<p>BTW - junior member just means that you haven’t posted as much as senior members. I do feel that some of this info is helpful, especially for the kids applying next year. They can compare how their stats compare to those who were actually accepted. and to those who got merit awards.</p>
<p>@Dplaz, the others are right - knowing others stats helps anyone considering applying to AU (or any college) to know whether they’re in the ballpark for admissions or not. If someone got a $20,000 scholarship or grant, that’s not necessarily “financial aid” (ie need-based) - it could be a merit award, and the knowledge of that person’s stats -what it took to <em>get</em> that money - IS helpful. Colleges don’t just hand out money to everyone who applies.</p>
<p>This is not generational, this is just the way college applications are. The process is apparently a lot different than it used to be. The more stuff you know about any college and what it’s looking for, the easier it is to decide whether to apply or not, or whether to support your application with more AP classes senior year, ECs, etc.</p>
<p>Samuck. Good points, especially about what you should believe. One other observation is the 15,000 + hits on this thread. In olden days it didn’t matter if acceptances dripped out over a week or more because no one could talk to anyone else. With Social Media sites like this I think AU’s process is crazy. Wait until you have all the acceptances and mail then at once or skip the mail altogether and send an email. What is the point of this slow roll out. BTW AU is not alone in this.</p>
<p>Kartwheelie. I concede the point. However in the context of this particular thread, which is only dealing with acceptances, I don’t think your reasoning is quite as valid as it might be on a thead dealing potential applicants. I am pretty sure that the majority of the 15,000 + peoples that have hit this thread in the last week have already applied. In any case I apprecaite the discussion.</p>
<p>I agree with others, and I’m a parent. These kids are so damn anxious, and it helps to see the stats and even the money to decrease anxiety. They start to feel that with a 3.6 and a 1950 on their SAT they’re headed for community college. Seeing stats posted helps them and us see what’s a realistic school for them. And as a family who needed to seek merit aid, it was very helpful last year to see who was getting it and how much. This informed my D’s application process this year, and the research has paid off. She is getting in to “her” schools, and getting merit aid. If CC people hadn’t been generous with sharing their results and experiences, she wouldn’t be in this happy situation.</p>
<p>Of course, there’s boasting and sometimes gloating, but that’s a small price to pay…</p>
<p>And Dplaz1, in response to your response to Kartwheelie, this time last year, when I was helping my D with her search, these are the kind of old threads I pored over to get a sense for who was getting in where and what kind of merit money they were getting. It helped refine our list. I’m sure there are juniors and parents of juniors lurking here, and there will be more finding this thread in the coming months.</p>
<p>Fortunately, this is all anonymous.</p>
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<p>Actually, no. The readers of this thread definitely include prospective students and their parents.</p>
<p>My kid’s list of target schools was built after researching the admissions experience of applicants going back a few previous years. I appreciate the generosity of the students over the past few years who have shared what it takes to get accepted, or get merit scholarships, at various schools. They are posting their personal information for the benefit of future applicants, because they know that past applicants’ information was helpful to them in planning their own admissions strategy.</p>
<p>That is why there is often an “official decisions” thread where students post a full profile of their qualifications and what their admissions outcomes were. These are valuable data points for future applicants.</p>
<p>DeskPotato. I appreciate your points; it’s just that I am probably cynical. I have seen a few too many 4.50 + weighted GPA’s to wonder about the value of seeing all this. But clearly I may be in the minority.</p>
<p>I agree wholeheartedly with Dplaz1 in questioning why these decisions must ‘drip out.’ In the old days colleges mailed the letters in one batch and people got them at different times (poor international students had to hope colleges would cable – that’s dating me!) but in the age of the internet, why can’t decisions be released and available to everyone at the same time!? These kids are anxious enough as it is.</p>
