So it’s a little late here to use it to make a decision here, but I figured hey, why not? I asked ChatGPT for an evaluation of Hofstra, and the main cons were price (not an issue, good scholarship), the perceived quality of the neighborhood (C25 doesn’t care), and lower prestige relative to lots of other NYC-area universities (not something we’re chasing), while the pros were much more things we care about. So that was good.
I then asked about Hofstra’s math program, which highlighted things I already knew from the website, so whatevs. But then when I asked about the undergrad linguistics program (very important, there—they have a unique grad linguistics program that gets a lot of attention), it gave a bunch of stuff Google could have told me, but also mentioned the “interesting tidbit” (and it’s true!—I already knew this, but I figure most non-linguists don’t) that one of their professors, Robert Leonard, performed at Woodstock and opened for the Grateful Dead as one of the singers in Sha Na Na back in the early days of that band. So that was fun.
With the end of affirmative action last year, more than ever schools are prioritizing institutional needs in the early rounds. Legitimately competitive kids who otherwise don’t have something uniquely desirable (most kids) get squeezed out of early rounds and as a result apply to a large number of top schools and get into several of them when they can only attend one.
This is combined with the fact that in the first couple of years of TO/COVID yield algorithms simply did not work and several of these schools ended up over enrolled. Sometimes by quite a lot. So in the last couple of years, schools started to err on the safe side, with more conservative admit numbers which allow them to better control the final class size through use of the WL.
I could have written this. My kid had similar success with acceptances, got into 3 out of his 4 reaches and for half a minute I thought, hmm did we miss an opportunity here, but then I realized there wasn’t a single Ivy (other than Brown) that my kid would have wanted to apply to, not a single ‘reach’ school, by whatever metric, that he ‘missed out’ on, SLAC or big public, or regional etc. Would he have thrived at many other schools- quite possibly, but his list was perfect for him.
I feel like we nailed his list and it paid off. Very thankful for this.
S25 got final confirmation today that he was indeed not accepted to either Cal or CalPoly. Purdue is theoretically still out there…but I think at this point he’s done and can finally start whittling down his list in earnest.
I think for the most part we put together a solid list of reaches, matches, and likelies (although in hindsight there were 6-8 schools that we probably needn’t have added – it’s just that we didn’t know how he was going to fare until pretty late in the game). He got in everywhere outside of the UC/Cal Poly schools (and Purdue, one assumes) and got merit from a few schools that I’d assumed would be reaches. He did wonder aloud today if he should have applied to some reachier schools that would have actually looked at his test scores. But honestly – which? aside from the super rejective private schools (Ivies + Harvey Mudd, Caltech, Rice, WashU etc.) that are stretches even for kids who are strong across the board, his options were basically more big state flagship universities. I don’t personally feel like getting into Wisconsin or Maryland would have changed his short list. Would he have had a shot, after all, at Bates or Carleton or Wesleyan (all schools I was eyeing hungrily for him last year before he started talking about engineering)? Maybe. But having more amazing liberal arts colleges that don’t offer his probable major in the mix would have muddied the waters and again, likely not changed the outcome.
Tonight he admitted that he’s probably going to choose between UW and Case and is ready to let the rest of his schools go. (I’m going to have him hang onto a couple more until we’ve been to Seattle, just in case he has a last-minute hankering to go to Boston one more time, or Colorado.)
My daughter applied to only 6 schools, and we kind of went through what you are describing back in December (between EA and RD.) in the middle of my angst, someone on here said to the effect that “Ohio State or Clemson, Arizona or Indiana, Oregon or Colorado, it does not matter.”
It took me awhile to process that, but I realized that they were correct. The big state schools are virtually all the same. Obviously, the geography, the topography, the climate, the sports, the microculture—these all vary depending on location. And some state schools are really at the top of their fields in certain categories. But unless we are discussing a handful of top caliber publics (Cal, UCLA, Michigan, UVA, UNC, Georgia Tech, maybe UIUC or UMD for comp sci), they are pretty much all the same. (Even then, at those “public ivys”, the undergraduates are often in huge classrooms and/or are taught by TAs.)
As parents we tend to get into the weeds about this state school ranked #57 vs. another state school ranked #61, or this LAC in a small charming town vs. another LAC in a different small charming town. But I don’t believe that there is huge difference among them.
There is obviously a difference between the huge name schools (Ivys, MIT, Stanford, etc.) that will open doors just based on name. After that (which is where the vast majority of us are), we need to examine exactly why ABC school might be a fit for our student vs. XYZ school). Maybe it’s religion or lack thereof. Maybe it has an athletic program they are recruited for. Maybe it’s liberal or conservative or big or small or has skiing or has surfing. Maybe it’s near home or far away or affordable or maybe our kid just likes it, likes the other students and feels at home there.
Can our child thrive there? Be happy? Make friends? Can they in due course graduate and GET A JOB? (Ostensibly the point of all this). Can we afford it?
There is no need to drive ourselves crazy by thinking of every single other option that possibly could have been (although I am guilty of doing the same). Remember: “comparison is the thief of joy.”
DS got into Cornell last night! He had been deferred from ED and was falling in love with UMD (and a bit with UIUC), both of which admitted him with some goodies. The next few weeks are going to be extremely stressful, with finishing up senior classes and deciding on colleges.
With the ED deferral, part of the emotion is, “they had their chance at guaranteed fretfulson3, and they didn’t take it”. And there’s the CC mantra of “love the one that loves you back”. And there’s the money. I will take any advice anyone has and pass it along… We are full pay; his declared major is aero-astro and is interested in the more “civil engineering” end of that, i.e. habs more than thrusters.
