At this point my daughter jsut wants to be done. One more EA due this week - needs supplementals (Not a top choice school it is the closest one that she somewhat likes - so she wants to have that on the table if she decides she changes her mind and wants to stay closer to home). Next one is RD due in January - it is probably her top choice. No way she is letting it drag on that long though! She is so done with them all!
5 Likes
Just catching up on the thread - been swamped at work for the last few weeks and not able to be around here as much I would prefer. Glad to hear the sighs for relief for the Nov. 1 applications going in! D26 submitted her first and only EA on Nov. 1; Iâve been reminding her/working with her/beseeching her to wrap up that Common App essay for months, and it was finally doneâŠat 7 pm on Nov. 1. Nothing like a deadline to focus the mind. She will now pivot to recording her music supplement with her voice teacher this week, with the big ED 1 coming up on Nov. 15. Weâre playing catch-up on that front, as a couple of campus visits in October completely upended her plans - Iâm going to write that up in more detail on the College Visit thread, but suffice to say her longtime ED favorite fell down the list, and one of the peripheral long-list options suddenly became ED 1. She will also have 7 RD apps in January - one safety, two likelies, and four reaches.
4 Likes
100%. The markets have been very kind to our 529s, but the deal made with both kids is that if they end up somewhere that offers merit they will get the equivalent amount in a savings account set aside for when they graduate. (D19 ended up at a largely merit-less school and I donât see C26 getting much if any merit at the schools that are currently favorites on their list, though.)
My âdealâ with D19 was that she had to let me read it before she got the credit card number for the application fee 
so I read it literally 2 minutes before she submitted. (It was great.)
this is exactly what the parents of 1 HS Class of 2023 said to their student, who graduated from my kidsâ high school. The studentâs dream school was NYU. The parents didnât listen to the counseors, who said âCheck the NPC for NYU! They only give out need-based aid! No merit scholarships!â They told their son, âDonât worry about the money. If you get in, weâll find a way to pay for it,â all the while assuming that financial aid would come in magically and make it much cheaper than paying the full freight amount. Their family did not qualify for any need-based aid.
Their son DID get admitted to NYU. But like the counselors told him, he didnât get any financial aid. No scholarships either. Pay the full amount or donât attend. Parents realized that, financially, they could not afford almost $100k/yr for 4 yr for their son to attend.
Heâs going to ASU.
At our HS in early-mid January, they usually have a few of the prior yearâs seniors come back to campus for a panel Q&A session where the current yearâs seniors can ask questions of last yearâs seniors about how the college app process went, what itâs been like so far after their 1st semester in college, etc.
That student was on that panel Q&A session when D24 attended it. She said that he told everybody, âDonât do what I did. That was a huge mistake. Listen to the counselors. When a college says they only do need-based aid, you better check on the NPC ahead of time to confirm if you can actually afford to go there. I should have listened.â
2 Likes
S26 applied to three publics and an extreme reach REA private. I tried to convince him to change his strategy and apply to the other three privates on his list EA and save the extreme reach for regular decisions. No dice. Now he says he is tired of writing personal essays and may not bother submitting any more applications.
3 Likes
We didnât have the finances to travel to many of the schools -so I figure we will just visit the âfinal contendersâ. At least our kids wonât fall in love with a school they visited but didnât get accepted at?
6 Likes
I think this is a great strategy. We did that w/1 of the colleges that D24 applied to. And we havenât visited 2 of the colleges on D26âs listâŠwill cross that bridge later on once acceptances are in.
3 Likes
Do we think all these early deadline extensions mean that the pool isnât as large? We didnât hear from any of the schools on my daughterâs list -but she got her EA ones in on time.
Food was a BIG factor for my daughter - we actually eliminated two because the food was so bad. (We did keep so-so food locations -because I explained that none of the food was going to be THAT awesome.)
Itâs crazy that people dont take the process seriously.
Wife and I had a conversation this morning. Why is D26 applying to Tufts? She didnt love it. Our area sends a lot of people there. They seem to be need aware but Im not sure. And they offer no merit aid so do we want to pay $90k for a school that D26 doesnt love, with mixed opinions from families whose kids went there?
Im not sure under what scenario D26 would attend if accepted, especially since UConn tuition would be free and we could put the price difference in a trust for her.
6 Likes
Iâm not sure what other people think, but itâs certainly a possibility. For example, maybe some colleges havenât received the # of apps theyâd hoped by their EA deadlines.
1 Like
I think I remember reading that the fall 2025 applicant pool represented the biggest group of college age students ever (biggest baby boom?), and the fall 2026 applicant pool is smaller?
3 Likes
Its a downward population trend for the next several years.
1 Like
In the situation I described, the student told D24âs class of seniors that he & his parents just didnât really believe what the counselors said about NYUâs cost & financial aid. He & his parents thought, âThere must be another way. Weâll figure it out or we can convince them to make an exception this one time.â Well, guess what? NYU didnât make an exception. The kidâs parents learned quickly that the only option would have been to put themselves into massive debt that theyâd be paying off forever and they couldnât afford the payments. Their dream for their son all that time was for him to attend a Top 20/Top 30 college/university. Their son essentially won the college app lottery and actually got accepted to NYUâŠand then they couldnât afford for him to attend.
It was heart breaking for that family. The student is thriving at ASU and doing really well and has enjoyed his experience there, though.
One of my S23âs friends had this happen with his ED school. The family had an older child in college who received merit and some financial aid. They assumed they would receive aid again and didnât bother to run the NPC. Lo and behold the ED acceptance came in with no aid (and the school didnât even offer merit, which the parents hadnât paid attention to). The parents are paying for this school with big loans. The student is happy at his school but parents are financially stressed and also, being older parents, nearing retirement ageâŠ
4 Likes
And as some colleges go back to test required, certain of them are probably going to see a further shrink because of that.
Yet, this is not universal. Ref earlier UGA post about I think it was a 14% increase in the EA pool this year?
2 Likes
We had a ton go out for EA, but we also still have a ton for RD - and those are not yet done. We will also likely be waiting until March or April because in addition to the RD applications, some financial aid/scholarship notices donât go out until then.
I read this and my first thought was that you meant the school officials would all be so stressed out that they would be going to see shrinks (that is, psychiatrists) en masse 
4 Likes
Maybe he will get some mojo back in time for the RD deadlines, and hopefully there is some stuff he can reuse from earlier ones?
Quite possibly -given how things are right now -there are a lot of school admin in therapy. But I did think your comment was funny!
3 Likes