However, a very high scholarship renewal GPA like 3.5 or higher could incentivize grade grubbing or avoiding more challenging courses, in a manner similar to how pre-med and pre-law students sometimes act.
It’s been a while, so I thought I’d provide an update…
We discovered that many schools wanted a resume, so we spent the last week finalizing that. We went for the short version, so that it all fit on one page, but now thankfully that’s done.
She had already sent applications to Alabama (already accepted), Pitt, ASU, and South Carolina. Today she fired off Miami Ohio, Rose Hulman, Northeastern, and Stevens Institute of Technology.
This week she should be able to submit Colorado School of Mines and Utah.
She was selected from her school (1 or 4 students) to represent them at the WPI Math meet on Oct 15, so we’re waiting for that outcome before she sends applications to WPI and Cal Tech, just in case there’s something noteworthy to add…
That will make the count 12 schools applied to, nearly all of which either have early action or a Nov 1 deadline for merit aid.
Several of those have further applications for their Honors college that are due mid-November.
We’ll probably forgo Purdue and Ohio State, which we were considering and also have a Nov 1 deadline.
It’s definitely a challenge for her time-wise with about 20 hours per week devoted to just field hockey and club ice hockey alone, plus all the homework from 5 AP/advanced/honors classes, but so far she’s still gung ho about submitting these applications.
Next up are the later deadlines - Kentucky, RIT, RPI, USC, Vanderbilt, Harvey Mudd, Rice, Clarkson, Princeton, and 3 or 4 UCs (UCLA, UCSD, and UCI, and now she wants to add UCSB too). Most of those are due December 1.
On the fence about Boston University, Stanford, Illinois Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins, and MIT. We’ll probably pick one or two of those to apply to.
We had a discussion today about the resume. About 90% of the information on the resume is also entered on the Common App. Several common app schools had a place to optionally upload the resume. I thought she should do it, even though most of the info is covered on the common app, and she wasn’t so sure. In the end I think she included it. Just curious what others might think about this - always include the resume when optional or not, even if most of the info on the resume is covered in the application?
Also, another thing I’m curious about - when acceptances do start to arrive, is your correspondence from the school usually just computer generated form letters, or do you actually get a unique personal response from an actual human (presumably an admissions representative that you can correspond with)?
My daughter didn’t upload a resume, but it’s quite possible that there was no option back then. Does the uploaded resume go into more detail than the commonapp? If not and she still included it, I seriously doubt it will hurt her in any way.
Both of my kids were accepted online and also received letters in the mail. None of their letters were particularly unique and personal…they were basically generic. This was true for all of the schools…safeties and reaches. As time went on one of my kids received a few personalized postcards.
One of my kids received an acceptance over the phone from an admissions counselor. My younger daughter received phone calls from one of the scholarship committees when she moved on in the selection process. Other than that…it was pretty generic.
Correspondence for my D15 and S18 was generic. But the admissions rep from ______ college for their high school was usually available for follow up questions.
It will vary. Once admitted, my kids were invited to set up student portal/ account, and/or join Facebook or other online groups just for admitted students. Via portal they received invitations to visit campus for events for admitted students, or meet others to consider housing options.
@KevinFromOC My son did not upload any resume either last year. There was enough space in the Common/Coalition/etc apps to list all what he wanted to. But he would have if he had needed the extra space. I don’t think it matters much if you include a resume that duplicates what is already listed somewhere else.
All acceptance letters were sent by snail mail. Computer generated. Quite generic. Some schools (e.g. Carnegie Mellon) included small stuff like stickers in the envelope.
ASU sent a hand-written postcard after he visited to offer to answer any question he might have. I think that is the only hand-written correspondence he got.
It is generally not a good idea to duplicate/repeat information shared elsewhere on the application.
My D20 applied to twelve. She was called on the phone about three acceptances (two from waitlist), notified by email about all acceptances. Two denials were by email. 1 eventual waitlist denial was by mail. Snail mail from all, except the two denials. Only one college she was accepted to wrote anything personalized, making comments about her essay. Offered scholarships at six, most substantial, one not impressive enough to make a dent in her opinion.
