Lehigh RD Class of 2023

@MESMES I am sincerely sorry that your D worked so hard for her top choice and was waitlisted. I should not have made that presumption regarding her Ivy acceptance. I do stand by my opinion that yield protection isn’t just about gaming the system. Schools need to have some idea of how many kids will actually attend. Lehigh also has ED 1 and ED 2 so I believe that when they see high stat kids applying RD they do make assumptions (not all correct) about where they stand in the pecking order of priority for that student. Finances often play a role in deciding to apply ED and Lehigh consistently takes a large chunk of their freshman class from those rounds which penalizes kids comparing FA packages unfortunately.

@vpa2019 Thank you …and peace. She was our first and is in a good place (I wasn’t a huge fan but they were generous to her and she is being really challenged — and enjoying herself). Bottom line, we are a whole lot smarter - never dreamed a lot of this goes on and was naive to ED/EA/RD… This College Confidential forum is a wealth of knowledge that you can’t get anywhere else - I especially appreciate the thoughtful posts and stats/creds from the kids that were admitted/waitlisted/denied at particular schools and about how best to navigate. I wish I knew about it the summer before applications for D1 but we certainly are better prepared for D2 as she approaches applications next fall. Cheers to all.

I was wondering if anyone got merit aid in the mail because my financial aid package didn’t cover 100% of our financial need by around $12,000 (based on FAFSA calculator), so I theorized they were going to give one of the 12k merit scholarships in the mail to fill in the rest. Got nothing though, so I’m a bit disappointed. Very odd they didn’t satisfy the guaranteed 100% financial need coverage. Can’t afford Lehigh so decided to commit to UMD.

@Fellowrussian - Lehigh, and all schools that meet financial need, use their own calculators to determine what your “financial need” is. They do NOT go off of the FAFSA number. I found that most school calculations are at least 10K more than the FAFSA says we can afford. Lehigh gives merit aid to very few students, so I would not expect them to fill in the gap that way. They expect you to borrow the difference. Best of luck at UMD!

@MESMES - Good for your daughter for finding the right place for her, and congratulations to you for learning so much! I am on my third and last and still don’t know what I’m doing! lol! The problem with yield protection, imo, is that the schools are often wrong about who is serious about attending. And frankly, the students don’t always know either. My 1st was waitlisted at Lehigh with very high stats. She applied to a lot of colleges and Lehigh was not a top choice, but neither was the school she ended up attending! Last minute visits and aid packages can make a huge difference. When my 2nd wanted to apply to Lehigh, with slightly lower stats, I made sure we visited because I had learned that they value interest. To be honest, I didn’t really think it was a top choice for him either. But when he was accepted, we visited for a second time, their aid package was very good, and he is now a Lehigh sophomore. The good thing is that qualified students likely have other good choices, so it all works out OK in the end. I wish that schools would realize that they are pushing kids to apply to more and more colleges by their own yield protection. When students see friends with seemingly Ivy-level stats being turned down and waitlisted by non-ivies, they figure that they need to apply to a lot of schools to be sure they will get in somewhere, especially if they are applying to more competitive schools. Which reduces schools’ yields, which makes them yield protect, which makes kids apply to more schools… Vicious cycle.

To those who are waiting for the waitlist - my son just got accepted off it so miracles do happen.

I got off the waitlist as well today!

Congrats

Wow, that’s awesome and seems so early for WL. Congratulations @captbuzzy61 and @egk12334 are you/S accepting the spots?

Congratulation. Do you get any aid coming off the waitlist ?

Did you get a phone call or was it an email or through the portal ? Thanks

Did he get a phone call? Or updated portal?

@whimsey1 two students I know that got off the waitlist on the 12th both received an email to check their portal.

Thank you

Accepted off of waitlist today.

@jqw83 Congrats!!
Just out of curiosity, did you send in a letter expressing your interest in Lehigh?

Did you recieve financial aid?

Dumb question but anyone know how to decline the offer of admission? I would like to give up my spot so more people can be let off the waitlist but it doesn’t look like I can. I only see a place to make a deposit. I cannot afford Lehigh so I will be attending another school.

@mountainmama19 - It’s not a dumb question! My son looked all over, but so far only one school has had somewhere on the portal to decline, so he’s just been submitting emails to admissions departments notifying them that he will not be attending in the fall. You’d think they’d have a “Yes I Want to Attend” or a “No thank You” button to make it easier so people actually follow through on notifying them!

@mountainmama19 amd @familyfromLI - we could not figure it out either…

I think most students do not decline their admissions - they just send in a deposit somewhere by May 1st and all other colleges that accepted them just assume they are not coming when they don’t receive a deposit.