Interesting. For my D last year, the “no loans” schools were 5 of the 6 the least expensive acceptances she got, and the average net cost of the two groups was about $7K different per year. Luckily for her, her favorites weren’t the most expensive ones, so we didn’t have to consider cost in the final analysis - all the ones she liked most were affordable (but with Vassar and Wellesley the two most expensive of her favorites, and both of those did package loans…both were also very close to their NPCs, so not a surprise or a problem).
Is your S still waiting on more? How many have made the affordable list for him at this point? Seems like he has lots of great options!
Any nursing school applicants here? My D26 is interested and I know it is more competitive than ever. Would love to hear about your experience with this year’s admission cycle for nursing, stats appreciated of you are comfortable. Her brother S24 is headed to Auburn and she also loves that school. But it is not direct entry nursing which can make things harder. She really does want to still enjoy college with game days, greek life, etc while she is in nursing school. I have already told her that her social life will be greatly affected by being a nursing major but she is determined, LOL.
One of my son’s good friends applied for nursing and got direct entry at Tennessee. If she can get into Honors College at South Carolina, that will allow direct entry into their nursing program, but regular admission to South Carolina does not. I think there is a thread somewhere on here discussing direct entry nursing programs.
On the “dirty words”–I took the Northeastern husky magnet (from her campus visit) off of our fridge and hid it in my office desk at work after the deferral/rejection. Congrats to everyone who got in, but we’re going to be haters for a while.
I tell my kids this all the time! And they just roll their eyes.
Of course maybe it doesn’t help we just spent two drizzly, cold hours touring Edinburgh Castle, only to have the sun break out just as we were leaving . . . . I swear when I bought the timed tickets that was supposed to happen earlier, but I guess not even I can really predict Scottish weather.
So then we are in a cafe, and S24 is complaining his hot chocolate is really bitter. He dumps in three packets of sugar and finally abandons it. I take a sip and realize he got served the cocoa with whisky that I ordered! Not sure why he thought that burning sensation = bitter, but the upshot is I got like half his plain hot chocolate, then mine with three extra packets of sugar.
My son received an admitted student package in the mail from Oberlin. It had an insert that said they would reimburse up to $400 for plane travel and $100 for driving. So smart! I wIll also say that the design of the Oberlin package is gorgeous! - signed mom who is a designer
I am trying so, so hard not to push Oberlin too much with C24. I think it’s just a great fit school for them, but they need to come to that conclusion themselves.
Wishing luck to everyone receiving decisions today and tomorrow! D24 had some great acceptances as well as some disappointing waitlists last week, and I am anxious for her to make a final decision. Thank you to all of you for sharing in this experience- I hope we all stick around to share all about dorms, move-in and adjustment to college life(and maybe some cocktail recipes and travel stories too)!
Yes, I’ve been surprised. The no loans schools are the cheapest, but definitely not by $5500/yr…more like $1000 or so, with the exception of Colby. My music kid only had one no-loans schools in the mix, and in his case that one was MUCH better than any other offer (but he didn’t get into any others that say they’ll meet need). It’s fine–they’re all doable…I’m just surprised at how close most of them are to each other. oh! ETA–he’s still waiting on Emory, Hamilton, and Brown…but so far every option is at least somewhat affordable…Lawrence would be more of a stretch, but if he completely falls in love with it we could make it happen (and we’d probably ask them if they could do any better)
@sarahbrown24 Colby is the best FA, coming in about $3000/yr cheaper than the next best one (Amherst)
oh, really?! we haven’t gotten the mailed package yet from Oberlin–interested to see if he gets that, too (we hadn’t been planning to visit Oberlin because he’s already been and is pretty familiar with it–not sure if that would sway us or not–time is tight!)
Our FA packages have also mostly tracked the NPCs as well. Wesleyan’s actually came in lower (thanks, Wes!). The only exception was Scripps, which was much higher ($25k → $36k). In other circumstances, we might have appealed it with our NPC in hand.
For whatever reason, Vassar’s NPC was dramatically higher for us than other LACs. It was more than three times Wesleyan’s and more than twice Bowdoin’s, proving once and for all that Malcolm Gladwell is a boob. (I actually like his stuff, but his “Food Fight” podcast is a travesty.) It’s too bad, because Vassar would have been a good fit. On the other hand, it’s close enough to Wesleyan in so many regards that it probably doesn’t matter.
I think there’s a decent chance my oldest would have ended up at Vassar if their FA had been more competitive–he really liked it when he visited (he’s a sucker for pretty buildings). Oh well, we tried to tell them!
I may be biased when it comes to Bowdoin but I could not agree more about the Food Fight podcast. Its only purpose seems provocation. There is so much to discuss and research when it comes to higher education and affordability. Whether Bowdoin serves marginally more expensive food than Vassar seems irrelevant in the grand scheme of things and irrelevant when it comes to the specific dollar amounts. Not to mention that his team does not seem to have bothered to dig into the finances of both schools. (As an aside: I don’t know Malcolm Gladwell but went to an event at his house years ago. He does not live like a person who frets about income inequality. Now I’m sure that he has earned a lot of money and I’m not judging his lifestyle. But it seems that he should know based on personal experience that the occasional indulgence is perfectly compatible with a commitment to supporting those who are less privileged.)
Good luck to all the kids waiting for results in the net few days. I just cant wait for this stage to complete.
March has been very mixed for S24. He has done much better with EA School results (more reaches in RD). except that few of the UC’s being surprising the other results were close to what we expected and looks like the way we classified Safety, Match and reach has been accurate. Also he seems to have done better where schools looked into SAT. His SAT (1540) is probably in the higher end than his UW GPA would indicate and might be helping him.
We are planning to visit 3 of the colleges in mid April and until then we will not be sure where he will end up. In addition to the 3 out of state we plan to go we have one instate in the mix and 1 waitlist decision that may change what he ends up doing. Hoping we can close the decision by end soon but knowing S24 he will not decide before May.
Just starting some googling, but is there an easy spot to find admission data for US students to UK schools? (Apparently every kid is a different adventure for the purpose of college admission. S26 just returned from a spring break in Europe school trip and…)
Nevermind I am slowly finding info… Looks like Oxford is 6% (lol), wondering if most applicants are already high stats, considering the admission requirements. Guessing Edinburgh will be more reasonable, or not. More to google…
