This has been our experience. I’ve been highly disappointed in merit for him to be honest.
Have any of you whose kids are still weeks or months away from narrowing the list started attending the financial aid info sessions? I’ve been getting emails about them from the EA schools, but it feels too early to me. I have a lot of questions that are specific to each school, but feel like the info gathering is sort of pointless until we have a better picture of D25’s choices. She’s not excited about the colleges she has now, but this could change depending on what happens in 4-6 weeks. But maybe I’m thinking about this the wrong way. Should I be making time to go anyway? How are others handling it?
D25 got her first regular decision and got into U of Denver with the Presidential Scholar award–$30,000 a year plus $3,000 a year for every year she lives on campus. This is her biggest merit, and it makes this expensive school affordable. D25 still wants to be in the PNW though.
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We attended one for American, hoping they would say something magical and it would suddenly become affordable. Narrator: They didn’t.
Clark offered 1:1 phone calls and we took them up on that. Having a personal call with a financial aid officer was extremely helpful.
We are holding off on attending others until RD decisions are in and S25 narrows the list to 3-4 schools or one of their dream schools comes through.
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D25 decided to turn down one college officially today. It’s the largest one on her list and the least liberal artsy. There were some real positives and she wanted to keep her options open when she started the application process. But today she told me that she can’t see herself there and she wants to turn it down. This means she’s also turning down the TE, so I hope that opens it up to someone else.
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In WA, under the age of 18, you can get a “learner’s permit” and drive with a licensed driver over the age of 25 in the car. But you cannot get the “restricted license” that allows you to drive alone (for the first 6 months) or with a friend in the car (after the first 6 months, until you turn 18) (and during daylight and a few hours of darkness, but not past midnight) unless you take driver’s ed, which is no longer offered through the public school system, so you have to pay for it. At 18, all licenses magically become “full” licenses and they can drive with whoever, at any time of day or night.
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I feel like, in general, attending 1 financial aid session (assuming it’s a general information session for all parents of admitted students) at 1 college would be sufficient until you’ve narrowed things down. Just to get a lay of the land, and see if they have any better information than you’ve already sorted out from reading the boards.
But, honestly, the main thing you want to know is “when there’s 2 or 3 colleges that are equivalent top choices, which one is cheapest”. At that point, it’s time to go to each school’s FA and figure out the net price, whether it’s attending a session or having a 1:1, or reading the letters and filling in a spreadsheet you made with all the costs (including plane flights from your home to the college, or whatever).
I mean, I presume you already did the NPC for each of the colleges your kid applied to, to make sure they were going to be “within budget”, so you already have a rough idea. Now it’s time to get a very specific idea, but it’s a lot of work, so it’s fine to wait until the kid has winnowed it down to 3 choices or so.
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The twins’ 18th birthday was yesterday, and I got D25 a copy of the new 18th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style and when she opened it it was like she had WON THE LOTTERY, and all I could think was “gosh I hope whatever school gets her knows how lucky they are.”
In less fun news, S25 learned that he didn’t get a scholarship he’d applied for at one of his top schools, and was bummed but measured in his response. (Overall admission results still TBD there.) My hope is that — not having the weight of that scholarship money weighing the scales in favor of that school — he’ll be able to more easily pick the best school for him. (We haven’t visited yet; I’m not positive the vibe will be quite right there. And it might all be moot as it’ll be a tough one to get in to, but we’ll see.)
I’m doing my best to not be overly anxious as we wait for RD results, and to keep my anxiety to myself (or shared with just my wife). This is a tough season.
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C25 reached out to Hofstra to find out the possibility of double majoring in math and linguistics, since it wasn’t 100% clear from their catalog. (That is, it has very clear rules on dual degrees, which isn’t what C25’s after, and it says double majoring is possible when the degrees are the same, but it was unclear whether that meant both of them are baccalaureate degrees or whether it meant they both have to be, say, BAs or both have to be BSs—which is a potential issue, because lx is only offered as a BA there and C25’s preferred-by-far track in the math major is a BS.)
