@WhereIsMyKindle how fun!!! I’ve never stayed at Kidani, but love Jambo. And love a 2 bedroom! I told S17 he has to give me one more Disney trip so we will have 3-4 days there, 3 at universal either before or on both sides of the RCI exchange for his grad trip. He has to pick his resort though. I’m pushing for 2 connecting Poly studios.
QOTD: # of apps. No clue. Still haven’t managed to pin S down willing to talk about it. We have 2 apps in, and I have plans for 2 others, and I think he has 3 or 4 that are consistently on his lists. If he makes NMF that will possibly add another 2 or 3.
I don’t really get how I could classify these as safety/reach/whatever either. Two are complete safeties I guess? (both financial and admission). The others I really don’t know. He should get into most, but we cant afford most. Really the only mystery is if anyplace unexpected offers unexpected amounts of money.
@MSHopeful I agree with eandesmom. The child support will likely prevent an NCP waiver, but it doesn’t hurt to try. I’d call the financial aid office and explain the situation and see what they say before applying, but that’s just me. I looked into an NCP waiver for D long ago just in case she decided she wanted to try for an elite school. What I learned was not promising. Have you looked at Vanderbilt?
I’m not sure if the college tours have been helpful to us or not! But I think we’re done and I can imagine some schools will be applied to that we will only visit if admitted. I’ve found the NPC to be the most helpful - Sarah Lawrence looked great, until I ran the numbers! Same for many other schools.
We’ve visited: Smith (yes), Mt Holyoke (no), Wellesley (yes), Bates (yes), Colby (yes), Bowdoin (no b/c D17 won’t get in), Carleton (maybe), University of MN (no, but will apply as a safety). I’ve been told I ask too many questions during the tours.
I’m jealous of all the interest in UA Huntsville as I love the city! But we won’t be applying.
Regarding Naviance, our GC is able to show the data that we can’t see if too few applicants. We are at a small school so there is limited data at some schools.
QOTD regarding number of schools applying to, I bet my D17 will be in the 5 - 7 range. She’s not overly engaged in the process right now, hopefully once school starts mid-August she will get serious!!!
QOTD (where is she applying and which ones are reach/match/safety):
UCs:
Cal, UCLA: reaches
UCSD, UCDavis: matches (unless she applies for computer science which might put them into the reach category)
UC Santa Cruz: safety
I am not sure whether she’ll be checking the box for any of the other UCs.
Scripps, Pitzer: matches
Pomona: reach
Reed: reach
Lewis & Clark: safety (this may come off the list because she likes UC Santa Cruz and it’s a safety for which she doesn’t have to complete a separate app!)
The big question is, will she apply anywhere ED? Her older sister applied ED to Scripps but I’m not sure D’17 is ready to commit herself to any one school. Indecisiveness is her big weakness!
Has anyone found colleges that will let there child stay over night as a way to check out the school. While school is in session.
@fun1234–I think this is fairly common, although you may be better off if you can arrange for your child to sleep on the floor of a friend of a friend, no matter how tenuous the relationship. My son has hosted a few strangers at my request, but his school also offers a formal overnight hosting program.
Your child cannot expect the host to do much other than perhaps accompany to dinner as the students have exams, homework, etc.
I think it depends on the school. Many schools only offer this option to admitted students, in the spring.
I know a lot of colleges have an overnight in the spring for accepted students. Mine had one in the fall for prospective students as well. I attended both, and they were wonderful. They really confirmed my choice
College Visits - I like college visits, it gives me an excuse to visit places I normally wouldn’t, but my D doesn’t so we haven’t done many. I forced her to visit a couple of southern schools because 1) other than FL she’d never been 2) She had a civil war era image of it floating around in her imagination, and 3) The Big Macs. The visits didn’t help, she still won’t consider southern schools. But here is our visit list:
Tulane (no)
Alabama (no)
Yale (yes)
Penn (yes)
Princeton (no)
Swarthmore (no)
UC Boulder (yes)
U Denver (no)
Number of Applications - No idea at this point.
Naviance - Maybe I’m naive, but I don’t put much value into Naviance results. I mean why is that one green square there among all the red x’s? I’m thinking each applicant is unique even within their school, but idk. I do pay attention to acceptance rates, average gpa/test scores, profiles of accepted students, etc.
Minerva - D spoke with them when they visited her HS. She was intrigued at the time, but has since forgotten about them.
