Kids went to a Super Bowl party. They had a great time cheering on the Patriots and it was a good life lesson for them to never give up. Some people left the party early, my guys stuck it out till the end and witnessed an awesome comeback. Last night I think was the first time they realized how lucky they’ve had it living in NE since the the turn of the century. Since they’ve been born the Boston teams win everything all the time! It’s amazing.
Tough getting up this morning and getting to school.
Congrats to Patrios fan. My friend is a big fan. Living in Cal, I wasn’t sure on whom to pick but since my DS had an interview @ BU recently I didn’t root against the patriots even though I tend to support underdogs
Congratulations to those who have already committed to their school. I wonder if some of you would weigh in on the reasons for committing before all merit and department scholarships at one’s chosen school are announced.
Here is our specific situation. After his acceptance into UMD engineering and Honors college, younger son mentally committed to in-state UMD with or without a merit scholarship. But my paranoid self wouldn’t let him click “accept admittance” until all merit scholarships are announced in February and March. (Older son with worse stats got a UMD merit scholarship two years ago.)
I told him that merit scholarships are generally designed to get someone on the fence to definitely come to their school and I was afraid that someone in the UMD admissions office would assume that an acceptance commitment meant that they didn’t need to give that student a scholarship to come.
@Engineering713 I personally agree with you, but I know others do not. The first admissions officer that my D met with at the end of junior year explicitly advised her not to commit anywhere until she had all offers in front of her, which I appreciated since he was recruiting my D and could have encouraged her to jump at any offer from his school. We are heeding his advice.
@Engineering713 Well, I feel the same way. Although, we didn’t commit to our in-state and nothing. Granted, there were probably plenty of kids with higher stats, although judging from the boards here, many of those also received nada.
@Engineering713 - What are you going to gain by accepting early? Any advantage with housing? I believe lot of schools you can give housing deposit without committing.
@srk2017 I’m not sure if UMD prioritizes housing based on commitment date, but I believe younger son would automatically be assigned to a specific floor in a specific dorm based on his honors college program selection.
I was just wondering if I was really crazy in that I assumed that admissions officers would actually go into a student’s record to see if they had already committed before giving a merit or department scholarship.
Some schools do prioritize housing based on when you put down a housing deposit. To put down a housing deposit, you need to accept. Portion of deposits are refunded if you do not enroll. Varies by college I would think.
@Engineering713, DD was accepted by her EA school. However, she has taken our advice to continue with her other application process. We want to have all options in front of her then show her how she could analyze each option.
Also, kids in this next few months continue to grow and mature; I see D started to get into new area of interest. So, for us, it’s a good idea to wait for a couple more months.
@engineering713 my son was accepted to UMD into CS and the FIRE program which doesn’t have housing. He submitted his housing request without accepting admission and their was no deposit. He is planning on accepting admission this week. I agree on the merit question why give it if they don’t have to?
@Engineering713 my D17 was also accepted into engineering at UMD and into the Honors program. We are waiting to see how merit shakes out before committing. She has two other options that have a lot of potential as well, and we see no reason to throw them away until we find out if UMD is in the same ballpark, financially.
What Honors program is your son looking at? Not all of them have LLC housing. lbf is correct, though – you can apply for housing at UMD without accepting their offer, so there’s no downside to doing so.
@Engineering713 last year when it got close to the May 1 deadline, my class of 2016 son received an email from a college that had already offered him merit. The email offered him additional merit $ to “help him make his decision”. So you never know…and it shows that admissions are tracking who committed already. In addition if their yield seems to be coming in lower than they want – these deal sweeteners may be offered. I would wait to commit.
@NerdMom88 Because UMD engineering has so many engineering courses without a honors equivalent, he decided to be in the generic most flexible “University Honors” program so that at least his math, science, and humanities will be in honors equivalent classes.
The generic “University Honors” program students all live in Hagerstown Hall. This is just his choice, not a recommendation to others. His shy older brother wouldn’t have even considered being in Honors College if it was offered. He like the anonymity of big classes.
I agree that if there are merit awards still in the running, there is really no reason not to wait. I think the only reason I would have my kid accept would be if on-campus housing is not guaranteed and s/he is the type who would not do well scrambling for housing. We did ED this time around so choice process was in the fall–where to apply (top choices grant no merit aid anyway). S12 had all acceptances/merit offers in hand and did two April visits before he made up his mind.
