Don’t think we’ve gotten anything from Chicago lately; we did end up receiving the Yale book, along with another from Columbia.
List Struggle - Adding schools with mythical merit $-) :-/ (Example: UMich oos scholarships)
To anyone applying to UMD: The app has a question for Emergency Contact and Family Member. Your take on how to answer both?
Son17 got the UC postcard last week. Not much new mail the last couple of days, but still a lot of emails. Noticed a lot of colleges have some version of a Preferred Status for applying. Gimmicks!
Working on essays today, and trying to finish up Common App stuff. Getting nearer to finish line for son17.
Son17 is feeling a sense of relief after yesterday’s school visit. I think he feels he has someplace he could go to, be wanted, and have a good chance to succeed. So that worked out better than I thought.
I am somewhat relieved too. I think with coach helping him through the process, he should definitely get it in. I think he would get in even without his help, his grades and scores are decent enough. But, it just should go “easier” I guess.
****Good luck to all the kids who have started their senior year already!!! Exciting!!
Mythical merit list:
Virginia Tech
University of Florida
Penn State
LOL
I won’t even let my kid add any mythical merits to the list. She’ll be lucky if she even gets the work done to apply to half we have now. She won’t however let me take the mythical acceptance ones off (super reaches) until after the Sept ACT. She really wants to raise that score so they are options (however there is a lot of mythical studying going on right now) 
@STEM2017 we are headed down to florida in 2 weeks for a little vacation before school starts. We are planning on taking D19 to look at UF, so I’ll let you know what we think!
We don’t even have the concept of mythical merit since I figure there is no money coming our way. I would love to be pleasantly surprised. At least my D17 cranked the essays and supplements out this summer. We are waiting on feedback from counselor on the last school that she knew she wanted to apply. YEAH!! Downside is she is still considering 3 other schools.
We discovered last night that IU-Bloomington will be adding an Arabic Flagship to their others (Chinese, Turkish, Swahili). It was announced this past January. After D gets through the one study abroad application currently in the works and her summer English assignment, she’s going to contact them about their plans and how someone entering at their mid300 level might fit in. (We’ve learned so much about language programs by searching the bookstores for textbooks used!)
IU’s IS major looks good to D. She read through all the courses offered this semester and last, and then was derailed into researching the Peace Corp :))
During last night’s discussion she confessed that she really prefers the Flagship set-up with a capstone year abroad, studying and interning in the language. I would love that for her. Unfortunately she’d need to get one of the few big awards for Maryland or make NMF for Arizona. We could swing Oklahoma with the non-NMF auto merit. Miss is not a flagship so she’d have to work hard at finding an internship during a study-abroad year.
I am sure DS is not going to be thrilled with me… I just signed him up for the Sept ACT. He already got a 32 last fall but if he could get a 33 he would get more merit aid at Ole Miss and Miss State. His math is what dragged his score down so I am hoping that since he has had another year of math that it will go up. I’ve already sent his 32 to all the colleges he is applying to so I am only going to send it if it’s better.
New to this site but finding it interesting reading some of these posts. Just curious, how many schools are on your kids’ list? My daughter has 5 that we are applying to but really its a top three list that is her focus. Her top two are ones I feel she can get into and her 3rd choice is a bit of a stretch. The top 2 she would qualify for some scholarships her 3rd choice she’d need to bring up her SAT by about 50 points. Top choice is in-state, all others are OOS.
Also, how many visits have you all done. We’ve done 7 visits, 3 unofficial where we just walked around and self toured and one of those we are going back for an official tour this fall as its one of her top three after having seen it in person. When I did all this years ago, I looked at 1 school, liked it, applied and was accepted. So different now then when I was doing this back in '88
@jeepgirl UF is going to be hot and humid, dress comfortably. 
Tour wise, if D19 is interested in engineering, that’s one tour that’s worth your time. Same with the business college tours…otherwise, you may want to pass on the admissions tour and just walking around campus by yourself (unless you have questions). Don’t forget to stop by the stadium!
@dcolosi we have a short list. 5 schools of interest. 2 optimal choices, 2 maybes, 1 safety. We visited about 10 schools, looked at some LAC type schools originally and realized those were not ideal for son17. Switched to smaller biz focused schools closer to our home in Boston area.
“So different now then when I was doing this back in '88”
it was like that in 1978 too.
@dcolosi – Welcome!! We have a list that continues to evolve somewhat we we think harder about “fit” and location. Right now we have 9-11 schools on the list on any given day but at least 5 are reaches - low acceptance rates. 2-3 safeties and 2-3 matches. We have visited 8 schools so far - plan to apply to at least 3 of them. Plan a few more visits soon and through early October. Working on apps currently for 4 EA schools - not pursuing any ED. Then have 4-5 heavy supps for other schools - wish we could do soon but seems unlikely. Wisdom teeth being extracted next week school starts right after labor day.
@dcolosi Welcome! I could have written the 2nd paragraph of your post nearly word for word. We have toured about the same # but many aren’t even on the list now. I think the difference between now and yrs ago is more educated parents are chasing $. I think it used to be if your parents were educated and had a good job you just picked a school and went. But now even those with educated and employed parents need financial help. So they need to cast the net wider in hopes of merit or grant money.
That said I still think most of the world is not like those on CC. The majority of this kids at out HS just pick a state school (probably based on who they know that are/aren’t attending there), apply, and go.
Making some progress with the Spreadsheet of Desperation. My D’s car is in the shop so she said she may work on some essays Friday afternoon instead of going shopping (really Pokemon Go playing). Luckily for her The SOD has a tab with her essay prompts and word counts organized by school. I printed it out for her last night, found it laying on the piano (two feet from where I handed it to her) this morning.
Baby steps.
@dcolosi DD has 5 main schools on her list. Then she has 4 with super competitive merit awards. Of the 5 main ones, 2 are not favorites, but they are the most affordable. (And all of that is based on her making NMSF. We should know in a couple of weeks.)
I have lost track of how many schools we have visited. I think we are at 8, but 2 we were there for other reasons and knew were unaffordable. Of the schools visited, only 2 are on her list now, an 1 is her least favorite option (but it is also by far the most affordable option.)
Thanks for the replies. My daughter goes to a large high school so she is only interested in larger colleges. We’ve toured a variety of schools, large, medium and small and the larger ones seem to feel like better fits for her. Looking at Indiana, Michigan State, Ohio State as her top 3 with Kentucky in the mix and Minnesota. Georgia is on her radar but not sure she wants to go that far away and haven’t applied there yet. We looked at Central Michigan and Ball State but took those off the list after visiting. Of the schools, the only one we haven’t visited is Minnesota. We’ve visited Butler as well but that one was never really a consideration so we don’t count that in our search. Nice school but smaller than her high school so she won’t consider it due to size.
@CaucAsianDad The timeline tab on our spreadsheet probably looks similar to yours - with the same reaction from the kid
I read somewhere on this site a post that said you can learn a lot about a school by their essay prompts. That has inspired me to go back and add a few more schools back to the list and into the timeline. While D doesn’t need more work - I think I maybe giving her the option to see if some of the other essay prompts inspire/relate to her more.