<p>Dplaz and future applicants, I think CC should be considered only 1 of several sources of information. My child has been accepted to 9 of the 10 schools she applied to; American is the only one we are still waiting on. Her stats are not as high as what has been posted here, but they are still good. She is far from a shoe-in, but certainly in the ballpark; otherwise I would not have allowed her to bother applying. (Don’t ask me to post her stats because I won’t.) However, if we went only by the postings on this and other CC pages, she would be convinced she didn’t have a chance at those schools. Many who have good, but not head-of-the-class stats are still getting accepted but are probably not willing to post their stats publicly because they look bad in comparison to the kids winning $20K/year scholarships. (And yes, it is discouraging to read that people are complaining about these huge scholarship amounts–I’d be very grateful if we received that kind of money.) I think after reading the postings about the sky-high GPAs, SATs, etc, many kids would think they don’t have a chance of getting accepted, when the reality is they may. I encourage any lurkers to not go solely by CC postings in determining your child’s chances. Look at cappex, naviance, mychances, etc and you may get a more realistic picture.</p>
<p>I am a lurker–my D is a junior. Older D was accepted to AU 4 years ago. She rec’d $20K/ year in merit aid (no need) and it was called a Dean’s Scholarship. Now it seems like the highest Dean’s scholarship is $15K and that a $20K/year award is considered “Presidential”. My recollection is that Presidential awards 4 years ago were more in the range of $28K/year.</p>
<p>So has merit aid at American gone down?</p>
<p>I just received my acceptance packet in the mail yesterday in Ohio! The amount of money that I received from AU definitely surpassed what representatives at Preview Day had told my parents. I am very grateful that AU was able to come through and allow me to most likely attend their school next fall unless the two schools I am waiting on surpass their offer.</p>
<p>Another parent here. I definitely agree with eastcoast’s post about this being a somewhat unrealistic forum in which to assess your student’s chances. These boards are populated by the most obsessive/compulsive among us and I know that we have looked for info more than a few times and only wound up harping on the superstudents that were rejected from schools and thought “Oh, no, we’re doomed.” Also, I think the proponderence of Type As is skewing the data upward and it isn’t necessarily a great sample of the applicants as a whole. But still, some information is better than no information.</p>
<p>In regards to posting merit scholarship information, as a parent I really want to know this information. Whatever decorum I once had about the subject of money went out the window with the specter of 50K/yr of tuition and a byzantine financial aid process (don’t get me started on the overuse of student loans). For those of us who are paying the bills for students that may not have the goods to get into one of the twenty or so truly need blind institutions in this country, knowing that merit money may be realistically available is a key factor in the decision to apply to private institutions and bring them more in line with the cost of publics.</p>
<p>envsci. Good post. Needless to say we have not heard one way or the other and can only take comfort in AU’s Tweet that this is going to drag on for at most another 2 weeks. Crazy!</p>
<p>True, true, about the OU deal. “After all, it is OU” all my friends ( and myself) had great job opportunites after graduation from OU Here’s the diff… She can go to AU at the expense of $43k per year and get a great four-year degree. Or… she can go to OU, get excellent personal attention (personal phone calls each week… just checking in… and a meeting with the dean of PoliSci in April) and law school… paid for. As they say, it really doesn’t matter where you go to undergrad. Grad school is what counts.
Congrats to all who got in! AU is a great school… just can’t justify the debt.</p>
<p>Anyone accepted in Florida yet?</p>
<p>Annetaylor- still nothing here in Florida</p>
<p>On the matter of whether or not prospective students use these threads, I certainly did for both my prep-school and college searches. CC has proven to be a great tool over the past few years. </p>
<p>And, on a more thread-appropriate note, I’ve got my fingers crossed that I get a packet from AU sometime over the next few weeks. AU is definitely one of my top choices, even if it appears to be financially out-of-reach!</p>
<p>Earlier we were waiting for Texas acceptances, and I just got mine in the mail today! I got an email yesterday, so did 3 other kids from my school. I also got the Presidential Scholarship and an invitation to the honors program. I’m still trying to scrounge up some more money to convince my parents to let me go, but hopefully I’ll be in DC this time next year!</p>
<p>@Annetaylor,</p>
<p>I received a call from American last week telling me about my scholarship
(10k Frederick Douglass) and my admission as well as an invite to the multicultural day on April 7. I also got an email on Friday last week telling me about my admission; I’m from Miami, Fl.</p>