D17 applied to 12 schools:
Deferred: Yale SCEA
Waitlist: UChicago
Accepted: Reed, Wellesley, Barnard, Pomona, Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr ($30k Presidential Scholar)
To come: Princeton, Yale RD, Columbia, Penn
Right now Pomona, Swat & Wellesley seem to be the top picks. Depends on Ivy Day results…
My son has had a serpentine track through high school - very high scores (35ACT - no prep), hockey stick grade trajectory (from a 2.0 to a 3.7 uw), disciplinary history early on. He therefore applied to an eclectic mix of schools, so making a final choice won’t be easy. Here is where we stand today:
Accepted: UNH, UMontana, St. Lawrence ($10k merit aid), ULoyola NO ($17 merit aid), UNCW, Chapman.
W/L: Dickinson, Santa Clara (only interested in Santa Clara)
Waiting to hear: UMass, Tulane, Union (assuming no to last two)
We are thrilled that he even has choices after a difficult start to high school. Any thoughts on how to even make this choice?
My daughter so far has a 4-3 record, and is hoping for 5-3 
Accepted EA at Tulane
Accepted at Virginia Tech
Accepted at Case Western Reserve, with significant merit
Accepted at William and Mary
Rejected at UVA (after being deferred during EA), Emory and Washington University, St. Louis (She knew these are “reach” schools, with the exception of UVA, so wasn’t too surprised)
Still waiting to hear back from Wake Forest, but her mind is pretty much made up already. It was nice to start with a “win” with that acceptance email from Tulane, first thing. Nice surprise and totally unexpected, so that helped with the rejections when they came in later on.
Daughter also just accepted to Barnard and the SP2 program. Waiting on two reaches on Ivy day but no expectations and very happy with results so far.
S accepted to Williams, Amherst and Pomona (only lib arts colleges applied). Waiting for Ivy Day results next week.
Last acceptance today from Rice! I received a Trustee Scholarship for $25,000
I forget this thread is here! D is DONE. Here are Ds results (adding the merit amounts for anyone with comparable search needs, majors, stats).
D was 7/7 for Engineering admissions (Mechanical Engineering/Biomedical Engineering—ideally at schools that offered both so she could major in ME and minor in BME). We are in-state for Texas but she wanted to go OOS. The rule was she had to stay in budget (so OOS school at in-state cost) and we were not paying our EFC -which effectively ruled out any privates and required her to apply to schools where there was a reasonable chance of merit $$.
ACT 34, GPA 3.98, #10/644, decent ECs, IB diploma candidate, some state awards, job during the school year and summers, but no national science fair, Intel awards and no research.
Purdue University - accepted with $10 K merit/year
Clemson University- accepted with $15K merit/year
Northeastern University - accepted with $21K merit/year
University of Pittsburgh-accepted with $15K and Chancellors nomination; progressed to finalist but did not receive scholarship. $2K/year Engineering scholarship added on after submitting cost analysis
Texas A&M- auto admit, accepted to engineering, zero merit
University of Texas- auto admit, accepted to engineering, zero merit
University of Alabama- accepted, full tuition scholarship + $2500/year engineering stipend
Attending: University of Pittsburgh, Swanson School of Engineering–HAPPILY! Cost with merit $$ is a bit lower than our in-state options but probably evens out when you add in travel
Reflections: if you have a target school that you knows will negotiate, make sure you apply to at least 3 other peer schools–it could help you out with negotiating their package. I wish I would have had her apply to a few other ones just to have stronger peer packages. Also–it’s a cold hard reality to see that high EFC on your “financial award” letters. ALL of Ds packages were either merit $$ or loans…lots and lots of loans, lol! The Federal unsubsidized $5,500 loan was offered and then it went straight to Parent Plus Loans.
Also–she/we expected very little merit at Texas schools but WOW–still shocking to see she got zero zero zero. We had a friend who was attending an accepted students day at A&M and she texted me that around 5300 kids qualified for merit awards at A&M but only about 1,300 were actually awarded. Lesson learned–don’t expect anything at the two big state flagships. We kind of knew that, but geez…not even a $500 book award…LOL!
Engineering admissions- apply EARLY; try to have calculus on your transcript (all of them told her they preferred to see it on her transcript but not required); her peers who applied to UT who did so later in the fall were not accepted to their major…if you are applying there apply early and get that ACT or SAT as high as you can. Auto admit does not mean auto to your major–fair warning!
@carachel2 - Congrats! Your D is all set. Wishing her great success in this new adventure!
Accepted at UVa EA… likely going there next year!
Accepted at W&M as a Monroe Scholar
Accepted at Kenyon with 10k scholarship
Waitlisted at Haverford
Waitlisted at Davidson
Applied to Virginia Tech, but withdrew after hearing from UVa
Overall I am really happy with the range of schools I applied to and the outcomes. I was pretty sure about the kind of school I wanted to attend, so I applied to a small number in contrast to people at my (very competitive) public school, who practically all applied to 10+ schools. Several times I wondered if I should apply to more, but I’m glad I didn’t, because I knew I’d be happy at any of the six schools I applied to, and I was able to put a lot of energy into each application.
