<p>This is a great thread (and I haven't even read all of it yet). It is going to alter the way we approach things with our S, who graduates HS next year. Still early in the process for us, but we have been focused on reaches, with far less thought given to matches and safeties -- largely because of the overriding need for merit aid. I am going to make sure we are a little more balanced now thanks to all the posters here.</p>
<p>That's great news about Maryland, Cindy. Major congrats on a great option for your D! What did your D end up deciding to do about the SAT IIs? I remember that she was undecided as to what to do since Gtown was the only one asking for a third.</p>
<p>"This is a great thread (and I haven't even read all of it yet). It is going to alter the way we approach things with our S, who graduates HS next year. Still early in the process for us, but we have been focused on reaches, with far less thought given to matches and safeties -- largely because of the overriding need for merit aid. I am going to make sure we are a little more balanced now thanks to all the posters here." --Illinois Dad</p>
<p>I wish I'd discovered this site a year ago. I feel I've done my D2 a partial disservice. She did not apply to any safeties, and she has only three matches. Fortunately, she's already been admitted to two of them, and is very likely to be admitted to the third. That's three good schools to choose from. Unfortunately, she's also applied to eight reaches, which I now know was a waste of money. My money. She won't hear from any of the reaches until April 1, but I'm fairly sure she won't get in to any of them, based on early posts from Interesteddad, who seems to have a lot knowledge about this stuff. </p>
<p>My D2 has "pipe dream" schools on her list, thanks to my bad advice. Swarthmore, Amherst, Brown...what was I thinking.</p>
<p>plainsman: you are really beating yourself up; no harm, no foul.....D has acceptances in her pocket that are good and affordable; now, you can see how the "reaches" (your words, not mine) work out both in terms of acceptances & $$....you really have no regrets at this point......now, if she didn't have any safeties/matches that would be a diff story....hang in there.....</p>
<p>I agree with Rodney. It's not over yet. We have always had surprises in our college search journeys.</p>
<p>Plainsman, if your daughter hadn't applied to those reaches, she'd have always wondered if she'd get in. She may do better than Interesteddad expects.</p>
<p>I haven't read ALL the replies, but a lot of this thread reminds me of my cousin's search for good fit college many years ago. Her thought was that any school who would accept HER was not good enough for her. She was too funny.</p>
<p>Cindy - Congrats to your daughter! As you know, my son goes to UMD and he's happy there. I'm glad she now has two choices, plus maybe more on the way.</p>
<p>Plainsman - Yes, you're out the application fees, but it's not over till it's over. She just might get into some of those schools. She doesn't need safeties at this point, since she already got into some matches. Just sit back and see what happens.</p>
<p>Roshke:</p>
<p>
[quote]
That's great news about Maryland, Cindy. Major congrats on a great option for your D! What did your D end up deciding to do about the SAT IIs? I remember that she was undecided as to what to do since Gtown was the only one asking for a third.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>She took the SATII in Literature a few weeks back. No score yet, but she found it much easier than she expected. Hard to tell if that's a good sign or not! :)</p>
<p>Plainsman, those application fees were not wasted, and you will get something for your money. If she is rejected by all of these schools, you and she needn't spend any more energy wondering whether she could have been admitted. I say that is worth something.</p>
<p>cindysphinx--as you said in an earlier post--nowhere to go but up!</p>
<p>Keep the positive thinking going!!! My son got into his dream school last March after months of MY worrisome behavior. It's a great feeling to know that your child won't be in the basement!!!</p>
<p>Congrats to the OP! I tried to read the whole thread so excuse me if this is a repeat and obviously at this point it doesn’t apply to the OP. </p>
<p>We just didn’t have as much energy as some on this board during the process. This is how we maintained our sanity with one of our kids: there was a parent list (reach, match and safety) and a kid list. The kid was allowed to apply anywhere he wanted after doing the parent list apps. There was some overlap in lists. After acceptances we insisted kid visit the school we felt was best fit but which had not been on his list; he chose all other admitted school visits and the final decision was his. He ultimately chose a school on both the parent and kid list. Assume we were reasonably intelligent in knowing what schools would be appropriate for this kid for academics and social fit. It seemed to us the least stressfull approach when confronted with the sort of issues the OP was facing. We always were clear the ultimate decision was going to be his, but wanted to be sure the choices were broad.</p>
<p>The wonderful thing about getting into a school that you like, before the spring deluge is that it takes off the pressure, and it also allows you to look at your choices objectively. There are people I know who are so emotionally invested in certain selective colleges that it is really dangerous healthwise to all involved, particularly emotionally. Everyone feels like there has been a big failure if dream school acceptances do not occur, and it is an automatic "gotta go" to the biggest name school. When you are all set to go to a school that wants you and is financially a good fit, you can look over all of you other choices with an objectivity that you cannot have when you are so emotionally invested in acceptances to a certain small group of schools. I have seen families make some wrong choices that end up expensive and painful because the college choice was based on hype rather than the facts. </p>
<p>Both Cindy's and Plainsman's students are in the great position of being able to make decisions without the pressure, should the expensive reach schools accept them. The real pressure of getting in somewhere is gone. There is time to fall in love with the schools that have accepted them, and they are affordable.</p>
<p>A little off topic, but I would like to recommend to all prospective college students and their parents taking the "College Matchmaker" test on CollegeBoard's website. Surprisingly, many people I know don't know it exists. Out of all the college search tests I have seen, this one is the best. It really helps narrow down your list of schools while intrpducing you to schools you never thought about attending before. You can find it here:</p>
<p>Cindy and Plainsman, you can relax a bit.... breathe....</p>
<p>Remember, one acceptance is all any student <em>needs</em>.
