are you staying the course?

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Wondering if any of your early action decisions are causing you to rethink your admissions choices?</p>

<p>For ex. ds was deferred at a bubble/reach. He hears from a more likely admit on Wed, and is changing an application to ed2 which I have no idea at this point his chances. </p>

<p>We are contemplating putting a few more in the mix if the likely admit is a rejection, and if the ed2 is a reject we'll look at some later application date schools. Not panicking, and choices were thought out, but we are flexible enough to add in other like schools if we need choices.</p>

<p>Are you staying the course?</p>

2

<p>No, we did not stay the course! For the past year my D had planned to apply ED to a top 5 LAC in November (and had a few back-ups ready in case she didn’t get in). A few days before the ED deadline she got cold feet about the college and we started to worry about lost opportunities. Within 2 weeks she completed 8 applications…adding a slew of great academic and financial safeties. We ALL feel much better now, even though we have to wait many months for a final result. </p>

<p>My advice…if the child (and you) are not 100% sold on an early decision school --don’t apply ED II. Is there time to revisit the college(s) in question before break?</p>

3

<p>He’s sure of his ed2 choice, we just don’t know if they’re sure of him - lol. </p>

<p>Just wondering if other people are here at the last minute wondering/panicking about throwing in more apps or if their kids are changing their minds of their top choices.</p>

4

<p>Sort of. D had 9 schools on her list - all of which she would happily attend. Nevertheless, we did have her rank them in preferential order. She was accepted EA to school number 5. She is not completing her applications to schools 6, 7, 8 and 9. We will hear from school #1 this week and then she’ll decide if she’s going to continue with her applications to 2, 3 and 4 or just stick with 5. </p>

<p>I think she’s really over the whole college application process and would like to just go to school 5. Whatever she decides is fine with me. She’d be perfectly happy at school 5 (although we have our fingers crossed for school 1 - a reach.)</p>

5

<p>I always think about throwing a few more in. It’s like packing perfectly for a trip. I get everything planned according to the days, what matches, is right for weather, etc. and at the last minute start throwing things in randomly just in case. I’m trying not to do that, but at the same time I’m starting to worry that D could use another option or 2. The thing that has so far been keeping me from pressing is the merit aid piece. Most merit aid LACs, it seems, offer in the range of $17,000 +/- (correct me if I’m wrong). I know the mix on the rest can be different in terms of additional need based grants, etc. She decided that her 2 options in that range really are her favorites and that the schools down the list weren’t attractive enough to her to go after.
Having been denied at her SCEA “lottery” school, though, I’m also wondering about adding a lower reach like Grinnell or a larger, private university that still seems to offer solid need and merit aid.
Advice . . . ideas?</p>

6

<p>p.s. Favorite school is St. Olaf (cannot apply ED II due to need for FA) and other comfortable match where she would be happy is Willamette.</p>

7

<p>Add the extra one or two schools now–with our D1 we didn’t and when she got WL almost everywhere. it was awful in April (and May and until it was settled early June!). So with #2 we were so nervous, we went with overkill. He ended up having lots of choices AND he still talks about how the acceptances boosted his confidence going into school the next Sept (knowing other schools wanted him too).</p>

8

<p>Does anyone have good ideas about what to add? It seems silly to add more reaches like Pomona, Bowdoin, etc. after Stanford rejection - I imagine the other thousand of “rejects” from high reach schools are also aiming for the few hundred spots at next level reaches. I’m at a loss to think of other higher mid level schools. Also Dec 1 was the deadline for scholarship at many (Beloit comes to mind). </p>

<p>Part of the difficulty, I think. is the emotional investment involved in showing interest and picturing oneself there to write credible essays. She really can picture herself at STO, and needs to convey that along with what attributes she will add to population to be in the running for merit aid (grades and scores are in range for merit). We visited Carleton, STO and Gustavus Ad. last winter and it was a Three Bears sort of thing - Carleton “too hard”, Gustie “too soft”, STO “just right”.</p>

9

<p>My son applied to 8 schools which were the end result of doing visits to what I asked each time, “Is it on the list or not”. Only one is a reach. </p>

<p>Now that he is done, I am contemplating whether he should add a school he did not visit and I actually am not even sure if it would be the right school for him. Sort of the 50% of it looks good and 50% looks not like a match. Not sure whether it is worth having him do the extra work of yet another supplement and telling a school why you “love” them.<br>
Thoughts?</p>

10

<p>My D has been eliminating schools since she got into 4 of her sure bet schools. She has never looked at rankings. I am not happy with some of the schools she has eliminated. Her common app was done but she did not complete the supplements. I think part of the reason was she was busy and just could not force herself to slow down and just complete the apps. These were EA deadlines so she still might apply to some of them RD.
Her list mainly consisted of safety schools that in spite of being an easy admit are a good fit for her and a couple of close to home reach schools.
Because she is not visiting schools until she is accepted she does not have as much heart invested.</p>

