Sorry, just to vent a little more. I think it’s going to come down to city vs small town for S25. Medium sized school with a good business school and prestigious LAC. And then we have Notre Dame hanging out there with a sliver of a chance and the Duke scholarship at Furman which throws everything into chaos if he gets it.
The kid has an abundance of choices here but he’s not quite sure where he fits yet. And the clock is ticking.
We are still waiting on 12 decisions this week (at least one every day) and three next week. This Friday is going to be MADNESS. However, we are narrowing down the decisions we DO have and have scheduled two admitted student days for April (Union and Clark). We can always throw a third in the mix.
We are still waiting on 3 decisions, although the one coming this week has dropped down below others he’s already been accepted to so unless there is a free ride offered it won’t matter.
There are two next week, both reaches (one a far reach). If he gets into the far reach then it’s over and we can shut the door- we’ll just have one admitted students day to do. If he doesn’t get into that one then we will have at least 3 visits to schools he’s already into, in Michigan and Minnesota, and a possible 4th in upstate NY. Some are back to back so it will involve some tricky travel timing.
If he gets in nowhere else it won’t matter, he is already so excited by his options so it is just gravy from here on out. The kid is 13/13 in acceptances which is crazy to us. The end of this month can’t come soon enough though- we are done.
Good luck to everyone with news this week!
That’s a lot in one week!! Sending positive vibes your way!
Figuring out fit is the hard part. Good luck on you kid’s decision.
Has anyone ever heard about trying to negotiate a better merit scholarship from a public state school? I know some privates will consider it, even though it’s still a long shot there. My son was asking if he should try and use the full tuition scholarship to get a better deal from Miami. My knee jerk reaction is that I doubt they would even consider it.
Does your school have a good college counselor you could ask? I’ve found ours seems to know all that stuff so they would be the ones I’d ask.
Do you mean his high school counselor? If so, no they have virtually zero involvement in college other than managing the submission of LORs and transcripts and an hour presentation in your Jr. year. It’s a public high school.
They may not consider it, but it can’t hurt to ask, right?
For my older kid we only asked for more at one school, a small private school where he’d already gotten good money, but not as good as similar schools provided. We heard a flat no, but there were no negative repercussions.
That would be my take too. I don’t see any downside to asking.
I could not find the reply button in your post about UW and the LAC v R1 issue. I wanted to just chime in. S23 was no superstar, graduating with a 3.4UW GPA middle of his class. He struggled with ADHD, forgetting to turn in assignments, etc. He chose UMASS Amherst for animal science and it has been a raging success. I wanted to offer a couple ideas.
My kid went early for a biology specific orientation that got him on campus a week early and allowed him to meet upper class mentors/faculty. He joined a living learning community for his major ensuring he was surrounded by serious students and close to his academic buildings. All kids have to take a first year seminar, and his living learning community satisfied that course and it included meeting other faculty in his major, learning about research opportunities, etc. When he was really new, he went to Chem office hours and would just do homework in the department so it was easy to ask questions. His first research opportunity came from this professor. S23 also went to one undergraduate research forum and asked a couple questions. He was stopped in the hall by a professor the following day and asked to join her lab.
I would have never thought this was possible at a large R-1. But I have been pleasantly surprised by the relationships he has was able to develop with professors in just his freshman year. I attribute this in large part to his maturation and his hyper focus on his area of interest, but also to the living learning community.
I checked and UW has one for engineers.
Might be worth learning more.
When my D21 applied to Temple four years ago, we sent an email requesting additional scholarship money. They went silent for a couple of months but eventually offered her more scholarship funds. So, don’t hesitate to ask— the worst they can say is no …
By the way, Is Miami is a private school?
Miami Ohio is a public school.
This is a small sliver of time when all possibilities are open. There aren’t too many times in life like this one. They’ve worked so hard for so long to get these acceptances—I don’t blame any student for not wanting to rush their decisions. And it is such a huge decision!
My daughter didn’t really want to attend her safety. It’s a perfectly wonderful school, but she doesn’t think it was the right school for her. Even though she had already decided that, we had to have one more conversation where she could come around to “nah, I’d rather go to XYZ school; it has the vibes I want”. That in itself was helpful because I’d never heard her say that XYZ school has what she’s looking for, only that she “liked it.”
It’s a process, that’s for sure.
Miami of Ohio is public. U of Miami is private.
A little ray of sunshine here to start the week. S25 learned he was selected as an Ithaca College Leadership Scholar and a Hunter College Roosevelt Honors Scholar with back-to-back emails at 3:00 pm. Feeling a bit more hopeful about some of this week’s decisions again.
Thanks. I forgot there is Miami University in Ohio .
Another chapter closed this weekend. D25 had her last mock trial competition. It was a disappointing end to a pretty good season for her so that was sad. Soccer games start today. No rest for the weary.
I think the housing portal for her college opened today so she’ll have to check that later. She’s going pot luck so will have a lot of questionnaires to fill out for that.
One positive for Furman: the BMW driving school is right down the road! So much fun.
I’ll let him know. Actually, no I won’t.
As an aside, they actually have a driving school for “new” / newer drivers that is well regarded - has a defensive driving focus, plus driving in wet and other hazardous conditions. The problem is that they have a statistic that something like 80% of the people who attend one of their driving schools purchases a BMW within 3 years.