We are in the midst of planning a spring break college visit tour. This kid is my third and last but she is looking for different than her older siblings. We need to tour because we would definitely consider applying ED if the school felt right. She is looking for schools with good diverse Studio Art. She wants a program that has classes beyond just drawing, painting, clay sculpting and photography. Additional plus would be Native American studies, sign language classes, and near water for kayaking. Nothing too hard to find all in one location. LOL.
We are targeting meets 100% need schools; Iāve already run the NPCs and am comfortable with the numbers we get back. Besides I can ātravel hackā the trip.
A good point about ED/SCEA/RD and the pain of waiting until late march when all your friends already have acceptances but sometimes, especially if finances are an issue or stats arenāt merit scholarship levels you donāt have a choice. My D15 applied EA everywhere she could but most of her schools were ED schools and we couldnāt take that gamble financially. She was deferred to both her EA schools and it was a long painful wait until late March.
I wish all schools did EA or rolling but many donāt and we are all going to need to be supportive here for the vast bulk of our kids who wonāt have everything sown up neatly by January. Not to mention the stress of watching our kids waffle in indecision as some will push it right up to that May 1 decision date.
We can almost take the ED gambleā¦ but not quite. We need some financial aid, not much, but some, so we need to be able to compare offers.
Iām thinking about the order in which you fill out applications. Iām guessing that you get better at them as time goes on, until you have done so many that youāre sick of them and then the quality plummets. So Iām encouraging kiddo to do the safety app first, then a matchy school before he does the dream college.
We could take an ED gamble financially on one of the super generous schools. But even if d did get accepted to those super reaches, Iām not sure they would be a good fit for her. I think there is a good chance she would be very unhappy at them. If she decides to apply RD on the slim chance she would get accepted, I wouldnāt stop her and if she got in and wanted to go, I wouldnāt stop her. But Iād much rather she had the extra time and options to consider first.
Yeah unless your kid has top stats for the pile for EA applicants the kid will likely be deferred to the RD round.
If you are fortunate to have a few safeties that allow EA apps then you should have at least a few acceptances in hand by the holiday season next year.
The wait from Jan 1 to late March mid April is really REALLY long.
My son got into all of his safeties and a few matches EA by mid-December, so that was good. It wasnāt fun getting deferred right before winter break of senior year though. Just adds some stress and uncertainty to the whole scene.
I have a feeling unless my son19 applies ED to a school he really likes, itās going to be a long winter of waiting for results again next year.
I too wish schools all offered EA. He has a few on his list right now that only do RD and I donāt like having to wait that long. But I guess it will pass, just like id did last year, and I survived
We will be doing this until May 1, 2019. Weāve looked through the list of EA and rolling admissions schools and he only has two and they are safeties and not thrilling to him. I understand that one isnāt supposed to have schools they donāt love on their lists but, really, I donāt think thatās a realistic expectation. All of the schools that are best matches are exactly that - matches and not safeties. S19 understands the concept behind a safety and he will work on finding things about these schools to love when he does his apps. Right now, safeties just seem like easy places to get in that check some of his boxes.
After those two schools, he will probably have anywhere from 6-8 matches and then 2-3 true reaches. (Most of his matches are also reaches since they have around 30% acceptance rates. Heās in the 75th percentile and has shown interest so who knows his real chances.)
I think April is going to be insane as he runs around to visit schools. I feel like that month may end up being the most stressful as it will be a big decision. One thing Iām hearing on the 2018 thread is that some kids seem to be anxious about their choices when they end up being all far away from home. One of S19ās safeties is only a two hour drive so I feel like weāve got him covered.
Ugh, just thinking at the dollars being spent make my wallet tremble in fear. Weāve already paid for 3 standardized tests at $60 each. If D19 applies to 5 schools at $75 each, thatās another $375. Weāve done several visits that took up a ton of time and money (yes, they were scheduled around vacations, but they were vacations we otherwise would not have taken). Add to that the prep courses and prep books and weāre well into 4 digits.
And thatās just the tip of the iceberg compared to the actual cost of college. Makes me wishful for when D19 was 3 years old and only asked for a single $10 toy for Christmas.
Well, there is some serious midterm studying going on here. First tests were today with half-days for the rest of the week. My home office is below S19ās bedroom and I can hear 1) fingers-on-the-desk drumming, 2) drumming on the quad drum practice pad we gave him for Christmas, and the occasional 3) drumming on the actual drum set. If I hear him talking, it means he has hopped online to play D&D with his friends.
Iāll just pretend thereās a lot of studying going on up there. And feel fortunate to not have any conference calls this afternoon. :))
We have what should be our last LAC visit scheduled this weekend. Then we move on to the in-state options. Although, I am debating on adding a visit to Dickinson. Itās only an hour away for us. But he didnāt like Gettysburg, and for some reason, I think of the schools as being similar.
