Parents of the HS Class of 2026

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
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Congratulations to all of those who have received acceptances so far.

Reading through all of the posts really does reinforce how we are all in similar, yet unique situations.

I’ve come to the conclusion that when this part of the process is complete, new stressors and things to keep us up at night will be introduced into the next phases of the process.

Late last week our D26 surprised us a little but not in a bad way. She came down to breakfast and opened things up with ‘you know, I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately that I may have been thinking more from emotion than fact for what’s important to me for my number 1 versus number 2 pick’.

She then went on while we listened to her thoughts and ultimately she concluded that her number 2 pick has been moved to number 1. We talked about the whole thing in good length then let it go to see how she’d feel in a week or so.

We told her we fully support any decision she went with, else we would never have applied to her top 2 in the first place.

Though she has a handful of logical / rational reasonings, one of her largest was how she felt her ‘fit’ into the environment would be moving forward. She felt a stronger sense of community, diversity with a wider array of academic and club opportunities. She didn’t care as much for the look of the campus but she’s putting that behind in terms of what’s most important to her.

Two nights ago she insisted she was ready to accept her offer and walk away from what used to be her number 1 pick (still awaiting decision).

Deposit made and now onto housing and all the new stressors in the process.

I keep lurking here so I’m always interested in seeing how we’re all finding our ways to manage and navigate the process.

At the end of the day all of us want what we feel is the best outcome for our children. That is different for everyone.

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7481

This is so familiar! I was talking to a friend of mine who mentioned that when he was applying to colleges he had turned down “one of the lesser Ivies”. I actually assume he meant Cornell since he ended up at a more technically-focused college. But that phrasing always struck me. Lesser Ivy?!

7482

I think the etymology of the "T"s started with graduate and professional schools way back in the 70s/80s.

For undergraduates there were the “Ivies” then the “Ivies Plus”. And so Grad schools were the T10 Law Schools, Med Schools etc.

I’m not sure when the jump to using T10, T25, T50 for UG institutions actually occurred, I don’t recall when I was applying for entry fall of 1989, but it definitely was there when my younger brother was applying for entry fall of 1998 (Duke, Northwestern, Michigan).

I believe the use of "T"s for undergraduate at that time was basically tied to US news rankings (which started in 1983 btw). This was short handed from the “Top XX National Universities”, so the Liberal Arts Colleges were NOT part of that scheme but instead the lesser know (LAC T20 - not kidding).

Forbes didn’t start rankings until 2008, Niche until the mid 2010s.

Now, as many others have noted we use slang for;
T10, T20/25, T50 (From US News or Forbes or Niche etc)

Ivy;

  • Brown
  • Columbia
  • Cornell
  • Dartmouth
  • Harvard
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • Princeton
  • Yale

IVY Plus;

  • Stanford
  • MIT
  • University of Chicago
  • and some include;
  • Duke
  • Caltech
  • Johns Hopkins
  • Northwestern

“Little Ivies” (LACs):

  • Amherst
  • Williams
  • Wesleyan
  • Bowdoin
  • Middlebury
  • Bates
  • Colby
  • Hamilton
  • Colgate
  • Haverford
  • Swarthmore
  • Vassar

The Public Ivies (original Moll);

  • University of California, Berkeley
  • University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
  • University of Michigan
  • University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill
  • University of Virginia
  • College of William & Mary
  • University of Texas at Austin
  • University of Vermont
    And then the Public Ivies additions or substitutions;
  • UC San Diego
  • UC Davis
  • UC Santa Barbara
  • University of Wisconsin–Madison
  • University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign
  • Georgia Tech
  • Penn State
  • University of Florida

Or Forbes Public Ivies (2025);

  • Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Purdue University
  • University of Texas at Austin
  • United States Military Academy (West Point)
  • University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  • University of Michigan
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • University of Pittsburgh
  • University of Virginia
  • College of William & Mary

then there are the “Hidden Ivies” which have a list of like 60+ schools in the debate.

So outside of the original IVY League (Athletic Conference) and maybe the Ivy Plus list, the whole thing is based on any one individuals frame of reference and their own biases.

