LOL. I love me some Cal portal astrology. For Cal, I’d believe it.
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Oh, no! That sucks. My daughter is among the top 10 and luckily, they are all supportive of each other. There is one kid who is a little eclectic and borderline racist, so they ignore him but everyone has been great. Her bestie from all the way back in daycare days is valedictorian so D24 and she are always neck in neck but they do a lot of competition projects together and have a ton of fun. Applied to all the top schools together. They even opened one college admission result together in the car. So today at 4pm PST we find out if they will be roommates at UCLA or will go separate ways.
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I thought that @Malsandhuskies was talking about the senior assassin game not college applications. Though I suppose the intensity of college admissions could come out in the assassin game! At least when D22 was a senior, they played a variety of senior games over the ear (assassin, mafia, spoons, werewolf), and they were a welcome distraction from college stuff. I don’t think college tensions leaked into the games.
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I love everything about this and that is so great for you. My daughter was deferred SCEA at Yale (dream school at time of application) just yesterday we found out about "the right " school and she has basically decided to go there. We are curious to see the results of Ivy Day but Yale is no longer the dream school and any Ivy acceptances (if she is fortunate enough to get one) are just ego and window dressing.
If we were not on the East Coast I think USC would be “the right” school for daughter. We loved everything about it when we visited two years ago.
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Thanks, I agree. It’s in her hands. I’ll be happy wherever she chooses as they are all affordable. Hamilton is just the most so!
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Hamilton will always have a special place in my heart because it was my oldest’s first big acceptance after a string of demoralizing waitlists. I can still remember my sinking feeling of dread evaporating when he said, “oh…there’s confetti.” Also, my mom grew up in Clinton! Congrats on both the acceptance and the great aid! Interestingly, it was one of S24’s worst FA packages–I was a little surprised.
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As others consider financial aid packages, are you mostly just considering billed costs as in how much you will pay for tuition and room/board? Or are you trying to factor in other expenses, which may vary from college to college?
Do any of you know of a good tool for comparing financial aid offers? I am probably going to just make a spreadsheet, which is fine, but I thought there might be something online that is even easier. I am just finding it a bit complicated to try to think through how much each college might actually cost in the end since different colleges include different estimates for the various line items in their COA. Some include things like health insurance in their estimates and others do not. They all also package aid differently. Their COA estimates for travel are also wildly different though all the colleges to which she has been admitted are theoretically within driving distance. For example, one college has a specific books & supplies grant and a music lesson grant. A different college has a personal expenses stipend but no books & supplies line item in the COA and definitely no information about music grants. Another mentions study abroad grants in their aid letter, another includes a summer storage grant, which is awesome (D22 lugged everything home last summer), but maybe too in the weeds to worry about at the moment, and so forth.
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Dang. I misread. We got a note about that game at school last week!
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Mine always wanted Yale. She was rejected by Yale EA. Princeton was the other school she loved. Basically, wherever she got gears during our college tour last year, she was all in. But last week she said she would pick UCLA over Princeton, so the people do change their minds it’s a good thing to have choices. Good luck and I actually hope your daughter gets into Yale. I wanna see difficult decisions :).
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I just created a spreadsheet.
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Trying to stay distracted. I had a text from a friend (her kids aren’t in the cycle this year) who asked if someone can back out of ED. Her friend has a kid who got in a very popular east coast school via ED but now got into one of the UCs and wants to go to said UC. I remember doing ED for S21 and our counselor, he, and we had to sign off on it. I thought it was binding vs. EA, REA or SEA, etc. I told her that unless there’s material financial changes (because you also accept when you sign that you would go, regardles of Financial Aid package, which was why I didn’t sign D24 up for ED at Brown or anywhere ED)–divorce, death, loss of jobs, you really can’t and shouldn’t back out of ED. I thought school admissions talk to each other if this happens. In addition, I’m thinking it’s probably a black eye for your high school, too. Can’t be good. Am I wrong? I suggested just going to the ED school and trying to get a transfer. These ED colleges take yield very seriously.
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What did you include in the spreadsheet? I normally love spreadsheets, but I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. Like would you include summer storage? Normally, I would not, I don’t think. But since one of the colleges has a summer storage grant, now I am wondering if I should itemize potential storage fees for all colleges. I am not sure If my question is making sense. It just feels like a very easy call if I just compare tuition & room/board with total grants, but I am wondering if I should be thinking more broadly.
My understanding is that this person’s child should never have known they were admitted to that UC because they should have pulled all outstanding applications after being admitted ED.
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I think you are right. The way I would put it is violating your ED commitment when all that happens is you get an offer you prefer is a very serious ethical violation, and all your other admissions offers are conditional on good behavior.
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You should check out this old (and one of CCs best IMO) threads and their journey to find an affordable school. I think cost of coming and going is super important, but also, what is the cost of social life? My D barely spends 20$ a week. Some of her friends at city schools spends loads going out to dinner and bars.
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We made a spreadsheet that only has two numbers for each school: direct billed costs and grant aid. Since each school is different as far as how much they estimate for indirect expenses and how they package in loans/work study/etc. that seems like the most straightforward and clearest way to do it. Of course, when we get down to the actual decision, we will be thinking about things like how travel costs will be more at some schools than others, but for the initial comparison we do it that way.
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I think one of the issues with ED is that kids mature a lot in terms of understanding who they are and what is important to them during this process and senior year.
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Assassin - my kid’s high school plays this every year but they use stickers to tag out their victims.
Financial Aid - I do wish there was a standard format, some add in loans and then leave the remaining as the net cost, which I’d rather see Tuition+R&B+mandatory fees-grants/scholarships/‘free money’ = net cost with the menu of loan options, work study, possible expenses left separately.
Decisions - I am just as curious about other kids decisions as I was my own! One LAC came to my kid’s school to present the acceptance in person to her friend, which was really exciting for her. For those of us in this season, decisions feel like the big emotions of when my peers were announcing pregnancies/births, those exciting milestones dry up for a few years, so it’s fun to hear about. The videos are just unboxings for the middle-aged. 
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