Son got his first acceptance/likely letter today ( via email) and a nice merit award as well to a school that is high on his list, so that was good. He did not have to verbally commit or submit an ED app to get the acceptance which is unusual, but we’ll take it. 
Been tracking along the Pitt thread and it appears D19 was accepted today. Still waiting for official e-mail/letter. Very excited for her as this is one of her top choices and she thought her chances were 50/50 at best. Nice to have an acceptance this early.
Pitt is a nice school @DCNatFan , good for your D, Congrats.
@homerdog - Ha! I recently checked out Bowdoin because it was one of the schools on the list his aunt gave him when she asked him to narrow down his NE tour schools (he and his dad spent an extra long Labor Day weekend with his aunt and uncle who were in Boston for an academic conference) It sounded perfect for my son, except for the drive Ugh. And the acceptance rate.
To answer your question about LACs, I think Colgate is still on the list. He really liked it over the summer, but I don’t think he realizes how sportsy/preppy it is. I think he really liked the description of all the organized social activities that occur on campus as well as the extensive career coaching/support. Not sure where we stand on the Hamilton app. Other than that, he hasn’t visited any. We are super close to Haverford, and I really would like him to tour there, but he seems to really want to get away a bit - not far enough he can’t come home, but he wants to try out a new part of the country. The problem, of course, with those schools is no merit $ and he would really have to have a compelling reason/plan to justify full price. I just don’t see that happening since he really needs time to just explore and find himself. If, for some reason, he decides to come around to an LAC, I kind of have St. Lawrence and Hobart William Smith on my radar as possibilities for him that grant merit aid. But he’s definitely leaning towards bigger schools where he could maybe start in engineering, see what that’s all about, but also have lots of other options to explore. He’s also very interested in business - has a bit of his father’s consultant characteristics in him. I actually think Brown would be a great fit for him, but naviance isn’t instilling too much confidence. Lol!
@ninakatarina - cracking up over the shrine!
@Trixy34 I think it’s great when a student is so undecided but it does make it hard to plan. S19 didn’t take Physics until this year and he’s loving it. He’s not ready to decide on an engineering path though. What that means for him is that, if he still likes it at the end of the year, he will take some college courses and see if he wants to major in it. If he does then he may end up needing a masters in engineering in the end. He still loves history and poli sci and wants to write and wants to do art…his interests are all over so that’s why an LAC fits well for him. His freshman classes will be small enough for him to really fess out what he’s interested in.
And I hear you about the full price LACs. We have to see what the acceptance list looks like in the end to be able to compare and contrast with any schools where he gets merit. My husband doesn’t want to pay full freight yet he likes the full price schools better for S19. It’s a dilemma.
D19 sent her first application in last Friday, so our toes are officially wet. It’s not a rolling admissions school and they need a counselor letter and report, so her app is incomplete and we’ll be waiting for an answer for a good six weeks or more. Feels nice to have one in though.
One other EA is on her list, but that one is Common App and that means…she’s got to finish the CA essay. Sigh.
I can’t decide if we should invest in a professional to film and edit her vocal music supplements or just iPhone it. One of her schools sounds Very Serious about their description of arts supplements so that made me look into having the pros do it. But $$. Leaning toward just iPhoning it and calling it a day.
Her top school has been sending her a ton of mailers lately – right now it’s two a week! I wish I could tell whether this was because of her demonstrated interest or because of her SAT score. She’s gotten a lot of emails and mail from selective schools since her last SAT, so she seems to have crossed a threshold in score between her first and second tests. I kinda wish her top school would chill with the mailers because they make her think they want her and will accept her, so the letdown will be that much harder to weather if she is not accepted in the end.
We’ve also officially entered Overlap Season, where the college mailings are now a solid blend of stuff for D19 and for S21, who has a relatively high PSAT in his history already. And a few schools have sent identical envelopes to both kids on the same day. This is a long era in our lives…
I’ve seen references here and there to there being “fewer” college age kids and thus stiffer competition among schools for the top students, or that there will be fewer such kids. I’d be curious to see what the real numbers are and when this demographic dip happens. Seems mostly irrelevant for selective schools, who generally all set an admissions record every single year, but at least the trend is in the right direction for the applicant. Having said that, when I think of how much easier it was to get into colleges in my generation and how I had classmates go to USC, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Pomona, and BU from my very ordinary high school, it still pains me…
Congrats to @RightCoaster and @DCNatFan ! Nice to good news so early!
@RightCoaster and @DCNatFan – Congratulations to both of your kiddos!!!
@RightCoaster WooHoo!! Congrats.
Congrats to you too @DCNatFan
@trixy34 My D liked Colgate a lot when she visited. Met someone recently who has kids at both Bates and Colgate, and they said in their experience, Bates has a bigger sports culture and more drinking than Colgate. nteresting, because that’s not what cc usually says.
@SDCounty3Mom Well, if it is just based on SAT score alone, several of our kids probably get those same mailings (and I guarantee mine didn’t show any demonstrated interest), so if you toss the name out, maybe we can reassure you (or burst your dd’s bubble)? Mine has heard from Case Western Reserve a lot lately. U Chicago has slowed down a bit compared to a month or so ago. Trying to remember what other ones have been in the mail a lot lately . . .
@RightCoaster Hope the school has cute girls, good WiFi and 24/7 food! Lol
@wisteria100 well maybe 2 out of 3 ain’t bad? lol.
@RightCoaster If you want to borrow my brick to hit your head against, I’ll lend it to you. That is a great list. The food thing is important though.
Congrats on the acceptances! That’s great news!
Acceptances! Hooray! Congratulations and onwards we go!
Love reading about acceptances! Congrats to our 19ers! Let’s keep 'em coming. 
Great news! Congrats on the acceptances!
In a different kind of acceptance note, DS has been cast as the lead in the fall play. It’s his first lead. He kind of wanted the co-lead part, but he’s happy with this choice. He’s somewhat peeved about a couple of the other casting choices, but if he wanted to control who gets what part he should have applied to direct.
We’ve noticed over the last couple weeks that S19 is getting “thank you for your interest in our school” emails from schools he has never expressed interest in. And these emails are coming to the account we set up just for applications and schools he is actually interested in. Is this happening to anyone else? I noticed it from Northeastern last week (because I also got one to MY email account, expressing excitement that my child is interested in Northeastern) but more confusingly he got one yesterday from Morehouse which said “Thank you for being interested in Morehouse, we’re interested in you too.” He’d never heard of Morehouse and was intrigued for a hot second until he learned it’s an all male school!
@mindatwork Yes, I know of one like that that D19 has received, from Lewis & Clark, expressing excitement that she is interested. We may have clicked on an email to open it…if that’s exciting interest, then I guess? Some of the marketing approaches these schools use can get annoying. There’s a small regional school near my childhood home that keeps sending D19 content, both snail mail and emails, easily one a day, and then keeps setting and resetting “deadlines” for her to apply. No offense to this little school, but they have to understand they would be a huge long shot to be of interest to her given her scores and GPA, so why try so hard? It seems like some schools need to invest in better data analytics to understand where to target their marketing dollars. And yes, the repeated emails, the silly “deadlines” that aren’t deadlines…it’s a waste of money.