My S23 applied to seven. He was notified by all colleges via email. One denial via email. Snail mail from all. No personal comments from any. He was offered substantial scholarships at two.
It depends on the college. They can all do it differently.
Congrats to your D on her Alabama acceptance! Nice to have an early acceptance 
My D also didn’t upload her resume because everything was on the common app. She had it ready for interviews though in case she was asked since most interviewers don’t have access to the application.
D heard about acceptances first through her online portals from each school but everyone also sent snail mail afterwards. I don’t think she had any totally generic snail mail acceptance letters but I could be mistaken. Her safeties sent lots of personal messages (both email and snail), and made phone calls. A few schools also sent hand written postcards from students with their emails if she wanted to communicate with a student. She got personalized swag from all of them, and there was usually a quick handwritten line or two on honors college acceptances or on the merit awards letter. She definitely felt the love from the schools that accepted her.
Having one (hopefully affordable) early acceptance is so nice!
Re: acceptance notifications. Our kids got a variety of those. DS was a music major and every acceptance he got had a personal note hand written (on the form letter) welcoming him. DD got a note on one acceptance letter commenting on the essay she wrote.
Ours were before the common application and at a point when snail mail was still used for most acceptance letters.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a form letter or a personal note…an acceptance is an acceptance.
I’m assuming your DD got National Hispanic designation? Right?
Nice sized outside scholarships could make a huge difference in the cost of UCs for the OP’s DD. Right now, UC Irvine is a safety option for the student, on a commuting basis as OP is on the threshold where family makes too much money to qualify for much aid from CA, but COA at a state school is over budget unless the DD commutes.
Since, OP and DD are aware of the lottery ticket nature of their endeavors in getting big dollars from a number of the prospective schools, adding outside scholarships to the list is not out of line at all, and I would recommend adding another UC or two to the list as it would not involve much work at all to do so. One UC app does it for all of them and visiting isn’t necessary to enhance chances. Just a matter of more application fees.
@KevinFromOC Not sure which schools you felt required a resume. Some schools allow one but I don’t know of any that feel it has to be sent. In fact, schools do not want a resume that just regurgitates the common app activities section. Resumes should only be sent if there’s considerable info that couldn’t be shared in common app AND that info is important. For instance, maybe a student is active in theater at their school and in their community and even has professional gigs. That might be a reason for a resume. I know all kinds of high achieving kids and I don’t think any of them sent resumes.
Now, they did HAVE them. and they brought them to alumni interviews to help start the conversation. Most alumni will at least glance at it. They don’t have access to the student’s app, so they are starting from scratch trying to get to know the student and I think it’s a good way to give the interviewer some ideas of what to discuss.
We were very pro-resume for my merit hunting kid and spent a lot of time formatting so it would all fit on one page. Resume went to every school except for the very few schools that specifically said do not send us a resume. We figured the schools could ignore it if they wanted.
I thought the flexibility of the resume format allowed my kid to tell an EC story that really didn’t come through just using the Common App format. The story that the resume featured (which was backed up by the rest of the application) was an extremely high commitment to community service. Result?
Two full tuition schollie offers, including one targeted towards kids with “a deep-seated commitment to diversity and social justice” along with high academics. Bulls-eye! Did the resume matter? Who knows.
If there’s a particular story/theme you are trying to feature, the resume can be a nice tool – we thought of it as basically like another essay. And what’s the downside? If the schools aren’t interested, we figured they wouldn’t look at it.
Agree that the resume was also very helpful for the interviews.
D took a resume to the first interview she ever had, at a very selective LAC. The interviewer apparently seemed puzzled and never looked at it. This was before D applied. She never brought a resume to an interview after that.
Neither of my kids submitted resumes. All relevant activities fit on the activities section of the Common App. I think it depends on the kid and how much they do that won’t fit on the app and is relevant. It also depends on the school.
I would say over 80% of the students I meet with bring resumes. As an alum, I find them helpful.
