According to this, the colleges aren’t getting the FAFSA. Michigan reports they have 18!
2 Likes
It’s such a huge mess. Will this get resolved in time for people to commit in time?
It’s official. D24 emerged from her lair this evening (aka the bedroom) to announce that she’ll be attending Austin College this fall. We’re plunking down $$ for the enrollment deposit tomorrow!
I am totally thrilled she picked this one. Seriously. So over the moon happy. Feels like just the right kind of place for my kid.
Go Roos!
Best wishes to everyone who’s still waiting for final decisions from colleges. The wait is torturous but will hopefully be over soon!
95 Likes
Congratulations to your daughter and your family! I have loved following her story and how you have been a stellar advocate for her and her aspirations. Good Luck in the road ahead. 
10 Likes
Congrats! So nice to have a decision!
1 Like
My S24 needed some visits to learn about what he liked and didn’t like–he would have had like 40+ possibles originally. He also ended up doing some visits to demonstrate interest. In the end he had officially visited 9 of his 15, and had seen in person 2 more. But he still had 4 on his list he had only seen online.
We’re visiting one of those right now post-offer, and may visit others if they are contenders post-offer.
9 Likes
I’m going to write a sappy thank you note to all of the teachers and staff at school and am going to bring a boatload of bagels and cream cheese to school in the morning when I drop D26 off tomorrow. 
19 Likes
Congratulations to your daughter and whole family! I’ve been reading your posts for over a year and always secretly hoped your daughter would choose a place like Austin College or another CTCL. (Also, I’m officially addicted to YCBK podcast because of your suggestion a while back, but I don’t mind because it helped my own D24 quite a bit in her search and in my own research and understanding of this crazy process 
, so thank you for that!)
9 Likes
Congratulations! I can’t wait for the day when my S24 will decide his choice!
3 Likes
My S24’s FAFSA was finally processed and sent to his colleges. I felt like he got into Harvard or something like that just for this FAFSA to be processed! Perspective!
25 Likes
Congratulations! I have enjoyed your detailed posts throughout the application and decision process. I think they will be helpful to others in the future.
What a great result to feel like your daughter found a good match. 
5 Likes
This article today by Jeff Selingo is worth a read by all of us who have kids still waiting (or others surprised by results) …
7 Likes
I found the article kind of weirdly reassuring. Of the decisions C24 has remaining, there’s only one school that could possibly be considered a target (50ish percent chance they’ll get in); the rest are reaches. Knowing that everything’s wacky this year helps me expect a slew of rejections, and be able to contextualize them for C. They’ve already gotten a few pleasantly surprising admissions, so anything else from here out is gravy, anyway.
7 Likes
The part i focused on is that they reject the majority of candidates after just one reader. I did admissions years ago and everyone got at least read by 2 people - everyone has certain preferences and this prevented those preferences from dominating decisions. Noticed this year that many colleges (including Duke) have a number of pretty young admissions officers now (probably a function of needing so much more staff with so many applications) -and knowing that these admissions officers now get to make the final decision (rejection) on many applicants helps me understand better the increased element of unpredictability in this process.
10 Likes
Some critical (to me) takeaways:
(1) Confirmation that lots of colleges are using Landscape this cycle to permissibly seek more socioeconomic diversity. It will be VERY interesting to see how that turns out in terms of ethnic mix (which they cannot directly target);
(2) Confirmation that lots of high volume, highly selective colleges are doing some sort initial review cut where a very large portion–2/3rds to 3/4s at Duke–are being weeded out in the initial pass;
(3) The whole story about how the “Penn requires research” false meme got started and the dangers inherent to the modern habit of anything these colleges say being parsed for all sorts of hidden clues that supposedly they will not say openly as part of their standard admissions advice;
and (4) the different direction yields have taken among the top few most selective colleges (higher) versus the next tier (lower) and how that has led to those colleges trying to better regulate yield in ways that benefit them but not so much applicants, including the many rounds of possible early applications, binding and not.
I’ve noted before there are ways around that last thing if you are willing to look outside the most popular markets where so many of the schools are so often buried deep on a long application list. But that dynamic doesn’t look likely to change anytime soon in the most popular markets, and indeed might continue to get worse.
7 Likes
Since I banned @Intern_Applicant for posting under false pretenses, I also deleted their poll and the 20 responses to it, since keeping the responses rewards bad behavior.
19 Likes
Working in higher ed, I’ve been hearing about the cliff forEVER and was really thinking (hopeful?) that my D24 would at least be on the downward slope before the drop and that that would work in her favor as an average kid, so the stats are wild/deflating to me (especially as she still hasn’t heard back from her two faves.)
My D28 is solidly post-cliff (2008 is the year everything dropped), and the opposite of her sister as she is a neurotypical extrovert who will likely enter application season with higher stats and more ECs, stronger teacher connections in core subjects, so it will be interesting to see what the landscape is like in 4 years and how it will work for her.
6 Likes
Definitely worth the read. I’ve been trying to explain to my D24 that’s it’s not her qualifications, it’s the numbers, and to my adult friends that it’s nothing like the system that got them accepted to great schools/programs in the 80’s or 90’s.
Tulane hired a man who’s techniques skyrocketed their applications numbers (but no increase to the quality of education) to obtain a 6-ish% admissions rate, he was next hired by Northeastern and guess what he did there? Exactly that same. It all feels dishonest at $75-$100 an application to schools who can’t possibly admit 100k freshman, they appear to have turned applications into a revenue stream.
22 Likes
The amount of applications is just insane and I can’t imagine how AO can really give them the attention they need. I am not sure what pre-screening schools are using, but I suspect that has hurt many applicants that are not getting a full read. We have not had great luck despite great stats, and I know we are not alone. It’s been a rough season for some.
18 Likes
That’s wonderful news - and it was the school I was pulling for, for her! Congrats mom, you did a good job!
4 Likes