<p>rom828: We’ll be there Sunday/Monday. Could have gone Thurs/Fri, but S2 didn’t want to miss his spring sport on Thurs. We’ll have to compare notes after our visits.</p>
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No. Doesn’t really apply to my S. Most of his schools were not local and even the fairly well know ones, like Washington and Lee, William and Mary are not well know in this area. He did not get into either one of them, btw. But of the 9 he got into: Seattle, Loyola Chicago, Xavier, Pitt, Marquette, Bryant, JMU, UMASS Amherst none have that prestige thing going for them. He is going to Marquette and most folks who ask have no idea where it is located (and neither did I a year ago). </p>
<p>I can easily see how one might like the recognition one would get from attending a prestige school though.</p>
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<p>@dignified1, our situation is a little different, as S dropped about a dozen of colleges of his list, when he was accepted EA at MIT, so we are down to only MIT and Princeton now.
Still difficult to make a decision, as I agree it should depend on the fit (which we feel should include ECs interests), as well as the preference of major, not to forget the financial package.
Concerning acceptance to multiple top schools, I think that getting into one of them increases you chances of getting into others, because I believe they are basically looking for the same kind of students.
Concerning URMs, we are color blind. :)</p>
<p>Well, my son crossed what he thought would be his top choice off his list after admitted student days. He has at least two, possibly three, more admitted student days he will attend. The calendar is looking full.</p>
<p>2blue - what did it for him?</p>
<p>cgpm56, Congratulations!</p>
<p>This is where I confess my Boston envy. Having gone to school in Boston myself (Tufts) and having family nearby, I was really liking the idea of D being in Boston. But alas, she was rejected from one school in Boston and waitlisted at the other. And she absolutely refuses to do anything to get off the waitlist. Says she doesn’t like the school enough to complicate things. Sigh. While I appreciate her decisiveness I do mourn the loss of visiting her in Boston. Well, there’s always D#2.</p>
<p>In the meantime, I don’t think we will hit landfall until April 30. D has ruthlessly cut her list to two schools but wants to revisit each and with a school play this weekend time is limited. So her last visit is 4/25. Hey, that gives her 5 whole days to agonize over it. She and bluejr sound very similar. But in the end I think she will just go with which one feels right after the visits. I don’t think she will look over curriculum or even use the college pick tool. I think she will just go with where she felt happiest. And you know, I think she could do worse. My one fear is if she has a bad experience at both! That would indeed cause a panic but I am not going to cause myself unnecessary stress worrying about that now (famous last words).</p>
<p>BTW, the Choice Blog is providing advice on decision-making. In case you haven’t seen it:</p>
<p>[The</a> College Decision From The Professors’ Perspective - NYTimes.com](<a href=“The College Decision From The Professors' Perspective - The New York Times”>The College Decision From The Professors' Perspective - The New York Times) and
[Part</a> 1: Answers to Readers’ Decision-Time Questions - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/decision-time-q-1/]Part”>Part 1: Answers to Readers' Decision-Time Questions - The New York Times) and
[Part</a> 2: Answers to Readers’ Decision-Time Questions - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/decision-time-q-2/]Part”>Part 2: Answers to Readers' Decision-Time Questions - The New York Times)</p>
<p>On the prom front, rumor has it she will be invited to another school’s prom which will require yet another dress, this time a long one. Oy. Fortunately the dear child has agreed to look at the 2nd hand stores first. Bless her heart. This was the kid who took a book to her first dance in middle school. Yup, wound up sitting out in the hall reading it. Anyone seen Heidi Chronicles? Heidi Holland does that at her high school dance and that was my D. But now she loves to dance and is even on the prom decorating committee. They do change!</p>
<p>Thanks for the links, LeftofPisa…</p>
<p>D would love to be in Boston, one of the reasons she wants to be on her WL, too.</p>
<p>I’ll admit there is a prestige factor in D’s mind, complicated by the fact that one school is very highly regarded in its specialized program, although not a prestigious school in general. So D’s spectrum isn’t even 2-dimensional. She’s also still a tiny bit hung up on the fact that she didn’t get into any of the schools that had absolutely solid prestige factor (hence staying on the WL, again). As much as we’ve told her she shouldn’t care, she has reasons to feel she would like to go to a school with at some amount of acknowledged prestige, and she does give that up, in different ways, with her different schools. It’s hard to shake that feeling, especially when your parents, older sister, and practically everyone on one side of your family went to “name” schools. She doesn’t have pressure from her HS community - except that practically no one ever goes to “name” schools and she wouldn’t mind being one of them.</p>
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<p>Dignified: Isn’t the URM hook for HYSPM only a hook when one is otherwise highly qualified? In our little part of the world, the only students from my D’s HS who have received multiple acceptances from HYSPM in the recent past were ALL URMs, albeit also top, top students. (In many cases as you no doubt know, the URM status is not at all obvious just by looking at or meeting the student.) Lots of HYSPM acceptances for Asian/White kids at my D’s HS this year as usual, but they each received just one such acceptance, although they applied to many.</p>
