I thought maybe going to the accepted students days would help demonstrate interest for scholarships.
I’m sorry, I misunderstood @jazzymomof7. I thought he wasn’t interested in the school. Totally agree that if there is money on the table that could sway the decision it may be worth the visit.
@jazzymomof7 students are only supposed to accept an offer/deposit to one College/university. It is considered unethical to deposit at multiple schools. (Although I have seen plenty of people on CC who have no problem with it!)
Colleges have a May 1st decision date deadline and that is pretty standard. Housing deposits are a different issue. Some schools will allow you to do place a housing deposit even if you haven’t committed to attend. It may be non-refundable but that is a risk that you take. At the school my D ended up at they actually said at the info tour “if you are accepted and think you may attend apply for housing as soon as the housing app opens”. They had a priority system and the earlier you deposited the more options you had. Good luck!
^ I should clarify my post #38 by saying the $75 application fee was for housing, not admission, in case that was unclear.
@jazzymomof7 he definitely should attend Accepted Student day at some point. It gives you a different look at the school…and the kids who may be going there.
At Texas A&M is very important to put in a housing deposit. It is the ONLY school we put a housing deposit prior to decisions. We attended an information session that made it was clear we needed to do this even prior to getting accepted. She was latter accepted to Honors program and guaranteed housing in their dorms. (It’s been 3 years so I don’t remember if she had to have already secured the housing to be moved to honors dorms or if admittance into honors guaranteed her housing. I think we lost $25 in the housing process when she decided to go to a different school.)
At Texas A &M and many other schools, the accepted students events are wonderful opportunities for the student and parents to learn about the University. Being invited to distinguished events will help you learn about the school. The college wants to attract students like your son. Attending these events will NOT make an impact on financial aid or scholarships your child will receive at TAMU. (Unless your student is an athlete, special talent that requires auditions or an interview for Terry Scholars, attendance won’t show interest and send scholarship money your way.) I don’t know anything about the CORP and scholarships.
I really like TAMU and the special sessions we went to were very valuable. I was a little disappointed that they didn’t give her any scholarships. I kinda thought if she could get into Honors that they would give her some funding besides loans. (She is white, middle class kiddo. Our EFC was right at cost of attendance -minus loans so I shouldn’t have been surprised.) It was a fair offer from a great school.
I believe that TAMU has special applications(essays) your DS has to submit to get scholarships. I may be confusing applying to the honors with applying for scholarships. I just recall that it wasn’t obvious until I helped her dig a little deeper.
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Our daughter who is now a sophomore in college applied to three colleges and I paid the housing application for two.
I paid the housing application for one college before she was accepted. She applied the day housing applications opened in November, and she did not get an acceptance until December. It made a big difference for the year that she got her first choice in housing.
My experience is a little old, but we also did not put down any deposits until we’d heard from everyone. We weren’t basing our decision on merit aid so I didn’t track timing. However, my son had decided that he didn’t want to fall in love with schools for which there was a 10% probability of admission and so didn’t want to make visits until he was accepted. In exchange, he proposed applying to a few more schools. So, he got into about 10 schools. He then ranked schools in categories – I think he was looking at curricular flexibility and workload required to be successful and maybe general quirkiness. He would then compare schools and schools were equal on all dimensions but one, he would drop the schools that were weaker. We ended up visiting three schools.
Read the fine print. There might be a few majors, such as nursing, where you might lose your spot unless you put down an early deposit. Otherwise, a student might be accepted to the college, but not to the major.
Yes, I did a matrix of accepted colleges for my kids, with points in different categories. The key is to provide more points in the matrix to the most important factors.
I believe for many schools putting down a housing deposit is accompanied by a statement committing to attend the school. In such cases, putting down multiple housing deposits is unethical at the very least-not a good modeling by the parent! Not saying that is the case here because I don’t know. But if there is a commitment to attend, submitting multiple housing deposits is a crappy thing to do.
If the college requires a commitment to attend along with their housing deposit which they push students to do before May 1, it is the college that is being unethical, @lostaccount .
Yes OHMomof2, that is correct. The school shouldn’t be"pushing" students to commit early-which isn’t to say that they don’t make housing assignments before that deadline-just that they don’t require students to commit before the deadline. If the school requires or “pushes” verbally or in written form, yes the school is being unethical. And if a student commits to-promises to attend- more than one school, the student is being unethical.
Ds was admitted to Texas A&M last week. His dad is going to take him to tour the dorms in a couple of weeks, and we’ll put down a housing deposit. We won’t put any deposits at the other schools until he makes a final decision. Thanks for all of your help!
Ds received another acceptance last night!!! Waiting to hear from one more rolling admissions school, and the only ones left after that are his 2 reaches. We probably won’t hear from those until after the first of the year.
Question: Most of the schools he has been admitted to have said that the next step is to set up an account and email address with the school. Should he go ahead and do that or wait to see where he is going to attend?
Congrats on the acceptances!
We did as my son really had no idea which school he was going to attend. He set them up to forward to his regular gmail account. Depending on the school, you may need it. For example, we put a refundable housing deposit at one school my son did not attend, and the refund request had to come from the student’s email.
Yes, set up the email accounts. That’s how they will communicate going forward.
Keep in mind at this point, the colleges are going to startto subtly and not subtly encourage your child to attend. One way they do this is to ask for housing deposits to ensure a spot…this “anchors” that college in your mind because you have put money down. Read around to see if that is really necessary