@EastGrad I am actually more of a city person as a grown up, but do like colleges with a campus and community feel. Agree that Georgetown is a great neighborhood, the view of the Potomac was cool, and DC offers so much for kids who are in college there. I’m thinking it is the perfect place for grad school, but maybe a ‘bubble’ is better for undergrad? Then again, my D did like G’town, so we will see.
I used to be in DC a lot for work and always thought it was a young person’s town. It would be super fun to work there out of undergrad!
@OrangeFish my mind reels as your D’s friend. Out of the 17 did they consider any safeties? What are the plans now? I am so sorry.
And at @EastGrad , we have visited some other urban schools, but the lack of space seemed much more pronounced at G’town. BC also has too many kids for their space, but at least had lots of green quads. And Brown had lots of spaces for hanging out on a nice day. At G’town, you got the feeling that you would either be inside or off campus. But to be fair, there are a lot of positives that the school offers.
@orangefish 17 rejections is difficult to process. Was this kid a prospective performing arts major? It’s possible that my S19 will be auditioning next year, but I feel like I have to insist that he comes up with a back-up major/plan and some true safeties. It seems like too much of a crapshoot unless you are off-the-charts talented.
All these posts are making me realize that I have been in the DC area for 22 years and have never seen Georgetown’s campus. Northwest DC is pretty nice all around - S19 would probably consider American if they didn’t have iffy merit aid and a low RD acceptance rate. And yes, the drivers and signage are terrible in DC.
I grew up (and did my undergrad) nearish DC, and Georgetown University was an occasional nice place to walk around—probably would have gone there more frequently if there’s been a convenient Metro stop. Possibly the ugliest library of any college in the entire country, though—I still don’t know what was going through their minds when they greenlit that monstrosity!
Jealous of the folks in DC on this lovely day. My niece went to GWU and lives/works in DC now. She loves it there.
Driving in DC is tough with the traffic lights on the side instead of above. I lived in the Baltimore/DC area (only an hour north of there now) for a long time and have never become used to it.
We rallied from yesterday’s visit to West Chester and toured Shippensburg today. After considering Bloomsburg, Millersville, and West Chester, I am pleased to announce that S19 finally has an in-state financial/academic safety that he would love to attend. Ship checks all the boxes. Beautiful campus. An hour from home. Mid-sized. Has his desired major and more. Honors program. And a marching band. We know several graduates who had positive experiences. Oh, and S21 was not kicked out of the presentation. 
So, we are now done with visits. The list includes one live-at-home financial safety, one live-on-campus financial safety, and five LACs where merit is a possibility. He would be happy to attend any of them. And I am officially hanging up my FOMO hat. Mainly because S19 told me that he’s seen enough now.
While we were having lunch after the tour, S19 suddenly blurted out “OMG, my APUSH test is in a month! Aaaahhh!” It’s starting to get real for him.
@eandesmom Yes, she did apply to several (in-state) safeties. At this point the plans are for a gap year. She already does modeling so she would likely continue with that for a while and could probably take on more work.
@eh1234 Yes, a performing arts major. Applied to all the VA schools (except for Longwood) in addition to several OOS publics as well as privates. (And coincidentally, we’ve been in the DC area 25 years and have only visited Georgetown maybe 4 times. Might be related to AU and GWU grad degrees. :)) )
@shuttlebus and anyone else who’s interested in understanding how Questbridge works, here’s a flow chart of the process: https://questbridge.s3.amazonaws.com/pdfUploads/5944153be4780a04007d8476-046d1a53e0dd65608560674892e9aa66.pdf. Note that there are 2 paths. One is to rank and be matched, which is a commitment to go to the school if matched. But you can also go the non-binding RD route, using the QB application instead of the Common App. Also some students rank and want to be matched but don’t become finalists, and then proceed in the RD round. They’re generally so low income that they are going to get generous financial aid from the partner schools. I suspect that the poster in the thread mentioned above didn’t rank, and was admitted to Williams and Amherst through the QB regular decision process.
