<p>Emmy, Congrats on the acceptance to Bard!!!</p>
<p>2education, congrats on Duke!!!</p>
<p>MilMom, Wow! You guys sure have some thinking to do. But I’m happy that at least now you have info to work with…rather than that giant abyss! Keep us posted.</p>
<p>oregonianmom ~ Good for you that you are returning to college (and enjoy your life of leisure meanwhile, of course!) What a complete turn-around from medical laboratory scientist to accountant!</p>
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Your S and mine must be twins, lol, as we had the same exact conversation concerning one of the “lottery” colleges!</p>
<p>snoozn ~ Congrats on big fat acceptance from Hampshire!</p>
<p>Dandemom ~ Sorry your D was disappointed. Glad she is now focused on her 2 great choices of Chicago U and Georgetown! My S is our one and only and we will be empty nester too…</p>
<p>2education ~ Congrats on Duke with the generous scholarship!</p>
<p>arisamp ~ Glad your D had an awesome 18th birthday! I like your description of the SS Indecision, lol!</p>
<p>Sorry if I missed anyone…</p>
<p>RD was shockingly brutal at S’s school this year too. :mad:</p>
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<p>And if this is true, I bet you still wouldn’t change her for the world, right? I can’t imagine telling a child that she can’t be in the marching band or in the school plays so she can concentrate on achieving national recognition in robotics. If she *wants *to devote herself solely to robotics, I can see being extremely supportive, however. Plus, there aren’t all that many true national award winners. If everyone could do it, they would.</p>
<p>I do think it is appropriate for parents of 8th-9th graders who are dreaming big (and have the smarts to get there) to talk honestly about what it will take to be in the lottery and what might help get a winning ticket. Is the three sport plus choir plus student goverment kid willing to concentrate on only one or two things that might yield state or national honors? Will the state or national honors be of a nature that would impress admissions officers? I know a young lady who has received state and national recognition in dance…but she wants to be a doctor or nurse.</p>
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<p>I agree with this, and I think it’s also important to stress the lottery aspect of it in every other sentence or so, lol. So, it would be a choice that provides 0 guarantee and that would help minimize the disappointment if/when, later.</p>
<p>My son is a poster child for well rounded. We are thrilled with all his acceptances but he was never on the lottery list, so.</p>
<p>Quick note: it looks like the Mods merged holliesue’s “Drum Roll…” and my “Matriculations” threads (at our request) into one.</p>
<p>Thanks Mods!!!</p>
<p>I’m going to try (this’ll be worth a laugh) to delete my original (now unnecessary) thread. Might need Mods to do it.</p>
<p>Anyway, when your child knows DEFINITELY where he/she is going, please feel free to share on the “Drum Roll” thread.</p>
<p>(Mods, not to be a pain, but could you make that a sticky? I expect we’ll be referring to it for a long time.)</p>
<p>Friends, Please let’s just keep this no-frills info. No scholarships, awards, grants, majors, etc. There’s plenty of room for that elsewhere.</p>
<p>This should be just an alphabetical index of 1)parent name, 2) S’s or D’s school of matriculation, and 3) Honors College (if appropriate.</p>
<p>Thanks! :)</p>
<p>I think the “demonstrated interest” hook is key. Recognition at the state or national level is nice -but rare (D had none) - and lots of kids succeed without that. However, colleges have departments with tenured faculty that they need to populate with students. The school which offered D admission on the spot at her interview had just opened a shiny new building for the major associated with her ‘demonstrated interest’. If they can fill that department with top-quality students, their Trustees are more likely to approve the next building project they want funded.</p>
<p>Missypie – I remember an interview on NPR from long time ago with someone famous (don’t remember who). He said that the best advise the received was from his father: “Do what you love and the money will follow”. </p>
<p>Starting HS, my plan for my S to get to top colleges was to look what top kids who are 1-2 grades older are doing and follow the same path. S was ok with it his freshman year, but in 10th grade he realized that he is wasting his time on activities he doesn’t like. He dropped from half of his school clubs. He didn’t run for any school offices; his friends were getting leadership positions, but not him. He started taking college classes in his area of interest, instead of the AP classes that were left in school; and because our school doesn’t weight college classes his weighted GPA and class rank dropped. Instead he was spending a LOT of time on just 2-3 activities and the awards followed. But he was doing that because he loved it (though he is very competitive and he always plays to win not just for fun). I thought he was making mistakes, but I let him do it his way. And he proved me wrong.</p>
<p>FWIW, when we were waiting for the EA decision, we were extremely nervous. He was just rejected from a scholarship and before that from a competitive summer camp and an internship. There was a lot of “What is wrong with me?” guesses. But then his luck changed….</p>
<p>Going back, oh, probably 25 pages at this point! </p>
<p>Guitarist’s Mom, your reply to my last post about “could you still be happy at this school if you broke your leg and couldn’t play”, I agree completely. We’ve tried to keep that thought too, but his sport is definitely a big part of him. In fact, he quit his second varsity sport for his senior year to focus on this current sport. And School #1 does have his exact major, while School #2 has a very similar major that would be fine when it comes to getting a job later.</p>
