<p>@collegetime18, my ideal scenario was that S was accepted at an Ivy and chose to go in another direction. Think about that…sure, I was accepted at XXX ivy, but I turned them down. Umm…yea, right. The school does a great job of impressing upon the accepted students that they are one of the x%. Not many kids or parents can stand up to that! I know we couldn’t! </p>
<p>And Kudos on the acceptances!!!</p>
<p>Thanks so much, @itsv and @initiatelaunch. I really appreciate the support! I wish he had done EA, but didn’t get it together on time. He just mentioned (!?) that he was invited to apply for Cal’s Leadership and UCLA’s alumni scholarships. I know they have nothing to do with admission, but maybe it’s a positive sign. He’s gotten no guidance from school (big city public), and he’s our first and only, so we are all learning as we go. I really want to just enjoy him now and will try to focus on that – @itsv, I am so glad you are able to do that with your daughter – great advice.</p>
<p>collegetime18-tonight was my D’s last home basketball game. Her father and I made her walk out to the court to take everything in and take pictures. I was crying thinking of all those games and practices and out of state tournaments I drove her and attended from age 4. She looked at me like “Mom why are you crying-I’m fine”. I think we take the stress of college admissions and senior year much harder than they do. </p>
<p>Initiatelaunch-I am a Common Data Set junkie too. Plus I read blogs and twitter feeds of some of the better private counselors out there since I made it my business after DS went through the process. It are right about boys having an advantage at some colleges. For example University of Portland is 65/35 so guys are highly desired.
Thank goodness my D is engineering (her major Mech Eng) only has 12%j females at her future college. My DS is liberal arts-international relations-so I know that helped him. Your comment is funny because that happened to my next door neighbor. Her DD was accepted early to Stanford. She always thought she wanted Stanford until she got into the Brown/RISD combined program so she turned down Stanford. My DD’s friends can’t believe she did that since Stanford is so highly competitive. Part of the back story is that some 40 years ago Stanford accepted her uncles but turned down her mother who had better scores/grades than her brothers. I think neighbor girl wanted to do it in honor of her mother. </p>
<p>Keep us posted collegetime-with the Santa Cruz your son has a nice option. </p>
<p>@itsv funny to hear another parent take this ending harder than the kid! I keep thinking that " this is the last x" or “this is the last time we will y”. Hard times, indeed, but exactly what we have been preparing them for all these years – to fly! Someone told me recently that our kids aren’t ours, they just come through us. I want to be selfish and hold onto him, but know I’ll have to let go with sadness and hopefully joy.</p>
<p>Collegetime18-I agree!! I am like you “this is the last time for x” while she is “mom will you please release your death defying grip of me”. Both my children have traveled by themselves and are independent so I know they will fly. I have lots to keep me busy in my nest especially since my sister who is 14 years younger has a 2 year old!! I just know devote a lot of energy to him who “loves his Auntie V”. </p>
<p>One thing that brought the soaring to fly point home was yesterday. My uncle died unexpectedly so I took my mom out of town to visit her relatives and my aunt. We had lunch with my cousins and their children all whom said that “going to college is silly”. Mind you they all live like 10 minutes from where we grew up. As we got in the car my mom was mad saying how dumb it was that none of those relatives were encouraging their children/grandchildren to attend college. My mom then told me how she was crushed when her family told her no college for her in 1958 and that she was going to make sure that all her children went to college and traveled throughout the world. Not only have we done it but all of her grandchildren so I am very glad see saw that we needed to fly. </p>
<p>Oh gosh, I woke up last night again and thinking about this. I know somebody said upstream to not worry since the decisions are not out yet, but all these questions are dancing around my head. The what ifs. Seriously, I can’t wait till March 27.</p>
<p>Like Collegetime18, we are CA residents looking at state schools. D14 has also received the invite for Honors/Regents at UCSC, as well as a personal phone call from CSUCI to apply for their President’s Scholar program so we can at least breathe a sigh of relief that she has two affordable options that are genuinely interested in her attending their school. With her DE credits, she also doesn’t have the stress of worrying about taking more than 4 years to graduate like many students attending our state schools. She visited CSUCI on a school field trip, and both she and her sister loved it, plus they have suitable programs for her. It’s a newer school, so hasn’t really built a reputation yet, but feedback I’ve been getting about it is good. </p>