Accepted to:
UCF -Engineering -Florida Benacquisto scholarship -covers total COA plus a little more
Clemson Engineering-15k per year OOS scholarship. Still waiting on final package.
Fordham -Rose Hill -35k in scholsrships.
NC State Engineering -waiting on final package
FSU-Benacquisto -offered to come to presidential scholarship weekend. Turned it down.
University of OK -Engineering. Offered 130k NMF scholarship
UF-pre-engineering fall admit. Benacquisto
Mount Hokyoke-offered 21st Century scholarship & very generous financial aide. She would major in biomedical sciences minor in engineering.
Wait listed
Smith -this had been her 1st choice. Accepted her spot on the list
Honors programs at UCF/Fordham/FSU/ OU
Waiting on NC State/UF
Still have a few apps but they are all 8-12% admit schools
Stats
35ACT/ 1560 new SAT/ 5.2 GPA W/ 3.8 UW/
NMF/ 500 community service hours/ Girl
scout Gold award/ club leadership.
Overall our list seemed balanced.
She is heading to accepted students days at UF & A visit/overnight to Mount Holyoke. Very different schools so now she needs to decide which feels better and financially what works.
Not sure why she was wait listed as her stats were well over the average. She was devastated. So now we are back to all options back on the table.
Hoping for good news this week but also aware of the %. Kinda like winning lotto.
Best of luck (and I’m a little jealous) to those who have committed.
Rejected- Stanford (REA), Northwestern, Rice, Johns Hopkins, Purdue
Accepted- Cornell, Notre Dame, University of Southern California, Lehigh, RPI, Penn State
Waiting to hear- Michigan, Stevens, Bucknell
All for Engineering
@SFLmom Some great results for your daughter, there! I don’t understand why she was waitlisted at Smith, either, unless she was applying to some high-demand engineering-specific program. Her stats are probably 90th percentile+ for Smith.
So my acceptance wait is officially over!
I’ve scattered my acceptances throughout this thread as they came through, but I figured I may as well simply put them all in one place.
Accepted:
UT Austin: Biomedical Engineering, no scholarships
Texas A&M: Biomedical Engineering, Engineering Honors Program, $6,000 a year in merit scholarships
Rice University: Bio Engineering, $25,5000 Trustee Distinguished Scholarship (merit)
Minnesota Twin Cities: Biomedical Engineering, National Scholarship (Out-of-state tuition waiver)
Johns Hopkins: Engineering, Hopkins Grant (met the difference between EFC and price)
Rejected:
Georgia Tech: My application was extremely weak, as it was submitted back in August without much thought. I was deferred during Early Action and I did not submit my Deferred Student Packet because GaTech honestly wasn’t somewhere I saw myself going.
Stats:
33 ACT/ 2160 Old SAT (only took both tests once)
3.92 Unweighted GPA
National Hispanic Scholar
National Honors Society
Church Volunteer
Paid Summer Research Volunteer at Loma Linda University
Model United Nations
Tips: Be confident in yourself and don’t forget that you’ve earned this. After submitting my first few applications, I convinced myself I wasn’t going to get in anywhere. Seeing the amazing people on CC was extremely intimidating. Really work on demonstrating your personality throughout your essays and make sure the people who write your Letters of Rec know you well and can speak to how amazing you are. Finally, relax. You’ve put in years of work into this, trust in yourself and wait for the admissions letters.
^ Where are you attending, Rice?
@londondad I’m still not sure. It’s between A&M and Rice at the moment. We’re looking at return value of both schools since even with the scholarship there’s about a 15,000 dollar difference between A&M and Rice
^ Interesting, One thing to consider though is that if you go to Rice you can always put “Trustee Distinguished Scholarship Recipient” on your resume indefinitely which may be a big deal to recruiters. There is also the quality of life issue between attending a Uni with 48,000 undergrads and 3,800 as well as the benefits of the Rice residential college system.
@carachel2 - Congratulations on such wonderful results! I am surprised about the lack of merit from the Texas schools. We are in state also and I have been worried that my S18 is looking at out of state, state schools. This make me feel a lot better about his researching non Texas state schools. We have told him that he cant go over the cost of sending him to UT or TAMU. We will not get any need aid just merit aid.
What did your D think about Alabama’s engineering program? My S18 is looking into ME.
Now that acceptances are in, waiting on these FA packages feels like eternity. Not to mention a couple schools still had missing documents (they were sent but apparently illegible or cut off through idoc)
Looking for advice here–Daughter is accepted in CS at Carnegie Mellon and EECS at Berkeley, as well as Engineering Honors at UT Austin in ECE. Due to merit scholarship, UT Austin would be tuition free–there is no aid for the others, and we are out of state for Berkeley. Thoughts?
For the vast majority of people I would recommend the tuition free path at UT-Austin.
There is a very small range of opportunities that are more easily available to CMU and Berkeley CS grads than to UT-Austin CS grads, mostly in the realm of either creating a venture funded startup, breaking into the finance industry, and possibly in consulting.
But if your D is instead looking to work at a place like Google/Facebook/Apple/Amazon, then UT-Austin will be absolutely fine.