@1822mom That’s a good list! I actually know where Agnes Scott is - a close friend lives around Atlanta and that was on her daughter’s short list. She eventually chose Smith but she loved Agnes Scott (except it was too close, lol).
^^^ how do you apply an avatar to your CC account?
I wouldn’t call what we do “bribing” but we have brought S fully into the money considerations for college. He’s our only child and we consider the money in the 529 to be his money. The balance is enough to fully fund any Texas public with money left over to partially fund grad school or to get him started after college if he stops after undergrad. We can afford to send him to a full-pay elite like MIT, but then we’d be limited in what we could do for him if he wants to go to grad school, and we definitely wouldn’t give him a lump sum after he graduates. He’s not materialistic or greedy, but he’s factoring in college costs when he thinks about where to go. His primary concern is fit, and for him it’s just a wonderful coincidence that he happens to love UTD which will give him a lot of merit aid even if he doesn’t make NMF.
Of course a lot of this comes from the fact that he turned over the college research process to me, and I primarily set up visits to schools that would either give him a lot of merit aid (UTD, Tulsa, WPI) or were below budget even without merit aid (UT Austin, UTD). Again that wasn’t bribery or manipulation; he was welcome to add any schools he wanted (and still can of course), and he really liked all of the schools he’s visited in the past 12 months. He knows I am a comparison shopper and I look for good value from my purchases, and he was aware that I was going to put together a visit list that was heavy on schools that give good merit aid for his stats. I did repeatedly ask if he wanted to visit more CS elites, like Caltech or CMU, but he refused.
Keep us posted. Which office were you contacting?
@DavidPuddy The Student Recruitment Coordinator at Barrett.
Thanks, in general any changes wouldn’t be widely known, I would think. But a Barrett recruitment coordinator would seem a good bet…
There are a lot of applications that open up tomorrow, as well as the Common App! On your marks!
Thanks @BingeWatcher. I decided it was time! lol I live kind of behind the uh… rear. 
@crazy4info If you go to your profile in the menu on the left it gives the option to update your profile picture. You can upload a photo and resize it for a thumbnail from there.
I tried the bribing. It didn’t work for U of A and Auburn; she wants out of state. But, it might work for some of the other schools. Right now she wants to apply ED to a reach school to up her chances. If she gets in, that’s a win for her, but if she doesn’t get in that might be a win too because we’ll have more financial options? She’s also considering applying for a ROTC scholarship. If she applies, I want her to try for the Junior/Senior scholarship rather than the 4 year one because I’d want her to test-drive ROTC first before making that kind of serious commitment.
@ChattaChia my last post got cut off. I’m looking forward to hearing about your tours of northern schools. Is your S going to be OK with all that snow? My D loves snow! Have you thought about UCSD at all? Depending on how much merit you’re chasing it might not work since I don’t think they’ll give any, but it is less expensive than a full pay private. We didn’t do a formal tour, but I chatted with a bunch of different kids there. They all uniformly love their school, and think that the CS majors have terrific opportunities with internships and jobs. I didn’t shout out to @traveler98 because I think your S is all set, right?
Update on 2018 Son Prevaricating on Essay Writing:
He dug the camera out of the hall closet thicket and did an exposure to show the 60Hz flicker of the light bulb in his desk lamp. And then showed it to me.
I could not make this up if I tried. Sigh.
@melvin123, yep he’s set. I was just asking him if he agreed with my “big board” odds from way upthread, putting him at 99% chance of attending UTD, and he said it’s probably higher than 99% but he’s not quite ready to go into his Galaxy portal to accept admission yet so he can’t call it 100%. He thinks it’s at least 99.5% as of today.
@texasmom18, I also love the new avatar and live off to the right of the butt (Houston area).
Re mailings, I liked getting the pretty brochures too, and they’ve stopped a couple of months ago. I can’t figure out why because my D’s stats are good. Although this is absolutely the wrong take-away, receiving them felt as if they actually wanted you and was an ego boost. Kind of the build-up before the huge April let-down/ slaughter fest. Love thy safety is a mantra I keep repeating in our house.
Just last night I had another conversation with my H about how many reaches we’re going to allow our D to apply to. After a while, rejection after rejection after rejection really hurts, even when you know that applying to schools with 5% admissions rates are long-shots for everyone and doesn’t reflect on your value or how good a student you are. Our D keeps on saying that you miss every shot you don’t take, but I do think there’s something about avoiding an avalanche of rejections.
@melvin123 – D18 hasn’t been receiving many college mailings lately, after receiving a ton towards the end of junior year. I don’t know if this is a late-summer lull followed by an onslaught during application season or not. My guess is that things will pick up again through Jan 1st.
@traveler98 We may be neighbors! I’m in the Humble/Kingwood area.
Mail has slowed down here too. I feel like it’ll start coming in after most apps open tomorrow.
Mail has slowed here too but it’s still trickling in, today he got a book form U Miami Ohio and a mark your calandar notice from University of Arizona.
@HeliMom74, I think YOU should write an essay about your son’s essay process. I’d read it!
Mail from Yale, Princeton and Harvard has slowed down to a trickle at our house, maybe 3-4 mailings last week. Each. I’ve already instructed the mail carrier to throw away any mail from schools outside the Top 10 so that our mail box remains clutter free for only the top schools. Oh and bills too. =))
Post 5216:
You can do that? Brilliant!
I wish…
Two oversized postcards from SUNY Binghamton in the last week. That’s a bit of a head scratcher…I don’t remember seeing anything from that school before at all, and now two in one week during the college advertising drought. Besides that, a mark-the-calendar for U of Arizona and the notice from Tulsa about the waived application fee, and I think that may be all. Oddly nothing from any Texas public even though the ApplyTexas system has been open for a month.
D got a Binghamton postcard for the first time this week, too. Maybe they are trying to get noticed in the lull.