@professionaldad Wow that must be kind of fun for your S! My S’s grad class is only 90 and everyone gets 30 seconds of fame at graduation. Otherwise that’s it. But more than the big school kids get. They just get their name read and a handshake.
@professionaldad some of my daughter’s friends have been given awards, newspaper pieces, and even a news piece. Homeschoolers don’t really get any of that- I mean I could give her an award if I wanted but it wouldn’t really pack a punch.
@milgymfam - Lol! I think our kids’s achievements and activities are mostly reported in the school paper/bulletin, whatever it is. I usually have to find out things through my mother, who religiously stalks the school websites in search of news and photos of her grandchildren.
@professionaldad - that’s a lot of fun. How is he handling his fame? Lol. When I was a Rotary Exchange student, we were fussed over like that too - it’s quite flattering. Don’t let it go to his head, though! 
Good morning all! Thanks for all of the PMs.
I’ll get back to everyone as I find the time!
S19 still hasn’t decided. He’s at an admitted students day right now and is booked for another next week. Originally, he said he only needed to go to the one today since he thinks it’s the one, but I pushed a little because booking another trip would have been costly this late in the game if this visit today wasn’t what he expected. Plus, I sort of feel like he has a lot of good options and he should go to at least two schools in April to confirm his choice is indeed the best one for him.
So it’s Bowdoin today after his first solo planes, trains, and automobile experience to get there yesterday. I was nervous but he did great. My husband will meet up with him this morning. Davidson next week if he still wants to check it out after this weekend.
Congrats to everyone on all of the good news that was posted while I was unable to post. I was reading even though I couldn’t respond. 
Happy to “see” you again @homerdog! Hope your S19’s visit to Bowdoin is all that he thinks it will be!
@homerdog ? Great to hear from you again!! He’s got great options and opportunities!! I think I’m hearing a faint ticking sound…must be the MAY 1st deadline!! We go see our last two schools next week!
@homerdog Yeah. Great to hear the updates!
@momcatof4
The ticking is not so silent! It is getting close!
Congrats on some great choices for your Son @homerdog !
Welcome back @homerdog
So glad you’re back @homerdog. I’m anxiously awaiting the final decision!
The ticking is giving me high anxiety! Welcome back @homerdog!
Not that I would want to drag this out longer, but it doesn’t seem fair that the schools get months to make their decisions, and we only one to make ours. Lol! (I’m joking - please no lectures about how, if we were more on top of things, we would have had the decision locked down 2 years ago 
)
welcome back @homerdog
@Trixy34 I agree. The timeline is tight and costly too when you want to visit schools in April at the last minute. We felt like we couldn’t revisit schools until all acceptances were in and that was March 28th. And then there’s some thinking involved to figure out how to narrow things down!
Welcome back @homerdog! It is challenging when fights are involved for visits. Do you book before an acceptance - but risk losing the flight if not accepted, or wait until acceptance and pay extra for ‘last minute’ booking. A delicate balance
I think it’s really good that we share reflections and experiences, wish I was reading it a year ago. Nevertheless, my son did a lot of research on his own and started preparing in early fall of his junior class. My only input was ‘shoot for the stars or we have a really really highly ranked state U’. We also know kids who followed this approach and didn’t get either so he added some safety choices. He also new that he wanted CS for a major.