And if students and parents have done the homework and made a good list, the student should be happy with any school they get into. No one should apply to a school that they would not be happy attending.</p>
<p>One of the best books I've read on the college search and application journey is "Winning the Heart of the College Admissions Dean". Joyce Mitchell talks about having a list of "eight first choices", that of course run the spectrum of reaches to matches to safeties. If a student doesn't prioritize the list, they are more likely to put equal effort into all their apps.</p>
<p>Holy smokes!</p>
<p>She got admitted to the honors program at MD! Huzzah!!!</p>
<p>Apparently, this information was in the e-mail, but she didn't read to the bottom. She read the follow-up letter a bit more carefully. Sheez.</p>
<p>I'm liking the trend here . . .</p>
<p>Even better!!! What great news!!!!!</p>
<p>Congrats to your daughter, Cindy. I've been watching this thread with great interest! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for continued good fortune!!</p>
<p>OP: Good luck to your D and please post an update when you hear from all the other colleges.</p>
<p>OK, all the returns are in, so as promised I can now bring you up to speed on how it all worked out for D.</p>
<p>To spare newcomers to this very long thread, allow me to summarize:</p>
<p>Financial aid is not a factor here. D visited many schools but tended to like the ones that are the toughest to get into. As deadlines approached, I (with ample assistance by the folks here at CC) began to urge her to add more matches and safeties, just in case. </p>
<p>Nope, she wasn’t having any of it. She decided her approach would be to apply to our state university (UMD) and any schools she would consider to be more desirable than UMD. She chose not to apply anywhere ED because she didn’t know what she wanted. </p>
<p>This led to a rather ambitious list: one safety (College of Charleston), two matches (Bucknell and UMD) and five reaches (Georgetown, Wesleyan, Brown, William and Mary, Northwestern). Let’s call it the Willy Wonka Golden Ticket college admissions strategy, if you will. You just buy a few candy bars and hope like heck to get insanely lucky.</p>
<p>For maximum drama, I will walk you through the results in the order we received them:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Georgetown EA. Deferred in December. D had only taken two of the three required SAT IIs. We urged her to take the third test anyway (she finally did) and write a letter expressing interest (she never did) and submit the beefed-up and much-improved essays she wrote later for other schools. [Note: I practically begged her to add a few more schools that were matches e.g. Wake Forest, Dickinson. Nope. She decided to double down.]</p></li>
<li><p>College of Charleston. Admitted.</p></li>
<li><p>U of MD. Admitted, honors program. We started feeling pretty confident. Maybe this wouldn’t be a disaster after all.</p></li>
<li><p>Bucknell. Wait list. Oh, ouch. This one really stung. She and her counselors thought she was a shoe-in. She really wanted to go there.</p></li>
<li><p>Northwestern. Rejected. Uh oh. Never visited, and 58 kids from her large high school applied, so this was going to be tough. I consider that application a bullet wasted.</p></li>
<li><p>Wesleyan. Wait list. Big trouble. This one was totally mishandled. We visited over MLK break but the place was shut down so no one there knew we had been interested. That couldn’t have helped. I think she messed up in not applying ED on this one, but she didn’t decide I was right that Wesleyan was a good fit for her until it was too late.</p></li>
<li><p>Georgetown. Rejected. D really had this one coming. She didn’t do a single thing to augment her original application, which really wasn’t done that well in the first place. I took this as a lack of genuine interest, but it appears instead to have been a shortage of ambition, I think.</p></li>
<li><p>College of William and Mary. Accepted. Whew! D probably won’t attend (why go there instead of the UMD honors program for half the price?). Still, perhaps it makes her feel a little better to have at least one more choice.</p></li>
<li><p>Brown. Rejected. Big surprise, eh?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So. It looks like she will go to the UMD honors program. I think she now understands that she blew it. Her overall approach (only applying to schools she liked better than UMD) was sound (why apply to matches and safeties that don’t excite you?). Where the train went off the track was in not making a serious and sustained effort to be admitted at the schools that do excite you. There’s no excuse not to augment the Georgetown application (and visit a second time, as our counselor suggested) if you really want to go there. Or apply ED to Wesleyan rather than tossing an application their way as an afterthought.</p>
<p>Now, you would think we’d be done, right? If so, you are wrong. Now I am encouraging her to do a lovely job writing to Bucknell and Wesleyan to convince them of her interest. </p>
<p>So far, I have not seen a draft letter . . .</p>