<p>Has anyone been to one of these admitted student visits before? We were surprised to get a letter from Grinnell about a week ago saying my daughter was admitted. She, like many of you, was offered a Trustee Scholarship, but we haven’t seen the total aid package yet. We really weren’t expecting to hear from Grinnell so soon, but we are very excited to be visiting!</p>
<p>Unfortunately, after registering, I discovered March 4-5 is my state competition. I hope to visit at a different time! </p>
<p>Do you think they would still reimburse travel?</p>
<p>I would call Admissions and ask them directly.</p>
<p>IIRC, the website mentioned two other dates when admitted students can come visit. Both are in April.</p>
<p>I would <em>assume</em> that they would reimburse travel for either of those visits, but I’d listen to SDonCC: call Admissions and ask! The Grinnell people are apparently quite friendly and helpful. :)</p>
<p>@Opaline is correct. The other dates are April 8 and 22. And they reimburse for those dates as well.</p>
<p>My daughter applied to Grinnell, but has not heard anything. We were hoping for some merit money- even $10K per year would be very nice. Very few students have applied to Grinnell from her high school, a well known ultra-competitive community public high school in California, and I suspect Grinnell would like to attract more students from the school. Only one has gone in recent years. Judging from the graph on Naviance, we are expecting that she will be admitted. In addition, she has excellent extra-curriculars in an academic (not sports) activity, and has won national awards. She speaks up a lot in class, she gets to know her teachers well, and she probably has excellent recommendations.</p>
<p>Her first semester grades were not available until a few weeks ago, because the first semester at her high school does not end until the end of January.</p>
<p>How many of you guys attend high schools where the first semester ends in December? I am hoping that Grinnell simply was not able to review her completed application before sending out these notices and that maybe hers will arrive at a later date.</p>
<p>No reason to worry! 
RD decisions don’t come out for a while…just keep checking!
S2 had his finals the last week of January and visited the school directly afterward. He got his acceptance about a week later (before grades were posted).
Good luck to your daughter! From the way it sounds, she’ll hear good news soon!</p>
<p>@nosering</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry about your D’s application. After all, the vast majority of applicants still have not been notified! I’m guessing that the early admission program is Grinnell’s method of trying to increase yield. That doesn’t mean that your daughter won’t be accepted - it’s entirely possible that they simply haven’t gotten to her application yet.</p>
<p>But to answer your question, my semester ended in the last week of January. However, the registrar’s office at my school didn’t get around to sending midyear reports until last week. I was notified before that date, so it appears that Grinnell made the decision to accept me without seeing my senior grades.</p>
<p>Thank you mummy24 and opaline, for your replies and congratulations!</p>
<p>I am disappointed, but I was not expecting that my daughter would win the highest scholarship award. She has 2250+ SAT scores, and a mix of As and Bs in tough classes at her ultra-competitive high school. (I don’t like to give too many clues that could lead people to guess her identity.) Her teachers have included some of the toughest graders at the school, but Grinnell has no way of knowing. Even with a fairer grading system, she would not have a 3.9 GPA. </p>
<p>My sense from this thread is that Grinnell has not given out all its merit scholarships yet- at least not the smaller ones. Even $10K per year merit scholarships can make a huge difference. $40K over the course of 4 years is tremendous and could make the difference to my daughter between taking out substantial loans or graduating with only minimal loans.</p>
<p>My daughter applied because of Grinnell’s reputation for excellence combined with its low fees. It seems they now want to raise tuition so that their fees are in the same ballpark as those of similar colleges. Why did they do this? Had we known, my daughter might not have even applied. I would be curious to find out how many students get $10K plus merit aid packages so that Grinnell still effectively remains a lower cost alternative. </p>
<p>For many city slickers from the east or west coasts like my daughter, lower costs, combined with Grinnell’s reputation for excellence, might be the prime way to attract them to rural Iowa and away from schools with easier city access. </p>
