This is my D’s reaction to each and every one of the senior things. 
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I know one of D26 schools on her list specifically states on their admissions page “each applicant is competing with not only every student who applies but also with students from their school. We will look at how your grades and rigor compare with your classmates who are also applying”. Maybe ask the school specifically?
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Our school does:
Senior sunrise the Monday after the current seniors graduate and the rising seniors consider themselves officially seniors
2 or 3 senior skip days which I think is too many
Walk the halls of the elementary schools in May
Senior carnival the week of graduation
Senior prom
Senior project presentations
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I’m with Tamagotchi in terms of being very conservative with picking safeties and likely schools. IMO, if you get that wrong, that’s the recipe for disaster. We used a combination of our school’s Naviance, CDS, and the university’s own websites plus the guidance counselor.
What scattergrams can’t tell you without more context is if the applicant was hooked in some way, or their intended major. For some schools that can make a huge difference in acceptance rates.
IMO, the hardest part of the process is finding a true safety that your kid loves and that is affordable. Bonus points if that school has rolling admission and you know early in the process that there is an acceptance. It takes a ton of pressure off!
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Forgot to mention that there’s also a senior trip in early Feb at end of the trimester. Class of 2026 will be going to the beach and Disneyland. We’re a big Disney family, so D26 is thrilled about this. One of her BFFs has never been, so D26 is really excited about showing her friend around and watching her friend’s reaction to everything. 
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Are any of your students doing a Glimpse video? I need to have my daughter ask her counselor at school if they think it would be worthwhile to submit one. I don’t think she’ll be applying to any schools that specifically request one, though. Any thoughts?
My daughter has 2 schools on her list that accept them, so I think she’s going to do it. She hasn’t really thought much about it yet, though.
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Same, girl, same! I grew up in Pittsburgh (well, the North Hills) in the 70’s – I was like 10 years old before I realized that not every school in the US had “black and gold days” to celebrate the Steelers.
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Circling back to the posts where kids struck schools from their lists for reasons the parents have some feelings about. We visited Haverford College this week. The tour was great. The school seems great, and it seems a good fit for D26 and will likely make her final list. One thing that came up on the tour is that 90+% of students take classes at Bryn Mawr and most Bryn Mawr students take classes at Haverford. I knew that D23 had struck Bryn Mawr from her list before this visit, but couldn’t remember why. It seemed odd to me because 3 of her favorite schools that are firmly on her list are women’s colleges: Agnes Scott, Scripps, and Wellesley. And she wanted to see Haverford, and now really likes it.
Well, today my wife told me that she took Bryn Mawr off her list because they have a swim test. A swim test that she can certainly pass! 
After the Haverford visit my wife is now going to try to figure out how to get her to reconsider Bryn Mawr.
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You could offer her a “bonus” of $5k to her checking account if she goes to Bryn Mawr and passes the test 
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You may also want to consider Smith. I wish mine would consider all girls schools. Smith is in a great little city (Northampton) with a nice walkable downtown. The school has an amazing reputation, and great for STEM.
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I don’t mean to lol, but this is very funny! My D26 also loved Haverford but didn’t like Bryn Mawr. She didn’t like it because “they didn’t really say what they stood for”. Ok, sure. But they have a very similar set of programs to Haverford and they might give you a scholarship! I think we’re going to convince her to apply just on the potential financial aspect, but we’ll see how that goes.
Scholarships up to something like $35k! It’s real cash in hand! Maybe if we talk about it in terms of shoes, dim sum, and boba, lol.
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It would be craft supplies, a thrifting budget, ramen and boba for my kid, LOL.
Initially I was trying to get D26 to consider one of the schools that gives a hefty scholarship for national merit, which she is sure to get.
Unfortunately none of them really interest her. And she knows we pay full price for her older sister’s ridiculously expensive school, so she asked, “If I do get a full ride, will you GIVE me the money that you would have spent otherwise?”
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We have my kids’ college savings in their 529 accounts, and that’s basically how it works. If they can save money on undergraduate school, they will have money to spend on other things, within the 529 rules of course.
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I HAVE had a conversation with D26 that if she gets a big scholarship that over four years is multiples of her first salary that that’s cash in her hands at some point. Like, “take the big scholarship and have two years of your first job’s salary as cash” is a big deal. I think she’s starting to get it.
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Fwiw sometime on the last four or five years the rules in 529’s changed so that now if any money is left the student can convert it to a Roth IRA. I attempted to use this as a bargaining point for S25 - go to the less expensive school, there will be money left in the 529, you can start growing your retirement account in a really healthy way. No dice. (Just in case spending any potential overage on other schooling or ok 529 purchases doesn’t appeal.)
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Yes, with a lifetime limit of $35k per beneficiary, and it replaces their Roth contribution each year (cannot exceed normal Roth contribution limits each year). But of course they can also use it for graduate or professional school, or use it as educational savings for their own kids
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We do, too, but D22 is at a crazy expensive school with no scholarship, and S25 is going to a really inexpensive school plus has an in-state scholarship that makes tuition free. So we used his 529 money to cover her costs for right now.
It seems a little unfair on the whole, but they’re really different kids with different needs. And we agreed to cover college for all three kids, regardless – this is just how it looks at the moment.
So D26 asking about getting the money that we would have spent if she chooses a cheap/free school – it’s a real question, and something we’ll have to consider. 
(But as I mentioned, she has no interest in the full-ride national merit schools, so we’ll be paying something regardless!)
“Fortunately” we won’t have to figure out what to do with overage in the OctoberKate household; there will be no leftover 529 dollars as both children managed to pick the most expensive of the options under their allotted price caps. Because of course they did. For S22 it was far and away the best choice for a lot of reasons. I am not convinced that it was the best choice for S25, but he sure was….
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Totally understand, and there are lots of other reasons to shift funds between kids. My S23 is going to a school that won’t exhaust his 529 account, so he made a deal with us to buy a (used) car, we paid for the car and he transferred the money for the car into D26’s 529 (as it looks like she’s likely to need more money than the amount in the 529). His choice.
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