<p>And how many wait til much earlier o decide to enroll?</p>
<p>and what are your criteria for 'making the plunge' (if it is not on the final deadline)?</p>
<p>My 'easy' criterion would be if any one of the colleges that S carefully selected (safety-like or the more reach-like), offered at least a 90 pct discount from COA for 4 yrs. We probably wd stop this process now. Since this is not likely to occur, I need other critieria to decide. Curious what yous guys think.</p>
<p>Note that this is in the admissions thread. Assumes that you searched and re-searched already.</p>
<p>Most of the people whom I know waited until May 1 to decide. The exception was students whose EA or RD college had a shortage of housing, and the students wanted to live on campus. If the college was the students' clear first choice, and they knew they could afford it, they turned in their admission acceptance when they turned in their housing deposit. At such colleges, it's OK to make a housing deposit before May 1 even though one isn't sure about whether one will accept admission. If one changes one's mind about going there, one just loses the housing deposit.</p>
<p>If I get into only one of MIT, Stanford, or Caltech, it's an obvious choice. If I get into more than one of them, it's not. Any other case, it's not (barring the case that I get only accepted one place.... but let's leave that out.).</p>
<p>Both kids decided immediately when they got into their first choice colleges. The FA was doable. They turned down all spots on wait lists. So, they decided the day the acceptance came in one case, and the day the FA award (three or four days later) came in another. There were still counties unheard from when deposits were sent in and cards signed on the dotted line assuring the schools they would attend.</p>
<p>I know for me personally, I don't have a clear-cut first choices and I applied to 13 schools (2 which accepted me early). I think it would take the month after the 4/1 notification deadline for to decide for sure if even half of the schools I applied to accepted me. </p>
<p>Unless I got a full ride to one and no FA anywhere else. :P</p>
<p>I don't even have a clear first choice! I mean, I think there's a school that I love more than the others but I haven't visited yet, and that's really the seal on the deal. Can't accept their offer if I haven't visited yet... </p>
<p>And then there are a lot of other combinations that could be created by different schools accepting or rejecting me. I'll be doing a lot of visiting and it'll probably be pretty late when I finally accept.</p>
<p>I'm also planning to wait until the last minute to decide. I got into one of my top choices EA, but the entire dynamic of the process changes now. What once seemed like an "easy" decision when visiting schools becomes infinitely more difficult when considering financial aid packages and the like. I also realized that I definitely can't make a decision until I know about all of the schools that don't notify until early April. I'm definitely planning on eliminating some schools based on financial aid and then visiting all the top contenders again in April. I'm anticipating not knowing for sure until sometime around May 1st, which I don't have a problem with.</p>
<p>Waiting until the last minute due to financial aid.</p>
<p>Me too, agree with both grandcentral and noob for their exact reasons.</p>
<p>gosh darn nail biter. There is then another question: assessing or evaluating a FA pkg. Is it simply the 'final price'? Or does the composition and nature of the package matter?</p>
<p>Anyone who knows about this stuff please chime in, and comment on or rank loans (the different types), grants (are there different types, like, you gotta go thru this hoop and stand on your head every other weekend? :) ), scholarships, and anything else that composes a typical FA pkg.</p>
<p>Is there a website that, given FA pkg numbers or entries, will compare one to another?</p>
<p>I got into both my 2 top choice colleges EA. I have the FA for
one of them and not the other. Financial aid and how much I will
end up owing when I graduate will help me make the choice (I Hope).</p>
<p>:)</p>