<p>Congratulations again, to everyone awarded the scholarships. I just hope the smaller awards, which I had originally thought my daughter stood a chance of winning, have not yet been given out.</p>
<p>I was disappointed to learn that the merit scholarship won’t really help me at all, because all the money they gave me in merit aid, they took off in need-based. So the 21k is a nice thought but nothing more; our family contribution is still the same.</p>
<p>I completely understand how you’re feeling, Nemesis.</p>
<p>Grinnell has not yet calculated my need-based aid, but I’m a little afraid that the amount of money I’m expected to pay will stay roughly the same once they do. The problem is, my family has a very strange financial situation and the FinAid calculators don’t really give us an accurate estimate. In short, I don’t have an inkling what my family’s final EFC is going to be.</p>
<p>The way I see it, the main advantage of merit aid is that it can be counted on for all four years. Even if you’re family’s financial situation changes, you’re still guaranteed the 21k scholarship (assuming you keep your grades up). </p>
<p>That said, it’s still very frustrating once you realize that the lovely scholarship your school gave you is being subtracted from your need-based aid. Unfortunately, that’s how the system works.</p>
<p>That makes no sense, NemesisNyx and Opaline. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of giving a merit scholarship?</p>
<p>As an example of this year’s “early read candidate,” my close friend’s son was accepted early at Grinell with $20K merit. He had 800 on the Critical Reading and also 800 on the Writing portion of the SAT and 720 on the Math. He had a GPA of roughly 3.5 unweighted but 8 APs with all 5s. He is very introverted but had some community service ECs.</p>
<p>Don’t they take some of the need based aid loans and work study and replace it with merit? That would obviously help.</p>
<p>My loans and work study might be slightly reduced, but not noticeably so. It’s mostly taken off of the grant. Since I would be getting more than 21k in need-based aid anyways, it’s kind of disappointing. When I first got it, I thought it would be added to need-based and basically be a full ride, but that’s definitely not the case. Either way, I’m still really happy to have gotten in at all!</p>
<p>We are planning to be there this weekend, but are starting to worry about the weather a little bit.</p>
<p>What’s the weather looking like, MKBkiya? I actually haven’t checked yet, mainly because I don’t want to face the reality that it’s probably incredibly cold, there. </p>
<p>:D</p>
<p>The longer term forecast keeps changing. When I posted that, there was a pretty high chance of snow on Monday, increasing as the day wears on. That seems to be changing to a lower chance, and not much until after 5, but it could change again. I believe they got several inches of snow in the last day or so, after a prediction of up to an inch, but am not sure - the folks I hear from in Iowa are at least an hour away. Anyone closer know what to expect?</p>
<p>yes, there are several inches of snow on the ground… direct report from son at the school!</p>
<p>We actually have been getting more snow at home (New England) in recent years than out there (to my son’s chagrin, who wants some snow to play in!), and in general, the weather is not necessarily that much colder than say New England, but it is often windier.</p>
<p>Also, just wanted to let you know that for the classroom visits, there generally are limited seats available for each class open to visitors – this is because you are sitting in on real classes and they don’t want to overwhelm the classes. On his visit, my S was not able to sit in on his first choices, but found it almost better – he couldn’t understand the material (it was a 300 level Econ class IIRC) but found it very helpful to watch the interaction between the professor and the students, instead of being distracted by the subject matter itself. </p>
<p>Our Accepted Students visit was pouring rain. It was the only school we visited where we never did an official tour! (they still ran the tours, but between the weather and the interesting panels, we just didn’t take one) We saw the inside of Harris and the JRC, and my S stayed in a dorm, but that was it, I think. He felt like he had found his “kind of people” and that sealed the deal!</p>
<p>I hope you all enjoy your visit!</p>
<p>Hey I’m coming up for the early admits thing and I’m coming up Saturday and I’m wondering what cool stuff there is in Des Moines? I’m excited for the trip and can’t wait to see Grinnell :)</p>