Penn State main campus is the wild card. He has a good friend there now. And his cousin graduated from there last year. But seeing as he is small, LAC guy, he doesnāt think the size will appeal to him. But he wants to check it out to appease curiosity. Heās not interested in the branch campuses.
Hard to believe that by this time next year, we all might have some acceptances. Itās feeling more real!
One small silver lining with budgeting for tests, books, apps, and visits is that the space in the budget cleared for those items in junior/senior year can be applied for college the following year(s)!
I had been desperate to add a safety to the list. We visited a friend last fall at Temple and kiddo liked it and the stats say itās a safety, so I gratefully added it and stopped worrying. They even have rolling admission, so I was happy that we would go into the admissions season with an early win.
Until kiddo says to me, just now, āIf Temple is the only place I get admitted, Iām going to feel like a failureā.
NO!
Sigh.
Back to the drawing board. Considering overseas schools, maybe the novelty of foreignness will make up for a lower bar to entry?
Kiddo doesnāt want to go anywhere in-state, unfortunately. Which is a pity, because Maryland has some good schools. But weāve visited all except Frostburg and theyāre all nopes. Frostburg we didnāt even bother with because we know that Cumberland is too rural for him and Frostburg is even more rural.
@carolinamom2boys we are looking at mostly LACs including Skidmore, Trinity, Williams, Amherst, Hampshire, Hamilton, etc. Also considering WashU and will very likely apply to Cornell where her brother attends.
@ninakatarina My S19 is a similar frame of mind. Has not taken any standardized tests except PSAT, but is pretty determined to apply ED to Stanford. Amazingly every other year, a student from his small (60 seniors) HS gets in. Harvard & Princeton, only once every 10 years, but Stanford every other year. Very odd. He has a legacy āhookā, but Iām not sure really how much that helps honestly. I expect heāll apply ED, get denied, and then heāll move on. At least applying ED to someplace impossible will get him to do his essays early.
@gusmahler I hear you! I feel like there is a vacuum cleaner attached to our bank account.
I just made flights reservations for a visit to CA over Presidentās. Stanford, Santa Clara and UC Davis are the plan. This is being combined with a training camp related to his main sport. UC Davis is not really under consideration.
Re in-state safeties. Horribly, the seniors at Sās school view our flagship (U of WA) as a āsafetyā (??!!) and they cannot (!much eye-rolling!) go to their āsafetyā. The adults are like, āAre you out of your mind? You want us to pay 2x more for XYZ school versus UW??ā D16 refused to apply to UW since she was determined to leave the state, but S19ās parents are now wiser and more ornery and intend to insist that he apply. S19ās parents are also trying to promote Canadian universities, but so far S19 is having none of it. I do wish the UCās were not so pricey (I know, I know, we donāt pay CA taxes but I can still wish*.). The CSUās are more reasonable, but itās really hard to get behind that idea when UW is cheaper.
S19's parents are from CA (and paid 20 yrs of taxes there) so shouldn't that count for something? Sigh.
Unfortunately, here in PA, Penn State main campus is not a financial safety for many. Or an academic safety due to how competitive it is in to get in. The school gets our tax money, residents get a slight discount, and the school operates autonomously. S19ās actual in-state financial/academic safeties are currently West Chester and Millersville.
Fortunately, S is totally cool with both. My niece will graduate from WCU this spring and has had a great experience. And lots of kids from our area attend Millersville. He could live on or off campus. Which I think removes some anxiety for him.
Our D16 did the safety first because it just required 15 min or so (GPA, test scores, no essays). Then the dream reachy-reach school because what the heck. Then the schools with the most pressing deadlines. The final school had a Jan 15th deadline and that application was done on Jan 14th. I have no idea what the quality of the apps were as I was forbidden to look at themāexcept after much negotiating and while under close supervision I did manage to be allowed to look at the short answers though only after half the apps were already submitted. At that point I discovered that a) D16 had reversed the 2 digits on her SAT Math score and reported 570 instead of 750 and b) she had left off maybe 1/3 of her awards and ECs. (āI hate talking about that stuff! Why do they want to know that??ā) The mother-daughter relationship took a beating that night as I made her add in all that āfrivolous stuffā for the remaining apps.
Unfortunately, I did not know to check that all her test scores had been submitted to schools. None of her AP scores were submitted (and they were 5s, alas). She only discovered this when registering for her classes in fall and wanted to go straight into 2nd yr math.
order of apps? I assumed that S19 would do his common app first and get that off to all achools that donāt have supplements asap. Then, he would start working on supplements for the schools that require them and get them in by their deadlines. Some schools need everything in by 11/1 even for RD in order to be condsidered for merit. All others look like they are 1/1 for RD but Iām really hoping he will get them all in before Thanksgiving.
