@elena13 Congratulations on having a Vanderbilt-bound student!
It’s nice to watch all of the decisions going on, so I can enjoy your relief vicariously, without having suffered the decision process.
Am I generous, or what?
We are hesitating on pulling the trigger still.
I think it will be Gettysburg, but Franklin and Marshall still has a chance to change our mind if they give us some love. We all like them better but not worth the cost difference. The money for the deposit at either one is in the checking account, waiting to be transferred.
My husband wants me to just send it to Gburg today so that the place is assured in case things go wrong. But I’m still hesitating. Right now Friday seems like the day.
Has anyone else mostly decided but just can’t quite pull the trigger on depositing?
@SDCounty3Mom I seem to recall when you were here before that a lot of your posts had me saying “me too!”. Here’s another one! DD is going 1.75 hours away now, and very happy she didn’t commit to a far away school.
Some very dated congratulations. Had a draft started since last week, so continued felicitations and hope I didn’t miss anyone.
@rmsdad Congratulations on the Dartmouth decision!
@zipstermom Congratulations on Binghamton and the 10/10 acceptance rate. I love “offered the most for the best price”
@SJ2727 Glad your D enjoyed the festivities at NYU. At the beginning of this process, I’d hoped for a chance to spend time again in NYC, but alas…
@BrooklynRye Any decision? I’m finding some of these types of choices both a blessing and a curse.
@Curiosa Had she applied to many schools after the EA acceptance?
@gzza73 Congrats on UCLA!
@liska21 Congratulations on the decision! Were you the dog? Love the avatar changes, but it affects my normally elephant-like memory of your posts.
@firstwavemom Congrats on Tulane.
@homerdog Congrats on Bowdoin. Makes it all worthwhile when the kid is in love with their choice.
@Britmom5 Glad you have 1 decision. Props to you parents with twins!
@me29034 I love the lesson here, and congrats to him on the school and decision.
@EganAg Congrats on getting twins through with great decisions!
@Doublekk2 Congrats on the Tufts decision.
@elena13 Excited for your son. Great that it worked out so well for him, doing things his way.
@SDCounty3Mom Congrats again on Scripps!
@ninakatarina Right there with you. So much stuff going on though, probably no decision until this weekend. And I also drop off to school around 6:40AM and head to the office. But during the school breaks, I tend to wing it and don’t take advantage of the lightest traffic. So, not sure if I’ll still be a 7AM’er come June, but I can’t stop thinking of the other areas where I’ll gain extra time.
@peachActuary73 She didn’t apply to other schools after her EA acceptance, and actually thought her decision was made at that point… but then her 2nd choice school came through with a full tuition scholarship, so that gave her a dilemma to wrestle with. A wonderful dilemma, but still! Sitting in on classes at both schools during accepted student days was what finally tipped the scales.
@peachActuary73 and thread: We have a Husky!
S2 was very grateful for having done his due diligence as he feels now, more than ever, that Northeastern is the right place for him. We first toured the engineering facilities (all contained in the Engineering Hall) with a current Clark Engineering Scholar. The facilities are beautiful. The space is basically new, built about 4-5 years ago. It is a large, all-glass, open structure. Lots of natural light with very few closed-off spaces. Most of the walls in the building are literally White Boards where students can scribble notes and where professors can hold classes requiring diagrams and such. The space is clean and very modern, with super up-to-date equipment and facilities.
This said, S2’s decision was largely personal to him and relates to nothing objectively negative about the program. The Clark Scholarship is a tremendous opportunity to have funded Engineering undergrad. It includes summer work stipends as well as stipends for the required semester abroad. The Engineering program is very small, only about 1000 in the entire program, with as few as 200 in each ‘grade’. So lots of personal attention, but much less ability to hide…lol.
For S2, the environs around GW have a much more ‘citified’ feel than the Boston metro area surrounding NEU. It was much more bustling, cosmopolitan and noisy.
One interesting discovery – GW does not have dining halls! All students buy their own meals/food at local restaurants and stores using GW Dining Dollars. S2 feels that the dining hall is a great social, safe space, where it can be easy to meet knew people and to just generally be around his classmates in a relaxed environment. Eating at restaurants can be tremendously isolating, particularly for more reserved students.
The COOP at NEU loomed particularly large. We are not particularly persuaded by talk about “support” for summer internships and long-term careers. Most of the students with whom we spoke, worked very hard to gain internships and most of them failed at gaining placement at larger, more well-known companies. Although ranking is not the end all, our sense is that NEU’s substantially higher ranking, combined with the schools top reputation for the COOP, offers much greater opportunities for internships and long-term employment.
Oh, and on the subjective points, S2 really likes winter and the colder weather. It was 75+ during our time in DC, and S2 was very uncomfortable.
For what it is worth, the student body is 3:2 female to male. S2 much more prefers the roughly 50/50 balance at NEU.
Guess that’s a wrap. Very happy for S2. As many of you have related, the process can be long, grueling, with lots of roller coaster dips and turns. Now it’s time to turn the page and look forward to succeeding chapters.
Thank you all!
@ninakatarina - I’d say yes, that’s our situation. But we just has SLU’s accepted students day on Monday, so the decision-making was held off until then. We still need a few days.
I just looked at the letter from HWS - it says the non-refundable deposit is $50. That’s go to be a typo, right? (I don’t have access to the portal)
@bjscheel - that’s a perfect distance away! I was an hour and 1/2. Made it possible for my parents to bring things I forgot at home, or for me to run back. Also made it possible for them to just come take me and roommates out to dinner, etc.
@BrooklynRye the lack of a dining hall is what drew my S17 to GW. They have the basement of two dorms with a foodcourt and plenty of place to “socialize” as well a the Panera in one of the buildings. It seems that Northeastern and GW dilemma is a common one.
