We’ve got one decision due by mid-Dec but the ones C26 is really waiting on are due end-Jan.
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I’ll be thinking of you and your D this Friday on her last band performance! Lucky you she’s sliding into theatre right after! Speaking of theatre, I actually encouraged my S to join for the spring semester to keep him busy, and he’s considering it! We will see! It’ll be another nice distraction while waiting for college decisions!
Thanks, re: the lower grade. My S will end up where he’s meant to be. We will see how he fares after the 1st semester.
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Our school is so small – less than 500 total kids in high school – that all the band kids are also in theatre. 
So in the fall, they put on a show that had a cast of four!
Hope your kiddo joins and loves it!
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Wow, 500 kids?!! My S’s senior class is 600 kids!
I will let you know if my kid joins theatre!
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D26 will have all apps in but two by tomorrow night. (Of the two outliers, one has an EA deadline of 12/1 and the other has no EA, but RD is due 1/15.).
Senior pics were today- one more milestone done!
Quick question- would anyone that had admissions interviews mind sharing some of the questions that were asked? Trying to give D26 a little prep…
I have to admit that I am a little disappointed with one of her top choices. D26 emailed admissions with a time sensitive question and five days later hasn’t revealed a reply. Meanwhile, the admissions officer at the more selective school has been answering her questions within hours of her asking.
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D26’s interview was pretty casual. More of a ‘get to know you’ discussion instead of formal Q&A. She was asked about her extracurriculars, what does she like to do outside of class, why is she interested in her major. She asked the interviewer questions, too.
One of D24’s interviews was a lot more formal. One question that interviewer asked was “Name 2 historical figures you’d like to have dinner with. Why would you pick them and tell me 1 question you’d ask each person.”
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I’m so nervous. D26 applied to 2 schools. Colby ED and a state school EA. She really thinks she’s getting into Colby. Scoir says 72% chance in ED and she really believes this. I call BS. She’s slightly below the gpa of the lowest that’s been accepted on the scattergram for her school for the last 5 years. (She’s 13/227 but they’re so highly selective). Colby historically takes about 25% of applicants from her school. I worry that the disappointment will be tough.
we re-toured the state school today. She liked it better than last time. I love it. But she’s dead set on Colby. She doesn’t want to apply elsewhere. I told her that’s fine as long as she’s good with the state school in case Colby is a no. Wrong thing to say I guess. Sigh.
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I hear you!! Fortunately your D won’t need to wait too long for that decision, and then she can either celebrate or pivot. I hope she gets in!
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A few questions/topics I remember D26 saying she was asked:
what class or subject have you liked in high school and why?
Some version of what interests you in our school;
Some version of what do you like to do in your free time;
Most of her interviews were casual and conversational according to her, and included questions along the lines of those above.
She had one very formal one where they asked her to tell them her greatest strength and weakness, which was a surprising question to me.
Did anyone in your scattergram apply ED? I think Colby is a much easier admit in ED than RD. I think Colby likes to play the UChicago game — take lots of people ED, accept hardly anyone RD but waitlist a lot of people, accept people off the waitlist only if they say they will commit, and then report a really low overall acceptance rate and withhold their ED acceptance rate.
My D26 likes Colby and it’s on her RD app list, but I get really annoyed by schools that play numbers games and don’t publish common data sets.
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YES - she has one RD app still to do, but her heart really isn’t in it because she knows that the merit will likely not be enough to make it affordable. So I feel like she is done and now this waiting is not fun for me. I am trying to focus on the other things, but it is hard. I am a planner and this period of uncertainty is hard for me. I know this time next year I will see the lesson that this period taught me. I am trying to see it now instead of in hindsight.
A couple of D26 schools will want to see midyear grades and one of her top schools will want to see them if she is deferred in December. So I am on pins and needles with worry because she has taken on a full course load plus working, plus her clubs for senior year. It sucks. Can’t these kids breathe a little? It sounds like your S26 is doing a ton and if he is trying his best, then that school isn’t the right fit for him if they judge based on one quarter of grades with one C+. Hopefully they see all the commitments he has made and the effort put forth. And if they are concerned, hopefully they will ask for the next quarter grades then too. One quarter is very short and not enough to give a full picture.
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UW does not look at the Common App essay. S26 is not applying to UW as its a big reach for him. But if he was, his Common App essay would have fit perfectly in UW prompt. Would have been as easy application to submit, but he decided not to.
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Yes, my S23 used his common app essay as UW’s essay… but D26 wrote her common app essay to answer the first prompt (“background, identity, interest, or talent”), which doesn’t really fit the UW prompt (“tell a story from your life”). Plus she wanted to do the UW honors essay. Extra work…
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Honors program/Colleges are extra work at most colleges it seems. Good luck to her!
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Good grief. She shouldve responded: Did you work in HR in the 80’s?
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Yes, the scattergram included both R D and ED. What’s interesting? Is the students that got accepted didn’t look much different in either. Vastly more applied RD, but the student that got accepted had similar numbers in both.
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Almost there… 10 EAs submitted… 1 EA to go…
That’s 11, down from a “final list” of 20.
(Plus there’s that unsolicited admissions offer from Seton Hall 
and recently the state of North Carolina has developed an automatic admissions program for their HS seniors, with specific GPA thresholds which make you an (auto) admitted student at multiple UNC system and private colleges in NC - up to 40.) SO she’s already in at like 36 schools 
Says she wants to take a week off and then will look at a smaller list of RD schools after that - maybe. I think the motivating factor there is simple… the EA decisions should be out for at least 5 of the schools she’s applied for before the RD apps for the others would be due…
Annnnnd… now we are back to questions about a car at college, dorm food and an additional food budget, a ‘dorm vibe’ budget… I told her if she brings up dorm room pintrist or tiktok videos she will start with a negative number.
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CA has done this for a number of CSUs as well. Was talking to another 2026 parent last night whose kid already submitted their CSU application and has a couple of offers already from that from colleges they didn’t specifically apply to (one they have no interest in but the other is a good safety option).
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Exactly! We all judged the school hard for this. It was a student interviewer, but we all think she was given the interview questions she was reading. D26 is less interested in that school than before the interview, and it was already middle of the pack at best.
This is so obnoxious, but both of my girls have been asked this in formal interviews for the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program – which is a fairly selective summer program that has a lot of hoops to jump through to get in. (D22 got in, D26 went through the process but did not.)
As a result, both have a practiced answer for this question, and we’ve been told the “greatest weakness” had better be something that you can say is a weakness but really isn’t.
So D26 somewhat lightly talks about being an Enneagram 1 – which means she holds herself and others to the highest possible standard, and she’s disappointed in people when they aren’t putting in as much effort as she herself does, even though her expectations can be unreasonably high.
This is very much true, so she spins it as a weakness. But it’s never come up in a college interview – only formal interviews for summer programs and such.