When I reference T10, I’m roughly thinking of the US News rankings for National Universities and really its going to be schools in their 1 through maybe 25, and for T20/25, it probably encompasses schools rankings that may go up into the 40s. Why? Well, if you do a deeper dive in to the categorical metrics and the scoring weights that US news has used over the past 40 years, they will change them, sometimes adding a new ‘category metric’ sometimes eliminating one, and sometimes changing thew weights quite a bit - when I look at the metrics, I sometimes disagree with whether or not one or more of the metrics should really be used to assess the Academic Performance of the University and Graduates career options/outcomes. Thus, I personally have a lot of wiggle room when I’m thinking of the T20s…

All in the eye of the beholder as they say.

Yeah. For grad/prof schools, the amount of horsetrading that goes on between the T10s in terms of “co-opetition” to keep the schools in the T10 or T20 lists and keep all others below those red line cutoffs is crazy.

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7483

Sometimes it’s not what you know, it’s who you know!

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7484

When my D22 was going through the application process, I was so grateful for the info and experiences shared on CC. Now that my S26 is going through it, I value this space even more.

My D22 submitted mostly RD, and on multiple different app systems, so it felt like the app process was really long and intense.

It’s been a totally different experience with my S26. He only applied to large public state schools (except one smaller public), all through Common App, and all offered EA or rolling admissions (except one, but it had a RD deadline in Nov). He had all apps submitted by the end of October. So now we’re just waiting. He’s heard from 3 rolling admissions schools, but they’re all lower on his list. One of his in-state schools releases EA decisions by 12/15, and we’re hoping our flagship in-state will notify him soon as well (supposedly they release some in-state EA decisions a month earlier than the rest…which is nice but also isn’t). His remaining 2 EA schools release notifications in January, and finally the sole RD school in March.

And while I’m happy my son seems calm and collected through the process, basically going about “life as usual,” it’s making me feel like I’m the only one in our family stressing about college decisions. But thankfully this forum exists…simply reading all of the posts helps me to process my own stress and neurotic thoughts during this tortuous waiting game.

Finally, thank you to everyone for making this a supportive and informative space. It’s clear that each of us are having our own unique experiences, but yet we all share the singular hope that our kids will find the right place where they can thrive.

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7485

We are newer to the Bay Area, 11 years here.

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7486

Yes and rumored that the newest iPhone colors were Auburn colors because of this - War Eagle :blue_heart: :orange_heart:

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7487

Yes- she got that all squared away last week. Her portal is showing ED now. :innocent:

Just an FYI in case your D26 has not seen it yet.
RIT is really pushing the app ZeeMee.
My D26 looked at it- but has pocketed it until she gets accepted.
They have a section for admitted/committed students, and she thinks that it will be helpful at that point so will re-engage when that happens.
Right now it is just one or two people saying that got accepted followed by a ton of ‘when do EA get decisions’ ‘When does … get their decisions’. :wink:
They do have an Ask a Student section and Ask a Counselor section that has some good info though.
But probably be more helpful closer to acceptance time.

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7488

Auburn had the whole Zeemee thing when S24 was accepted and he mentioned that more and more people dropped off as decisions were rolling in and people were not accepted. D26 decided for this reason not to be on Zeemee and has instead been making connections via the Class of 2030 IG groups. People post there after they are accepted and likely to commit.

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7489

Oh man, my D26 is bad with social media apps – she’s on Insta but just doesn’t care and never looks at it, and she’s never posted anything. And then she’s always surprised when I know stuff about people in her class that she hasn’t heard yet. :woman_facepalming: I’ll tell her to look at ZeeMee though, maybe she’ll be more motivated to keep up!

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7490

Yeah, I follow the class of 2026 decisions insta but not sure C26 does and not gonna ask :joy:

I sometimes feel this too, but then I wonder if we each are and just not sharing it so we don’t stress each other out! I will say that the Pitt admit has taken a load off what would otherwise be a much more stressful period.

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7491

Thank you for this thorough explanation. I do not remember “T” anything as a category being discussed when I applied to college in the early 90s and I went to a boarding school where a decent number of us (including me) went to Ivy League schools. The prevailing view at my high school at the time was largely there was the Ivy League. There were Stanford and MIT. And then there was everything else. I was a bit of a contrarian, and only applied to one Ivy, which was not one of the ones my high school fed lots of students to, nor one of the most “prestigious” ones, much to the chagrin of my college counselor. No kid from my high school had gone there in like a decade, but it was the only one that seemed a fit to me and like a place I’d want to go to school at the time. I got in and it was the perfect place for me.