<p>D14 is interested in Cal, and we also know students from her school last year who got in with much lower stats (SATs in 1800s, good GPA, low income male got into the EECS program – so it can happen. But he has some circumstances in his family life that has overcome and I’m sure his essays were wonderful). So like all of you, we are very, very anxiously awaiting March 27th, and agonizing over the potential rejection or acceptance letters. </p>
<p>I am also waffling back and forth between thinking the quality and prestige of Cal is preferable one day, and thinking the “big fish in a small pond” concept is preferable another day. Right now we are in line for quite a bit of FA, but have reason to think the upcoming years will change our financial picture, so am very interested in as much renewable merit aid as possible. I have a D15 and a D19 to plan for as well. </p>
<p>It certainly helps having cc to commiserate with during this long wait.</p>
<p>Like Collegetime18, we are CA residents looking at state schools. D14 has also received the invite for Honors/Regents at UCSC, as well as a personal phone call from CSUCI to apply for their President’s Scholar program so we can at least breathe a sigh of relief that she has two affordable options that are genuinely interested in her attending their school. With her DE credits, she also doesn’t have the stress of worrying about taking more than 4 years to graduate like many students attending our state schools. She visited CSUCI on a school field trip, and both she and her sister loved it, plus they have suitable programs for her. It’s a newer school, so hasn’t really built a reputation yet, but feedback I’ve been getting about it is good. </p>
<p>D14 is interested in Cal, and we also know students from her school last year who got in with much lower stats (SATs in 1800s, good GPA, low income male got into the EECS program – so it can happen. But he has some circumstances in his family life that has overcome and I’m sure his essays were wonderful). So like all of you, we are very, very anxiously awaiting March 27th, and agonizing over the potential rejection or acceptance letters. </p>
<p>I am also waffling back and forth between thinking the quality and prestige of Cal is preferable one day, and thinking the “big fish in a small pond” concept is preferable another day. Right now we are in line for quite a bit of FA, but have reason to think the upcoming years will change our financial picture, so am very interested in as much renewable merit aid as possible. I have a D15 and a D19 to plan for as well. </p>
<p>It certainly helps having cc members to commiserate with!</p>
<p>And the hardest wait goes on! Got Regent invite from UCSB, so that’s nice security. But waiting on the other UCs and private reaches is so stressful. S and H are handling it all so well and I can barely think of anything else! Nice to have CC folks!</p>
<p>Agghh! Not sure why I’m being stressed out again in anticipation of Ivy Day. I should not be since my D is really fortunate to have good options on the table already. We found out today that USC awarded her Presidential Scholarship (half-tuition) which make the COA around $40K. But UCLA is still a better option, at least money wise. She also got Regents at UCLA which is about 2K per year and enrollment priority. But what if she got accepted on one of them Ivies and Stanford? Can we just close our eyes and bite the bullet? If it’s HYPS, I’m willing to do that. If it’s a lower Ivy, I’m not sure.</p>
<p>I understand completely, @2018dad. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t agree with this statement. Both my kids attended Rice University, which is not an ivy league school but is considered a “top” lottery type university. They found warm, funny, collaborative students and great supportive profs, and had a blast with all the residential college events and fun and games that abounded. DD is now doing graduate work at an ivy league school, and has found interesting and intelligent and collaborative friends. I think it is a stereotype that the ivys and top schools are ultra competitive and cut-throat.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree. My daughter is in the Plan II Program at UT and seems to considered a “lottery” type program and she finds her fellow “plan twoers” to be supportive, kind and great collaborators. Her roommate’s experience in McCombs is directly opposite where the cut throat world is alive and well. So it will be important to not only weigh the competitive nature of each University, but of the program itself. </p>
<p>@bigbossman1 Is that Bruce Springsteen?! I worked his concert on the 12th!</p>
<p>Bigbossman, given your picture, how are the shows different for you since Clarence’s passing. I have not been to a show since his death and as a huge fan was wondering how different the experience is.</p>
<p>My SIL is going to the Springsteen concert tonight. I think it will be her 58th. She is taking my 83 year old MIL with her! It will be MIL’s 2nd. Her first was a couple of years ago. </p>
<p>@bigbossman1 Small world…small world</p>
<p>" DD is now doing graduate work at an ivy league school, and has found interesting and intelligent and collaborative friends. I think it is a stereotype that the ivys and top schools are ultra competitive and cut-throat."
