There are at least fifteen parameters that distinguish the final two colleges with pros and cons for each. There is no wrong choice for S, although one is $45,000 more per year than the other :-).
@Nomorelurker uh… 45k x 4 is about 180,000 differences 
In other news, we’ve gotten confirmation from UF on NMF award so we are golden… except for apparently paying entirely out of pocket for Summer B. Kinda silly but at least it’s just 6 weeks.
Congratulations to all those moving forward with decisions and roommates!
My husband was approved for the Parent Plus loan this weekend. He applied for $13K (gap between aid and the 35K COA. There were no issues with his application. The funds were applied to S’s account today. S18 has also requested his student loans and the $$ has also been applied.
Back from Own the Dome at Syracuse and I will tell you that if DD wasn’t already in love with Syracuse, she would have been by the end of the weekend. She had a great time, finally met her roommate in person, and made a bunch of new friends.
The programs the next day were very informative and I am very impressed with the academics and all the opportunities available to her at Newhouse. I also appreciated that they opened the proceedings with the pep band and an a cappella group instead of the usual speeches. I am very excited for DD!
@3sonsmom is there any benefit for housing by committing? Not sure what school(s) you are looking at but some give housing priority on when you apply for housing.
Anyone else’s kid falling behind with schoolwork due to all these missed days of school? Or are your schools cutting the kids some slack?
@melvin123 – I think D18’s school is cutting the kids some slack. The teachers know the seniors have checked out by now and want to move on. Of course, there’s that little thing known as “AP tests” coming up. Oops!
An issue that hopefully won’t rear its ugly head in college is that D18 has never taken a final before. It’s an incentive to the kids to maintain their grades in HS – if you have a 90+ average in the class then you don’t have take the final (the exceptions were a couple of easy state-mandated EOCT tests in 9th and/or 10th grade). The AP tests are the “finals” for AP classes … but my procrastinator has never really prepped for them. When she gets to college they won’t cut her any slack and she’ll have to learn how to manage her grades over an entire semester. That could be a shock to her system…
@lbf I will contact the schools tomorrow and ask about housing. Both boys haven’t mentioned roommate search. The two schools are BC and Rutgers NB, RU is so big and BC has 40% freshman at Newton. I believe it is random.
@MinnieFan That is a lot of visits. We left quite a few schools to visit after admission if they had ended up being possibilities. In reality those (e.g. Midwest schools like Macalester and CWRU) mostly weren’t because we had many better choices, but S18’s first visit to his final choice (UCLA) wasn’t until admitted students day this weekend. Your number of applications and results seem very reasonable to me. Quite a few kids in our area did 20+ applications.
@droppedit that’s great that your D’s school is cutting them some slack, really, but on the other hand I think it’s terrible that your D hasn’t had to take finals in HS. Has your D gotten any feedback from her HS alumni about how they handled finals at college? Even though you said your D never prepped for her APs, the fact that she had them must have given her some gauge, and her transition to college finals won’t be as bad as if she didn’t have the APs. Thankfully. If you’re worried about it, maybe you could have her take a class this summer, or a lighter load in the Fall, so she’ll have an easier time making the adjustment?
@melvin123 – one thing going for D18 is that she’s great at taking tests. Always has been and presumably always will be. Of course, you might be the Michael Phelps of test taking but if the dam breaks just upstream of where you’re swimming, you’ll drown like all the rest. She’s going to take a lighter load in the Fall.
Edit: I haven’t heard of any significant issues in college about kids from her HS. I know of one kid in our neighborhood who blew a gasket at GT but I think that was more of a mental health/drugs thing than a preparation thing.
@melvin123 I’m a senior math teacher.
We did save the easier topics for these last weeks.
But I’m not sure what kind of “slack” kids can expect. I teach every day to whoever shows up for class. If you’re out, you miss material that will be on the tests and the final. I’ll be happy to give extra help to anyone who comes with the notes and has questions.
More than that I cannot do. Giving unearned grades wouldn’t do my reputation any good-- and that reputation is important to any kid in the future who wants a letter of recommendation from me. And it’s not fair to the kids who are showing up for class.
10 visits (Columbia, Brown, U Chicago, NU, Amherst, CMU, Rice (plane), Wash U (plane), CWRU, U Rochester)
2 plane rides
1 application
1 acceptance - Northwestern
No FOMO on kid’s part. Still a little FOMO/what-if on mine. Hope he loves it.
Kid has been in low gear since his acceptance. While I think its great that he has had a low stress semester after so many high stress ones, I do wonder if he will be able to kick it back up when the time comes. NU’s trimester system deosnt allow for any laxes in keeping up.
@stemmmm I am in the same boat… Some what-if’s going on, and quite often I think he’s so laid back that he’s in for a rude awakening once his college classes start. He has been warned; the rest is up to him.
