Or the student realizes all the options are great. That makes for difficult decisions, too.
My D has 9 acceptances, 1 wait list (which she doesn’t care about) and 1 denial (from a place she didn’t like when we visited). She is fixated on the denial. She got another acceptance the same day as the denial, this acceptance comes with $104,000 scholarship over 4 years. Mom and dad are super excited, she just shrugs her shoulders. Ugh, she just needs to have a few days so I am giving her the weekend to refocus on her great options. The denial came from a reach school but so did the big acceptance, so it’s all about numbers.
One of my kids went down to the wire with “too many” acceptances and no real passion or strong feeling for any of them. I remember seriously considering spending 5k to do a last minute weekend (on the last weekend in April) to see a school across the country hoping that would be “the one.” Total insanity. For those with not enough or too many choices, and no clear stand out within them, April is the month of madness.
@CADREAMIN - Can you share how your kid with too many acceptances finally made the decision? Did she or he pick the school across the country without that last minute trip? Decide on a school closer to home? Or flip a coin?
I forsee several college overnights in April, and really have fingers crossed that we won’t have to visit more than 2-3.
D1 visited three schools after acceptance: she flew to and from on in a nearby state by herself; went to another on the east coast, also by herself, by train and plane; and flew to and from the third, on the west coast, with her dad. D2 went to six or seven (yeah, I know) after acceptance. She went to the east coast twice by plane, to the west coast twice by plane (once alone, once with her dad), and to nearby states by car, also with her dad. These were stressful months in our household. March and April will be stressful again for me, but this time from a distance: D2 will be visiting four schools whose graduate programs accepted her.
Ok, since I started the thread, reporting - I survived 
barely :).
Expected acceptance (RPI) did happen but they didn’t post any merit on 3/11. Everybody says that can happen much later, but by now, interest is mostly lost. Without merit, it would be almost 70K at RPI vs 40K something for Purdue or UIUC. We do not qualify for fin aid.
Waitlisted at the clear second choice (he isn’t that disappointed because by now got really excited about UIUC),
Rejected at the super reach first choice,
Waitlisted at CWRU which was unexpected with his stats (he would definitely have been in the top 25%), but he doesn’t care.
Accepted to BU.
We have two more, but one is a state school I made him apply in case something changes and we won’t be able to pay for anything else, and a reject from the second would be strange but totally survivable.
Got another problem now, looks like no one has heard about UIUC on the East coast… BU Eng is not comparable to UIUC Eng and doesn’t offer his exact major, but it has local name recognition… We’d all prefer that he returned here for work. I’ll probably start another post about name recognition.
Thank you all for the comments! They helped a lot!
Random people may not have heard of it, but you bet engineers and industry HR have!!! It’s a top school nationally for engineering. Congratulations!
As an engineer on the east coast I most definitely have heard of UIUC and its stellar reputation in engineering. Two of our local HS class of 2016 graduates are currently attending as engineering majors. Name recognition actually favors UIUC imo, at least for engineering.
Yes, your choices thus far are terrific and I guarantee you wont be thinking about it next year! I was so worried about that but having committed to a school, that all washes away rather quickly!
@RightCoaster Yes, but think about how much more well informed you will be!!
Oh and I just read your update @aandaparent and I can assure you lots of folks have heard of UIUC on the East Coast! Look if UIUC and Purdue offered excellent money, they have excellent reputations and who cares if some local parents haven’t heard of them, certainly grad schools/employers have.
Thank you again! I see I don’t need a name recognition topic!