I think we’re in a similar boat here. D26 has submitted 4 apps so far. She’s got 2 more due by Nov. 1 and the writing is going SLOW. She’s supposed to have another 6 in the RD round, but I suspect there will be some dramatic cuts here. I’ll be really curious to see what actually makes the cut since she’ll really only have two decisions before the RD round. Will she get nervous in December and want to blast through a bunch or burnt out and done? I’ll let you all know in about 2 months!
My daughter is the same. It’s all about the vibe for her. We visited a school over the weekend and while she liked it, she basically said it felt “too big”, which I thought was odd because it is the exact same size as the school that is currently at the top of her list. But then I realized it was just the vibe and maybe the mood she is in at any given point in time. I’d be worried about this, but she has a very good track record of making decisions for herself, so I’m just going to trust her with this one as well.
The fact that AI isn’t doing THIS drives me bananas. Stop trying to make AI art and just help me fill out a d*mn form!
I was thinking the same thing, like why get the tax return info if you aren’t going to do anything with it. Why I’m I still completing this whole da*n form?
This is like C26 though more to do with the place the campus is in than necessarily the campus itself. They want to go to college “in a nice place”. “Nice” is some subjective thing that transcends usual characteristics used to group places by type.
Vibe is difficult to evaluate when your child refuses to go on college visits in advance! “Mom, I’m too busy.” But she cares a lot about vibe, too!
I remember how S23 also delayed doing visits until all decisions were in, then ended up visiting 3-4 colleges in a weekend, all requiring flights…
We haven’t submitted FAFSA yet. Focusing on getting 11/1 EA apps submitted first, then we’ll do FAFSA.
Vibe is so subjective. A kid’s opinion of the school’s ‘vibe’ can be totally swayed based on any number of random things…especially what the tour guide is like.
D26 & I talked a little bit yesterday evening about the 5 different colleges she’s applying to. I think it’ll end up coming down to U of A and UTulsa.
For D24 (who’s attending college in TX), I went to go look up airfare prices for her flight home at spring break in March. Holy mother of God, flights are expensive. AND this school year, between the end of her college’s Jan Term and start of the spring semester, they have 6 calendar days off…so D24 wants to come home for that. Ok, so another round trip ticket for that. THAT ticket wasn’t too bad ($243 on Southwest), but the spring break ticket prices, regardless of airline are in the $600 range right now.
EEK!
Therefore, travel costs per academic year are definitely something to consider.
D26 attending U of A would basically mean zero airfare costs for her. Campus is about 2 hr drive from where we live and we could just drive there to pick her up and bring her back home on breaks. Plus my sister lives in the Tucson area, so that’s a big plus, too.
When it comes to decision time, I think it’ll be hard for D26 to choose.
D26 has thirteen schools on her list. She is applying to 3 EA. My hope is that she gets into two of the EA schools by mid-December, and then decides to cut the list down to 10 or less. There are at least 3 schools I don’t see her choosing if she gets into the EA ones. After the EAs, she is working on the rest in order of priority of interest, so she may peter out before she gets to the last 3.
On the subject of a college’s vibe, one thing I advised D24 to pay attention to on tours was the college students she saw around campus. For example, if the tour goes through a dining hall during meal time, does everybody have ear buds/head phones on and their noses in their phones? Or are they sitting with other students and actually engaged in conversation during meal time?
And when you see students walking to/from class, do they look stressed out & miserable, middle of the road content, or happy as a lark?
When you see students walking to/from class, do they see & greet people they know? Or are they so wrapped up in their phones that they don’t notice?
D26 went w/us on all of D24’s college tours and she’s definitely paid attention on all of her college tours when it comes to figuring out a school’s “vibe.” Hearing her points of view has been fun & interesting.
There’s SO many different flavors of ice cream available with this and there’s something out there for everybody.
I find it really annoying that a few of C26’s EA schools only release decisions by end-January- when it’s too late to adjust an RD list. There’s only 1 of 4 that has a mid December date.
My daughter has 11 schools on her list. Ten are EA or rolling. She’s been accepted into two already. The RD one is only because they don’t offer EA. That one has been submitted, along with all but 2 of the others. She’s dragging her feet on those two, because of the “hard” supplementals, but I think she has plans to finish and submit those this weekend. And then we just wait and see how it all plays out. She has two reaches, one to two matches and the rest are likelies. Right now, I think the ones she likes best are one of the matches and two of the likelies. We haven’t seen some of the others yet though so we’ll have to find time to do that. And some of it will probably come down to where/whether she gets offered the honors college and the vibe at each school. It’s both exciting and nerve-wracking (for me, she’s totally cool with all of it).
Last night, my D26 received her first admit - to Pitt! She applied to a second school last Sunday. She has 4 more EAs due 11/1, followed by her ED due 11/15, then (if needed) 5 RDs due in January.
We have one of those too. So annoying!
So much the same boat! For us - my daughter might hear acceptances before the second batches’ deadlines – BUT not know whether she has enough funding (some have special awards they give out later). So I think she will just try to hammer out as many as she can. Luckily -the targets and safeties are in batch 1 for the most part - so at least she is front loading the ones with more potential for good news.
THIS! We spent a ton of money –and all I could think was – I’m applying to all these schools with CSS because we need aid! And yeah - sending the FAFSA and the tax returns and the CSS seems like so much overkill.
Likelihood on D26’s list seems very similar to your kid’s. She has 2 reaches, 3 matches and the rest likelies. But, she has far fewer EAs and her three tied top choices are one reach, one match, and one likely. I find it such a relief in terms of my stress level that she loves a likely.
I’ll be relieved once she actually gets in to her favorite likely, but that’s because I’m a stress case, lol. I’m not usually an anxious person, but this whole process has given me major anxiety. I don’t like it at all.
Understandable. Hope she gets into it soon! For me, I feared D26 would fall in love with the hyper rejective schools and not want to go anywhere else. So on a relative scale my stress level is way down from when she was just trying to craft a list.
Of her top 3 schools, we’ll find out one first week of December (although that one is her third choice, and it’s very likely to be a deferral), one mid-December (likely an admission, but we’re hoping for big merit and an invite to interview for the full-ride scholarship), and one end of January.
Of course, that end of January one is her top choice.
Still worlds better than my older kid who sweated it out until the end of March with schools that only offered ED or RD, and she didn’t want to ED anywhere.
We’re now entering that weird hurry-up-and-wait time of application season, where you want to enjoy every last second of senior year with your kids, and you want them to savor it – and yet the anxiety of waiting for college acceptances is so not fun.
I think I’ll feel better if we hear from at least ONE of her two rolling admissions schools – just need to know she’s going somewhere, lol!
Ha, ha. The UCs are probably the most important decisions on D’s list, so there is no alternative to sweating it out until the end of March for us! The decisions trickling out in Jan and Feb are just the hors d’oeuvres…