Congratulations to everyone with recent acceptances!!! <:-P
Odds update: big school 80%; medium school 10%; small school 10%.
Congratulations to all the recent good news. Heres to an exciting month of March.
@Booajo ha h ha I love those odds!
Quick update, S18 was accepted to Va Tech yesterday! I think it’s a top contender!
I posted on another forum but didn’t get much feedback, so thought I would try on the parent site. I have learned so much from you all over the past months. Thank you. Sorry so long.
NMF DD applied to 10 schools and has 7 acceptances and 3 still pending (but low probability of acceptance and affordability). The two front runners are Clemson w/HC and Texas Tech w/HC. We are OOS at both. Both have her major: microbiology / cellular & molecular biology. Long-term DD desires to pursue a Ph.D. as a research scientist.
But these two are VERY different campuses, surroundings & vibes. She has visited both. She would prefer Clemson for community and smaller size, but TTU seems to have more undergraduate research in her field and she really connected with the professors and Dean of the HC. While DD received the highest scholarship outside of National Scholars at Clemson, the >$125K Clemson price tag vs TTU full COA for NMF is hard to justify.
I have not heard much of anything on this forum in regards to TTU, which raises a red flag. Why aren’t more going there? Especially NMF with full COA?
@nodecision2022 TTU is a fine school and was on our original list it was crossed off mainly due to distance. DS wanted to be closer to home and UTD turned out to be a great fit for him. With your daughter’s plans I say follow the money!
Wow I’ve missed a lot but congratulations @Loukydad on the U of Louisville commitment and @texasmom18 on Ole Miss! It’s so exciting to see the scholarships rolling in for all these kids as well!
I wish there was good news from our world but sadly my daughter did not get an invite to Distinguished Scholars at Udel so they are NFW and off the table, she did get excellent scholarships from Arizona and Rutgers which makes them ridiculously affordable. But the worst news was that she did not move forward on the Chancellor Scholarship competition at Pitt which is truly the one that stings. The process was a bit wonky this year and the “thanks but no thanks” email was a bit harsh. Of course everyone on here knows Pitt is where her heart is; but they are currently MUCH more expensive than Arizona, Rutgers and Miami OH. It’s such a tough decision. There is still one more hail mary with pitt so it’s not quite over yet. Stay tuned!
to echo @shelleee , if your kid ends up in a city serviced by Southwest, look into getting a SWA Rewards credit card. We use ours like an Amex, running household expenses through it and paying it off each month. Points build up very quickly, flights are cheap if you plan ahead and you can always cancel them w/o penalty. It is really nice to have a bunch of points built up, making it easier to fly your child home on a whim (or if an emergency) or to fly out to visit them when they need a hug.
@vistajay Yep, we do the same thing with Southwest. And in fact, one of the reasons DS eliminated Montana State was that Southwest did not fly there (and air travel from the Bay Area was a pain overall).
@nodecision2022 S loved TTU. It was briefly his first choice school, edged to second after he realized that it was the Honors College (on top of everything else) that was giving it the edge over UNM - and we hadn’t visited the Honors College at UNM.
Distance was also a factor. TTU is double the drive for us - 10 hours to UNM vs. two long days to TTU and shorter / easier flight connections to ABQ vs. Lubbock.
In the end, S preferred the city of Albuquerque to Lubbock, too, which moved TTU to second place.
That said, TTU is a great option. The financial package is the best out there for NMFs as far as I can tell. The professors we met with were friendly and eager to work with S. We’d have been perfectly happy if that’s where he ended up.
Here’s a link to our visit report: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20548698#Comment_20548698
ETA - The above is not meant to say that UNM is better than TTU. More that TTU is excellent and totally worthy. The stuff about S was only about individual fit. 
@AmyBeth68 so sorry to hear about the lack of better merit for your D at Pitt (and U Del). I know her heart is at Pitt, and thought that maybe U Del was 2nd. Hoping the Hail Mary at Pitt will work out.
@amybeth68 I am sorry…I know I had my heart set on Pitt for her. I know Arizona would be at the top of my list, I know several kids that attend Arizona and love it!
@DiotimaDM agreed! Texas Tech is a great school and I think as Texas continues to grow Texas Tech and UTD will be right up there with UT and A&M. My husband always had a soft spot for Tech, unfortunately Lubbock was a definitive no go for both of my DDs. As far as directionals go; my eldest really liked UNT and DD2018 liked the small “LAC” size and feel of SFA. Texans are going to have to expand their idea of “flagship” because UT and A&M are not going to be able to continue to handle the volume of applicants!
He has been accepted at University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin, Colorado School of Mines Honors, Cal Poly SLO, and VT.
Denied at Stanford and Georgia Tech
Still waiting on University of Washington, UC Berkeley, UCSD, MIT, and Dartmouth.
UW should be out later this week, MIT on 3/14, the UCs shortly after that, and Dartmouth on the 28th.
His top choices right now would be VT, Dartmouth, and Mines. UW is pretty high as well. They are all great schools and especially for his desire to study Mechanical Engineering. They all have SAE teams. The thing that is drawing him to those three in particular is access to nature. Virginia Tech he fell in love with on his visit and he said that more than any other school he visited, the excitement and passion from all of the students he engaged with was inspiring and made him want to be there, too. He hasn’t actually visited Mines yet and the last time he was at Dartmouth he was about ten years old, so not really looking at colleges then!
@nodecision2022 TTU was on our list as well. DS liked the school and it was in his top 3 but ultimately for us Ole Miss came in with better merit and getting a spot with the band and an additional scholarship sealed the deal. With the NMF package for you it is certainly worthy of consideration. Have you visited the campus?
Sorry @AmyBeth68. We went through that with DS and his love of Alabama. But once he closed that door he has thrown himself all in to Ole Miss. And remarkably he is so much happier.
Thanks @vistajay for the SWA tip. We will have the option of SWA and United but I’m thinking SWA will come out cheaper.
@nodecision2022, I’m not sure which threads you’ve been following since there are so many to choose from, but I know I’ve read plenty of good things about TTU on CC, especially for an NMF with that wonderful scholarship. My own son wasn’t interested in visiting TTU but he had an early preference for UT Dallas. Have you visited TTU? If not, go there and see if it’s a fit, and definitely don’t be concerned about a perceived lack of CC love…if you dig around enough you will find lots of positive comments about TTU.
@RoonilWazlib99 So pleased that your son got into VT when it’s one of his top choices! Being in the mountains in Blacksburg is lovely and the students we know there (though not engineers) are great people.
@nodecision2022 TTU is on S18 short list, mainly because of the impression that the Dean of the HC had on him. HC students also told him there is a lot of funding for study abroad and I know TTU has a campus in Sevilla, Spain where they can get two years of foreign language credit in a semester. So many students from our hometown go to Tech and love it. It definitely has the traditional college feel with football, and currently their men’s track and basketball are nationally ranked at the top. Greek life is active but not to the level of Bama, such that if you don’t rush you won’t feel left out. I think Tech is slowly getting recognition for being a phenomenal school and will be there in the coming years. The biggest drawback for some is Lubbock/West Texas and the distance–but everyone we know who has gone there ended up loving it and actually Lubbock has better climate/seasons than central Texas. Being in a smaller pool of academically elite HC students within an average student body certainly has its advantages to getting research opportunities. If it were me the cost differential between Clemson and TTU would make it a no brainer.
@RoonilWazlib99 Berkeley is 3/29, so you’ll have to wait until the bitter end for that one!
My D is anxiously awaiting UCSD’s and UCB’s notifications. I wish they were earlier.