I got an email from an EA college that read “Welcome to the ___ College Family Connection!” and then proceeded to say that this was no indication of the student having been accepted.
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U of Del just changed its applicant portal to feature a video of students throwing leaves in the air. It’s the first thing you see, and then a note underneath that says the Admissions Office will be closed Wednesday through Friday. It gave S25 a minor heart attack when they clicked on the portal to check their status, and the video popped up.
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They don’t seem to be viewing these things from the perspective of a nervous college applicant, do they?
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UGH that is awful
Adding to the choir, C25 received an email last week from Hofstra that includes “we want you here.” And then something like “please let us know how you’re feeling about….”
Meanwhile portal still says “under review”
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Someone please do an intervention with me and tell me that I cannot, MUST NOT, buy swag from my son’s top choice today just because it’s on sale for Black Friday! He will know for sure in a few weeks, and I can buy it then! Right? RIGHT?!?
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Or you can do what I did for D19. Buy it, hide it, and hope like anything you get to whip it out on decision day. It was pretty cool to be able to give it to her a couple of minutes after she opened the letter 
(If not… well, I’m guessing that’s where a bunch of the college swag offered on our local community facebook group comes from!)
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Only if you go outside, turn around three times and spit. Do you want to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing?!
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1tyiWP9MSk)
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Oh goodness - I had the same thing happen to me this morning!!
Truth be told, kiddo actually went online two weeks ago and bought himself swag with his debit card… and is wearing it to school today.
Just adding that the only thing keeping me from buying the sweater (on sale!) that he wants for Christmas is the comment his little brother made when he saw it: it looks like he’s a Hufflepuff. Now I can’t get past that.
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During our college visits this summer, D would only look at swag from colleges she ruled out.
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I’m convinced that will jinx things. Mr Groundhog got annoyed that I bought C25 warm winter gloves, but pretty much their whole list is somewhere cold.
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He already has two sweatshirts and a few t-shirts from when he did a camp there this summer. But I am a lunatic who wants to start buying all of the hoodies now “before they run out of them.” And plus he needs a baseball cap for the “senior college cap” day and video that they do in May. IN MAY!
I am refraining for now, even though I am sad to miss the 25% off…
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My child has requested “a tshirt from each school I’m applying to” as Christmas gifts.
That feels like (a) mightily tempting fate to me and (b) a really expensive endeavor for some shirts he will surely not wear long into the future. He’s applying to seven schools. Two gave him shirts when he visited, so I’m not buying those. Two are schools six and seven on this list, and really unlikely to be where he goes, now that he’s got a rolling admissions admit that he prefers, so I’m not buying those. So I only need to buy three shirts. I’ve asked my sister to buy one (it’s her husband’s alma mater) so at least I’m only out the $$ for two? Regardless, it still seems wasteful since I know he won’t wear these after he decides where to go.
At least it’s only t-shirts and not hoodies I guess.
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Delete
Multiple measures. I have an endowment cut (different levels for public vs private colleges), and I look up bond ratings (which aren’t always available) and 990s (which are). Some places even make their accreditation reports public (though this is rare), which provide a wealth of good data. This gives me a whole bunch of mostly-qualitative information that gives me what is ultimately a vibe check, but an informed vibe check.
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Oh no, they totally are.
Ramping up the stress/nervousness level increases engagement and connection. It’s social media marketing 101, and yes, it’s absolutely and completely evil.
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well that’s certainly more involved than checking Forbes & Bain!
May I ask what your endowment cut-offs are for public & private?
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My kids are way too superstitious to pre-purchase swag. They wouldn’t let me purchase even a bic pen at the schools they were applying to. Now if a school wants to freely give away swag, that’s another story (and C25 loves their Pitt t-shirt.)
C20 got a lot of freebies 5 years ago and C25 will freely wear those hand-me-downs because it doesn’t jinx you if the school gave it for free or it’s your sibling’s alma mater.
It seems to me like less freebies this year, or perhaps those come only if you’ve been accepted.
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Weirdly the only swag D19 wanted to buy was from what would have been her ED2 school. Maybe that was her way of non-jinxing the #1 choice? Anyway she never wore it out the house after ED1 but it got a lot of wear as for in home lounging/pajama top!
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We have swag from different colleges that D wears whenever. They were typically gifts from family members who were alumni. She has swag from Rowan but that’s all been given as part of one program or another. She’s never wanted to buy anything from any schools visited. Right after UPS offered her admission we toured campus and found ourselves by the student store and she’s now the proud owner of a T shirt. She’s worn it a couple times already. We don’t know if it’ll be in budget yet but I can see her keeping it as one of (too) many t shirts in her closet (bedroom floor) even if she lands somewhere else.
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