@jeepgirl my DD15 did Bama as one and done. She knew that is where she was going and submitted application the day it opened that year. They don’t send acceptances until after Labor Day, but she got one of the first batch that were sent out. A week later she had her official Presidential Scholarship notification. I guess it was our own unofficial ED.
@whataboutcollege It is naive to think that meet full need schools will alter how much aid they provide students if they simply explain their situations. These schools have some of the most thorough financial investigations. FAFSA is a walk in the park compared to the CSS. And then there is submitting via IDOC. They might alter awards for extreme extenuating circumstances: high medical bills, terminally ill parent, etc. But it is incredibly unlikely for most situations.
FA is a formula. That formula might give them wiggle room of say $2000 without much effort, but when you are talking about moving the needle significantly, very, very very unlikely.
And meet full need…definitely a very **poorly defined phrase. **Meeting our “full need” equates to expecting close to $1,000,000 in college costs across our 8 kids(on an engineer’s salary). Completely unrealistic. Now, if our kids had been spread over 8 yrs instead of 21, that cost could have gone down to about 1/3 that amt.
I think it’s time for another joke:
A ham sandwich walks into a bar and sits down. The bartender says to him: I’m afraid we don’t serve food here.
@jeepgirl We havent had a chance to visit at any schools, which is contributing to our app list still being huge. Also I think S’s school really pushes the kids toward reach schools (it makes the HS look good), so his list in Naviance is heavily weighted toward schools he wont get into or we can’t afford. I would be happy to be done now that the Bama app is in too!
A friend of mine with many kids was lamenting the large gaps they have between some of them for that same reason! Why dont they warn us about this when we start having kids??
2MQ, Imshared your jokes with my little girls and they returned with this one:
How much room do you need to raise a fungus?
Mush room.
Thanks for the jokes, @2muchquan and @Mom2aphysicsgeek :))
Come to Fin forms, if we are only targeting Merit based, do we still need to fill out FAFSA and CSS? Or it is case by case study for each school?
@whataboutcollege I think most offering merit aid will want FAFSA. D14’s school does. It’s in the school’s best interest.
I have never seen the CSS required for non-need based merit. Some schools do want the FAFSA, but not all. Bama does not require it.
CSS is most often an additional form for privates? Not sure on that part of the process yet. FAFSA everywhere, though, if you want access (even later) to federal funds.
Well, it sounds like UMinn is potentially back on the list…which was the origin of the ‘no pants’ comment. I don’t know where this girl is coming up with ‘her’ list, but it’s putting a kink in ‘our’ list. I feel like we are totally using a shotgun approach to the college search. No laser sights for us.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek Tell your girls I’m stealing that one…
@2muchquan I feel your list pain. I warned S that our agenda for today was to take my list and his list and negotiate the One List. He’s never outright rejected any of my suggestions, but it may be time to push him to do that now (instead of 6 months from now).
This.
Particularly amount the large state schools. I think University of California admissions program would work better at meeting their goals of admitting the top students if students were to rank the schools within their desirability and be accepted to no more than 2.
BTW some schools are changing their essay to reflect this idea. My guess this is what is behind the new UC “personal insight” essay questions.
@whataboutcollege No free stuff here either but I suspect my son did not check boxes that said he wants stuff mailed. U. of Chicago is relentless though. They seem to have latched onto his excellent SAT Math Subject & don’t care that his gPA would make him a long shot. Although I guess many schools in order to make themselves competitive (in US & World News Ranking) really do court kids that don’t have a chance in getting admitted to get that % of admits down.
@LoveTheBard - You said “once you hit somewhere between 8 and 10 APs, you begin to hit the point of diminishing returns and your time is better spent pursuing other interests.”.
I get your point. But if my daughter did not take a full schedule of AP/Honors classes, she would have hours a day of sitting in regular classes, bored and disengaged and hating school. Homeschool or early college would be better options. But as long as she is at a public high school conforming to their rules and graduation requirements, a full AP/Honors schedule is the best way to keep her engaged.
ok so I am registering S17 for the Sept ACT exam. We thought he was done but 1 additional point on his composite makes a big difference for some of the merit scholarships he is looking at and he will not make the NMSF cut off for our state so I had the discussion with him and he’s begrudgingly on board to try one more time with a little prep. Do I bother having him take the writing or just skip it since it seems schools are not even looking at it? His composite was a 32 last time (only time he took ACT) and that was higher than his SAT scores but his writing was low at a 24.
Can I admit I am feeling very discouraged, frustrated and overwhelmed right now? DD keeps picking up extra hours at work and we have not had time to have a serious discussion about her list and she’s not started anything yet. All I have done practically speaking is buy tickets for the whole family to go to Edinburgh/London for Thanksgiving, which I booked 6 months ago, and now her AP scores mean she may not be able to actually get in to any of the UK schools on her list.
Congrats to all the great AP scores so far!
@Collegecue I am doing the exact same thing. I would skip the writing unless a school on his list requires it.
@HiToWaMom I would send both ACT scores. Some schools superscore the ACT.
@2muchquan Swarthmore is very small - less than 2000 students. That size school is not for everyone. When I reseached it a couple of years ago I noticed their local high school visits focus on very elite schools (think Phillips Academy Andover). I got the impression that it’s like Tufts (very intellectual and intense) but smaller.
RE: ED, I’m all for EA because you can make a decision based on all the information. ED is too risky for those of us chasing merit, and as pointed out, teenagers often change their minds between October and May.
Stonehill College (a small liberal arts school in Easton MA) gives ED applicants a financial package with their acceptance and allows them the opportunity to accept it, switch to RD or withdraw without penalty. It is still different from EA in that if you accept, you are obligated and must withdraw applications from other schools, but the approach puts the schools and families on a more level playing field and I think other schools should adopt it.
RE: # of AP courses. As with so many things, varies widely across high schools. Our HS does not offer many AP opportunities prior to Jr year so no one graduates with more than say eight to ten APs. Even that would require taking those AP art courses, AP language, and the four core academic subjects. Once an AP is offered Jr year, an honors level course is no longer offered, so as posted by others, student must take AP course in order to experience any rigor.
The school does not go overboard offering APs, IMHO, in that they do not offer AP Physics until the calculus-based course, but instead offer both regular and honors algebra-based physics, not AP 1 & 2.
RE: # of colleges. While a couple of schools came off the list after visiting, both boys felt they could see themselves at almost all of the schools we visited. As long as I performed my due diligence before visiting, the schools had what the boys were looking for on paper. Failed to identify how restrictive Columbia’s core is and how difficult it would be to double-major, so that was a bit of a waste. Not a complete waste as it was an opportunity to tour an urban campus.
RE: college swag. My new theory (completely unfounded by facts) is that the colleges send more ‘stuff’ to students who might not be inclined to apply otherwise. My older son’s SAT scores & GPA did not align (considerably higher SAT), whereas younger son is consistently high across all measures. Older son received more solicitations, including from schools where I knew he had no hope of admission.
Absolutely zero progress on any college-related front here. I think my son feels this is some very far off in the future project. He is carrying on with his CS research for a prof (remotely) and will be teaching a coding class to middle & HS students at the library this month, but NO college research. Frustrated…
@vickisocal So sorry you are so stressed.
DD gets excellent grades, teachers love her, she had 6 IB/AP classes last year and got 5 As and 1 B, but she does not do high stakes testing well. Frustrating.