Another (likely) future Ole in the house! Regents scholarship to boot! 
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A great night in our house too!
Accepted to SMU, Gonzaga, and Rollins’ 3-2 MBA program, all with merit.
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Congratulations!!! …so happy for you guys.
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Son in at SMU today. No Merit, which is a bummer given his 1440 SAT. However, my husband is very happy as it is his favourite 
Waiting for Cox decision, this will be the decider for my son.
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Ugh! I’m sorry, that doesn’t make sense. SMU is so pricey. But Congrats on acceptance!
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Thankyou!
And Santa Clara… 
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Oh my god I can’t get the right emoji on my phone tonight! If that still shows the bandaged heart it isn’t supposed to! And now the stupid thing is telling me I’ve tried too many times in a row and it won’t let me fix it. Bah!
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Ha! I’ve had that happen! Thank you 
Depends on the school. Some don’t offer any merit packages until after the turn of the year.
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Olé here too – with a nice chunk of merit!
Deferred at CWRU, which to be honest surprised me (was expecting a rejection) – we’ve done absolutely nothing to show interest (no visit, no online info sessions, and he didn’t even manage to make it to the info session at his OWN DANG HIGH SCHOOL.) I think if we can we’ll try to squeeze in a visit on February break (which is the window in which I was hoping to visit a cluster of PA/NY schools). I’m Case Western-curious.
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Ok, I’ll chime in here, too. It has been a good week for at least partial (academic) acceptances:
U of South Carolina (will send video audition by Feb)
SMU (auditioning January)
TCU (auditioning January)
St. Olaf (all done! hurray!)
D25 is taking a deeper breath about college things in general right now. Now it’s time to finish up the last few apps for RD and then start the audition gauntlet. If any of you are in airports throughout the US (where SWA flies) in Jan/Feb, let me know, bc we might be at the gate next door!
ETA: Can I just say that this whole merit money thing is a very effective marketing tool? D25 is so pleased with her scholarships and it makes the school look better to her. It’s like Sally Field at the Oscars (dating myself): “…you like me. Right now, you like me!” Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the offer of $ as well.
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Very much same for my kid
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Congrats on the St. Olaf acceptance! And given your other posts here, I’m going to be quite curious to hear anything about additional trips.
FWIW, I really liked CWRU and the general vibe (plus it would have been within an hour of family). We had an outstanding tour, but S25 couldn’t get over the adjacent city setting (see similar reaction to Pitt and Rochester 
). Or maybe it was that we left Cleveland as a tornado warning was being issued to our phones…
I SHOULD ADD I don’t think the tornado thing is a usual occurrence. It was just noteworthy! I’m sure Cleveland has lovely Cleveland-normal weather that does not involve alerts.
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Same here (with the effectiveness of merit).
One of S25’s best friends heard last night that he had gotten into his other top choice school, so they boy is now in at UVM and Clemson. The schools all along have been neck and neck for this guy but UVM gave him merit money in his acceptance letter and Clemson said “you’ll get some, but we won’t tell you until March.” Already, and it had only been a few hours, UVM was pulling ahead of Clemson for this kid (and his parents) because they knew the $$ and it felt like he was really really appreciated.
I assume Clemson waits to give out their merit money because they want to see FAFSAs come in and see how to best spread need v merit money, or they want to wait for more of the RD applicants, but by waiting for three months, kids are going to start “falling in love” with other schools that they know “love them back”.
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I’m a Clemson alum so am biased for my D to go to Clemson and she LOVED the school. But I’m with you on the merit $$. My D also got Clemson’s “you’ll get some but will find out in March”. The other school in that state (that shall not be named) gave her at least in-state tuition plus more to be determined later. While my two favorite teams are Clemson and whoever plays against that other team, I respect that school for at least providing enough info to keep them in the running even if they aren’t ready to provide full details. The late decision schools are also not front in her thoughts (looking at you Madison, Northeastern and Washington) and they aren’t even emailing her things to keep interest up like all the others have been periodically. My D may end up choosing before she even hears about Clemson’s merit, or the other decisions.
I keep telling her that as more information becomes available all the way into April it may change where she wants to be. She is on social media trying to find a roommate for one particular school that is the “current favorite” and is ready to hit the decline button on others.
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This is us exactly. S25 also applied EA to Virginia Tech, but they don’t release until February, and they’ve sent nothing and done nothing to make him feel wanted. Of the other three schools he’s waiting to hear from one that announces in January keeps sending info, another January has done nothing, and one that only has RD for March has done nothing (and probably was the low end of the list anyway, and has now totally fallen off).
I don’t think S25 is going to let himself make a decision until he sees what kind of $$ he gets from Clemson, because he really really loved Clemson and I think that’s where his heart wants him to go. But with the lower starting sticker price for OOS students and the generous merit award he received from UTK, right now over four years UTK is more than $100k cheaper.
We’ve told S25 all along he doesn’t have to go to the least expensive school. Every school that he applied to is one that we could afford to pay the full sticker price if we had to. But there are trade offs. The full sticker price of Clemson is basically all the money we have put aside. If he takes a less expensive school, then he can use the remaining money to buy a car, to help fund grad school, or to save as a downpayment on a house. We’ll let him make that decision when the time comes, but it would be nice to have an earlier idea of what the dollars are going to be. Having to wait until March, while looking at a $100k delta, takes some of the shine off of Clemson.
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The other deferrals didn’t bother him quite as much, because the letters just said that they are waiting for first semester grades (fair) and that he will be considered during regular decision.
For this school, it was really the ‘We think you are a great candidate for our school, so please consider ED2’ that turned him off. If he is such a great candidate, just accept him.
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Every single facet of the college application process is honestly broken and not a single one favors the applicants in any way.
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S23 was deferred EA and then got the email to consider switching to ED2. I can’t recall if he got anything before the EA decision suggesting to switch or not.
I personally have no issue with a school running their admissions program however they see fit. It’s a business for them and we’re the customers - we can either decide to buy the service or not.
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