<p>To update our latest in the saga: Coach of School #1 came to DS’ last high school game last week, in which DS played a whale of a game! Coach had to leave a few minutes before game was over, but called DS and left voice mail for DS to call him over the weekend. DS called Sat. morning, left voice mail, emailed Sunday night, called again Mon. night, but never got ahold of coach. On Tuesday, I get an email from coach of School #2 (this is the coach who has been showing us a lot of love for months now) wanting us to give him some good news. Wed. night, we are out to eat when DS realizes he has a voice mail; he listens at the table with the straighest POKER FACE EVER and then says it’s Coach #1. He goes outside to call him back, comes back in a few minutes later, and says Coach #1 has asked him to come THIS AFTERNOON to work out with the college team, basically as a tryout! So, now we are all excited with School #1 again. I am a nervous wreck.</p>
<p>I don’t know how the parents of big-time athletes, like football players who go to the combine for four days in February to work out for pro coaches, stand it, except they’ve just had more practice, I guess. </p>
<p>Dad and I are also going this afternoon to watch from a distance spot away from the field, and also to be there if DS needs us to discuss anything financial or dorm-related.</p>
<p>Regarding the public/privates RD outcome this year: D is at a private school that usually has around 20% matriculation to HYSPM/other Ivies. This year, based on my very unscientific word-of-mouth sources (D and her friends), I’m only getting around a 15% acceptance rate. I hope no one is offended by me calculating percents, but I’m a math person, and I just think that way. (-; </p>
<p>Unlike the previous poster who stated that her child’s English teacher had everyone SHARE their acceptances IN CLASS, My D’s HS only shares in private. So, there may be more that I don’t know about. Definitely better results EA/ED rather than RD though, and clearly there are some unhappy kids at her school right now.</p>
<p>D was definitely one of the lucky ones at her HS with several top acceptances. I’m not sure why exactly, and I certainly wasn’t expecting it. Yes, she was top of class with high test scores, but others with those stats did not fare as well. She is basically just pretty well-rounded, good but not great at a few things. My best guess is that her success stems from: (1) her interest in science and engineering AND (2) having demonstrated this interest with several summer activities over the course of her HS career AND (3) having a resume that clearly shows she is NOT nerd-like.</p>
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<p>keylimepie ~ Actually, now that I think of it, S already had some research experience, just not a lot outside of mathematics.</p>
<p>^ Not twins then. ;)</p>
<p>^
Almost. :)</p>
<p>Although my D kept saying she wouldn’t be able to decide until April 30th, she came home last night from opening night of her play vibrating with energy and announced that she made up her mind and wants to pay the deposit as fast as possible. She will be part of the Clark University class of 2015, with the presidential scholarship. </p>
<p>We are DONE! Yippee!</p>
<p>I wish closure for all of you soon, with aid packages beyond your wildest dreams.</p>
<p>How exciting researching4emb! As I recall your D always had a lot of love for Clark but I thought some new suitors might have been turning her head. 
Glad she is feeling good about her decision and that opening night was a success! Love that energy!</p>
<p>Interesting to read the comments on upcoming 8th/9th grade ‘guidance’. D2 is finishing
8th grade and listening to/watching this college process. She is my ‘perfectionist’ kid who will probably “reach” more than D1, and I will definitely have to stress the reality of the lottery aspect of college admissions process when we get there. </p>
<p>Our house still has quite a wait to get off D1’s SS Indecision boat—all final finaid pkgs will need to get here, and we just finished mailing (hopefully the LAST) info to one school yesterday. Having a hard time getting excited about any revisits but am trying to schedule a few.</p>
<p>researchingforemb ~ Congrats on your D’s decision to attend Clark University! It’s great you are done!</p>
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<p>I meant to comment on this story earlier, as I just loved it! :)</p>
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<p>Absolutely not. We love D as she is and marvel at how she can juggle all the different activities that she does. Wouldn’t change a thing - but I feel like the fact that she didn’t get uber-focused on one EC or outshine all others in orchestra or something like that is what cost her in admissions to tippy top schools.</p>
<p>I’ve heard folks talk about kids finding what they liked and developing/demonstrating their interest in this area over the high school years. What if the kid is exploring different things, trying to figure out what catches their interest? </p>
<p>researching - congratulations on the decision for Clark! We live fairly close by - so do let us know if you need any help. Unfortunately for my D, I think we live too close by :)</p>
<p>missypie - For some reason this year, our public high school is sending more kids to Ivies than every before - close to 10 were accepted ED - some based on athletics - Columbia, Brown, Cornell, Yale and Dartmouth. I haven’t heard about RD yet. But this is more than they have send over the past 3-4 years in total. It is rumored that the very prestigous boarding school that sends a lot of kids to Ivies in our town had its worst admissions year ever…</p>
<p>So, I am not sure what happened this year or even if there is a magic formula.</p>
<p>I just had to say thank you to all for the great advice and sharing of knowledge I’ve experienced on this forum. D was waitlisted from her 1st choice school after being deferred EA. Thankfully I listened to everyone here and she worked hard to find a safety she could love. She only applied to 3 schools due to an specific major of interest and was accepted to her two safety schools and waitlisted at what should have been a match. She will bloom where planted…love that line. Once again…thank you, thank you! Best wishes to everyone as we embark on the next part of the journey.</p>