<p>Maybe I am spending too much time on the board, but I am finding it very depressing to read all the doom-and-gloom comments--your kid will never get into x reach school, s/he won't get money, you don't qualify for x, y or z.</p>
<p>By way of an antidote, I wondered if people had any GOOD stories to post about their kids' outcomes. My oldest son, for instance, was a B- student with just decent (1600 boards) and 26 ACTs. He got good packages from six schools, including Juniata, Ursinus and Allegheny, including outright gifts of $10-15k per year. After reading this board, I hardly expected him to qualify for our local community college. But there you go.</p>
<p>I’m not a parent, but my cousin was accepted to Stanford with a 3.5 GPA and 2000 SAT. Her ECs weren’t particularly outstanding, either - she volunteered some and worked 10 hours a week. But her essays were absolutely amazing. She’s a clever and charming person, and this shined through her writing.</p>
<p>Nothing spectacular here, but nothing dismal either. Some good acceptances, some decent merit aid…but the real positive is that all three kids ended up at places where they stayed/intend to stay and where they were/are able to pursue their dream. They learned something, they made some friends, they made a college experience for themselves.</p>
<p>No doom and gloom here. D chose a very small OOS that I had never heard of when they offered her a full athletic scholarship. She was a recruited athlete that probably would’ve been accepted at better known schools with her GPA and good but not stellar test scores. Anyway, she decided to apply for the honors program and was accepted w/a full academic scholarship. We are happy that she’ll have the academic support of the honors program.</p>
<p>Last year my D accepted one college, put down her deposit and then informed another college that she wouldn’t be attending due to financial reasons - at that point they offered her a full ride to their wonderful private college here in Florida. She chose to switch to the full ride college as finances were a huge consideration for us.</p>
<p>To maintain her scholarship she needs to keep her GPA above 3.6. She finished her first semester with a 3.9, has settled in really well and is loving everything about her experience.</p>
<p>I love it because she is only 2 hours from home and we are paying her a visit tomorrow :)</p>
<p>Best of luck to all those still waiting to find out where they will be next year.</p>
<p>Still waiting for word from five schools, but two of the three acceptances thus far came with better-than-expected merit offers, and one of those is considering sweetening it even further. </p>
<p>Just wanted to say I love this thread! Count me as another parent who was convinced no school would want my wonderful, but late-blooming child. So far, we’ve been pleasantly surprised. We’ll keep you updated…</p>
<p>S was discouraged from “applying too high” by retiring GC, since he was only in the middle (5th decile) of his graduating class, even though he was a NMF. He applied to several schools that were reaches as well as several matches. He was offered significant merit aid at three schools & happily matriculated at one of them. As he attended, he got more merit aid. His SR year, he got two additional merit scholarships. He had 3 great job offers in his field in hand by February of SR year.</p>
<p>D had such poor attendance due to chronic health issues that she was asked to leave her private HS after JR year (missed 1/2 of the year). She was sad, but studied & aced the GED so she could start CC. She applied to transfer to selective dream U after completing only her 1st semester, flaunting the HS GC’s advice to wait until she had two solid years of great CC grades before applying to transfer. She was accepted and further accepted into one of their world famous programs, School of Cinematic Arts! She’s thriving and loving it there & will be graduating with her HS peers this spring!</p>
<p>The school where my son will attending we went to visit as a lark because it was in the same city as another school we wanted him to see. I just remebered I threw it in there but didn’t think he had a chance of getting in. Even as we were in the admissions office I was overwhelmed at how fabulous, but out of his league it was, but wouldn’t it be great if he could go to a school like that! We went during spring break, and the funny thing was we kept running into the same people at schools all over the place. </p>
<p>His gc’s gave us lists that made me scratch my head - they really lowballed where they thought he could get in. I guess I see now that gc’s want their stats to be high - they want the kids getting in guaranteed.</p>
<p>A friend of mine keeps saying, there are thousands of schools out there, they can’t all only take the top 5%. After reading about the fabulous kids here I was convinced my son wouldn’t get in anywhere. There is no perfect applicant out there and while you can look at what the average student is like at particular schools, no one who isn’t in the admissions department can tell you what will or won’t happen in your case.</p>
<p>Yea, it’s funny how short everyone sold D. Even she & we had doubts about whether the U would look beyond her poor HS record and early start to CC and admit her anyway. Her friends was absolutely certain she’d be accepted as a transfer and join them as soon as possible. We were delighted she was able to but they were pretty blase–they knew she wanted to attend so saw no barrier to her matriculating there. Life is so interesting!</p>
