D was accepted to Rutgers Mason Gross this evening. That makes five dance/academic combined acceptances and one deferral so far. She’s had some dance rejections but no academic rejections yet. Still three more auditions to go. She cast such a wide net because we highly anticipated a lot of rejections on both halves, but she’s doing ok. Still anticipating a couple more dance rejections and for the deferral to probably not go her way.
And one more admit to Case Western here. $22,500 merit was a little lower than hoped for, but it’s not a top choice for UG (Nursing). She thinks it would be a great place for grad school.
So D20 was 9/9 school admits, but still waiting for a program admit from her #1. Where is the justice?
D was accepted to WPI and Umass Amherst for engineering. She will most probably attend WPI as it is a good fit for her. She has a few more RD apps to send but I personally do not see any better choices than those two schools. Even if accepted it will be too expensive or worse engineering than WPI. But most of her RD schools have no app fee so nothing to lose.
Congratulations to all that have heard good news and good luck to everyone else that is waiting for RD!
Another CWRU with 30K merit here. DS20 has been accepted to 3 schools (out of 3) so far, all 3 with substantial merit though it isn’t the size of the merit, but the cost that’s left after the merit is applied. It looks like he has already found his winner among those 3, but he has more applications in the game.
Congratulations to everybody. So many great news on this thread!
Among Case Western admits, did anyone not submit a CSS profile? For D17, we got no FA (bug larger merit). D20 has slightly lower stats, and got about $5K less in merit. I always heard that Case tends to ‘combine’ merit and financial aid into the regular merit amount. The rest would be loans. Now I’m wondering if D20’s merit amount may have been somewhat affected by the fact we did not request financial aid. It was a calculated risk we took (CSS was a big PITA for no aid), and may have miscalculated the result. 
The other option, of course, is that she was just missing ‘something’, of course. Did anyone get merit and FA yesterday?
@bigmacbeth We did not file FAFSA or CSS and received $30K in merit from CWRU.
@bigmacbeth We didn’t ask for financial aide and S was awarded $30K in merit from CWRU as well.
D20 was accepted last week EA at Sarah Lawrence with $35k merit, no FAFSA or CSS. It surprised us (pleasantly!) – feels like they “really want her”, etc.
However, after reading that NYT magazine article earlier this fall about Trinity College and “enrollment optimization” consulting firms, I’m not sure my mental image of financial aid officers sitting around a table make deciisions about merit for this kid vs. for that kid is correct anymore. It sounds like the schools just send a proposed admitted student file off to the consulting firms and the predictive algorithm bot churns through it and makes recommendations for merit & FA to maximize yield and meet enrollment targets within the constraints of the budget. Sort of depressing…but also fascinating.
My daughter goofed up (although I should of realized) and applied to the PPSM. She knew she had virtually no chance and that took her out of EA which she really wanted. The school notified us but couldn’t take my word for her preference. She was suppose to notify by email but didn’t. The awards mentioned above are nice but we would need more so you are actually making me feel better. The school wasn’t her number one choice (at this point).
On further news she was deferred at Michigan. My wife and mother were sad since my grandfather went there. Again not her first choice. Got the congratulation packet from Illinois yesterday So far acceptances at Minnesota and Illinois
Congratulations to everyone getting these amazing acceptances and wow! on the merit offers. 
Totally agree with the poster who said it isn’t just the amount of merit offered that is important, it is definitely the amount remaining to be paid.
My daughter was also accepted to Case Western Reserve with a little over $30,000 in merit scholarship.
@Itisatruth
So true. Few years ago I read an online article with similar content that also had a link to one of those yield optimization companies. I followed the link and indeed they had a graphic with “zones” and where every admit felt yield wise with optimal fin aid assigned (the example was for a fictional college but still very accurate). Eye opening!
@Octagon @Darcy123 OK, makes me feel better about the our decision not to submit the CSS at Case! Just one of those things…congrats to potential Spartans.
@ITBgirl is that school Appalachian? You said NC mountains so I wasn’t sure. My D20 is into 2 schools so far (one with $60k merit and one with a half OOS tuition voucher) and still waiting on 5. Three will tell her at the end of January.
I have been following along with this thread but haven’t posted in a long time so I thought I would now. So far, my D20 has three acceptances: U Pitt (with $10,000 per year merit), San Diego State, and Loyola Marymount University for Film and TV Production. Merit for those accepted to LMU EA doesn’t come out until I think late January or so.
S got three acceptances today! Quinnipiac, Manhattan, and University of Hartford, all with very good merit scholarships. So happy for him 
@taverngirl how did you get notification for University of Hartford? nothing in the portal.
@Asampete It was in my son’s portal. No email notification but he just happened to check. Make sure you open the application. The status update was there. Not on the main page that just shows status: submitted.
@chb088 yes I was referring to App, we are in NC and DS only applied to schools in NC. He is in 5 of 6 so far, just waiting to hear from NCSU.
Congrats to everyone with acceptance galore! Wow, all these merit scholarships are super impressive.
DS was very disappointed to get outright rejected from UIUC (in state) which was his first choice and then getting deferred at MIT. But, he’s very much relieved to get an acceptance from UMich. He has a few more top schools to go in RD, but they all seem like a toss-up at this point. He has applied for CS in Engineering everywhere. We will see where he will end up…