Finalists typically come from households with incomes of $65K or less for a family of four. Here’s the selection criteria: https://www.questbridge.org/high-school-students/national-college-match/who-should-apply. Here’s a profile of the 2017 finalists, who had a median family income of $34K, and 72% were first generation. https://www.questbridge.org/high-school-students/national-college-match/finalist-profile.
I remember when my D15 went to freshman orientation at Pomona in Fall 2015. At one of the welcome events they said that Pomona had admitted 13 through QB match and about another 11 through Posse, but about 50 overall through the QB application process. For schools seeking more qualified low income applicants, Questbridge and Posse are how they often find them.
My S19 took the ACT at school on March 20, is there any way to check for scores online or do we have to wait for them to come in through the school or the mail(not sure how it works when taken through the school)?
@OrangeFish any insight on why the safeties weren’t safeties after all? Will she change her application list for next year? I am so sorry, that is truly a horror story.
She is definitely going to rework her list for next year, @eandesmom , and she is probably going to work with a coach (which she did not do this year).
Not sure on why safeties were not really safeties, but the guesses seem to be focused on the larger than ever number of applicants to schools, especially the VA publics. The VA state flagship can only offer admission to so many students, which raises the bar higher when there is more demand/# of applicants, which makes the mid-tier VA state schools less mid-tier and more like the state flagship, etc. (VA tech applications were up by 5,000 to 32,000 compared to last year, and have increased 60% since 2014!) Add in to the mix the increasing numbers of OOS applicants for the state flagship (resulting in increased demand).
@OrangeFish that is rough. The situation reminds me of another poster from a few years back who was denied everywhere to the shock of everyone, including his guidance counselor. There was no rhyme or reason for his rejections. He had what he thought were safeties, but the general consensus after the fact was that the safeties must have thought he would be accepted to higher ranked schools and rejected him in order to protect their yields. That poster had a happy ending to his story as he was accepted to MIT the following admissions cycle. Hopefully the outcome will be similar next year for the teen that you know.
This practice of yield protection is what I find really scary. Imo, it can be hard to find true safeties. This is another reason why kids feel that they need to apply to a boatload of schools.
Thank you, @shuttlebus – and I’m with you on how hard it is to find true safeties. Seems to me there has to be a better way.
Oh how I wish I could post a photo from the mall. Blue skies, (early) cherry blossoms, and the kite festival at the Washington Monument!
It’s very stressful to look at the 2022 decision threads in the last couple days. So many hopeful kids were rejected. Congress needs to have a college admission reform.
@eandesmom the student was applying as a performing arts student. It’s a whole different ballgame. For performing arts (at least acting and musical theatre) the acceptance rate is less than 5%. Acceptance is based on a subjective audition. Some schools have 3,000 kids applying for 10-12 spots. Most theatre schools have 20 spots at the most, although there are a few acceptions like NYU but even there the acceptance rate is less than an Ivy.
So for a performing arts student the only true safety is a non-audition school and there aren’t very many of those and a lot of them don’t have as much acting in their curriculm instead being a balance of acting and gen. eds. Not that that is a bad thing just not what a lot of performing arts majors are looking for.
I just read the last several pages and would love to join you all! S19 is the last and seems to be the one who will create the biggest search and headaches of my 3. He has been thinking about college since his freshman year. We are planning to move back East next year and pushing the kids to look in that direction.
D12 toured 5 nearby schools, chose to be close to home and graduated from UNL (NE-Lincoln). She moved with her now DH to SC.
D18 was dragged on visits w/S19 and did not show much interest until this past Oct. She applied to College of Charleston based on a letter they sent her. She has not seen the school in person but fell in love with Charleston while visiting her sis. I think it will be great for her.
S19 has a clear goal of CS, focus on game design or AI.
PS love reading about Clemson! I’m class of 92–and never would have gotten in based on competition today!
@HeartofDixie you should have an ACT account set up that you can check online. Your ID should be on the paperwork that they got with the test. If your kid misplaced that paperwork, your school can probably look up your ID for you.
@homerdog you can make the mall picture your profile picture so we can all see it. Then you could change it back after a day or so.