@fun1234 Rice and Swarthmore come to mind as offering overnights
@itsgettingreal17 She has not looked at Vanderbilt. I don’t know if I can convince her to consider Tennessee. But she does know that not getting the waivers will rule out her top choice schools. I’m wondering if there was somehow I could get in touch with her dad and convince him to fill out the forms if it would even matter because the schools would probably then still be unaffordable and I know he wouldn’t contribute. So focusing on merit schools is looking better and better. She really fell in love with Georgetown though. Sigh. I just really need to prepare her for worst case scenario.
@MSHopeful I don’t mean to be a wet blanket at all:( I do agree with contacting the schools specifically as the process and what they require to document will vary. I would think you can basically ask for an “early read” of the situation. While it is better to know sooner than later it doesn’t make it any easier. I don’t think you need to wait until application/acceptance.
We have zero reach schools on our list as we know we cannot afford any that are of interest.
I have a suggestion - In order to avoid confusion, instead of saying UR, can we specify URichmond/URochester (or URich/URoch) and instead of USC, can we specify USCalifornia/USCarolina (or USCali/USCaro)? I think it would make things sooo much clearer for any of us interested in any of those schools.
For our part, D has visited:
UCLA (yes, but big and spread out)
UCSB (jury still out - need to revisit CCS)
USCali (yes)
Scripps (yes, with concerns)
Pomona (probably no - no Big MAC, in fact, no MAC at all)
UMd (no)
UPenn (no)
UVA (yes)
Georgetown (probably no, no MAC)
William and Mary (no)
UMinn (no)
UMich (no)
List is still pretty long. It’s hard to break down into reaches/matches/safeties because a school that is an admissions safety/match could be a financial reach (we are a Big MAC family – who coined that, BTW???).
We do have some safeties, both financial and admissions. Lots of reaches, though - for admissions and/or merit. And some concern about Tufts syndrome.
As for Naviance, the school updates it. Since it’s a small school, there’s not enough data to really make Naviance as reliable a resource as I would like.
@LoveTheBard I’m pretty sure the kudos for Big MAC go to @STEM2017.
My DD really only has one reach school on her list. UNC. If we were instate, it would be a match. Her 2 main schools are safety because of money and her third is a safety/reach only because of money. She really has no interest in applying to any schools that we can no afford. She does not want to attend any school that we can not write a check for. I guess I have kind of pushed the no loan thing on her and now she is really starting to understand the concept of money. She knows she wants to go to grad school, so that is a big part of it. We also got the special application to Wake. She loved that school, but knew there was/is no way they will give her any money.
@MotherOfDragons 
That would be pretty funny. The only info on the app is the info they entered. I suspect they are now waiting for the app fee. I’ll let it ride and see what happens next. I’m guessing they email that the app is started but not submitted and where is their app fee.
QOTD: I have no idea how many schools S will end up apply to. He is going to apply to our state flagship and at least 3 Big Mac schools (Alabama, Michigan State and one of either Pitt, Ohio State, OK State or South Carolina). After that he can apply to as many competitive merit aid schools as he wants. So he will end up applying to anywhere between 4-17 schools, depending on how many essays he decides to write.
http://oira.unc.edu/files/2015/05/cds_2014_2015.pdf
http://admissions.unc.edu/apply/class-profile-2/
UNC seems to have 17% OOS based on CDS but I have seen posts in the past stating that their OOS admissions are much harder than instate.
The second link states that they admitted 52% of instate but only 19% OOS.
@caroldanvers Almost exactly what I was thinking for QOTD. D17 is looking at most of the ones you mentioned as well. In addition she has 4 others ‘for sure’. I think she’ll be at about 12-14 total.
The utility of college visits: They were incredibly useful for us, because they let us discover that D17 is, with some noteworthy exceptions (read: big schools where someone was able to tell her about the people on the faculty she could conduct research with, not just the projects), most definitely a liberal arts school type of girl, while D19 most definitely is not. Particularly helpful, really, since D19 will almost certainly not get to go on as many tours during the next couple year as D17 has, due to family commitments and travel schedules we already know about.
In addition, tours let our D17 get a feel for the people at the school (at least the faculty). Yeah, the ones you’re talking to are on their best behavior and everything, but little things like whether there seemed to be decent morale (e.g., Alabama) or not (e.g., Minnesota), or where there was a good amount of confidence (e.g., Earlham) or a whiff of desperation (e.g., Drake)—you’re not going to get that from a website.
Number of applications: 11 (not counting the last-ditch option that pretty certainly won’t be needed). For admissions we have high reach=0, reach=2, match=3, safety=6; for finances we have high reach impossibility=1, reach=4, match=5, safety=1.