@S18D20mom Congrats. Is Clemson 1st choice or is he waiting on a few others?
@pkgny2022 Clemson is probably in the top 3. He has not visited yet, so we plan to do that in the spring. Waiting on merit packages from all before deciding. Even with the 15,000/yr it is a stretch for us being OOS. All of his Top 3 are financial reaches but he does have 2 affordable public safeties in his top 5 
@Kayak24 you should call the school(s) and ask their process. I can’t remember what it is called but a lot of schools have a procedure for special circumstances.
@sekere62 my dd is in a similar boat. Not with the applications but with where she wants to go. She could go anywhere she wants and she has her heart set on a tiny school in the middle of nowhere that no one has heard of. It is ranked the best school for B students or something like that. I go between pushing her to aim higher and letting her choose. Maybe once she gets some good offers from more well known schools she will change her mind. I am not sure what the right answer is here. I haven’t said anything yet. I will wait till all the offers are on the table and then see what she is thinking. But at least my DD has other offers. I actually wish she would stop applying to schools but she insists she is applying to everything on her long list.
Having a disagreement with D18 regarding timely submission of scholarship applications. I think she should finish all of the scholarship apps to 4 schools she’s applied EA to (deadlines 12/1 and 1/1) and then apply to her last schools RD(1/1 and 1/15) She is understandably tired of all the essays etc, but some of the scholarships required nomination and it seems a little ungracious not to get them completed quickly. I thought merit scholarships are awarded on a rolling basis…I would like this process to be done sooner than later.
I too had this talk with my D this weekend. She finally submitted her last application. And two more merit scholarship applications but she was like I need a break. (too many essays) I was like but it will be a free feeling after they are all submitted and you can sit back and relax for a bit. I had heard school give money and when its gone its gone but I am not sure how that applies to the scholarship paperwork. I think that is mostly the initial merit based money off your admission application but I could be wrong.
I am sending two off to college in Fall 2018. My FAFSA said my EFC was $13500. I know there are lots of variables but if one child accepts a FULL RIDE to a public University am I still expected to have an EFC of $13500 for the other? I was hoping my EFC would be cut in half.
@FSUdad93 If you indicated on the FAFSA that you have two in college, then the EFC was already cut in half. It would have been $26,000 for one, and is $13,000 each now.
But you pay what they charge minus merit, (federal,) state or institutional aid.
Some schools that give need based grants base that on the FAFSA, others require the CSS profile too.
DP Jr. is getting close. That kind of close that makes a parent just want to “complete the final push and get it done today”. For DP Jr. that translates to the kind of close that means “almost done, no need to a make a hard push, I can take my time here.”
Herewith:
10 school candidates
9 submissions (6 accept, 3 pending)
1 outstanding application to be done by January 1.
1 External Scholarship essay to be done by Dec 15
1 Competitive Program essay to be done by Dec 15
The 3 pending all have December notification dates I believe. We hurry up. And we wait.
I am so jealous of those of you who are finished or at least can see the finish line. We had a big scramble to get the ED and 2 EA done and now, nothing. He promised to do some this past week and sat for a while and stared and said he had no motivation. sigh. I know I could find some motivation for him but I really don’t want to go that route. They are his applications. I don’t think he will be happy doing them on December 16 if he gets rejected/deferred from his ED, but I think it should be his choice.
Is there any compelling reason to do them earlier?
I feel ya, @stemmmm. I was hoping D would get her app in for the Honors College at a safety school by Wednesday, but it’s not gonna happen. She is worn out and kind of over it. So three apps in (2 reaches and a safety) and about 5 more to go, but I’ll be surprised if she does all 5. To answer your question about getting apps in earlier, I don’t think there’s a compelling reason except what you mentioned: if he is rejected at ED school he won’t be in the best frame of mind to complete other apps, and with the holidays time will be tight.
