This seems to be more prevalent than I had realized.
With RD acceptances coming in late March or April, as late as April 15, then trying to arrange final visits, “close to May 1” is almost required, depending on your definition of close.
@RichInPitt Indeed. And even schools with EA and/or Rolling Admissions in some cases do not release financial aid decisions until March/April.
For a while there I saw a lot of kids committing to/enrolling at their preferred colleges. Still others seem to be in a waiting game.
Yeah, I mean you can’t make a decision without knowing where you’re accepted (and what your FA looks like for many people), so the last minute decisions are really on the schools for releasing their part of this so late.
A lot of kids who apply to a number of schools do wait. The vast majority of kids go to college locally. They need to kick in a slot. CC is just a slice of the college admissions pie.
I wonder how many of these kids push off the decision (for example, if their top choices were all EA and/or Rolling apps) because they really don’t know for sure what they want.
All schools have pros and cons.
My son made a comment the other day about how he doesn’t want to give up his acceptances from any of the schools he likes.
We teach them things like, “love your safeties” and “don’t get attached to one school” bc there is so much unknown. In the end it’s as though you have to break up with other schools and take a chance on one that (hopefully?) emerges as your favorite. That’s not always easy.
I hate procrastination, but older S had to wait until the last day. He was the alternate for the 1693 at W&M. Had someone declined their offer, he would have gone there. The last kid didn’t accept until the last day. It was so stressful. I had nightmares of our internet going down and missing everything completely.
Younger S seemed more like yours. I’m pretty sure he knew his decision earlier on, but hesitated to let us know. I think we paid the deposit in mid April. His school came through with a scholarship end of March/early April, so it might have been good that he waited? Who knows.
But for both Ss, it seemed that most of their friends knew where they were going early on in February or so. Most went to in-state public. Fwiw older S is at a LAC. Younger S is at an in-state public. Both are super happy with their choices.
In our case, even the state flagship U doesn’t release decisions until March. (March 1-15 is the window.) And that is expected to be the first notification that my D20 receives. Then we will be trying to cram in admitted student visits in multiple geographic locations during her busiest time of year with sports and extracurriculars. So in our situation, it is likely to be May 1 by the time we have the information we need to make a decision.
My older son waited until the last minute as well. After putting so much effort into getting into these schools, it was strangely mentally difficult for him to reject offers of admission knowing that there was no going back once he hit the button.
As a parent I’m also having difficulty deciding whether it’s worth the time and expense to visit some of the OOS schools. S20 threw out apps to some schools sight unseen bc we did not know what to expect in this complicated Admissions reality, and now that his acceptances are in he seems to be unable to eliminate some of the schools he hasn’t visited.
I understand it, but it’s still complicated for a lot of reasons, namely bc a few schools are a financial stretch for us, so the cost of visiting less-likely contenders seems better saved for tuition at the also-expensive state flagship that we thought (and still believe) would be his #1.
DS went to a number of accepted student events in April and decided the final weekend in April. He didn’t have a frontrunner and quickly realized that he was getting a much better feel for places from the revisits, so he wanted as much information as he could get.
It’s very common for kids to wait until the last minute. My D waited until April 31, Son decided in.March. Some kids are hoping they get called off a waitlist before May 1, especially if they accepted WL spots at several schools.
I would LOVE for this process to be done, but with a full tuition scholarship not being announced until “sometime in April” we are not there yet. That’s not even considering the two RD decisions that we don’t have, but have basically been ruled out anyway. D20 is the only one in her group of friends who hasn’t decided.
For those waiting for reach schools, Ivy day is always late in the process and then there is the scramble to visit if not done so before.
I would say it was 50/50 with D’s friend group when kids committed.
We talked about this last night. I asked S20 if he was ready to say goodbye to two of his acceptances because the FA just is not there. He has two very good offers that will eventually allow us to pay for law school or graduate school as well. He said he wasn’t ready. What?? He’s still waiting on state flag ship school’s decision (April 1), as well as some others who don’t come out until mid to late March.
This is our first child going through the college admissions process. He had many safeties, a few matches, and a few reaches. We just didn’t know what to expect, including if he’d qualify for FA, or if he’d qualify for certain scholarships. It feels like his entire senior year has been taken up by this process. It’ll be nice when a decision is finally made and we can enjoy our summer.
@OceanIsle , if your son has 1-2 acceptances that he really likes and the finances are right, I think it is OK to let go of some of those OOS not visited schools. We had some of those. I did research on Niche to get at some culture/lifestyle stuff, and on here, and with that info we were able to say no to some of them since S had 2 great options in hand. (We did ultimately do admitted students visits/revisits to those two to make the final decision).
Another way to let them go would be to simply plan out the trips and see if they are even feasible. Many admitted student day visits overlap, and if you have spring break plans that takes up two of the spring weekends. Does your S20 need to revisit his tops? You just might not have the time to fit it all in, so that’s the easy way to rule them out.
Some of the accepted student revisits are quite late, IIRC. One of my kids had 7 acceptances, revisited 3 schools, and decided at almost the last minute. Although it was narrowed down to 2 pretty quickly and that one was notified early on.
My D was waiting on many decisions until mid to late March. Then she was accepted to the ONE school she hadn’t visited so we had to plan an admitted student day. Our flight got cancelled due to weather and we had to reschedule so we didn’t even get there until Mid-April. She was undecided and felt she needed all the information she could to make her choice. Then after the visit she basically narrowed her options down to 2 and changed her mind daily regarding what was the best fit. She was determined to not wait until the very last day so I think she decided April 29th. She also had a couple of waitlists she was waiting on but gave up on them as time got closer. Funny enough, she did get off one waitlist May 2nd, but by then she was unwilling to revisit the decision now that she’d made it.
I would say her friends were quite mixed on when they decided. Those who got into their top choices committed quickly as did some who got their decisions early. The rest trickled in. I think my D was one of the last of her friends to commit though.
@sunwalker that was our situation last year. Our son got in his reach school, but he didn’t get the merit. It was hard for him to let go. He decided between two schools at the final hour. Once he made the choice, it was a relief for all of us!
@OceanIsle S19 also had acceptances from schools he had not visited and it was hard to just drop them. They were top LACs and maybe one of them would have been perfect. That’s what nagged us in April. He was, however, accepted to many schools we had visited and two in particular that he always had near the top of his list. In the end, he decided he didn’t need to go to the schools where he had acceptances but had not visited. Now, had some of his top choices not come through, we would have gone to these schools he had not visited before.
It is a little crazy. Kids can only go to one college yet lots of kids apply to many, do the visits, get to know the school a bit and can picture themselves there. I think it’s always a leap of faith in the end to pick one.
He did choose his school in mid April. We are full pay and this school was going to be expensive. He had other options that were less expensive and closer to home. It took a week or so for my husband and I to really come to terms with the price tag. I think S accepted the offer in the last week of April. It was such a relief to be done.
Edited to add - he was offered two waitlist spots but did not take them. They were also for schools we had not visited. With eight acceptances in the bag, he was ok with letting those waitlist spots go as well even though they could have been really good fits. His GC told him that according to our school’s history, he would get in if he took a waitlist spot, but he just couldn’t add any more schools to the decision making at that point.