<p>GFG, and all of you, I can totally relate. Now I know I’m not crazy, or at least not the only crazy parent on CC. My S is a freshman at a really good school, and he’s loving every minute of it. So why am I stressed, why can’t I let go of the whole college search thing? Because I made mistakes, I was the one navigating the college process and I didn’t fully understand the financial aid component. Had I managed our money differently, we could have afforded to send S to his top choice school, which was several rungs higher on the prestige ladder. Would he have been happier there? I have no idea, but he may have made more connections, may have grown more in a different cultural environment, yada, yada, yada. This is just plain silly, I can forget bad decisions I made for myself but I’m having a much harder time letting go of this because it’s his future. It was great to get that off my chest! Thanks for the thread.</p>
<p>TheGFG: </p>
<p>what sorts of things do you know now that you didn’t know then? Does your son/daughter know what you know that you didn’t know then? Does it matter to S/D?</p>
<p>Re: deal-breaking criteria – were those once the S/D was admitted and trying to decide which college to attend? or were these prior to admit decisions? </p>
<p>I have to admit I’m curious but understand that privacy is important etc. I am a notorious second guesser on some things, but I really don’t want to pass that to my D. If she isn’t second guessing then there really is absolutely no reason for me to be. Unless it’s something D doesn’t know about that could change her mind…</p>
<p>Add me to the stressed list, mostly money stress. If he gets into a reach school, will we be able to afford it? Will it be worth it to pay so much more than the schools he already has great merit money for? And if not, why did we bother letting (even encouraging) him to apply to them? (answer: in case they came through with a surprisingly good financial aid offer)</p>
<p>I am totally stressed out. Worse than I ever have been.</p>
<p>Thanks FLVADAD and Colorado_mom: I found your posts to be helpful.</p>
<p>Over the past several month I’ve been worried that my DD won’t get in anywhere (which is almost an impossibility given the number of safeties she applied to), or I worry that she’ll only have 1 or 2 choices and be disappointed.</p>
<p>It was just a day or two ago that I started to realize how stressful it will be if she actually GETS IN to 10+ schools. How will she possibly decide? In a weird way, that would actually be more stressful!</p>
<p>Whoa!! 5 kids?? I am stressed out just thinking about that one!! </p>
<p>I agree with you that having too many choices can be as stressful as not having a lot. Might require more campus visits to be crammed in around finals or graduation time (which is very early where we live). Stress…</p>
<p>To all those parents who are stressed out right now, go over to the “parents of college class of 2014” thread and take a look at where you’ll be in a short one year. For the vast majority of you, your kids will get into a great college that they will flourish at. And you will be happy and unstressed (or you will be stressing about something else- not about college).</p>
<p>I want to respond to the following:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>My daughter and I took on needless stress last year too, when we heard about her peers who had got likely letters from assorted colleges. She got no likely letters. In the end, she was admitted to all the colleges that had sent likelies to her peers, and in fact she went on to secure a couple more competitive acceptances that those peers would have loved to get. So my advice is, just don’t worry about the likelies at all.</p>
<p>I really feel for you folks. I was in the same place last year at the end of February. The only thing we knew was that DD was nominated for a Regent’s Scholarship at Berkeley but hadn’t figured out yet that this guaranteed admission (at that particular UC last year). It is surprising but true in retrospect that she and I worried that she wouldn’t be admitted anywhere. This didn’t happen, although she wasn’t admitted to some places which were surprising to her and her college counselor and had to endure an unsuccessful waitlist period before knowing for sure where she was headed (second choice, now first in her heart). The next month is a roller coaster ride, with screams of delight and groans of agony awaiting those just climbing the big hill. Here are a few tips from our experience: 1) every acceptance is a big deal - your child just earned the right to attend a great institution of higher learning which he/she selected from thousands of potential schools. Congratulations! Feel good and enjoy the moment. Don’t think about how magazines rank these places - just about all the places discussed here will give an excellent undergraduate education. 2) when the thin letters/short e-mail/terse website message inevitably arrive from reach (or supposed match - those hurt more) schools, remember that the stats are against everyone applying to these schools. One professor likened these decisions to “seeing the black or white smoke emerging from the Vatican; no one not in the room knows how or why it happened.” When this happens, focus on the acceptances in hand and those still in the future. 3) Know the important notification dates. April 1 was a crunch day for my DD. Prepare for both euphoria and despair. The school websites will be excruciatingly slow and/or crash at the given check-in time. Plan (and enforce) some non-college related event for the evening and make your kid get out of their room and off Facebook where war wounds and trophy admissions are being displayed. This may be the last time those high school jealousies and angst will flare up. 4) Don’t invest emotionally in a waitlist situation. It’s a long month or two to wait by the phone. Do find out as much as possible about the schools where your child has been admitted and get excited about them. The adventure is just beginning!</p>
<p>Here’s a question for the experienced parents: If a student is waitlisted, are they ever still offered any need-based financial aid, and if so, can they find out what their package “would be” before deciding whether to take the spot on the waitlist or not?</p>
<p>Thanks astrodeb for the good advice!</p>
<p>Still can’t wait 'til it’s over though! ;)</p>
<p>Mathmomvt–judging from past posts, students can be offered FA when called up from the waistlist and are told what the package would be before having to make a decision. </p>
<p>But I agree with astrodeb about the waitlists: Don’t invest emotionally in a waitlist situation. My D2 was waitlisted from one of her high picks, but she said–“I’m going to treat it as a NO and move on to the choices that I have. If it comes through, happy day.”</p>
<p>Well, it never did come through–but she had already moved on long ago and fell in love with the choices before her.</p>
<p>Its kind of fun reading all the posts because I am a worrier and worried about what school S1 would get into last year. He picked a good school with a good financial package, but now I’m worrying whether or not he is making any good friends. Also am surprised at how much he is studying to get good grades. So I exchanged one set of worries for another. S2 is a junior and I am starting to worry about where we should look. From experience I now know where the money ain’t and that is a consideration for us, but will I shortchange him if we look at only the schools we can afford rather than the “top” schools I know he could get into? And can son 2 handle a large school, a small school, one far away… worry, worry, worry. I worried about what preschool to pick, whether private/public grade school, what high school and it all worked out so I know this will too. Just have to worry about it though…</p>
<p>Well, I am nervous because I know of two parents who noted data input errors on their child’s “status page.”