I probably phrased my question poorly. What I was meaning to ask is, aside from the generic acceptance, is the student typically contacted directly by someone in admissions who is able to personally respond to questions?
And yes, she finally got her NHRP, almost 2 weeks after they were mailed out.
My D’s safeties had admissions folks reach out personally, the others did not. That said, we found schools to be very responsive in answering questions.
The best resource for us was actually a FB group for parents of admitted students. There were admissions reps that moderated the group that were super responsive to questions. Usually they would answer in minutes. They also had parents of older students in the group as well as links to the “townie mom” page where you could get information on everything from hotels to restaurants to transportation to health care recommendations. You could also private message the admissions folks if it was really specific. They also did a series of live chats.
I found that to be true as well. I’d post a question on FB to the other parents and the next thing I know admissions or financial aid from the school was replying.
I would think just call the schools and ask your questions. For some lacs my daughter got a post card with another students phone number to answer question kind of thing. Rose Hulman did that to my son also. Think Purdue sent something also. Michigan definitely did.
Rose Hulman might only be half scholarship so you would still have like $35,000 to pay BTW. Plus if you get more make sure it’s for “all” 4 years. Actually make sure with that at any school.
Also…and I have been following your thread…you got a great acceptance that should be affordable… Might want to consider not applying to all those schools on your list. Take this as the sound ? of experience… Lol…
We applied to like 15 schools out of our original “38” schools on our indepth excel spread sheet… Crazy… I tell ya now…
My sons initial list was 5 schools. That freaked out me, his dad, so I had him apply and get accepted to Iowa State and Iowa just to have an acceptance early plus merit. ISU actually has a really good program and I wanted him to get an early pat on the back. This was for me not him since I knew the “rejection” week was upon us. So I had him apply to safeties to his safeties for my piece of mind and all good programs. He, like your daughter didn’t seem to care or have a favorite either BUT I think this was a defense mechanism. He told us he didn’t want to think about where he’s going till he has all his acceptances in but… When he got rejected from Berkeley, (thank goodness since we didn’t know they didn’t give money back then), he was a little moody that day. He cared more then he let on. After Cornell rejected him “After” an amazing interview that yes, he brought his resume to. Lol… He didn’t even talk to us that day and we didn’t have to ask. But ask him and he would tell you he didn’t really care where he ended up… Sure… He did to a point.
Michigan was not a safety and one of his original 5, so it’s all good and loves it but your daughter might care more then you think… Just a FYI.
Also applying to so many schools just gets confusing. They all start to blend together at some point.
Since apps are in and she will get “many” acceptances from those you applied to maybe she should make a pseudo favorite list to hone down on. She can only learn about so many colleges at a time. They all have their pluses and minuses.
My son concentrated on his original 5 and was left with 3/5 acceptances to decide on. All the other acceptances were just back ups to back ups but again all really good programs and how we learned so much about this crazy process.
I look forward to hearing about her successes. @KevinFromOC
It depends upon the school as to how much of an outreach they make with their acceptance notification.
It used to be that the fat envelope was how students were notified, and in it were often brochures and referrals to organizations at the school that may be of interest to the student. Sometimes a flow of mail from student groups and other party’s of interest would follow.
There was still some of that with my youngest several years ago, but I think he was pretty much notified by email or had a link that he could check for the admissions decision, all on line, so he already knew the verdict by the time he got any snail mail and paper.
I don’t recall much in the way of EA or Rolling acceptances having a whole lot of hoopla. Some of the merit awards for which hecwas being considered were not going to be released until RD acceptances were done. Also, Accepted Students events were mostly in the spring. I believe his ED school did some sort of get together , and there were social media links given.
No, students are not typically contacted personally by adcoms when they are accepted. Some might be, if the college is really chasing them. D was very high stats at her safety and yes, they called her to tell her she was in. That was the only one who called to tell her of her acceptance before she saw the portal.
Most colleges don’t have the resources to call everyone they admit. Alabama will accept thousands and I doubt many will get a call. If she has questions about the college she can call the admissions office, or email. If YOU have questions about money, you should handle that by calling the FA office. Colleges don’t expect kids to do that.