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7492

I do, too, and so does D26 - but she doesn’t open Insta often enough to see when it’s been updated. :joy: But she’s in a class of 118 kids, a third of whom we’ve known since kindergarten or first grade, and many more since at least fifth grade – so I am invested! (Sadly, she isn’t – she’s ready to leave the whole school behind.)

I signed up to bring two pans of Mac & Cheese and plates/napkins/forks for the senior class holiday party tomorrow. D26 is now dragging her feet on going. Ah well, I haven’t volunteered for much this year (for the class as a whole – I’ve done ALL the things for marching band, lol), so I hope the other kids enjoy my Mac & Cheese while mine is noping out. :zany_face:

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7493

And here I was thinking that I want the new orange iPhone for UT. Hook ‘em! :squinting_face_with_tongue:

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7494

I’ve always found the “lesser Ivys” thing and all of its iterations odd. The schools are so different from one another that the experiences are not fungible for anyone actually paying attention. My wife and I met at one of the “lesser Ivys” by most people’s definitions. It was both of our first choice and no interest in the more prestigious ones as undergrads. Many of our friends it was also their first choice and they also didn’t want to go to most of the others.

And both of us declined some of the “top” Ivys and Stanford for other institutions for graduate school (wife also dinged Stanford for undergrad). Some people looked at us crazy for that. But we were not unique. We both went to school with a number of people who did the same. And things have turned out great for us. Would make the same choices all over again.

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+1 more. I grew up in San Jose/Morgan Hill area.

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7496

We’re an Android family so I won’t be getting an iPhone, lol, but I live in an area where people half-jokingly say they won’t pay to send their kids to any “orange” school.

But I went to Florida, so WHATEVER. :roll_eyes: :winking_face_with_tongue: :rofl:

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7497

I’ve done a fair amount of volunteering for what is needed for choir/musical theater, but for the class as a whole - nope. There’s this weird cliquey thing going on among the moms who run it and pretty much has been since elementary school. I will “bring stuff” as needed but that’s as far as it goes and, apparently, as much as is allocated to the rest of us…and you wonder where the mean girls cliques in the schools come from :roll_eyes:

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7498

Oh for sure, the mom politics with this stuff can get ridiculous. I could tell some stories, lol.

My kid doesn’t fit the mold of the typical students at her school, and I don’t really fit the stereotypical mom profile either, so pretty sure other parents think one or both of us are just weird. :joy:

Speaking of which, D26 sent me a link to her “dream” prom dress and asked if perhaps Santa would be so kind as to bring it for Christmas. She loves to stand out, and she definitely will with this dress. I’m going to indulge her because senior prom and all, and she’s my last kid.

More than I wanted to spend, but for D22, we had one of my mom’s vintage saris – which she wore for one of my three wedding receptions, LOL – made into a dress, and it cost an arm and a leg because no seamstress wanted to risk working with one-of-a-kind fabric. But it was so special and turned out unique and beautiful, so I couldn’t exactly tell D26 no with her request.

Too soon to start a thread about senior prom dresses? :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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All of the talk of “T” schools is so irrelevant to our life, I just kind of scroll past it. Neither S23 or D26 was ever even close to thinking about going to a college like that. In a way I’m thankful because there is none of the insane pressure that I see some of my kids’ friends going through. However, we have our own pressures and challenges with selective schools. D26 is acutely aware of acceptance rates- it embarrasses her that she’s nervous about her chances of being accepted to a school with a 65% acceptance rate when that would be a “safety” for so many of her crew. I don’t care at all except where her lower GPA and lack of test scores have affected her “merit” awards.

As for being invested in the college search process, it is quite honestly pretty much all that D26 and I think and talk about. When the portal upate came in yesterday from Quinnipiac, my heart felt like it was going to beat right out of my chest! And I am a nervous nelly checking the USPS informed delivery every day, terrified that I am going to see a regular sized envelope from Marist. I really do have a problem! Her father cares, but more in regard to making sure she stays closer to home and in a safe area, LOL. I am a little concerned that he will dig his heels in if she chooses Point Park, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

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