As if the process isn’t stressful enough, now we have to be concerned that even the correct data isn’t be reported.</p>
<p>What’s a likely letter?</p>
<p>No sooner did we help gt S1 find a match for next year… did his younger sister (a Jr.)start beating the drum for her own college search. Right back in the saddle for us …with a different set of wants and needs. The only bright spot - maybe we will qualify for more FA when she goes?</p>
<p>Waiting for college acceptances is the real March Madness. It turned out every kid in my area had been lurking here for at least a year. The dates CC posted on that 2010-11 admission notifications thread was emailed, texted, IM’ed, Facebooked, talked about by every kid I knew who was waiting for a decision (and by jove, CC got it right too). This meant, admissions came in waves for the entire month. Some kids ended up very happy, others lashed out in anger. By the time May came, all was calm again. Good luck to all you waiting for the 2011-12 results. </p>
<p>QLM</p>
<p>QLM</p>
<p>Bad enough S1 and I are awaiting college decisions, but to be inundated with more college brochures, letters and emails addressed to S2, who’s a sophmore, while we wait is making me nuts.</p>
<p>Visiting from the College 2014 thread! </p>
<p>Take a deep breath - you can’t do anything about it all now. TRY to relax and enjoy the next month… because once the decisions come, the stress ramps up again. Sadness for the rejections, joy for the acceptances - followed by a realization that the kid needs to make a decision in 30 days. And they may have several good options. Throw FA/money into the mix, and April can indeed be the cruelest month. This is the biggest decision most kids have ever made, and some of them may find it paralyzing. They need you to be the calm voice of reason, to listen to their angst, then help them wade through all the info and feelings.</p>
<p>Then it’s done and you can worry over whether your kid’s roommate will be a psycho. Before you know it they’re waving goodbye from the dorm door and you’d do anything to be back in February, when your kid was home and apps were done, and there was nothing to do but enjoy your child.</p>
<p>Last April we 2014’ers were all on a ship called the SS Indecision, which stopped at different ports all month as kids and families made their final choices. The best way to survive your cruise on the SS Indecision is to drink a lot of margaritas, haha.</p>
<p>Meantime, less than a year later, some of our kids are already figuring out their courses and housing arrangements for their THIRD semester of college. Most are doing well and are happy. Some have had bumps along the way, some bigger than others. The great thing about CC is that we are all here to help and support each other.</p>
<p>Good luck guys! Stay 
… maybe you want to start those margaritas now, haha.</p>
<p>Didn’t think I was stressed. S said all the kids at school are pretty chill about the emails starting to come in. He said it’s the moms who keep asking him about it. THEN I bump into a ‘friend’ from the cc and she asks ‘the question’…you know the type. Not asking because she really cares about your kid, but just wants to do some measuring up. So I pleasantly tell her about our visit to the honors college for accepted students yesterday and that my S was pleasantly surprised how great it was. She barely conceals her reaction and blurts out, “Well…you know most kids meet their future spouses at college?..Are you OK with him going to STATE school?!” The entire afternoon and this evening I am stewing, furious. Then it is like a huge weight has been lifted…This was actually THE BEST thing that could have happened, because now I REALLY just care about what my S wants and where he feels MOST comfortable with the curriculum. I certainly don’t want my S to marry somebody like HER, or her daughter!!!</p>
<p>The D who brought me to cc in 2007 (because I just couldn’t believe H when he told me kids practiced for the SAT and took them TWICE!; she did not…) just took her junior year midterms! Yikes! It goes so fast.</p>