My S’s challenges will likely be adjusting to having a roommate, not as much personal space, and adapting to new schedules.
I’m glad S is going to a small school with a strong sense of community.
I haven’t posted much lately, but I’ve been around cheering everyone on as decisions come in & rooting for everyone still making final choices.
@stemmmm, I always enjoy looking-up those acronym’s (e.g. FOMO) in the urban dictionary. I’ve learned a lot from doing that. I even impress my kids once in a while when I use one of them in a text message!!
D is back from Cornell Days & really enjoyed it!! She made a bunch of new friends & has already found a roommate. We’ve been slowly checking things off the to do list: signed-up for housing, submitted immunization records, reserved airline tickets/hotel/rental car for orientation, etc., etc. Unless we’re completely forgetting about something, everything seems to be going along smoothly on this side of the process. Since she’s attending school @ 2,300 miles from home, I’m looking into shipping most of her stuff (via UPS) so that it’s waiting there for us on move in day. She’s already given her teacher recommenders little gifts with hand-written thank you notes.
She has senior awards night coming-up soon, and she (and us parents!) has been invited to a few outside scholarship events (recognition lunches/dinners) in the coming weeks. Her senior class is also doing Disney Grad Night, so it’s nice to see that she’ll have some fun events mixed-in with all of the prep work she’ll be doing for her AP testing.
Interesting side note: D attended a STEM camp in the summer before junior year; as it turns out, the girl she roomed with that summer will be her roommate at Cornell - small world!!
My DD’s search started with a week long trip to Amherst/Boston with her BFF and BFF’s Grandmother
They visited 8 schools. Hampshire and Boston College were at the top of the likes, UMass Amherst at the bottom and mixed reviews on everything in the middle.
Then there was a trip to San Francisco Bay area with other BFF and BFF’s Mom, they toured 6 schools, then handed my DD off to my Bro and SIL in San Jose, CA where she toured several more. Berkeley and Univ of San Francisco were at the top, UC Santa Cruz came in last due to its size (too big). DD did like Univ of Santa Clara and thought Stanford was overly stuffy. She loved Berkeley and Univ of SFO
I took her to Minnesota to MN Twin Cities and Alabama Huntsville.
There was also a trip with BFF and Family to NYC where they toured several more. Pratt Institute and Hofstra were the winners in NYC. Same family took her to Hawaii for Christmas one year and they visited the Univ there - she applied and got accepted but price tag was ridiculous plus add in travel and it was a NFW.
DD has joined the group chat with her honors college group as well as their FB page, I am glad to see her becoming engaged. Roommate selection is not a thing and since each student has their own room with shared common area, its not as big of a deal as it is if they are sharing a room. DD’s one concern is that due to her late August B-day and her gap year, she will be within days of turning 20 when she starts school while her roomies could potentially still be 17. She will be fine, of this I have no doubt.
Last night we were chatting and she set up her expectations regarding care packages, contents and frequency <:-P
Now we are planning the road trip to get her to school. We will be visiting famous graves along the way, including a stop in Memphis to visits the Kings grave, I just laughed. Planning 3 days to get there - 900 miles from Central Texas, it should be fun! I told her that in regards to what was going with her, it had to fit in the car along with room for Me, Brother, her and our travel stuff. If it fits it goes, otherwise it stays…I can see the Jenga puzzle of packing strategies forming in her brain now.
For those of you moving your kids in far away, I have read here that you can pick out stuff locally at a Bed Bath and Beyond, and if the destination has a BBB too then you can pick up your order there and just pay for what you want to buy that day.
That sounds like a great option.
There should be Targets too and you can get last minute storage solutions and such there.
For anything else, including textbook rentals, Amazon student Prime is great, and the first 6 months are free.
@lovespink I was surprised to hear how small the College of Engineering was there at UCSB. (My D is not STEM, but it was mentioned in the L&S presentation). I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. Bigger would be more options, I would think.
I always thought UCI would be way more car dependent, but UCSB is just as bad, or worse. I was surprised to hear that you needed to take a bus to downtown Goleta to get groceries. At least at Irvine there’s a Trader Joe’s and a Target across the street, and another grocery store just a few blocks down the road.
She’s still undecided. There are lots of kids from her high school that go to UCSB, and only one has gone to Irvine in the last 3 years. She’s also miffed that she got honors at UCI and not at UCSB (not that I think it would make much of a difference in her educational career, and she’s planning to double major, so taking additional honors classes sounds like a pain to me).
@mommdc I’ve also heard of BB&B shipping to the dorm as well as there is a Dormco.com that is all things dorm.
We are planning to order bedding and have it shipped, then pick up all essentials ie toiletries, laundry items etc. at Target/Walmart upon arrival.