^^^he applied to 7 schools, not 8!
@chel17 Your son certainly has some great options. If he ends in at WPI or Brandeis - I’m happy to act as In Loco Parentis - we are 20 minutes from WPI and about an hour from Brandeis.
So this is weird: my son was accepted ED to
his longtime dream school and he is having cold feet. Anyone else have similar experience?
@SoleCustodyDad Congratulations to you and your son. That is an impressive list of accomplishments. Honestly, the most exceptional to me is “Will sometimes buy the two of us dinner as a way of saying thanks.” You’ve raised a great kid and the school he chooses will be lucky to have him.
Check out the ROTC set up at each school for each service. Many of them send you to another school (Harvard ROTC battalions are at MIT) which can be a hike.
@SoleCustodyDad , congrats and thanks for the great story! Any chance your son’s essay was published? My wife read one to me yesterday she saw linked on Yahoo news that had a similar topic. Choked us up also!
They are about as close as two completely separate colleges can be, literally two stops on the train.
On days with good weather, it is probably a 10 minute bike ride at most.
@janwel I am guessing this is somewhat normal. Our S is now having great difficulty choosing between his top picks. When he toured end of summer, he came back from one school and for the first time we heard him say “I love that school” He was accepted there early action and later to other schools RD. Now he can’t choose and he is east again touring the final list. I have no idea how we are going to help him finalize other than I am hopeful that these are just nerves and he will calm down a little and decide.
Here’s the final picture for my D17:
PSAT (Can’t remember, but she just got NMS)
SAT: 1580
SAT II: 800 Math2, 800 Literature 800 Latin
GPA: 4.0 (school doesn’t weight, doesn’t rank, no APs or IB)
Senior year courses: Latin V, Greek IV, Integral Calc, Advanced Physics, USH, English
ECs: Mock Trial (city finalist twice, many individual awards), Classics Club, Beekeeping, started Jane Austen Society
No athletics
Summers: research assistant, Shakespeare acting, travel
Exchange program in UK senior year
Recs: College counselor told her they were exceptional
Essays: Excellent, strong voice, very articulate, unique. Common App essay talked about autopsying a beehive after bees died to figure out what went wrong, tied it to interest in environment/climate change but also collective social structures.
Female, Mixed race/ethnicity (Asia/White)
Accepted: Barnard, Bryn Mawr ($30k merit), Carleton, Columbia, Penn, Pomona, Princeton, Reed, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Yale (deferred EA then accepted RD; double legacy)
Waitlisted: UChicago
Rejected: None
Attending: Yale
Reflection: While D17 will probably do Ethic/Politics/Economics major at Yale, she is very interested and accomplished in Classics and reached out to the Classics departments at many of the schools where she applied for informational meetings. Most schools on her list have fantastic, well-funded Classics departments and not that many students, so I think her demonstrated interest in that field made a difference. Classics faculty from multiple schools where have contacted her since she was accepted to encourage her to come.
S got into Berklee (School of Music) with a 1/2 tuition scholarship! He’s excited, as it was his first choice. Still a steep climb to pay, so we’re hoping some supplemental aid appears…
Just used Harvard/MIT as an example off the top of my head. Brown’s NROTC is at Holy Cross which is in a different state!
S is stuck trying to decide between Emory or UNC considering business or pre law any thoughts?
@Itisatruth "Most schools on her list have fantastic, well-funded Classics departments and not that many students, so I think her demonstrated interest in that field made a difference. "
I disagree with your last point based on DD’s experience. My DD has applied to many top schools as a Classics major too. Based on her acceptances and many rejections, I really don’t think her demonstrated strong interest in Classics (and honors/awards, etc) has made any difference whatsoever, as the schools on her list (many of which overlap with your D17) don’t really admit by major. (Had she shown similar interest in say, History, I believe that she probably would have had the same results in her admissions. What also has surprised me is when we have been attending admitted students days there are quite a few kids who are attending the Classics sessions with the Classics profs as potential Classics majors. (She also has been contacted by the Classics heads at her accepted schools). I think that Classics are staging a bit of a comeback now as kids find the classes interesting as well as generally good intellectual training for a variety of careers. Plus everybody seems to be double majoring or double minoring these days and Classics is an easy one to add on to many A&S majors.
D was accepted to Columbia, waitlisted by Harvard, rejected by UPenn and Yale. Accepted to Pomona, UCLA, UCB UCSD, USC, Rice and several more. Totally caught off guard when Stanford accepted her with great financial aid. We live in Southern California. D always wanted to go to an IVY and loves NYC…Columbia of course.
D is really having a hard time, crying a lot because Columbia will be a heavy financial burden on us parents. Told her we would support her 100% one way or the other. I would not like to be in her shoes.
Everyone talks about Harvard, Yale and Princeton (HYP) as being on top with Stanford in the mix. Does it fall that far off from the HYP+S to Columbia? IMO Stanford will be #1 in a few years because everyone accepted will be given a free ride and the best and brightest will be more eager to get in.
Congratulations to your D!
Regarding the Columbia vs. Stanford decision, the advice to my D if she faced such a decision would be to take the Stanford offer. If she is destined for NYC, she can go there after graduation.
@gr8p18 Has your daughter tried to contact Columbia financial aid? I wouldn’t think there would be that much of a difference between Stanford and Columbia. Give Columbia a chance to review the financial aid facts.
I would like her to go to Stanford. Both are great schools. We have let her make most of her choices in life independent of us since HS and it will be more satisfying for her to decide and stick with it. Our family will be attending the admit students reception here at the LA Library for Stanford today and we are hopeful that she will be more receptive to them. She is scheduled to visit Columbia next weekend and Stanford the following weekend for their respective admit student days.
She has contacted Columbia but we have had no responses for the past week. I would imagine they are a little busy and are in review mode. I will be contacting the her admissions officer soon if nothing by this Tuesday with the financial offer from Stanford. I hope to level the playing field financially for D to make the hardest decision in her life without any regrets. As you can imagine the decision will go down near on the last day of this month.
Thank you for the responses.
S final results.
Stats:
GPA: 3.99 UW 4.50 W
ACT: 30
SAT I: Didn’t take
SAT II: Math II: 680 US History: 680
Course Rigor: 9 AP’s by graduation including 5 senior year
Rec’s: Assume strong as he goes to a small school and is well known and liked by faculty
EC’s: Very strong including leadership positions
Sports: Varsity all 4 years in multiple sports, but won’t be playing intercollegiate sports
Acceptances: UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, UCSC, Cal Poly SLO, University of Oregon (Honors & Merit), Lake Forest College (Merit), USC (Spring Admit - Marshall)
Waitlist: WUSTL, William and Mary
Denied: Penn, UCB
He is now in the fortunate position of getting to make a decision between some great institutions.
prof16: My son had similar choice. We just returned from Admitted Students Day at UNC. Gorgeous campus, great academics, fabulous sports, mid-size public university, and classic college town. I would have a hard time turning it down if it were me. My son was honored to be accepted as an OOS student, but he decided to go elsewhere. He cares little of sports, the Greek system, and has decided he wants a smaller school. So, he committed to Rice last night. It was all about fit. He prefers a bigger city setting, a smaller school, and really is intrigued by Rice’s residential college system. I’m not sure whether Emory offers the same residential experience but, like Rice, it’s offers rigorous academics in a large city. It has a beautiful campus, a very modest sports climate (comparatively speaking), and I’m uncertain about the Greek system. We visited Emory about a year ago and I have several friends whose children attended. They all speak very highly of it. You can’t go wrong with either Emory or UNC. Big choice for your child. Good luck.
@phokie - Rice is a great choice. Congrats to your son!