm, even with all my Yale love, I would NOT pay 25K more per year to go there. I would be hard pressed to decide if I were your son. Personally I think I would choose MIT coming from the Midwest, but you guys live really close–so that would have been a deal-breaker for me. I just have this strong antipathy to Princeton. It is visceral.

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@frenchtoastlover - I couldn’t help but think of Rory Gilmore’s dilemma as she made her final decision between Harvard and Yale. :slight_smile: Good luck with your decision process!

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I think maybe the reason my son received so much attention from CofC Honors and the CS Department was he had also shown a good bit of interest in them as well. He had visited the Honors College and met with the Dean of CS last summer. He followed them on social media, routinely emailed them with pertinent questions, applied for scholarships in the CS department. The interest was clearly there. I can honestly say that other students that were invited to the interview weekend received the same treatment that my son did.

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@Booajo, hugs and flowers, but your info is outdated. Students live in the Yard for their first year, and are assigned to houses with their chosen rooming group after that (there is no “choose a house and apply”). These random housing assignments also lead to students believing their house is the BEST–take a look at Housing Day videos. I would venture to say that I know more grads from this particular college than you do, and I know none who say they regret their choice. I think all four are outstanding choices, @fretfulmother, and I would encourage your S to give a very serious look at each, with no biases in the way.

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@Booajo - yes, the “even loving Yale, it might not be worth 25K/yr more…” idea was expressed to me by big Yale fans both on and off CC. :slight_smile:

19231

Super excited, husband and I will be chaperones at Latin State for D16 and D18 next weekend. D18 thinks we are weird… but is the last time to chaperone one of D16’s events.

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@EastGrad - thank you! We are going to Visitas this weekend, don’t worry. :slight_smile: It would be silly not to, since we live so close and because Harvard is pretty damned excellent. DS is “keeping an open mind” even though as I said, I believe it is in his heart down to P and M.

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@carolinamom2boys You say “I can honestly say that other students that were invited to the interview weekend received the same treatment that my son did.” But that’s my point. The kids who excel enough to be invited to interview weekends and get considered for special scholarships get treated differently than everyone else.

I’m not meaning to pick on CofC. It’s just the one example that was posted that hit me because it was the only school D applied to that sent us absolutely nothing trying to convince her to attend. Loyola NO was also a little light on mailings but we did get some stuff. As for Tulane, Fordham, Pitt and Alabama - we’ve got piles. But nothing personal from any of them.

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Since you’re close, @fretfulmother, I think he should attend Visitas and then pop in to classes, etc., during some other times to see what it’s really like. My philosophy: Visitas (and other colleges’ designated visit weekends) are great for meeting people if the student plans to go, but they are not necessarily a great way to assess the institution as it really is. My D will be there, albeit a day late (she has a unavoidable commitment Saturday night).

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@me29034 The point of my post was to say that the communication was two way from the beginning. He definitely showed interest in them as well. In terms of other schools, he received hand written notes from Wofford and Furman with his acceptance packets, but otherwise we did not receive a lot of mailings. Is it common practice for public schools to attempt to encourage OOS students to apply for competitive admission programs? I don’t really have any experience as my son only applied to instate schools. We did receive mass mailings from Pitt, Kentucky , etc , but nothing personal encouraging my son to attend.

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@me29034 We got the full court press from Fordham as well. My understanding is that both Fordham and Tulane have low yield rates and put a lot of effort into sealing the deal.

We received some hand written notes after visiting some schools, but I don’t recall which ones. I remember thinking some poor student in admissions was getting writer’s cramps as part of their work study.

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@carolinamom2boys I wasn’t referring to communications encouraging kids to apply for competitive programs. I was referring to those congratulating kids on acceptances and encouraging attendance which is what I thought most of the posts here were referring to. Maybe I’ve misunderstood the discussion.

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Regarding personal communications, D received one or two from adcoms referencing stuff in her application, but what she thought was super cool was an alumni interviewer digitally clipped an article that she was in, and sent it to her wishing her luck on an upcoming competition and reinforcing that he thinks she’ll have a blast at accepted student’s days. She thought that was way over the top for a volunteer.

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@kittymom1102 I am interested in your son’s decision process. Is it all an emotional “feel” at this point? Or is there some kind of funneling involving a decision matrix and a spreadsheet? Choosing among Harvard, Stanford, and MIT seems to me to have some pretty clear cleavage lines, objectively. What are your DS’s considerations? Are there specific criteria that you as a family are using, or maybe family allegiance because of legacy? I am very curious how the thought process goes for people like you, @fretfulmother, @frenchtoastlover, and @GoodGrief16, for example, who have a surfeit of truly outstanding opportunities before you.

19240

I am voting for @fretfulmother’s son attending M, taking all the classes at H, and breaking their curves.

My Ds would have gone to Y but they didn’t get in. They would have done Biomed engineering and gone to med school. Money wouldn’t have mattered since not a single one of them schools seem to think having a grad student should allow the UG student get any money even if both attend the same school. I have no idea what is wrong with Ivies and how their accounting deparments work if they think each kid has to pay based on the parents’ income but they have their own separate money trees. It makes absolutely no sense.