Though note that, depending on your state, financial outlay of any sort might not be necessary, or the only outlay necessary might be notary fees.
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Totally agree. USC - Columbia has had the best communication for us so far. They others, even the ones that gave him significant merit have been lackluster.
Now that we’re in the lull before decisions start coming out, I’ve been thinking about which colleges were in communication with D25, with us, and which were not. Most sent her emails throughout the process. Some included the parents in one way or another. And then there were a couple that were basically silent. I was talking to D25 about when decisions are coming out and she almost forgot she applied to ones that haven’t been emailing her. I don’t know if that’s just their thing or if it’s a reflection of a lack of interest in D25.
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I feel like it’s indicative of the financial stability of the school and just in general how they operate. Marketing costs $.
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I’ve also been thinking about forms of this along the way, maybe because my background is in marketing and I now run comms for a huge organization.
Some frustrating examples:
- The schools that never used my son’s lived name even though we asked them all to, some more than once. This includes one that sent a big poster with their admissions packet with my son’t dead name in giant letters.
- The school that deferred my son and then emailed them every single week encouraging them to apply.
- The school that offered my son a guaranteed transfer option, but the letter had full sentences missing and a dead link “for more information.”
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I should add that we do have plenty that have been wonderful, communicative, and warm. My son’s whole process WOULD make a good study.
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Uggggg. Still waiting for UW Seattle to come out with decisions. Who thought mid-March would take so long?
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When May 1st has come and gone, I hope you name names with this egregious ‘marketing’
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Second rec for Mama Bear Legal - fast and easy. 
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This Thursday is the estimated date for UW/ but not set in stone
OMG this is one of my S25’s schools!!! His first choice … and yet for some reason I’m now terrified instead of annoyed we have to wait til end of March. Thanks for sharing 
Far and away we got most communications from private schools with >70% acceptance rates and really need to be sure to fill seats since they have lower yield.
Schools with better reputations /lower selectivity and high yield don’t need to spend as much
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There is for sure a difference by rejectivity. It’s the ones in the middle I find really inconsistent. And a couple that seem to think more highly of themselves than I think is justified. But I’m not sharing any of these thoughts with D25. She gets to like what she likes.
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Yes, this. I can name one name…Allegheny College. S25 is unlikely to attend for a few reasons, number one of which is distance from home and travel time. They were amazing with communications, offered a lot of merit aid and special scholarships for talent and leadership, and sent handwritten notes. Plus, they always got my kid’s name right.
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totally agree on that!
And even with my observation on communications, I still see a HUGE variation within “more” or “less” and not perfectly correlated!
Same. Really liked Allegheny but distance from home with poor transportation options is likely a killer
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Allegheny is one of the colleges that change lives, right? Maybe those colleges make more of an effort to connect with students.
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Yeah. I saw some “tea leaves” that indicated about 8pm on Thursday night based on previous years.
However, C25 and I leave for the airport around 8pm to fly out to NY for a 1 day visit to RIT, and then turn right around and fly home to arrive back on Saturday night. (Oy, a red-eye, at my age, I’m gonna be wiped out…)
And C25 feels like from the moment we set foot out of the door to go to RIT, they don’t want to think about UW, so they can focus on the RIT and travel experience. So if we don’t have the answer before they leave the house, we’re not gonna find out until Saturday night. We’ve made an agreement not to bring computers and just leave all this stuff to the side while we’re on the whirlwind “vibe check” trip.
I mean, I kinda want them to try “far away from home” as part of college, so I’m rooting for RIT anyway, but to know that the information is likely available and be purposefully ignoring it for 48 hours seems… both oddly mature of C25, and torturous for me. 
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I could be wrong on this but I think it might be a 5pm PST release time. Are you on the west coast?
Edit: I think you’re right - 8pm looks like the usual time.
At least you’ll probably still be on the tarmac and can check before leaving the ground 
I don’t think I’d have the willpower to wait 
Still waiting on one acceptance (it was a last minute application) and need to tour 2 schools yet that she has not yet seen but is interested in (will most likely do Accepted Student Day visits). She is still very vague in what she is looking for in a school (other than wants a cute, walkable town, within 2-3 hours of home, and major of interest - though she is still not solid on that so could very likely change once she is at school and has tried different classes). When asked to describe what she has liked/hasn’t liked at schools already visited, she says they all look/feel exactly the same. I think she is really holding out hope that one of the two she hasn’t visited yet will be the magic fit, as she has friends that visited a school and instantly fell in love. I don’t really see that happening for her though, as she is much more practical than these friends (who are much more love/hate drama in all things). Which then scares me that she will choose somewhere randomly, decide a few months in she doesn’t like it, and then transfer. Which I know wouldn’t be the end of the world, but also feels like it could be all this stress all over again…Anyone else still have a waffling student at this point? Are you just stepping back and letting them make decisions or trying any useful tools to help them out with the thought and choice process?
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