That one school, and you said it’s the most competitive, didn’t take you doesn’t mean others won’t.
But - like every student, you need to ensure you have the most important school on the list.
That’s the assured safety…that’s both affordable…and the student would be happy to attend.
Once that is secured, than the rest of the list can go as your student desires.
But even if you have multiple reaches, nothing should have changed because one didn’t come as hoped. That was expected anyway. Just make sure the list has that fallbacks. Many kids over-reach and that should never, ever happen.
Wait until 3rd-4th week of January or so, and send an email update then, with any other updates. I think it is too soon and you run the risk of having another big update and then may start to annoy them if the student keeps emailing.
@Vin76@burghdad
RE: Campus. Pitt checks ALL of the boxes on your son’s list. If you’ve not yet visited, please do so. Yes, Pitt is a safety school for your son, as it is for many high stat students. Yet we know several who attended after receiving denials from Top 20’s and loved the school and stayed in the city. GL!
Ok, so here’s something interesting. Doesn’t affect D24, but will affect younger sister (D26). Our HS has slightly changed its mandatory AP exams. For D24’s graduating class, AP exam requirements were:
take total of 6 exams
4 of those must be 1 each in English, history, math, foreign language
remaining 2 can be in any subject
must pass at least 1 AP exam
Now for D26’s graduating class, they changed it to a mandatory science AP exam instead of foreign language. D24 said it’s because starting with last year’s 7th graders (who are in 8th grade now), they removed the 7th grade foreign language and switched it instead to a ‘linguistics’ class which is a combo pack of some latin, spanish, french, some Chinese, etc.
D26 is pretty stoked about this because she wasn’t thrilled with the idea of taking the AP Spanish test next year. D24 is jealous.
HS has AP requirements?
Oh, not fun. DS2022 would have HATED these rules. He took all the STEM AP and none in English/History.
DD2024 took no STEM AP.
Our HS only rule (I don’t think this is a hard rule yet) is max of 5 AP per year for Jr/Sr years. Kids were burning themselves out taking 12 APs in Jr/Sr years.
Wow I haven’t heard of a school with AP requirements. Only about a third of our seniors take an AP course. The math one seems particularly tough! Few kids get to Calc here as well.
Have to jump in a moment and talk about St Louis and WashU. Our oldest just graduated in 2023 and our youngest was just accepted ED for Fall 2024. Yes, summers are really hot and humid, but WashU students have typically vacated by then. Winters are mostly 20s-40s with a few big snows, spring and fall are gorgeous, esp on that campus with the Ginkos and Bradford Pear trees.
Across the street from East campus is Forest Park- second largest city park after Central Park. It holds the zoo (# 2. Nationwide after San Diego), Art Museum, Planetarium & Science Center, and Jewel Box (Worlds Fair green house)- all FREE to enter. It also has a Boat house/lake, a skating rink, and an outdoor Municipal Opera. On other side of the park are Barnes Jewish med complex, the historical Central west End, and newly growing Cortex tech community (by IKEA).
The St Louis Botanical Gardens are considered one of the top three in the world, and Food & Wine just listed St Lous as their readers pick for the Next Great Food City. The Arts District hosts great theater, classical and jazz (our middle child studies jazz performance at the Eastman School of Music and can attest). And of course there’s the one of a kind sculptural City Museum.
Acknowledging that it’s not comparable to a city like Boston, for example- but we’ve found St Louis to be an asset to a WashU education.
I just want to second that Forest Park, and all it contains, is truly a world-class urban park. Having that literally across the street from the university is to me a fantastic locational amenity.
Hope everyone whose kiddos have apps to complete over the holiday are hanging in there. S24 confirmed a shut out (apart from the two legacies at Cornell) at his HS at elite schools during ED this year - here’s hoping RD is better. Also caught up with 2 friends who have kids at T5 BS’s and they had the same story (as did many of their kids’ BS friends). It may be a tough year all around! Fingers crossed that the months ahead bring lots of positive news. And congrats to everyone who is done with the process (I’m jealous).
I have been curious to hear from other parents, what has been the ED success rate at their high school (or others in the area)? I go on S24’s Instagram to see the latest announcements, and I feel it has been pretty light over the past 2 weeks. I know that some of our privates have a good chunk applying ED and I don’t feel like it’s been a big number of kids with success.
My son’s school is a college prep school. Out if all the EDs to the top 20 schools there was only one acceptance which was to Boston. It was definitely a disappointing year according to our guidance counselor. Lots of denials, a few deferrals but mostly for legacy.
Too many kids are buying into the top 20 hype - and this is likely causing this. When someone says shut out at elite colleges - I don’t know how people define elite - the definition is up to each individual - but in the end they are just colleges.
All these kids - if they are go getters - will be fine wherever they land and hope they don’t feel as if they are settling but rather in a great place.
US News saves these colleges a lot of marketing money !!
At S24’s BS, not a good early year in general. One student matched at a T10 via Questbridge. My son and one other had success, but most deferred or denied. Looks to be the same at top private schools in our area.