@2muchquan – his stats were good…35 ACT, good ECs but nothing unusual, UW GPA somewhere around 3.98, lots of APs, probably very good teacher recs (small school so good close relationships with teachers), varsity in club sport, some honors choirs, etc To answer your other question…no…not in running for Richmond Scholars. He heard nothing from Richmond until his acceptance arrived with no merit, etc. I think that the only merit there is linked to the Richmond Scholars. My guess would be a lack of meaty leadership positions might have hampered his merit prospects. He is a very quiet guy who prefers not to be in leadership positions.
@thinmints Your S14 sounds amazing. If you aren’t offered merit-aid with stats like that? WTH??? Sheesh.
@thinmints and @stem2017 Makes me feel better that dd removed UR from her list b/c she was unwilling to take al of the subject tests they require strictly from homeschoolers. Her EC leadership roles are weak. She has awesome awards, but no leadership b/c she has spent 50% of high school being sick.
S is strongly leaning to Penn ED. This new policy makes me wonder. Tulane has EA, and it is known to be more generous with their merit money the earlier you apply. Technically, they don’t have a deadline. I want that option as a backup. How will a school really know if you apply EA somewhere, against their policy. their policy does not seem fair…I assume they don’t want applicants having good offers in hand, and walking away from their offer. Does anyone notice how many changes in policy and stuff our 2017 kids are dealing with. New SAT, changing ACT without real notice, new coalition app that will most likely have issues, and now new ED policies. When will it stop. Makes planning more difficult…
@STEM2017 lol I think you were thinking of a nutria 
Thanks everyone for all the well wishes for D18. I just texted her to see how she’s doing.
H is super over the bad traffic in Boston, I think I’ll wait a while before I broach the subject of DC traffic with him. He’s super good at long distance driving, I’m super good at stop and go traffic, so maybe I’ll be the one to go see the DC area ones with D17.
I’m currently on hold with Directv chopping down my ridiculously high bill. I shut down one receiver since the girls don’t watch tv anyway, and I dropped down to the cheapest package that still has HGTV and ESPN, which is about all H and I watch now. I am trying so hard to simplify and reduce costs in anticipation of downsizing for college.
@MotherOfDragons, when H and I cut back on our cable bill, one of my criteria was that the package at least have HGTV. H is the ESPN watcher, except when it comes to ski races and the Olympic qualifiers (which were on main stream channels.)
Okay…Stupid question. What is the ED policies?
I agree that Penn’s new policy does not seem fair. My older son applied ED elsewhere but EA to Tulane at same time, and received a very generous merit award within a week of submitting his Tulane app. (I think he submitted in early November but his year was the CA debacle year where every college extended their app deadlines. Tulane was not on CA then.)
As to how Penn will know…this will depend on the skill of your guidance dept, I guess. Unless things have changed, the student (and maybe the parent?) sign an ED agreement when applying. I think it was a CA requirement and not one imposed by our HS. Since all applications are submitted with assistance from Guidance, they would be the roadblock.
Also agree with your assessment of the changes this class has to suffer through. The one that really ticked me off was the state-imposed administration of the new SAT this March. Fortunately a workaround was created where individual students could cancel score immediately after sitting for test—so as to keep score off the CB score report. The school was told that this would still allow the student’s score to ‘count’ for participation in the state exam, but as of now, Guidance still cannot access the scores.
I imagine that many of us on this thread are better informed of these late-breaking changes than our HS guidance departments are. My fear is that Guidance will learn of a change last minute, such as when the Guidance rep meets with the Penn AO when the Penn AO is at school for the college visit day in October. This may get messy…
@MotherOfDragons --my cable bill is $229. I have to do something about it. No premium package, two boxes, one of which is a DVR, excellent internet service, and VOIP phone…but still—yikes! It’s a large annual number when you add in the cell phone bills.
@Tgirlfriend — generally speaking (until Penn added this latest wrinkle), a student could apply to non-binding EA or rolling admission schools while applying ED, but if admitted ED, the student had to attend the ED school and refuse any other offers. The only exception to this was if the FA package offered by the ED school was ‘unsatisfactory’, then the student would be excused from the ED agreement.
The REA and SCEA schools each have their own policies.
@ct1417 good lord! Call up and say you have to cancel because you can’t afford it anymore and you’re going to ATT-they will magically reduce your bill for you. When you get it reduced, get a guarantee for how long that reduced rate will last.
@CT1417…What colleges have these rules? ED and EA? Are they just mostly the Ivy league schools? This is getting WAY out of hand.
@thinmints Woah! Your son is very accomplished. OK, I think we’ll go with the UR alumni interview locally, and go from there. It may be that they are looking for female-tuba playing-Asians for the Spider band this year. Who knows?
It’s funny how many schools I looked at 12 months ago, saying to myself: “Oh, she could get THAT scholarship!” are now falling off the list. I didn’t know squat back then. Now, at least I know squat. 
So where did your son end up?
@Tgirlfriend – I would say that a lot of colleges have these rules, but that may just be due to my somewhat narrow focus. This is not something new, other than the Penn wrinkle.
I could rattle off names of school that I know offer ED, but I don’t know if that is what you want to know. And perhaps I should not introduce ED II to you? Or converting the RD app to ED II?
Privacy
I am friends with both D’s on Facebook (S18 doesn’t have one) and I share D17’s college email, but otherwise they roam free and unsupervised across the interwebs. D spends a little time on Facebook but doesn’t do any other social media. S18 mostly texts, but he might have instagram or snapchat as well. I don’t know for sure if I’m too trusting, but I think I’d notice any internet-related problems through other means. This is certainly an area of “different strokes for different folks!”
Jokes
I admit @2muchquan’s “bar tender” joke actually took me a moment.
I understood @dfbdfb’s joke only because of a recent conversation with oldest D’s fiance. He’s a physics grad student who does research using lasers and really small particles. He was explaining how they ship the particles which is almost mind-blowing. Then he explained that neutrinos are easy to ship because you just aim your neutrino shooter (probably not the actual name) at the destination and they go straight through the earth – easy-peasy. That did blow my mind!
Sick kids
That’s rough – I hope everyone gets better soon!
ED
@STEM2017, I don’t like the idea of ED either. It seems like such a great amount of pressure on a young person. I wouldn’t be comfortable with it even if it was an option for us. I want D to attend a few admitted student days at least. And I love your idea for EAEC. Why don’t schools do this??
Cable
Well there is one big benefit to H working for a cable company – free television. Please don’t hate us as much as you hate your cable company! :)>-
We are completely cancelling cable when the current contract is up. We don’t watch it much. Between Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and Redbox, we have more to watch than free time allows. I’m looking forward to downsizing in many areas once D goes off to college.
FYI, HGTV shows are on Netflix, though I haven’t looked into the details.
@CT1417…so does ED stand for early decision and EA stand for Early Admission? If so I don’t think we have went down any roads like that yet.
@itsgettingreal17 …our household will be cutting back on a lot of things when the S goes off to college and leaves us with an empty nest.
Related to dropping cable, I started a thread long ago discussing ways you would actually ‘save’ money when your DC goes to college. 
We haven’t had a formal QOTD in a while, so here goes:
QOTD: How will your D get money for personal expenses? Do you plan on giving them an allowance and if so how much? Or will they have to work to cover those expenses?
I will be giving D an allowance and a credit card for emergencies. I’m thinking $300 per month plus a seasonal clothing allowance should be enough, but that’s not set in stone.