<p>Perhaps it is different with the East Coast feeder schools.</p>
<p>I wish I could figure out this quote thing-I have a huge mental block on that.</p>
<p>Ohio yes prestige was a problem-until his three reach schools told him no thanks (Harvard and Cornell) and the other one told him maybe you can come if enough of the kids we really want pick somewhere else (Brown). </p>
<p>Of his final three he picked the least prestigious one-the other two were Bucknell and U Rochester. He did tell me it was kind of hard since in the top ten there are 2 kids going to NYU, one to Rochester, one to West Point and he would be going to the lowest ranked school. I asked him if that would really matter if next fall he was at a school that wasn’t a good fit-while everyone else was off doing their thing and didn’t even remember or probably even care where he was.</p>
<p>I don’t want to touch the third rail here but I feel I must make a comment in response to dignified. I agree this URM thing is tiresome. Several people have told my son the “only reason” he didn’t get into Harvard etc. is because he is a white male. I quickly dispatch that with facts. He didn’t get into these schools on his own merits or lack thereof-nothing more and nothing less. That’s different than saying he wasn’t smart enough-and there is a difference. He told me after viewing the Harvard thread the day of and a few days after Bloody Wednesday he realized his application was not the best and he hadn’t done nearly as much as the other applicants had with EC’s. He told me by Friday of that week he was over it. It makes me very sad that any kid fortunate enough to be admitted to these schools will be made to feel they didn’t deserve it-why do people have to be so small?</p>
<p>Now dignfied, not to sound to desperate BUT if your daughter picks Harvard and needs an escort to a social event-well would she consider asking a nice Northeastern student to accompany her? I mean not that he’d be trying to live vicariously through her or anything weird like that. ;)</p>
<p>Hello all</p>
<p>Congrats to the kids leaving the ship…but I’m glad to see we won’t be the only ones still sailing around. D had an admitted student day on Saturday and confessed afterwards that she was even more confused! Not what I wanted to hear. I was hoping, and she was too, that after this weekend her list might be down to 2 schools. She did say that she was afraid she might pick the wrong school. I let her know that if things don’t work out she could try to transfer. That kids do that all the time.</p>
<p>Didn’t realize just how much stress this is causing her until she passed out this morning. Not sure what caused it, the paramedics and ER doc think it could have been dehydration, stress or maybe coming down with something. There have been a lot of kids sick at school. She seems fine now, is at school and is very upset that she has to sit out of track practice today. (I’m hoping this might have knocked some sense into her and she will pick a school!!) But, I know how this is affecting me and can only imagine how it is affecting her - I am determined not to mention any college stuff for the next few days… After this excitement was all over with - I told her to just pick a school so we can go back to our nice quiet life and she can go back to walking around the house laughing and singing and just being a kid!</p>
<p>She has one more admitted student day on Friday in Boston - I think we are still going to that. </p>
<p>I feel so bad for some of the kids, my daughter included, that are struggling with their decisions. After this morning - it kind of put everything into perspective. </p>
<p>Here’s hoping that more kids leave the ship (and hoping we aren’t the last ones! ha ha)</p>
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Wow! I hope she’s OK. Has she been eating and sleeping right?</p>
<p>Pepper/Dignified: RE your third rail/URM comment. The same is true for females in Engineering. I’ve read lots of comments (express or clearly implied) on CC about how girls have a leg up in engineering admissions, and that the only reason that their son didn’t get accepted was because he was male. While this is true in terms of the leg up given to females (just like URM status), it doesn’t mean that the girls were not otherwise highly, highly qualified.</p>
<p>Wow - went away for a week and missed so much. Congrats to all of you with happy, depositing children. Hoping for great visits for those of you onboard Indecision with us. Best of luck on waitlists.</p>
<p>D is visiting Pomona and Johns Hopkins in the next two weeks. Very different schools, but the adcoms have spoken! Waitlisted at two more, one of which will be the selection if it takes her (given how she feels now). I would welcome any advice from those of you “in the know” about either school. She will be a humanities/social sciences student; could shine in her sport at Pomona, but just walk on at JHU; and hopes to end up on the east coast for her career/grad school. I must admit that the fact that noone here has ever heard about Pomona bugs her which I find unfortunate. Lovely godmother is in Baltimore. Both are equally annoying to travel to and will cost about the same (unless she gets NMF$ at Pomona, a possibility). At this point I just want it to be over! Any other parents feeling that the wait list is its own special torture device? D is still smarting about her top three rejections and found out today that she did not make Presidential Scholarship semi finalist. I say congrats for even being a candidate, but she will still be sad. Somebody hand me a barf bag and schooch over on the railing, please.</p>
<p>seattle_mom: She is eating like normal and sleeping normal. She’s never fainted before and is usually very healthy so this kinda threw us for a loop! She seemed to be mad that it happened because it ruined her plans for the day! haha But, she internalizes things instead of talking things out…so maybe now this will change. Fingers crossed!!</p>
