<p>Just wondering how many colleges are on the D/S shortlist compared to the ones applied to? </p>
<p>For instance, S has applied to 7. If all 7 are accepted, he will only be choosing from 4.</p>
<p>1 fell out as a 2nd safety and the other two didn't offer enought merit - and I am not expecting much need.</p>
<p>DS applied to 9 and has been accepted at 6 so far. Of those 3 are definitely out of the running. Still waiting for the final 3, two of which are his top choices.</p>
<p>If your student has definitely eliminated some choices, do encourage them to let the admissions offices know ASAP that they will NOT be attending. Even if they don’t know where they WILL go. There will be other students ready and waiting to take his or her spot!</p>
<p>Applied to and accepted at 3. Two are on the short list, one being the financial safety. We are still going back to #3 for scholarship interview day as the place was deserted during our summer campus visit. I want her to see it “full of life” before she crosses it off the list for good.</p>
<p>When I did applications, my “short list” were the only schools I actually submitted applications to. In my case, that was three schools.</p>
<p>My daughter just finished her last three applications yesterday and was talking about this very thing. She has applied to eleven schools. She said that if all eleven accepted her and offered the financial aid we need (yeah, I can see that happening!) it would be down to five that she would want to re-visit (in one case visit for the first time) if possible to make her decision. Five still seems like a lot for the short list!</p>
<p>My youngest applied early action to 2, and they are both top choices for her. She isn’t applying anywhere else. If aid isn’t sufficient, though, she may not be able to go…and would take classes as a non-matriculated student at a state university, which is within commuting range, until we can figure something out.</p>
<p>Ds’ short lists didn’t formalize until the acceptances came in. D1 had a hard choice between 2 colleges. D2 had 3 on her short list, but 1 really looked to be a clear favorite. They both went on campus visits/admitted students day again in the spring to come to a final decision. Having to go through the process of choosing was a good thing for them to do.</p>
<p>Although choosing among FIVE equally liked schools would have been a challenge…</p>
<p>Applied to 11, admitted to 7 so far, seriously considering 4-5 out of all 11.</p>
<p>I’m kind of tempted to add a 12th, but I think I need to just STOP.</p>
<p>D applied to 3 EA and 3 RD. So far she’s heard from only one EA (accepted); the other two will notify at the end of this month. She says she does not have a #1 but pretty much has a top 3, two from her EA list and one from the RD list. If she gets into all, it will be a very hard decision, although merit aid will weigh heavily. We may splurge to send her to a couple of Admitted Students Days for the finalists. (All schools are long plane rides away from us.)</p>
<p>D has applied to 14 mainly low-acceptance rate colleges. Thus far, accepted to 2. Unfortunately, the initial shortlist will be based purely on FinAid offers. She knows that and is doing her part by applying to as many scholarships as we can find. I’m crossing my fingers that at least one of her top-top favorites makes the final shortlist.</p>
<p>applied: 10 (5 EA and 5 RD)
7 acceptances-3 pending
D has narrowed down to 4-5
scheduled to attend sch weekends-we’ll see how the $ falls</p>
<p>Keeping the shortlist pretty long and (re)visiting proved very important for my son. If you have the luxury to keep an open mind among acceptances, I’d recommend it. There was a lot of movement up and down the list as a result of revisting and further investigation of the 5-6 schools in contention after all the acceptances were in. At least in his case, his choice – NYU (Gallatin) – absolutely wasn’t anticpated. But it became obvious to him when he parsed the whole picture and looked at what academic (that turned out to be key, glad to say) program met his interests (and potential interests) the best. </p>
<p>My point is along the lines of a) this is a good and important excercise for young adults and b) there is something different about really knowing what the options are and studying them carefully based on that reality. </p>
<p>Also, taking him around to the accepted students events was really fun quality time. </p>
<p>The negative was that on the overnights – although important, in my view, if available and possible – are very subjective. A bad pairing can really turn a student off, perhaps unnecessarily. If possible, good to have a variety of interactions – meeting professors, perhaps another student in another setting.</p>
<p>D applied to 13 schools, one with 2 different degrees, so she’ll get 14 answers. She’s a fine arts major, so she has two groups of schools - ones she auditions for (6 schools), and the others not (8). Within the first group, she has 3 longshots and 3 “possibles” (there are no safeties in auditioned programs); within the second group she has 2 reaches, 2 high matches, two “likelies” and two safeties.</p>
<p>Answers will roll in slowly. She has one safety admission already, and likes that school very much. The other safety and the two likelies should give EA answers any day.</p>
<p>She has only one school that she would go to without a second thought to the others (one of the more selective auditioned programs). All of the others will take some thinking, once all of the acceptances come in. She should get somewhere between 4-8 acceptances - 4 expected, and the others pretty hard to predict. She’ll decide based first on her feeling about the quality of the program, then equally on location and how she feels about the size/type of school. Cost will be a factor, but she is very grateful that it won’t eliminate choices.</p>
<p>I don’t expect that she will do much revisiting, because of distance and having a very busy spring already. I think she will depend on curriculum research, her gut memory from first visits, and contacting students and faculty. I agree that overnights can go very awry, and be very inaccurate. So can any of the measures that involve personality (who hasn’t been turned off or on to a school because of their tour guide?). </p>
<p>She wanted lots of choices, and it will be hard, although the schools will present her with a manageable and pretty organized group. Her list is mostly made up of “paired” schools - similar, but one harder to get into than the other, or with a bonus of having the size or location that she wants. Probably she’ll get into one from each pair, and then have to decide among the pairs based on her gut at the end of the year. Maybe a year ago being in a city was the most important thing, but now she’s learned more about what she wants in curriculum, for example. </p>
<p>If as someone has mentioned she gets into more than one of the dreamy schools, that will be a hard choice, but clearly a pretty win-win situation. She’s the type who knows everything has its ups and downs, too. She knows in a lot of ways this all is a big mystery.</p>
<p>I like the idea someone posted somewhere of imagining yourself 10 years from now telling a stranger “I went to X, Y or Z” school, and realizing how you’d feel. They also said to wear the schools’ t-shirts each for a day, but as a mom I’m not buying that many t-shirts!</p>
<p>D applied to 8, accepted at all of them. It seems to be boiling down to 2 or 3 top choices. At this point merit aid makes them all fairly equivalent. We will see if any additional aid comes in. Money will be one of the factors that helps clinch the deal, though not the absolute deciding factor if schools are within the same ballpark. D plans on revisiting the top schools.</p>
<p>D applied to 8. She will hear from one this week; the others, shortly before April 1. Her decision will be based in part on merit aid offers, about which she won’t have final information until about April 1. As a result, she doesn’t have a short list and a long list; she just has a list.</p>