-My D. has many from Ivy’s and other elite colleges with Berkeley ahead of them all in numbers in her medical school class. While people are different, she also found out that most (not all) from the top caliber schools miss lots in human skills. She said that it looks like state public schools provide more diverse environment to grow personally. By this she did not mean racial or gender or any other clear cut diversity like socioeconomical diversity. She meant is that Ivy / Elite schools priamarily accept the same type of people and then they have harder time connecting to others outside of this group. Most patients in hospitals / clinics do not have the same background. And she herself found to be shut down by some very “elbowy” classmates, while observing at least one of her classmates simply “working the system” to get her grades. All of it turns my D. off in a big way. However, she has found many friends in her class and tries to stay away from the “intense” crowd. One of the nicest persons in her class came from army. </p>
<p>
One of DS’s suitemates in freshman year lacks a much needed human skill after the use of bathroom: He regularly forgot to flush the toilet after use. Yuck! </p>
<p>I also heard that several suitemates were not happy with him because he was not willing to share the workload of cleaning the common area but he had a plenty of time of studying - he took about 25% heavier course load than most other students did but he was not willing to do his share for taking care of the common area in the suite. (Guess which graduate school is his next school after graduated from college? Harvard.)</p>
<p>He and another suitemate are so-called “alpha males”, who got girls relatively easily. They were especially close to each other initially, but later they got very ugly with each other because of a “girl issue.” Luckily, both of these two “troublemakers” moved out after the freshman year – leaving other more reasonable, more “beta type” suitemates behind, who lived happily with each other for the next 3 years.</p>
<p>I heard that some “leadership” type students in some extremely high power club tend to have a super-sized ego and are harder to deal with also. (But they may be your boss or even CEO in your future!) This is a problem for a college which attracts well too many students who have always been the only shining star (say, 25% of a class used to be the class president of his/her high school class) in their growing-up environment before college and everyone of them believes he (or she) will continue to be the sole leader again in college, just like in high school.</p>
<p>But, hey, there are still the other 75% of students who are not like them. You just need to be careful about who to be close to in the day-to-day life. I think DS mostly chose to hang out with the peers for low-key fun activities only, staying a safe distance from all those “ambitious types” (which include most preprofessional students who always strive for the “best”, even though he himself was one of them on this track.)</p>
<p>“DS mostly chose to hang out with the peers for low-key fun activities only, staying a safe distance from all those “ambitious types” (which include most preprofessional students who always strive for the “best”, even though he himself was one of them on this track.)”
-This has been my D’s strategy. And she was the one who graduated as a top pre-med in her college class. There are more of this type at Medical school though. At any selective place, you will find more of the same 'pushy, intense" kids. Even my grandD who is attending very selective public HS in NYC observed the same. She is very good students but she said that she can relate only to others who are below her in academics. I believe that when a person has a vey wide range of interests, it is hard for them to deal with intense ambitious type who tend to “elbow” others around them. Many kids in grandD’s HS are thinking about attending Ivy’s. </p>