<p>“Isn’t the URM hook for HYSPM only a hook when one is otherwise highly qualified?”</p>
<p>That’s exactly the point… I’m not ignorant of the fact that there are individuals (URM and non-URM) who have gotten in to these schools with lower than expected stats (which, BTW, are only one part of the application). However, the assumption that URM = low stats/ qualifications is what I have to admit sometimes irks me. It’s so easy to denigrate the unknown, the “other”. “They” don’t deserve it. “They” are less qualified. “They” only got in because…</p>
<p>I just find it all a bit too convenient. Too easy to blame others for one’s own failures.</p>
<p>Mind you, my D has not had any issues. She’s one of those kids who fortunately/ unfortunately wears her charming nerdiness on her sleeve, and no-one at her hs is surprised at her acceptances. But, every now and then, when I accidentally click on a thread where the OP angrily presents the case of a “friend” or “this girl/guy” at his/her school who was accepted to Harvard even though he/she is a base idiot with no notable qualities other than being an AA, I could just scream!</p>
<p>“Now dignfied, not to sound to desperate BUT if your daughter picks Harvard and needs an escort to a social event-well would she consider asking a nice Northeastern student to accompany her?”</p>
<p>LOL. Thanks. I’ll let her know she now has yet another reason to jump off the HSS Indecision and say yes to Boston!</p>
<p>“I feel so bad for some of the kids, my daughter included, that are struggling with their decisions. After this morning - it kind of put everything into perspective.”</p>
<p>Hope your daughter feels better. I do agree that this whole process can be very stressful. Being forced to make a decision that can affect the course of one’s life, is definitely not easy!</p>
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<p>Hee. My D1 likes the idea of the hill because she looks on it as built-in exercise. Her tour guide said that students have the Freshman -5 because of it. 
My workplace is on a hillside, so I can attest to the benefits of being forced to trot up and down a hill on a regular basis. Though it’s one thing to do that in Southern California, and another to do that in the frozen northeast. :D</p>
<p>mnmomof2, I suspect your D will “know” what’s the right choice between JHU and Pomona after she visits both. No bad choices here! I think Pomona is gorgeous and friendly, though being in the area on hot smoggy days is no fun. D1 toured and loved the school, but didn’t end up applying–their adcoms are rumored to look askance at lower GPAs.</p>
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<p>Me too, and I’m most assuredly not a URM. Last fall, the mother of one of D1’s friends was complaining to me about how “all” of the scholarship dollars get sucked up by URMs. It was one of those “smile and nod” moments. 
The family has always placed a very high emphasis on education, sending their children to the best schools possible. D1’s friend is graduating from an outstanding private school in our area, with a well-deserved reputation for feeding its graduates into top colleges. But it also has a price tag to match, and I suspect that the counseling staff there doesn’t emphasize issues like searching for merit aid, or the limits of need-based aid.</p>
<p>Mnmon: I agree that your daughter should be congratulated for being a Presidential Scholarship candidate! I’m sorry that she’s feeling somewhat beaten down by things at the moment. She does have two great choices. I’ll give a shout-out for JHU. I was a humanities major and graduated in the early '80’s. It’s a great school with excellent academics. The beautiful campus has Georgian architechure and grassy tree-lined quads. In all the visits I did with my daughters, I saw very few campuses that came close in appearance. My D1 has several friends who attend and are very happy. My daughter refused to consider JHU because she thought it would be too nerdy. After visiting her friend freshman year, she was so impressed that she came home and apologized to me. The campus is on the outskits of Baltimore city, in a nice neighborhood with restaurants in walking distance, and easy access to downtown Baltimore. I hope that your daughter enjoys her visit. </p>
<p>Emmybet: I have a “weather head” also. I can always tell when a storm is coming. I think that the one you got yesterday is heading here tonight.</p>
<p>The thing with hooks is that the hook doesn’t get a kid “in”,
it does move them into the maybe pile…</p>
<p>and if the school needs an oboe player and your kid happens to be first chair oboe, then that may hook the admit.</p>
<p>and if the school needs a quarterback and your kid it high scorer for hockey, then the hook doesnt help.</p>
<p>Sadly during this stressfull time, the hooks, URMs, Questbridge, all get blamed…</p>
<p>When looked at the apps holistically–academic stats, ECs, community service etc–the kids are quite extraordinary…AND there are things that are part of each kids merit. </p>
<p>How can someone say that being first chair in the string section “only” gets in because of her music is lacking merit?
Can you imagine looking at someone and saying you “only” got in because you can do math, but you can’t sing like me?
Or you “only” got in because you play cello but you can’t do physics like me?</p>
<p>All of those attributes, stats, ECs, sports, music, service etc are all part of the merit of these kids and their apps.</p>
<p>It is sad people can be so small and try and tear down another persons child!</p>
<p>I was just talking with our student about what makes up ALL of the merit in the application…</p>
<p>Perhaps the problem these kids have is what they have been taught to believe about the apps process from the parents (not that any of Those are here on CC)</p>