There was a good news/bad news answer—they do allow BA/BS double majors, but, if I read the response correctly, those have slightly but meaningfully different gen-ed requirements plus math is a larger major than most, so it would take (in the specific case of a BA lx plus BS math) at least 131 credits. (Semester hours, so their norm is 15 or 16 credits/semester totaling 124.) This should still be doable, though—we counted up, and C25 will, by the end of this semester, have 57(!) college credits (some of which won’t transfer, of course, but many, probably most should), and the admissions office offered to do a transfer evaluation to let the child know exactly where things stand.
Anyway, just something to pass the stress time while the kid waits to hear from Rochester and Syracuse—but this is also one more step toward solidifying the conclusion that Hofstra seems to be a good spot for what the kid is interested in.
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This makes my Oxford-comma-and-reference-guide-loving heart swell with joy. Yes!! Lucky school, indeed!!
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Are your kids filling out any surveys sent from their admitted schools that ask about the likelihood of them attending?
From my understanding, turning down an acceptance does not open up a spot. Colleges admit more kids than they want, and manage yield. A school for example might admit 1000 kids but expect only 300 kids to accept.
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yes
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I don’t expect it to open a spot. But it might mean that someone else gets offered the Tuition Exchange now.
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ahh - it didn’t read like that originally, but I must have misread.
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Good news, bad news day here. D25 didn’t get the big scholarship she interviewed for a few weeks ago. Her older sister got it a few years back, so that might have worked against her.
Then she got an email inviting her to an interview weekend for one of the most prestigious scholarships awarded at one of her top choice schools. This scholarship would be for all 4 years, so it would be worth a lot more the other one she didn’t get. She immediately RSVPd!
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So this is wild, y’all.
When we got home I saw that there was something on the front porch.
I brought it in, and it was a vase of flowers. Yellow flowers, I could tell through the plastic covering them. a reasonably sizable bouquet of them in a near-spherical glass vase with a blue and yellow ribbon.
I took off the plastic and looked at the envelope, and discovered that they were for C25.
And so C25 came over and opened the card—and…
…they had been sent by the Hofstra admissions office!
So that’s a new high bar for college swag right there, that is.
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WOW. That is really impressive! And I guess your kiddo is really impressive to Hofstra!!
Was there a birthday involved? Or even a card from the admissions officer to say why the flowers? That is a really nice gesture, in my book. (Maybe you could start calling the office to ask more questions, and see if it lands you other deliveries….a fruit basket could be nice in February 
)
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Surely they don’t do that for everyone. They must really think your kid is special. How great that they’re making an effort to let them know. How is your kid feeling? Is Hofstra rising to the top? Are they waiting for any RDs?
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So on the college swag note, one of the schools S25 is admitted to doesn’t do swag and does next to no merit aid (OOS students seem to get maybe $3k, IS is generally nothing). As far as I can tell, they don’t do anything to reach out to the students and say - you feel special to us. Plus, their EA announcements were just last week, so well after many similarly situated schools (literally two months after the two comparable schools to which S25 applied).
I’ve seen parents note these things - the wait, the lack of some kind of demonstrable appreciation for potential students - and how the students seem to have more opportunities or time to “fall in love” with other schools, schools that seem to be trying to recruit or retain them. Then the people on the thread are like “oh, they don’t NEED to do that. It’s such a great school, if these recruitment things make a difference to you, then maybe you don’t belong here.”
And it just feels… snotty.
That’s maybe a little strong because I haven’t had enough coffee and I’m tired of dealing with people this week. But it’s where I’m at. I’d like my kid to feel wanted, and I think everyone feels that way. No, I don’t want schools to waste a zillion dollars on marketing, but there’s something to be said for being a welcoming place that reaches out to admitted students to say “we care about you, we want you here, you are important to us.”
(I’m just grumpy this morning.)
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