I like the way you said “its all upside from here” I think I need to adopt this way of thinking as S24 also has a few good options already.
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Same here S24 is cool and its me who is nervous. He does not seem worried and is joking about me waiting for this period to be over soon.
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That is definitely a fantastic floor!
I think I mentioned this before, but to the extent I have any remaining concerns it is not at all where S24 will end up at college, it is just whether the process from here will beat him up psychologically for no particular purpose.
But my own feeling is he really has already won, and now he is into the showcase round of Wheel of Fortune (leather sofa? riding mower? what exact prize do you want?).
And I realize that just massively dated me, so I will stop there.
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My theory is that it’s for dramatic impact. The ivies are some of the last (perhaps the last?) to release decisions – it’s like the “big reveal” and I think they like it that way.
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Is mid-March typically the transition period between when a minority of applicants (ED1, ED2, EA, in-State guaranteed) know where they are admitted/committed to when a majority applicants know where they are accepted, with a few hoping to get final acceptances in end of march/early april to a list of reach schools? Of course, its the highest anxiety period because many are awaiting news from dream/reach schools, and financial aid has not been completely sorted.
Current stats:
- 5 admits (admit rates above 10%, state schools) + 1 reject (admit rate under 10%, Ivy)
- tbc 4 schools (admit below 10%) + 2 schools (admit above 10%)
- statistically ~50% chance to get another admit.
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a bit of a surprise after the Mac waitlist, but a very nice one–should help him power through the rest no matter how they go
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Still waiting on 14! 
Not all reaches, but a lot! Luckily we have some good in hand options with Cal Poly and Wisconsin, and the likelies from early apps, but it’s going to be a long month.
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You are almost describing what I am going through as well. Day and night I am on reddit and college confidential to make him feel better. It is so awful.
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Those whacky SLACs are so hard to predict. They make up 6 of S24’s 10 reaches, and that is part of why–who knows which (if any) will see him as their sort of person.
Edit: By the way, though, this was a hot topic of conversation at the end of year brunch for S24’s winter sport. SLACs are popular in this crowd and some of the parents had one or more kids who had gone through this process recently. The consensus seemed to be that on an individual basis, things were unpredictable, but overall at least in retrospect it made sense–certain SLACs liked certain kids and it was at least understandable what they were likely thinking even if the kids might have had different preferences.
None of which is actually actionable information, but I am passing it along because I found it somewhat comforting to hear they didn’t end up thinking it was random, instead they believed that these schools were in fact choosing the sorts of kids each school thought really made sense for their school in particular.
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It will be really interesting to see how it goes! I wonder if in DS’s case it really will often come down to the trope about which schools have a horn player graduating and need him in the orchestra.
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I am cheering hard for all of you who have kids still waiting on acceptances!
For those of you still waiting, is there a plan for how you will help your child choose? Do they already have a loose ranking of where they want to go or will you have to race around visiting multiple schools? Are many of you waiting on decisions from schools your child has never seen? Not gonna lie. That sounds stressful. But, I have no doubt it will all work out and everyone’s kids will end up somewhere they can be happy.
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delete
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The dalmatian, of course (as long as we are aging ourselves).
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Take the most chaotic approach you can imagine, triple that, stick it in a bag, back over it several times with your car until the bag is fully flattened, then empty out the pieces and give them to a mischief of magpies, which you then scatter to the winds.
Something like that is the plan.
In our case, I think he still prefers his deferral school, and then after that there is no firm ranking and visits/re-visits would definitely be warranted if he has a decent number of broadly comparable choices.
Yes, out of the 10 reaches (12 total outstanding), we did not officially visit 4, although one of those he is somewhat familiar with for other reasons (but I think we might do an actual visit if it is a contender).
On top of that, due to his packed schedule the quality of our visits was highly questionable. Like, summer visits, break visits, and weekend visits. And we have discussed how re-visiting might be a good idea.
The one thing I will say in favor of all this is I absolutely love going on college visits with him and I will happily do as many more as he wants. Logistically it could be a total nightmare, but for purely selfish reasons I would actually love it if he felt a need to visit (or re-visit) at least a few.
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In terms of how we will choose this is what I have been doing since S24 does not want to think about this for now.
I have a spreadsheet where I have all the college he is accepted to added did some research on what factors we discussed were important when we made the initial college list. Some examples are COA, location, Major, AP credit, ease of change in Major (important since he is debating between 2 to 3 majors) and how good the majors are and then have color coded them. If Green its as great, Yellow ok. red not good. And I am hoping this will help him.
This idea was initially from @sbinaz and I have adapted to our needs. I am hoping this will help rule out some from the list easily.
The stressful part is we have not visited the colleges that are ranking high based on my research and we plan to visit them in April.
Here is an example of the spreadhseet:
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S24 has a rough ranking based on the USWRN ranking with a couple of exceptions. I will be helping him not to focus on ranking but to find a good fit for him. Once we narrow it down to a few schools (if he gets accepted to a few), then we will visit before making the final decision.
However, I expect a few waitlists, and the final decision might be pushed out well beyond the the graduation. We will see.
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This is so great, and I agree! I have really loved visiting colleges with both of my kids. Not only is the one-on-one time trapped in a car or wherever with them priceless, they seem to be a great launchpad for discussions about the things that really matter to these kids - things they normally aren’t in the mood to discuss with parents. Not to mention the fun benefits of trying new restaurants and new towns, and the luxury of staying in a hotel and having relatively lazy mornings. Not gonna lie - my hands down favorite set of college tours was definitely New England in mid-October with all of the glorious fall foliage (we don’t have seasons, really, where I live), and I am thrilled that I will get to keep going back for parents weekends!
So yes, the touring time really is very special, and I am sort of sad it has drawn to a close for us. And hats off to you for being undaunted by the logistics of last-minute tours all over the northern hemisphere! 
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We have 15 left. Kid has one major of interest, but the high school experience was such that no matter the college, kid will bloom where planted. Couldn’t predict what results would be, so there were quite a few applications. Still could have done more. Chose not to.
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Ugh. Best laid plans and all that…D is waiting to hear from wisconsin. We planned to visit Friday so that she could commit right away if shes accepted. Snowstorm in Denver; flight cancelled. So it looks like we will be scrambling in April to see this +/- 1 or 2 others. Wisconsin is my top choice and i think she will love it, but now we wait …
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Madison is hands down one of my absolute favorite college towns.
Probably can’t take my word for it, but still.
That’s actually the other thing–I love planning trips. Feels like a big game to me.
And S24 doesn’t know this yet, but I am dead serious about the possibility of renting a camper van if it turns out all the hotels are already booked by the sane families.
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