My daughter is a freshman at Nova. She said today she is surprised she has liked everyone she meets. She thinks the people are all friendly and relatively down to earth. The energy on the campus is infectious, and you really see how much the students LOVE the school at Candidate’s Day. Hope your son has a good visit-- feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions.
@phxcactus When we visited Villanova we were very impressed with the friendliness of all the students that we met there. It was a very busy there as it was move-in day for freshmen and despite all the activity people went out of theie way to speak to my kids. We ended up not applying as my kids did not feel the school was academic enough for them.
Thanks so much @Squirg! I really appreciate it. That makes me feel a lot better!
Thanks @londondad ! Appreciate the feedback as well. 
Do you mind if I ask what their majors are/what program they were looking at?
My son is majoring in Math and Economics and my daughter is looking at Classics and/or History. I had twin nieces who majored in Math at Nova and thought the Math Dept was weak. I have heard elsewhere that the preprofessional schools at Nova are solid but by comparison, the Arts and Science college is weaker.
Hum ok thanks so much for that feedback. He is looking at Physics, with plans to continue on and complete a PhD elsewhere. It looked (on paper) as if grads were getting into awesome grad programs, but IDK now…
@Squirg I’m reading while sitting here with my daughter. Accepted EA honors at Nova and loved it when she visited but now having cold feet. Its helpful to read good things! We appreciate it!
@texasmissy did you guys go out for EA Candidates’ Day? DH took our S out and they said it was highly impressive. My son is still kind of on the fence, only because he is waiting to hear back from RD on 2 other schools but he loved it.
@phxcactus We did not go, but my D was following on Snapchat.
Congrats to your daughter, @Nanosour ! Smith is one of my daughter’s top choices too, but she applied RD since we have to be able to compare financial packages. Perhaps they will be classmates! We are also from far away (Illinois), so it will be hard and strange to have our eldest child away!
We are done with the college admission process by deciding to attend Stanford at full pay (no fin aid) for probably non-STEM major. Lots of pros and cons when comparing to attending a Honors College for almost free but I figure there are worse ways to spend money. As a sign of making the financial and emotional commitment, we put a Stanford sticker on our car. I wish every one of you good luck.
@websensation Congrats on finally making the decision. From posts I’ve seen, it appeared to be an agonizing decision.
@30socks Yes, it was for me. For my wife and our kid, there was no decision to make. lol The kid being our ONLY kid and the fact that we did manage to save enough money for his college just in case he got into an expensive private college were factors. However, when I thought about investing that money in dividend stocks and having him receive those dividend income, I wavered because you know, it’s not little sum we have to pay. Ultimately, I sat him down and explained to him what he could do with that money, i.e., buy 5 nice Benz cars or a little townhouse for him with that money, and he told me he rather use that money to attend Stanford. What could I do then? I have to admit that I still look at the scholarship offer letter from that HC, and just today, I get another letter from National Merit Corporation saying he made the National Merit Finalist which would mean more money from that Honors College. We sure got no milage out of his NMF status from Stanford, not even $500. I now feel foolish at having been so happy when he made NM Semi-finalist, thinking that he would be able to go to free college with it.
In conclusion, I realized there are always good and bad about any choice. Not gonna lie and say “I know this was the best decision.” Instead, I feel I tried hard to be a good parent. The rest is up to him.
Finally all applications have returned. My son was admitted to 4 / 5 schools. Only one that didn’t wor out was University of Texas at Austin (he was offered CAP). Now he has to decide where to attend!
My D was admitted RD to SMU as a Distinguished Scholar with a $100,000 scholarship with possibly more $ to come. She is also a finalist for the President’s Scholarship full ride. The award winners are selected after an interview day on campus at the end of March. Sending up prayers. Her first acceptance was a welcome relief after being deferred SCEA as we wait to hear from her match and reach schools.The days seem to pass so slowly.
@TXRooster Congrats to your son! UT capped a TON of strong applicants this year, so I hope he doesn’t feel bad about that.
My daughter got into her first choice last night- Virginia Tech Engineering. She had also been accepted to GMU, UVA, Purdue, and Florida. Now we have to unfortunately wait to see what can be done about merit scholarships etc. GMU is interviewing her for full scholarship, but that’s the weakest engineering-wise. Purdue offered half tuition, but that’s still a great deal of money. Congratulations to everyone! Stats: from NOVA, 1520 SAT’s (790 Math) and 4.2 weighted.
DS so far:
Accepted EA to:
Georgia Tech (chemical & biomolecular engineering)
UVA Engineering
Accepted RD to:
Univ of Alabama engineering
Virginia Tech engineering
Waiting on:
Univ of Pennsylvania
Princeton (deferred EA)
We live in Virginia. Right now I think DS is leaning toward either UVA or VA Tech.
Our kid had a very relaxing college application process mainly because after he unexpectedly got into his Early Action college (his 1st choice), he stopped completely applying to any other colleges. He’s using his free time to participate in various activities he would otherwise had no time to participate. For me it was sad to turn down one or two Honors Colleges with full-ride or COA merit scholarships based on National Merit Finalist status but I was out-voted by other family members.
Basically, our kid’s time is being spent on outside HS activities, meeting friends to eat, getting an internship position during summer and getting a study abroad scholarship for a gap year. Unbelievably, Senior year has been the most relaxing year for our kid. He’s greatly looking forward to attend his 1st choice college and the upcoming Admit Weekend and hoping he gets the Study Abroad scholarship so he can take a gap year.
My son only got 3 apps out - and now is very fortunate to have 3 great choices - I want him to figure this out since UT Austin has begun sending out housing contracts & orientation dates open 3/8 or so.
Accepted auto admit McCombs Business + Plan II Honors at UT Austin.
Accepted EA Boston College (my alma mater!) Carroll School Management with Honors.
Accepted Bauer School Business Honors, University of Houston, with National Merit Finalist scholarship.
I am grateful to CC’s many positive members who share great information with others!!