WRT “if you don’t have a rejection then your list wasn’t complete,” I think that’s interesting. All three of my boys applied to one school each that I encouraged them to apply to, but their hearts weren’t really committed to (though I think they still put their strong effort into the apps and did a nice job).
For DS3 and DS2, they were admitted everywhere except those schools, which were JHU and Stanford, respectively. I’m not sure they gained by having them on their list, in the end.
DS1 was actually also admitted to the one I wanted him to apply to (Harvard) but it would have been a dreadful match for him.
I think that in the old-fashioned idea of applying to x matches, reaches, etc., one rejecty rejection can mean that the list was oriented “correctly” on the imaginary ranked list of colleges one has in their head. But that’s certainly not the only way to play this game - it relies on ranked list in one’s head as the primary driver of what to apply to.
For DS3, I wasn’t kidding that “Jewish a cappella group” was a requirement, plus strong (enough) aerospace and a few other nice things. That gave us a list that included all the places he was ultimately admitted.
We also briefly wondered if we should have applied to more reaches. But given his criteria of a film school with access to Korean studies, that were near family or California or Virginia (so no NYU, Depaul, etc), and the fact that he didn’t feel great about UCLA when he visited. The only other potential school was USC… but since he didn’t feel great about UCLA, and preferred LMU over that, I’m not sure USC would have been the choice over LMU if he happened to get into both. And out of curiosity I ran the net price calculator for USC and it was even more expensive.. so, yeah, I think we’re pretty happy with the list we went with.
I think we also came up with a balanced list. In the end he went 7 for 10 - 3 with merit 4 without. The good news however is that his number 1 school was in the mix and one with a nice merit scholarship. 2 of the 3 he was rejected from were originally deferrals, but 1.) More expensive and 2.) I just didn’t see him there 3.) were ultimately his far reach schools so we expected that outcome. 4.) One of the three apparently he was never actually interested in.
re: applying to reaches, S25 applied to 7 schools, one was a reach because we aren’t NC residents (his stats are generally as high or higher than NC admits). He didn’t get into that reach school, and I’m not bummed. It was an interesting option, the most liberal arts feeling of all his schools and the vibe was much more what I like in a college experience… which isn’t what I think he actually wants. AND they didn’t have his first choice major, only a second choice that would’ve literally pointed toward a totally different career. He was saying he was really interested in that second choice, but I think that’s maybe not so true - as he doesn’t seem to care about any other schools that offer it as an option, or that even have it (or don’t) as a backup option. I think he was leaning towards that school more for prestige than anything else, although he hasn’t said that. Chapel Hill is more prestigious than anything else he applied to. He wasn’t interested in our as-prestigious home state school (UVA) that has a better fitting and much more highly ranked program in second choice major. He didn’t even apply to UVA (the vibe just isn’t right for him). So I think UNC was sort of his one prestige based application and also a reach. Because of the nature of his preferred major, it’s only offered at a small number of universities. There are, I think, five schools that offer it within an 8-10 hour driving distance (his criterion) and he applied to the three “best” of those. There’s really only one school in the country better than the options that he has for this major (Cal Poly SLO) and he wasn’t interested in being on the other side of the country (and I wasn’t interested in paying that much).
It just really depends on your kid, I think. There’s no one right way. One of my kid’s friends really didn’t want to end his search by getting rejections/unaffordable offers, so he focused on likely & target schools & got into all. My kid applied to 19 schools, which feels like overkill, but he needed either merit or really good financial aid & we couldn’t predict where the money would come through. He ended up with 1 rejection, 4 waitlists, and 14 acceptances, 8 of which are affordable.
All of his likelies are affordable; only one of his targets is. He got into 3 reaches, which were too expensive at first but we just successfully appealed for more aid at one and are waiting to hear back from another.
Looking over the list, I feel like he overapplied, but also I’m grateful he has choice at the end. He applied to 8 reaches, which I thought was too many since he only felt like 3 of them were great fits, but those 3 schools ended up waitlist or too $$$. He has a slightly different sense of what “fit” means for him now (they change a lot over this year!), so I’m interested to see what he thinks after admitted student days.
I don’t think any of us needs to be second guessing the paths taken, when we are the ones in the car or at the dinner table with our kid, knowing what they value and what they are likely to waffle on.
Is anyone else ready for spring break?? We are headed to the beach in our camper, half an hour away from the house where S25 and 5 of his buddies are hanging out, unsupervised , for a week. Looking forward to getting away from the pollen and eating some seafood. (And, fingers crossed, not making any emergency trips to the hospital for jelly fish stings )
Hope other folks have fun plans for the coming weeks. You know, like going to Greece or something (yeah, I’m looking at you, @OctoberKate )
This! So much! My older son changed what he wanted so much between submitting apps in the fall and making a decision in April. Based on that, I basically insisted that my younger son add an extra two schools that he really wasn’t particularly interested in back in the fall. But in case he decided Major 2 was what he REALLY wanted, I wanted him to have more choices.
As it turns out, those weren’t necessary, he hasn’t changed his mind at all. I kind of wish he hadn’t applied to them because one of them, which is nationally recognized for the strength of that major, is also an in state option and really really inexpensive compared to every other school. And my husband can’t stop fixating on the low price and trying to push the narrative of that school. I wish it weren’t even a choice. That said, given our current vaguely precarious job situation, it was also really good to have that as a choice, just in case.
, for a week. Looking forward to getting away from the pollen and eating some seafood. (And, fingers crossed, not making any emergency trips to the hospital for jelly fish stings 
)
(yeah, I’m looking at you,