It’s almost like it doesn’t really matter in any sort of meaningful way what college a student goes to!
Oh, but of course that can’t be right—thousands of CC users can’t be wrong about the important of getting into The One True (And Highly Rated) College, after all. Right? Of course right.
Well, inspiration finally struck my D19 who finally started writing her essay today. (She’s had the topic and outline for several weeks now). I got to hear the first couple of paragraphs and liked what I heard. Hoping the rest falls into place soon enough (and she has her favorite English teacher handle edits with her).
Sending writing/creative vibes to any other 2019ers getting ready to tackle this.
We met with my son’s GC today. He went over the whole process and indicated that he thought S19’s college list was on target. Of course there is a reach or 2 in there, and a couple of safeties, but it was nice to get feedback from the GC that S is on the right track with some good match schools. He continues to work on his essay. Other good news…
Contacted an AO from UMiami and ACT/SAT with essay will no longer be used for English Composition placement. So glad we found out before registering for another ACT (this time with the essay). He was so happy. No more standardized tests until next year’s APs.
Received a brochure in the mail today from Tulane . There is no application fee and they offer auto review for merit. There’s no way DS19 would be admitted to Tulane, but I thought that I’d pass this on in case Tulane is on anyone’s radar.
@ninakatarina Glad to hear that S19 decided he’s done with the testing. He’s in great shape. D19 has made some noise about wanting to have another go at the SAT, which I quickly shut down. I think she’s kind of joking but she starts reading too much on the internet. But it was so much effort to get the score she has, and we all celebrated it, so there’s no more tests. I’m firm on no subject tests either. I had a moment of joyfully thinking I could give away all her various study books and then I realized…oh yeah…S21’s turn is right around the corner. Sigh.
@elena13 Thanks for the insights about a supplement. D19 watched several YouTube versions of one of her songs (it seems to be a quintessential young woman’s song…) and some had much better sound quality than others. I agree that 10 minutes seems like overkill. Once you hear two songs of different genres, I think you basically get the idea. It’s nice that they’re willing to accept that much material, but that’s a lot to prepare.
@liska21 Progress on essays painfully slow here too. D19 did draft one supplemental essay but it’s on draft 2 and needs a fair amount of work. The rest of her progress is just making notes and brainstorming. Her dad stepped in last night and tried to help her, although he was a bit mainsplainy about it so I don’t think it helped much. She is running out of time to take advantage of the open schedule of summer. She starts some volunteer work tomorrow and then is doing an all-day choral music program the following week M-F. Then she’s slated to spend a week playing and enjoying a life of total leisure at her grandma’s house, and then there’s one last week for essay progress. So it’s getting down there already. Sigh.
@carolinamom2boys Yes Tulane has sent multiple mailings this way recently too. Still confused how any school has any clue what kind of student my D19 is, but they sure seem to know something.
We also have received several mailing from Tulane recently. D19 has no shot of being admitted. We also started getting a bunch of emails from Bucknell for some reason. Another school with no shot.
I assume Tulane is trying to game the system - cast a wide net, no app fee = more apps and lower acceptance rate.
My son received a “priority registration” mailing from Tulane waiving the application fee. He has stats to be a competitive applicant but I hear they highly value demonstrated interest, so it a campus visit is strongly encouraged. Given the offer for no application fee, I can see one reason their app numbers were up and acceptance rate near 20%.
Yes, Tulane really cares about demonstrated interest and also yield protection. I thought it was hilarious when one of the quadruplet brothers (great thread from the 2017 application season) got rejected from Tulane after being accepted to so many incredible schools.
U. Chicago stepped it up today with their mailing. It had my son’s name in large, fancy, Chicago-style letters and each letter had a photo collage in it. Ha ha!
U Chicago’s mailings are incredible. The school is completely wrong for my daughter. But I’m dying to go!
Me too @gallentjill ! I love their essay topics too. I think my S feels like I don’t believe in him when I say a certain school would not be for him, but I definitely don’t think he’d enjoy the academic grind of that place.
Same here with Tulane and Chicago. Yale also thinks we are poor and have been targeting us for questbridge and most every mailing mentions afforadability. We also received this honking 80 page book from Yale. I really wonder where all this intel comes from. Did my son guesstimate our income on some test like the psat I wonder. His scores are in range but it’s still a no way I would say for all. Maybe he’d have a shot at Tulane but I don’t think we are going to Nola to roll that dice. They are in our tuition exchange program, which means he’d get 75% off tuition IF he was selected for it, but it’s very competitive.
We continue to be ignored by UChicago on the fabulous mailings. I’m jealous. We got a very plush book from UCLA so that was nice, but on the whole our zip code keeps us out of the mass mailing frenzy.
@MAandMEmom We get mailings and emails from Ivies, including that awesome Yale book and emails about how inexpensive it can be to go to school there. I think the financial aid offices at Ivies send all families that info if your student has ended up on their mailing list no matter what your income. We are full pay. Live in a zip code where most people are. I don’t think they are choosing certain kids to get financial aid-type emails.
I love the beautiful look books and I do peruse them for fun. S19 doesn’t look at any mailings that aren’t from the schools on his list anymore. He’s feeling like the list is done so no point of looking at other schools’ stuff.
S19 is getting some postcards and letters, and tons of email, but no fancy books from top universities (not that he cares - he’s only looked at one college mailing to date!) Case Western is probably the top emailer, and he gets a lot from engineering schools because I briefly had him convinced that he was interested in a STEM field.
S just got a fancy book from Cornell. He wouldn’t make it past the first screen if he applied. He did spend several minutes looking at it but I’m hoping that it means he is finally getting interested about colleges. Most of the mail from colleges. goes straight to the recycle bin though if it’s somewhere that is potentially on his list I check for fee waivers.
On the subject of fee waivers, older D got a few but there wasn’t much rhyme or reason to them. She didn’t get them from all the schools she toured and she did get them from schools that she had never contacted and never shown any interest in. One of the “out of nowhere” fee waivers came from a match level school that she hadn’t considered before. She applied just because of the waiver and it ended up being one of her favorites come decision time. I’m interested to learn that @carolinamom2boys older S got a fee waiver from CofC because he toured. D toured there and got no fee waiver. That was one of the few apps that we had to pay for. There just doesn’t seem to be any consistency.
@homerdog I work in higher ed and pretty close to the area that generates this stuff (know the technology behind the magic) and it really feels like Yale thinks my son is an URM based on so many QuestBridge mailings. I think he bubbled wrong on the psat or something.
I’m actually toying with the idea of getting an additional graduate degree in data and predictive analytics aka big data. It’s literally the most important thing in higher ed right now, both on the front end of the admissions funnel (and obviously the Yale funnel is ginormous!) and the back end for student success.
Kiddo hasn’t perused a single piece of mail either.
WE got the Tulane mailing as well, and get U Chicago all the time, but the one that really made me go Huh was Harvard. Probably the only one we are keeping. No way is my S19 even close to Harvard material.
@MAandMEmom who knows? S19 has received a few QuestBridge specific emails as well. All from Ivies. He’s also received invitations to fly in programs that prioritize low income and first gen kids. He’s neither of those. I know he never filled in a box that said he was a URM so I’m not sure why he’s on these lists. Not a big deal but interesting nonetheless.
@me29034 we toured and attended a spring open house. While we were in an info session, the AO gave everyone a code.
@carolinamom2boys That’s probably the randomness to it. I’m guessing the person doing our info session just forgot to give out the code.