11

<p>D received her acceptance yesterday from Willamette with an initial $17k merit offer - still not enough to make it affordable, but a nice start and an indication that the final package could have a better mix. She also decided (with prompting and mom advance research) to apply to Grinnell. We didn’t get our visit in because of weather last winter, but it’s a close enough academic match and “fit” along with favorable aid profile to give it a try. Now I’m feeling much more relaxed that she will have 3-4 good private LAC options that she could be happy at and 2 publics. Come March/April we can see what comes back for aid mixes and do the cost/benefit.<br>
Someone on another thread advised after going through this with kid1 that we should throw in 1 or 2 - thanks, whoever you are! As long as she follows through, now, I’m feeling more comfortable about her options.</p>

12

<p>“Does anyone have good ideas about what to add? It seems silly to add more reaches like Pomona, Bowdoin, etc. after Stanford rejection - I imagine the other thousand of “rejects” from high reach schools are also aiming for the few hundred spots at next level reaches.” - Saintfan</p>

<p>Saintfan: Don’t allow yourselves to be psyched out of some reaches by an ED rejection at a lottery school. There are a lot of great kids that get rejected ED from reach schools, only to get admitted at other reach schools April 1. Just submit the apps to the schools where the numbers are in the ball park and don’t take rejections personally. In April, you will want your D to have options. Remember, there is more than one right answer when it comes to college choices. If she is interested in Pomona or Bowdoin - submit the applications. She can always reject them in May.</p>

13

<p>College fit and preference are subjective and relative. Initial reaction has less to do with strength of offering, but more to do with feeling and that can be deceiving because colleges put their best on for visitors, especially during their official programs for visitors. A friend of mine from long ago declined Harvard to attend JHU because he thought the exciting fair at JHU during his visit was going to be a regular thing. What I’m writing below is for academically competitive kids who have a shot at top colleges and require financial aid.</p>

<p>Most academically competitive kids are malleable enough to adjust to variety of college settings, ranging from hardcore-study-til-you-drop to design-your-own-major, from friendly-and-socially-engaging to mind-your-own-business, from beautifully-enclosed-campus to where-is-the-front-gate. My goal for my kids has always been colleges that are financially affordable, academically strong with great reputation, and socially vibrant. Sometimes not all criteria can be met and the kids have to prioritize. Since there is no guarantee they can get into a top college, we work out a short list of matches and safety, which by default includes our state flagship. I’m for a top-heavy approach: aim high and think big.</p>

<p>If you need financial aid, I’d suggest starting your selection with the list of colleges that meet full-need, adding to it a few that are almost there, e.g., JHU, CMU ED, and, if your kid made NMF, a few that give full-ride to NMF, e.g., UA and Ole Miss. Drop the schools that do not support your student’s field of interest or goal. Then remove the schools with environment or location that your student just cannot tolerate, e.g., too cold, all-women, too small, too big. I must say, this last part should be negotiable because of the premise that kids are malleable. Make sure you apply to your in-state or another safety EA if that is an option, so you’ll not be scrambling for a safety later. </p>

<p>If your kid gets rejected from the ED/EA/SCEA school (presumably, the school is the top ranked school on your kid’s list), he/she has used the one silver-bullet and now must contend with RD, unless one of the remaining schools on the list has ED 2 option. If so, apply to the ED-2 school, if your kid needs a boost. Otherwise, focus on the schools that are a notch below the rejected school; this does not mean you shouldn’t apply to peer or even higher ranked school, but the focus shouldn’t be on that and the expectation should be adjusted. For example, if you’re rejected from HYPSMC and assuming your kid truly had a shot at them, focus on schools like NW, JHU, Wash U, Cornell, Emory, Tufts, BC, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Carleton, Wellesley and CMC if they are on your list. By focus I mean spending majority of your time researching/visiting/contacting these colleges so that you show strong interest and have targeted/tailored applications for them. This is a time-consuming project, but one that you must do to have good chances. Hopefully you had done the same when your kid applied to his/her top choice.</p>

<p>Now, work on the apps of a few schools a notch below the above group to give your kid some buffer and options. If you don’t mind spending a few hundred bucks on application fees, I’d suggest applying to 12 or more schools to give yourself more cushion and peace of mind. Remember, even with the meet full-need label, these colleges could still have finaid differences in excess of $10K PER YEAR! This makes the application fee investment look trivial.</p>

<p>By being here on CC and actively engaged in the process, you’ve already shown that you care, this alone has already given your kid a major boost. Best wishes to you all.</p>