@BrooklynRye Congratulations on your son’s decision! I love Northeastern! Great location. Didn’t work out for D19, but we’ll have to consider it for D20.
@BrooklynRye congrats on NEU, that’s a great choice. My son17 goes there now, and is doing a business/tech program there, so goes to the engineering building. It’s a really cool building, and the new bridge connecting it back over to the campus should be done soon. That will allow kids to go from one side of the tracks to the other without utilizing the T stop entry/exit.
Regarding the food. My son said it was fine, however it’s not cheap. As a sophomore he lives in a suite with a kitchen so he basically eats breakfast/ lunch there, and then eats out for dinner. He has been well below the cost of the food plan for this year and seems happier because he can go get food where he wants to, and the kids use dining out as a social activity.
Co-op: my son found it quite easy to get a co-op. He thought there were plenty of jobs of interest, and he has multiple offers to pick from. He wanted one particular co-op because it was very close, but they were looking for a kid with more experience. They asked him to contact them for his next co-op and gave him a bunch of contacts to call/email next year. The job he got is interesting, pretty close to campus, and pays very well. He is happy about it. He says next year he will be more picky about where he applies and will have a better understanding of how the whole process works. His advisor has been extremely helpful.
Congrats to your son on the decision, I’m sure it will work out well for him!
Re cold weather clothing. My D16 is a junior at St Olaf in MN. It gets seriously cold there and they never cancel classes. -20F with wind is routine. This goes on for months. My D does layering. Students at St Olaf tend to dress nicer (not everyone, but many); not expensive just not hoodies and sweats. She wears jeans (with underlayer if it’s cold; cold = below 0F). On top she has a light downjacket that can be layered under other stuff. She has a Columbia waterproof/wind jacket that will fit over everything. Under that she were’s her indoor shirt. She has multiple warm hats and a few scarves. The scarves are essential. I also got her a nice balaclava, not ski like but rather something that can go with nicer clothes. It was cheap on Amazon. She only uses that when it is really cold. Scarves are more versatile and look nice too. For shoes, she wears hiking boots, which curiously is fairly common. You’ll be dressed up…and have hiking boots on. She has flats that she’ll switch into once inside if needed (for a performance or something). Gloves-nothing special. Just something cheap that fits easily in a pocket. She does have ski gloves (for skiing) if she wanted to use those but she doesn’t need them often (maybe used them for broom ball).
She bought all her stuff at a thift shop near home. Cost less than $120 total. The hiking boots she had already. They also have a ‘give away’ room at college. She’s gotten some stuff there too.
@RightCoaster - Your thoughts very much gel with what we know. S2 has visited the campus several times. Apparently, there has been so much negative feedback about the NEU dining plan, the quality of the food, and the cost, that the school is implementing a greater variety of plans to allow for more economical planning. I sure hope so! As the parent of a boy, I am far less concerned about quality…lol. Seems to be more about quantity! Ditto re the COOP and advising, particularly for Engineering. Have heard very little negative and the feedback from current and former students in the Engineer and CompSci fields has been pretty unanimously positive. Most importantly, our son is “less than proactive”. Being at a school that will guide him through cover letters, resumes, and interviews; where he will actually work for 6 months out each of his sophomore and junior years, and where he will get to hone his career goals, is tremendously valuable. I am well aware it is not for everyone, but we are proud of S2 for doing his research and taking the time to make the best, most informed decision possible.
@BrooklynRye - Congrats!!
Well, we hadn’t planned on having any sort of party, but I guess we sort-of are now. Her graduation is about three hours from us, and about 5-7 hours from various family, so we sent out announcements not expecting people to come. Here we are two weeks out and fifteen people have said they’re making the trip. My in-laws subtlety let us know we should be providing something past the graduation by sending us graduation party decorations, so here we are. We can definitely not afford to buy dinner for nineteen people, so we’ve decided on a sort-of open house in our hotel suite (thank goodness we got a great rate on a suite- I could t even consider it in a regular room!). It does at least have a full kitchen, dining room, living room, and deck. If everyone staggers a bit naturally I’m hoping we will be fine. Now to figure out where to get a gluten free graduation cake down there… not to mention feed people who are a combination of gluten free (us), vegetarian, and kosher. And it’s fifteen people that we know of- there wasn’t an rsvp because I didn’t think anyone beyond grandparents would come. Oops?!?
** eta: I’m not sure most people realize the geography of it all- that the graduation isn’t local to even us. They might assume we’ll all head to our house after.
Congratulations, @BrooklynRye! Excellent choice.
@BrooklynRye , congrats on the decision!
:lol: good luck with the party & enjoy graduation!
I’m dragging D19 off to look for a prom dress on the weekend, she procrastinated hugely for junior prom, finally ordering something on line which didn’t fit and had to be sent back, and we ultimately ended up buying something inbetween college tours during spring break last year - with junior prom about a week after we got back! She wasn’t fazed but I was hugely stressed, haha. Senior prom is about a month away so hopefully we have decent time to find something. She’s also going to a prom in another town as a date, so can double up on the dress usage.
Prom here is this weekend (!!) and we worked as a team (me, D19, and D20) to perfect their prom hair and makeup styles earlier today. I’m looking forward to the excuse to make D20 take lots of pics- I’m usually lucky to get one! I get more from her dance teacher than I’m ever allowed to take. 
This weekend is my D’s last Orchesis show, and, to go out with a bang, she is dancing in 8 different dance pieces, including a duet that she and her dance partner choreographed, and a dance, which she choreographed in the fall, is back by popular demand. It’s already crazy with Tech Week (every day rehearsals until 8 PM) and it’s going to going to be an even crazier weekend…