Now what worked and what didn’t. He bended under my pressure and applied to real stars, He did not get his ED and EA to CMU and MIT CS. He did get into our state school merit scholarship honors and top ranked public schools (UCLA, Georgia Tech, etc) and quite a number of others not being considered (like northeastern with significant merit scholarship). And he had a crashing change of mind that he did want ivy or alike really badly so he applied last minute RD to all of them and on March 28 had a total meltdown with 50/50 rejections/waitlists . So I do agree spreading thin doesn’t help and last minute RD is a waist of time. Now that I think of it I should have been more flexible and supportive in the initial puzzle composition, I do think he had a good or at least better chance had he done ED or EA to Cornell and Duke or other of his waitlists. Are they the best for CS? Probably not, maybe just Cornell. But now he is not sure about pure CS either and wants interdisciplinary with business/economics so choices are further narrowed down to probably just UCLA. He is agonizing with the decision and this pressure is really not healthy. At the end I think the winners (I am talking only about kids with high stats from good public schools areas and no obvious hooks) are the ones who optimized this multidimensional puzzle right and they couldn’t have done it without either very invested and knowledgeable parent or highly paid councelor. Kids from my son’s school got into top schools, some into Harvard and Stanford (hooks) and some into second level like WashU in stLuis or Johns Hopkins. The two latter cases were a strategy, I.e. apply for unpopular major ED (Hopkins) or find the only place in the US doing particular research and write about it. Nothing wrong with doing it, just hard to know and predict so well in advance and without extra help. This prep process is pushed to start way too early, making the investment so high that I think that for those high performing kids it’s unfair and mentally unhealthy. It is ok to work hard , take a test and see what happens even if your chance is 5%. But it is unhealthy to be forced to optimize at the same time and spend years doing it.
So what I will do differently with my younger one is that I will be more involved, realistic and present in the early stages. For my older son I thought that high stats, leadership, EC, etc were enough.
@wb176220 - Please don’t calls schools like WashU or Johns Hopkins “second tier”. This is absurd. Those schools are super hard to get into and top schools by any measure. Johns Hopkins is T10 and WashU T20. Sounds like your son got into UCLA which is also a super hard school to get into and I knows tons of great kids who would love love love to go there.
Seriously, many parents on this board whose kids got into great schools need to step back and get some perspective.
PS: I have a CS degree, and strongly recommend not being pure CS as an undergrad. At least minor in something else, or maybe better yet majors in something else and minor in CS. If you choose a career in CS you will want a MS for sure, and you can get them from good schools without paying, and that will round out any CS you miss as an undergrad. And you will be more attractive as a hire in a sector of CS you have additional background in than all the pure CS people. YMMV of course.
Thanks for CS advise, I agree with you. I didn’t mean second tier in any bad way, I guess it is my internal classification and distinction between #1-3 consistent rankings (where my son was not realistically competitive for CS) and other top 20 schools where had a chance but didn’t use it wisely enough. His outcome is really great but we both agonize because I didn’t plan to pay OOS to other public schools when we have a really good one on our own and he is still taking it as a failure so his decisions are not completely rational. It’s a process and I did let him go to UCLA event this weekend on his own, after all if he is going to another coast he has to get started somewhere.
We did go to Georgia tech and I really liked it, but he said that his impression didn’t change from what he read before. Which is not grate for second major. He also dismissed UTAustin due to 90 % instate students in his program .
UMD would have been the most logical choice but I didn’t not realize earlier how it would depress him, totally not rational. My husband is also CS and he is still convinced that UMD (where S already has sophomore standing) and grad school after that is the right way.
We are really not at all parents pushing for the ivy, we actually discouraged and I guess, got what we wanted. Looking at the drama and unfortunately bigger mental health concerns makes me think what I could have done better. S was on the way of winning states in wrestling, won regionals last year but this college madness absorbed him too much.
So if anyone feels that this might be an issue for their younger kids I thought that it is important to really start early and with a strategy and a lot of testify checks. I see that some patents have done it and it worked.
@professionaldad That’s fun to be a minor celebrity Enjoy it as another aspect of senior year. We’ve got a little bit of that going on. DD will have some media (FB? newspaper? not sure) for the local scholarship she was at the meeting for yesterday. She’s supposed to give an interview with another one she won for their newsletter. She could have had two meals with the Governor this month- one for a scholarship and one for an award. She turned one down since it’s on a school and game day and it wasn’t her only opportunity but she had a laugh about how hoity-toity it sounded to be deciding what to do about dinners with the Governor.
The local radio station does senior salutes for anyone who turns in info. And there will be plenty of press in the local paper for various things. Prom is this weekend and there will be an entire insert with individual photos of each couple/group and their names and what local business is sponsoring their picture.
Hey @homerdog welcome back 
I hope your son has a great time at Bowdoin!
Is Grinnell still in the running for him? I’m a bit sad that it’s off my D’s list. We’re down to 2. Hopefully after going to Bruin Day tomorrow a decision can be made. Please, please!