Back to the ED question… yes, it’s such a conundrum. Right now my daughter does plan to ED1 and ED2 at HC and BC respectively, and would be thrilled to go to either, but it has recently sunk in that if she is accepted ED, that means saying an instant goodbye to all of the UCs and Cal Poly, which are one-third the cost (although I don’t mind saying goodbye to the other 8 or so she’s applying to).
But, truth be told, I would be surprised if she were admitted outright to her top UC choices (UCSB, UCLA, UCB) and she’s more of a humanities student than a Polytechnic student, so that’s some consolation.
And who knows-- maybe she’ll be deferred or outright rejected from the ED choices, and we’ll be released from a binding commitment. But we know what we’re getting into, and I would not want the bad blood/karma that backing out might bring.
thinking out loud some more about last Friday’s Embry Riddle tour…
D26 would prefer a college with better/more public transportation + not need to have a car freshman & sophomore years. So colleges where there’s nothing within walking distance of campus are out.
Big plusses for colleges on ‘The List’ which have a shuttle service or access to a public bus system. U of A and Texas Tech have this. Have to research UAH on the transportation topic…I suspect Huntsville is very car dependent. Also need to research San Antonio on this, too.
Small(er) colleges are ok (i.e., ~3000 students) are fine, but bigger college size is better, according to D26. Small college with “lots to do” are acceptable. Interested to see what Univ of Tulsa looks like when we visit this fall. Students there seem to be really engaged, which is a big plus for D26.
Trinity Univ in San Antonio is entirely off The List because it’ll cost >2x as much as all the other options and we can’t afford that.
UT-Arlington, Texas Tech, and UAH could all end up cheaper in terms of tuition, room & board per year than Univ of Arizona, but the added travel expenses would make it even with U of A. And all things being even, D26 would probably pick U of A.
My sister is already putting together a list of different restaurants she wants to take D26 to for their ‘monthly brunch’ if D26 attends U of A.
DH thinks that our visit to Embry Riddle was a waste of time & that it (the school) was never even in the running for making it on The List. But D26 & I feel the tour & visit was still worthwhile…you never really know for sure unless you see it in person. D26 learned what she does NOT like. I think that is half the battle.
your kid finding the right college for them is like trying on a bunch of different pairs of shoes. Sometimes you have to try out several before you find just the right one.
S26 is taking his SATs again today, probably for the final time. He wanted me to review a question with him yesterday and I swear even with no time limit and reading the question 5 times I couldn’t figure it out. (found the question in case you wanted to try it at home)
It was a reading comprehension question where you read a passage then look at the graph and pick the best answer. Only the graph showed the opposite of what the passage said so the right answer was Country A in the graph is becoming less efficient because GDP is a higher contributor of land usage.
And he has APs coming up in a few weeks, good news was we talked to our local In and Out burger shop and they are hiring so if he doesn’t get any of the internships he applied for he has a backup plan. But can’t wait for the semester to be over so he can relax a bit before it all starts again.
The one thing I’m finding with the ED question is realizing that my D26 probably doesn’t have the desire or willingness to write a lot of applications. She ended up applying to just one summer program that she was interested in this year. She had a backup plan, which she was reasonably excited about. But then writing a bunch of apps for summer programs that were maybe only slightly more interesting was something she wasn’t willing to do. She applied to the one additional one, didn’t get in, and is now happily going about her day satisfied with the shoo-in one. Overall, I think that’s fine, but I’m not sure she fully realizes what college apps are going to be like and that she’ll want to put effort into more than one. Applying ED becomes a way to potentially minimize that (assuming she gets accepted!)
Anyway, we’ve got time to worry about it, and this really is her decision (which I remind her of a LOT!) It might just be me finally realizing that I have a 16 year old here with that underdeveloped prefrontal cortex!
The fact that Boulder provides free buses around town, to Denver, to the airport (and not relevant for C26 but to the ski spot in season) is definitely a big plus for us in that regard. Pretty sure that’s one of the things C26 will also compare other campuses with.
Absolutely agree with this. It is as important to know what you don’t want as what you do.
I’ve been wanting to take S26 to Cleveland to see Case and Oberlin, and to Pittsburgh to see CMU and Pitt. I noticed that Case and Oberlin are finished with their semesters in early-mid May and I don’t think we will have time to do it. Given that S26 needs to see how the campus feels with students on it, I am thinking we are going to have to wait until September to go.
While this is the best timing for S26 to see campus, it’s also during a super hectic time overall. Are you all thinking about more visits in the fall or are you pursuing summer trips?
At this point, my D doesn’t want to do any long distance trips to visit colleges before she applies in the fall. She’ll probably just put together her list based on what she can learn about schools from their web sites and talking to people she knows. And we do typically have lots of college representatives making visits to our HS in the early fall.
We’ll probably end up doing what S23 did… setting up a few quick March-April tours once D already has her admits in hand and can make a short list of options.
Edited to add: ED is out of the question for our family, because any schools on the list that offer ED would only be affordable with merit.
