It’s annoying that the supplemental essays are not out yet. Only 1 school on S26’s list is out. He’s got just this week left before band leadership camp then band camp starts. Wishing more supplemental essays come out so he can start writing them.
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We’ve cancelled the Midwest college tours we booked for early August. C26 would rather stay home (it’s the week before school starts), and I’d rather they didn’t have any more excuses for not doing application stuff 
. If they get admits and are still interested, we’ll do admitted student tours instead.
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If my D goes on any other college tours, she says it will be limited to a 30 min drive from our house. Fortunately we still have a couple of schools within that range to visit
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I’m definitely being more helicopter with S26 than I should be at this point. He has ADHD and it can be really, really hard for me to watch him do everything but what he’s supposed to be doing until it’s absolutely got to be done. Thing is, he lands the plane. So he doesn’t really see the need to try to get ahead of things. (His therapist instructed me to leave the house in the evenings so I didn’t have to see him stall and procrastinate his homework.)
D22 was a very different kid to guide through this process. She’d made her list and had the spreadsheet organized as she wished it, she was really excited to apply. I learned a lot, including how challenging it is to juggle all the supplementals with a heavy load of classes. But it is what it is, and I know he will be fine at any number of schools on his list.
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D26 has 14 on her list currently, plus there are 2 that my wife and I want her to add for reconsideration (Bryn Mawr which we now think is a good fit for her that she struck without visiting for a nonsense reason; and Occidental). She ultimately will be aiming to trim to a final list of no more than 12, but some more research is needed to get there.
On the bright side, the current list is pretty balanced with: 9 likelies (some of which are almost a sure thing); 2 targets and 5 reaches. I expect at least one of the reaches and a few of the likelies to drop off the list. The best part is, one of the highly likelies is one of her top two choices and has early action. So, while there is some trimming and finalizing of her list necessary, she’s in good shape to end up at a school she is super excited about.
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Same here, with very different kids. Admittedly we had a hired college counselor for D19 (as we were totally new to the process), but she basically ran with it all - choosing schools, getting essays done (that was the main counselor advantage I think), etc. C26 just needs more help with that stuff, though my job so far has really been finding schools that fit their requirements and (now) nagging about completing the app. I didn’t even see D19’s common app before she submitted, but I’m going to have to with C26 - although at this point I suspect they will be fine with doing everything in it correctly (SRAR can be tricky apparently, but I believe they covered that in the common app workshop at school).
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Oh yes, this process was SO different with D22. The biggest issue was that everywhere she wanted to go was a crazy reach. And she didn’t want to ED anywhere, so we didn’t find out until March 25 that she’d gotten into one of her top five choices. (Second one came out a few days later.)
That was an everlasting and stressful time to wait. Good grief.
I’m hoping we’ll all be more relaxed with D26 – for one thing, she’s not aiming quite so high with her schools. She only has two supplemental essays to write. And she should find out from all the schools by end of January at the latest! (Unless she’s deferred, of course.)
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Any upcoming musical theatre or music majors in this group? My D23 and I went through it all – 24 schools, so 24 academic applications plus 24 separate artistic applications (including prescreens, tons of extra essays, special LORs, in-person auditions, etc.). If anyone needs any advice over the next year, please do not hesitate to reach out!
Thankfully, my D26 is not interested in pursing that path. 
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There isn’t actually a huge difference between D19’s and C26’s GPAs (0.12 uw, a bit more w), but applications were just in the process of getting crazy competitive then. A number of her schools that were targets or realistic reaches then would not be for that same GPA now. BU is a an example, with overall admission rate dropping from around 35% a decade ago to just over 10% now; NYU, where D19 went, is another). C26 is (mostly) aiming at a totally different tier of schools. That’s partly dictated by major, but also realism around the current admissions landscape.
I do wonder though if there will be any noticeable impact for admissions from any drop in international enrollment given current circumstances. Data point of one: One guy I know in my home country had been looking at the US for his S26, but they’ve basically decided on Australia instead because of what’s going on with international students here (and this is a straight white guy, so I imagine the reluctance is greater for some others). Of course, international student bodies vary widely from college to college.
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Looks like D26 is at a solid 9 on her list. We’ve categorized as 2 likelies, 4 targets, and 3 reaches. Luckily she really likes one of her likelies and loves two of her targets. I think she might choose her targets over her reaches at this point!
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She sounds a lot like my daughter, down to making potions, origami and swords from paper tubes! She made outfits for the Ren Faire and brought her sewing machine and crochet things to college. Sounds like a great path for an essay!
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No progress on anything application wise here. We’ve talked about the essay, but he’s struggling with even starting with any idea. Ugh. I was hoping for a solid draft before the summer ends. Marching band starts in a week, so we’re losing time. There’s about a month before classes start, so it can get done, but it sure is a busy month coming up!
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My D22 was a chorus/theatre kid, but she didn’t want to pursue it in college. But so many of her friends did, so we witnessed the process – and holy moly, talk about stress! It’s so crazy competitive and cut-throat. Even my kid who applied mostly to T20 schools didn’t experience anything like that. Kudos to D23 for making it through, lol.
D22 has been happy singing with chorale and being involved with student-run theatre, so it’s all good. 
(And D26 likes to act, but she can’t sing to save her life, lol.)
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In addition to this, there’s the population dip that we keep hearing about – there are supposed to be significantly fewer 17 and 18-year-olds in the next decade, as people started having fewer kids after the 2008 recession.
That said, I do think it will be smaller private schools and small regional schools that are affected – possibly some consolidation or closing of those schools. But it seems like applications are concentrated mostly on the top 200 or 300 four-year schools in the U.S. (when there are upwards of 2,500) – so admit rates probably won’t be affected much at the schools that everyone has heard of. (IMHO)
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D26 has 10 total schools on her list. It’s hard because there are a few that could probably be removed if she were accepted to some others, but the way the EA results will roll in, she kind of has to apply to all of them. The other option would be to wait until she hears back from her priority schools but she says she would rather just be done with applications and be waiting then have to suddenly do more in December/January of some of the EA results are not what she wants. I totally get that and would rather be done all at once too.
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Very similar for us - she wants to get everything done early. But we’ve purposely said that we’re going to stay home over winter break in case she changes her mind. Not sure that’s a great strategy, but I at least wanted her to have some flexibility. And it doesn’t hurt that it saves us a bunch of money that’s going to go to tuition! 
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I’ve wondered this too. I think it could impact schools that are need aware for US students, that also have high numbers of international students. It seems logical that they will need to fill the full pay gap left by fewer international kids with US kids who are full pay. But the only way to know that is if they are need aware for US kids. I think Boston University, Northeastern, and Tufts might be examples that are both need aware and have a fairly high percentage of international kids. But I’m sure others are in that situation too.
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NYU CAS is at 4.4%. It’s not even an Ivy!!!
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It’s just crazy. Though, even back when D19 was admitted, she said most of her classmates were ivy rejects - ie students with top grades and ECs who just didn’t make the cut. (She had a bit of imposter syndrome at first because of that.) NYU had had an admit rate somewhere around 30% just a couple of years before she applied, and iirc the year she got in was the year it dropped into the teens. Now it’s single digits!! This is one that I wonder if lower international applications will affect a bit though.
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I am super curious to see if fewer internationals apply and how that plays out for 2026s.
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