<p>A friend’s S also had her kids’ HS GC lowball him in college apps. She was able to convince him to throw in some apps on a lark & lo & behold, he got in where the GC said he hadn’t a prayer! They also gave him great merit & FAid, so he ended up attending the U, which was also the highest ranked of all the Us he applied to! He graduated and then got into the local in-state flagship med school (which was his 1st choice), even tho none of the other med schools would even INTERVIEW him! He recently graduated from med school & is doing or has completed his residency in pediatrics! Along the way, he married the woman he fell in love with in college & they’re very happy together! His younger sister applied to that same expensive private OOS U & was accepted with another fabulous merit & FAid package & is doing great there as well.</p>
<p>Same situation here as familyof3boys. My under-achieving boy has several nice choices – not the kind of schools that are the focus of most of the threads on CC, but colleges where I think he can thrive.</p>
<p>In the past 3-4 years, our two sons and their friends/classmates got into mostly where anyone would have predicted, looking at them objectively. Honestly, the biggest suprises have been with our state flagship. It is harder to gain admission to than I thought, and seems to get harder every year. A couple of kids who I would have thought might be invited to the Scholars or Honors program (last year) were not. They were admitted, but not to those programs. I don’t know anyone who was admitted to a school that was a suprise, based on what I knew of them. The kids I know who have been admitted to Ivys all had a clear hook. </p>
<p>About “better support than I thought they would”, mine were offered what we would have predicted at the instate flagship. The other schools, OOS publics and privates that were matches/reaches, were all over the map in terms of merit/grant money offered. </p>
<p>The kids we know who are struggling to maintain grades (to keep college merit scholarships) are the ones who had high test scores and are very smart, but were underachievers in high school. I would be hesitant to encourage a kid to take merit money tied to maintaining a GPA if they haven’t shown the willingness to earn great grades in high school.</p>
<p>My son applied to 8 schools. One of his top schools (an Ivy), for reasons nobody can explain, moved him from Regular Admission to Early Decision and he was admitted in early December. He was sooo thrilled. Although we withdrew his other applications some of the schools had already responded. He was also accepted to UNC - Chapel Hill. Rutgers NB, with a BIG merit scholarship, Tulane with a HUGE merit scholarship, and Georgia Tech.
Although we didn’t get any financial aid, we found a way to make it work so we won’t have any loans. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see all of my son’s hard work pay off.</p>
<p>I thinknthere arenuances that are hard for many to get their hands around. A big scholarship from Duke or UVA is not the ease thing as Getting a discount, aka, scholarship from ome of the many LACs that give almost everyone AA " merit scholarship.".</p>
<p>Many ofq these schools know that Johnny won’t pay $40K at their good but not elite LAC. Slow UW do they get hilt to Come they have offices to figure out how much money to award the family to get serious sincerest. So enrollment managers look at demographics, crunch numbers and decide how much they’ll have to offer to get you to come?</p>
<p>It is often as simple as bring down the price to that ofq the family’s state school.</p>
<p>“Treat each according to his deserts and who’d escape whipping?” I like a thread that is a little more sympathetic to students than Hamlet’s famous observation. My son took the SAT’s once, did respectably, but was not interested in trying to improve them. He went to an average public high school, and, while not especially intellectually curious, was sufficiently motivated to earn excellent grades - he turned every B+ into an A- by the end of each semester. He had a few Bs scattered here and there that he would pay less attention to if they could not be changed by a good final exam. He was more strategic than academic - doing what he had to do rather than learning for the sake of learning. </p>
<p>When it came time for college, he had two top choices - both LACs. He did not get into the first when he applied EDI, but did get into his second when he applied EDII, and his college search was over early. After an adjustment to college level work loads and expectations his first semester, he seems very happy at Whitman College now. Although I am an Ivy alum, he never considered pushing for HYP and my early pushing in that direction just created friction. From what I can glean from our very brief and sporadic conversations, he is being pushed intellectually and athletically, and enjoys being part of a close knit group of students at Whitman. Given his relatively relaxed high school experience, he did well to get in there, and so far, both of us are happy with his choice.</p>
<p>I know a kid who was accepted off waitlist into a T50 University with about average SAT and very low end GPA for that school and given non need based money. The school was clear that they were filling a geographical need so I guess that counts as a hook.</p>
<p>Cautionary tale is that after 2 not very good years, including academic probation, the kid has transferred to the local directional state U where he is doing much better.</p>
<p>We set our kids’ general sights in the 20-40 range with reach schools in the top 20 (one uni, one LAC) and were pleasantly surprised that both got into the reaches ED. We hit the jackpot, though, IMO.</p>
Life is so interesting!</p>