Question for the field> With an EFC of over $75k on the FAFSA, is it worth applying for financial aid anywhere w/only 1 kid attending college next year? Most of my D’s choices require the CSS as well as the FAFSA.
yup. But I mostly have a great relationship with this kid because I have left him alone to do his own work. He has done tremendously well in school, so I trust him. However, if I hadn’t enforced the deadline with the EA safety schools he would have lazily skipped the applications. Now he is glad we forced him to do them. I’m so conflicted as to what’s right.
Hi @lloyddobler85
We have a high EFC also, and will not submit FAFSA or CSS. Some people advise to go ahead and fill them out in case your household income changes dramatically (lost job or whatever) while your child is in college, but if you have a lot put away in assets and/or a 529, even then doing the paperwork may be pointless. It’s a judgment call.
Of course, there are some colleges that require the FAFSA for your student to be eligible for merit aid, so be sure to look that up for each school on your child’s list.
D has been finished with her apps for awhile, and it seems on the surface like she has been coasting, just enjoying her senior year. She’s got this; she’s chill; it’s all good. Right?
This weekend I went to an event where I saw lots of other high school parents. Several of them asked me if D has decided yet on a college. I came home and asked D how she’d like me to answer that question.
"I can’t believe they are asking that already it’s only November they should know better I only have one acceptance I don’t have to decide until MAY FIRST why would they ask that already how am I supposed to know now?!?!? :-SS :-S "
Poor girl. Even the kids who seem to have it all under control are obviously under a lot of stress.
@ShrimpBurrito Last night D and I were about submit CP SLO/CSU app, but she couldn’t get her password to work. She was locked out. She tried 10 +/- passwords. Then she finally changed her password and couldn’t get that password to work. She closed her laptop in anger and said “I guess I’m not going to Cal Poly. I didn’t want to go anyway.” :-t
Today, all is normal again. For the moment. She was able to access the CP SLO/CSU online app. And we’ll hopefully get that one submitted tonight. D still has many apps to finish. Many. :((
If someone asks me about where D is going to college, I’ll say either our local community college or “Would you like a shake with your supersized fries?” (@Melvin123, remembered my sarcasm today)
Second visit report for UNM
We had a great second visit at UNM. I went into things a little worried that something would be different and S would suddenly hate it. Thankfully, I needn’t have worried. S’s opinion actually went UP.
We had absolutely gorgeous weather - cold at night, but gloriously sunny and comfortable during the day. UNM’s many trees were wearing their fall coats in red, orange and yellow. DH and I did the standard walking tour while S met with the EMS department, then we met with a peer advisor in the Honors college and re-toured housing.
EMS visit - UNM has a sim lab full of super-advanced EMS dummies and S was just blown away by them. Apparently, they can do just about anything short of getting up and dancing. They bleed. The can mimic a heart attack. They can be programmed to crash in the middle of grab-and-go simulation. S was in pure heaven.
Honors College - The meeting was with a senior student who knew the programs inside out. In addition to being informative, meeting with a representative student allowed S to get a feel for the kind of person he’d meet in the Honors College. The two of them promptly got into a discussion about Tolkien, the campus Hobbit and Star Wars societies, the Inklings, the wow factor of visiting the actual pub where Tolkien and C.S. Lewis hung out, which English professors on campus are friendly to speculative fiction and which are not, and other geeky subjects. There happened to be a student meeting going on, and S eavesdropped enough to know that yes, those are definitely his people.
Dining hall remodel - the dining hall was one of S’s favorite parts of campus, so he was worried that the remodel might have ruined it. There used to be two atrium spaces with trees and plants growing inside them, and those are gone. The space feels colder, more industrial, not so warm or inviting as it used to. The recovered square footage was given to a new chef station where food is prepared to order. S liked that part, so it balanced out fairly well. They preserved some of the hidey-hole spaces he liked, and there seems to be more variety in the food offered.
