Having gone through this is 22 and 23 it is very common to get an acceptance way before you get FA information. They will also try to entice you to enroll early. I will tell you that it’s usually to get nicer dorms. Sometimes the deposits are refundable. But don’t feel pressured. Kids that end up in the “worst” dorms (of whatever university they are attending) always end up being happy that they were there by the end of the year. Bad housing forces bonding with your dorm mates.
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I was in a mostly-freshman dorm widely regarded as the worst on campus. Twice the walking distance to classes as most of the other ones – it actually used to be part of another college! But yup, that extra walking time made for life-long friendships, along with earning it a reputation for engendering more than its share of eventual marriages. My walking buddy and I skipped the “eventual” part, marrying Spring Break of our junior year. A pretty darn good worst dorm, if you ask me.
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In my older student’s experience, we found that UNM and NMSU followed the online scholarship chart / academic index calculation (no surprises). Our student received an email when a scholarship was posted to their college student account; there’s a page within their college student account where you can see it after posted. In our experience, scholarships beyond the automatic merit were posted separately with separate email notification for both universities. Have your student regularly check her UNM and NMSU college student email accounts for that and other information. Notifications did take time, but the online scholarship chart/academic index offered a baseline.
S24 just admitted to Ole Miss 
Hotty Toddy 
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I just finished a new book - “Never Enough - When achievement culture becomes toxic, and what we can do about it” by Jennifer Breheny Wallace, and it was a great read for this season in life for me, reinforcing what we’ve chosen to prioritize over the years, when lately I’ve been feeling like maybe I should have prioritized differently. D24 also requested a LOR from her employer, and the recommender sent her a copy - it was also good to read that and be reminded that my kids grades are not who she is. She is looking for art/ art education, and her summer job has been doing that at a local museum, and the LOR was wonderful in explaining her growth and skills in doing that over the last two summers.
First apps will be submitted this month…
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S24 visited a friend at one of his top choices and he really liked it. I think he will ultimately have a hard time choosing between his top 2. I am so glad we are only doing 4 apps. 
. He has a rough draft of his essay done and is in good shape with it although it’s 20 words over so needs to cut it down somewhere. So that means we are almost ready to apply! I need to start CSS this weekend. I’m a bit scared. Oh and we finally got senior pictures done! 
. Can’t wait to get them back.
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Does he know what he wants to major in. S23 had narrowed it down to top 2 and really couldn’t decide on paper. When he visited and talked to other people that were actually in his major, the choice became very clear.
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He does know for now. He is only able to visit one open house and he’ll be able to meet people and professors of his major at that time. We will have to figure out how to find time for the other school. Probably admission days…. I am so tired! 
Woot Woot S24 just got into University of Kentucky! Go Wildcats We have never been so will have to decide about getting him out there. Would love for my husband to take him in January for a basketball game.
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Congratulations! I would definitely try to get out there while something fun is planned if it’s high on the list.
Also slightly jealous of these early admits as the earliest we’ll hear is December first and last will be about third week of January. Excited for everyone though!
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That’s great news!
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A few college tours set. Business, general and engineering tours of CSU Chico on Monday 10/9. Her school is doing a full day trip to UNR on 10/13.
Those two are safeties, if she likes either one, it will be a big relief.
May do a tour of University of Utah in early November. Then sending D24 down to SD/LA to tour CPP in early December to tour with Grandparents.
Now if only I could help her with a similar plan for major and career exploration…
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Fingers crossed that your kiddo likes one of those!
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We finally have FORWARD PROGRESS on essays! 
D24 showed me her first draft of 1 of the Austin College-specific essay prompts and I think it’s pretty good. She wants to add some stuff to it. But she’s definitely on the right track. She’s going to work more on that and prompt # 2 later today.
I wouldn’t be lying if I said that I am relieved by this. LOL.
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Hope she likes the schools! Will def take some pressure off if she is likely to get in and likes them😄
D24 is still slogging along with essays. Worked on them some more today, but then realized that her updates didn’t save to Google docs, so she has to start over tomorrow with those same revisions. Oh well, lesson learned, kiddo…hit the save button periodically.
We are meeting w/school counselor on Wednesday of this week. Told D24 that she needs to have more progress to show by Wed. for her Common App personal statement & the 2 Austin College essay prompts.
So far, D24 really loves her Shakespeare class and if she has to read any Shakespeare in college, she’s going to do what her English teacher is having them do in THIS class, which is WATCH the play BEFORE you read it.
D24 said that in her Bioethics class, they’re still debating abortion. But it sounds like they’re covering the topic in a very thorough way. D24 said that everybody’s been really mature about it and nobody yells at each other like you see all the time anywhere else that the abortion debate comes up.
I wish my kid would hurry up and finish the dang essays already.
I also wish that University of Chicago would stop sending us mail.
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If she is using Google docs, then every update is saved in the history automatically. She can retrieve whatever changes she made easily. I tell my kids they are so lucky that Google docs saves automatically.
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D24 emailed Austin College & Southwestern to confirm if a copy of a graded 11th grade english or history paper is required if you apply test optional. She heard back from them today and the answer is no! so that’s good news.
D24’s choir director sent her letter of rec to D24’s school counselor, so that’s good!
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Just when my anxiety level evened out, S24 decides to add some more schools to his list. I know this happens and is pretty normal, but I thought he was happy with his choices. It’s fine, it’s fine, everything is fine.
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Everything will work out in the end! At the end of the day, they can only go to one school. 
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