We saw a couple of colleges last summer that are now becoming more interesting. The main thing we missed was the ability to talk to and hear from actual students. So, we’re going to try to attend virtual student tours and sessions at the ones that we can’t get back to easily. I think this is imperfect, but I’m hoping it’ll give D26 an idea of what students are actually like. The one thing that I do like about the virtual student sessions is that it’s a little easier to hear the answers to questions. I think the bad thing is probably that the responses are maybe more canned since it’s still being hosted on a tech platform where admissions counselors might be monitoring/moderating. But we have gleaned a few extra tidbits from the colleges that we self-toured originally.
Once we’ve done these, I suspect we’ll be back in the fall OR we’ll wait for admitted student days.
We aren’t going to be doing any summer trips. Just one trip this fall a couple of days of D26’s week-long fall break in early October. Definitely going to visit Univ of Tulsa, but I thought maybe we might add in UT-Arlington or even UT-San Antonio. Although a visit to UTSA will involve more driving and an extra 1-1.5 days added to the length of the trip and I just want this to be a few days long, not an entire week. So like Thurs-Sun preferably.
We will probably skip visiting UTSA entirely until after acceptances come in. When D24 was applying to college, there was 1 school we didn’t visit until after she got accepted because the timing of it just didn’t work out.
Our summers are rough because D26’s club sport is so time consuming. We have a couple of weeks in August, so might try to squeeze Case and CMU in there. We are trying to keep fall relatively free in case she gets invited on recruiting trips. Fingers crossed!
We ended up not being able to do the trips due to finances --I think sometimes it might be better just to visit the admitted ones anyway. That way you don’t fall in love with a place you haven’t been accepted
Been debating it. We will have some time in late July/early August to do a trip, but I’m also loathe to visit without students around. Fall is tricky for us though as we don’t have a fall break. And then it’s application season (C26 will have a few EA applications)…. So there just might be a bunch of colleges c26 applies to sight unseen. Not ideal, but we can always go to admitted students days if a choice needs to be made.
Yeah, finances are an issue… and given the current level of economic uncertainty, we plan to revisit the college budget question in the fall before she applies, too.
I’ve been debating this recently. So much better to visit when school is in session, but I feel like we are running out of time. There are probably 3-4 schools that D would like to look at before applying in the fall. I think it makes sense to get at least one done this summer, TBD
It’s such a hard call. My D22 had five schools on her list that were all really reach – and all really appealing. And then she had five more that were secondary choices (although a couple of those were possible full rides or generally inexpensive).
She decided she couldn’t possibly choose a top favorite, and FOMO was real. So she decided to roll the dice and not ED. (And she was hoping for one of the rare merit scholarships from one of her top choices, although we knew that was nigh impossible.)
She got into 2 of her top 5, was WL at 2, and rejected from 1.
When she started considering those 2, there was a clear winner based on gut feeling.
I’m debating this as well. We are doing a 4-college tour later this week, S26 is on spring break this week. After that he will have seen an urban mid size private reach, 2 out of state flagships (sure acceptance but financial reach), and 2 regional in state publics (sure acceptance and sure affordability). What he hasn’t seen is a SLAC, so I’m debating taking him to see one in the summer, as we won’t have time in the fall due to sport schedule and lack of a real fall break
I think we’re going to have to do a quick summer trip to Worcester to see WPI and Clark.
Fall is out because D26 is a marching band kid, and there just is no available time. (Although we might be able to do a quick trip during fall break, which is just a weekend plus one day for her – but I’d like to have her list squared away before then.)
The summer is nutty, too, though. We’re doing a family vacation from Memorial Day through June 7. We find out tomorrow or Wednesday whether D26 will be drum major next year – UGH I’m holding my breath because she really wants it, but it could go either way – and if she does get it, then we have to plan an additional week of drum major camp. One starts June 8, the very next day after we get back from an overseas vacation, but the other one is four hours away and conflicts with other stuff later in the summer.
And then, my S25 has college orientation – and we are deeply mired in the gearing-up-for-graduation mess right now, and he’s graduating from a different school than D22 attended so I know nothing.
What was I saying? Oh yes – would like to plan college visits, but I don’t know when!
I would love to visit CMU as well, even though D26 is hedging on whether she wants that strenuous a school – but I think she should shoot her shot at one, at least. You guys, we should all meet up in Pittsburgh!
Ha! Can you imagine if we all met up in Pittsburgh? It would be a hoot.
I’m guessing we are going to aim for mid-late September for a midwest visit. Oberlin has an overnight visit program during September and I might plan it around that. Their new BA/BFA program (with a director whose art is rooted in science–something I think S26 would vibe with) is something that might be a fit for him. He didn’t like the one LAC he saw over spring break (Reed) but I would like him to consider this one, and maybe Vassar and Wesleyan as reaches.
I agree that we should make a list without visiting too many more. It’s just tough because so far, S26 has shown little interest in online research. I think it feels too far removed for him. He does engage when we travel though. I guess we do what we can and then throw a bunch of apps out there and see what sticks.
Doesn’t it feel sometimes like you’re just spinning a bunch of plates, frantically trying to prevent anything from falling? LOL. Because that’s how it feels at our house sometimes!