Housing re-visit - S confirmed his fist and second choice of dorms, and added a third choice. We laughed with each other over the fact that his order of preference is exactly opposite mine, including where we each placed the third dorm that we hadn’t seen the first time. I’m not going to be living there, though, so he gets to pick whatever he likes (even if his mother thinks it’s dark and cramped. Hrmpf! :D)
For those who have been reading along, Mom thinks Hokona is light, airy and spacious, while Laguna De Vargas dorms are dark and cramped. The windows in Hokona are twice as large as LdV, and the average room in Hokona is at least 10 square feet bigger. Hokona has white walls and cabinets; LdV has dark brown cabinets and gray walls. Alvarado wasn’t quite as nice as Hokona, felt a bit more dated, but still light and airy.
S prefers LdV because pods of three doubles share one bathroom vs community bathrooms in the other two, and because there are more small lounges and study rooms vs. fewer but larger lounges and study rooms in Hokona.
Hokona’s main lounge has floor-to-ceiling windows along one wall, a nice fireplace and pastel furniture with a mid-century modern vibe. It’s easily double or triple the size of a regular living room, and there are separate meeting rooms with long conference tables on each end. I could definitely see myself studying there, or curled up in a chair reading a book.
The lounges at LdV are about the size of a small living room with brown, man-cave style couches and a TV on the wall. I can’t see anyone studying in the LdV lounges because the TV is going to make it a social gathering place - again, kind of like a man cave. There are small study rooms in LdV with room for about 5-6 people for group projects. Hokona’s conference tables probably would have fit 10-12.
Haven’t posted in a while. Was it early October maybe? Well, I can’t report that DS is completely done with his apps. What I can say is that he has made good steady progess and is almost over the finish line!
He submitted apps to all four schools that he intended to apply to (Kentucky, Louisville, Alabama and Centre). He has been accepted to the first three which all have rolling admissions.
Even though he applied to four, in reality he is only really focused on two schools now, Kentucky and Louisville. He applied to honors at both, conquered those essays so that is awesome. He has even applied for housing at both. Kentucky is completely done. The only things still outstanding are essays for Louisville’s mentored scholarships (Brown Fellow and Grawemeyer) and GEMS program. Brown essay is actually done, just waiting to submit with the others. Grawemeyer actually requires two essays, and he has draft of one.
UK drove us crazy with delay on putting out the details on the Patterson scholarship. But since they did and it was actually more generous than we were counting on, it seems like UK has been rising back to the top of his list. He visited campus again and he came away very excited. He likes Louisville, but I think he loves UK more and would be more excited to attend there.
If he were chosen for Brown Fellows at Louisville that would be hard to pass up. But even if he was I think he would have a hard time passing on the Patterson at UK.
New odds: UK 75%, Louisville 20%, Centre and Alabama 5%.
So how much are you moving forward as if your child will be attending a school when you aren’t sure if s/he WILL be attending a particular school? D18 was accepted EA to a school that has an honors college/dorm associated with it. It is not her top choice (applied ED somewhere else) but the best option of the schools she has thus far been accepted to.
I hate to have her move forward on the additional paperwork, essay, deposit, etc if she isn’t going to be attending there (especially since she still has RD applications to finish and scholarship applications to complete) but I also don’t want her to miss out on the opportunity to be in the honors dorm, etc if she DOES end up going there.
What are you all doing?
We’re waiting for the following:
- 11/4 SAT results, which could generate more merit.
- Acceptances in December from 3 remaining colleges.
- Merit packages/financial aid.
We are not doing ANYTHING until we see how scholarships/aid pans out. Although S has received 2 “helpful” notices about submitting housing deposits already, we’re holding tight right now.
We are not doing anything; then again, nothing yet to do! Did get some applications done, but no word yet from any schools, and MANY outstanding applications yet to do. Somehow getting closer to December and no action on his part.
In big news here, the boy suddenly decided he WOULD continue his winter sport. That decision happened yesterday afternoon, practice started bright and early this morning at 6 am. So now there is even LESS time to write essays. I have lost motivation to motivate him.