D got accepted to Denison, but the merit scholarship is abysmal in comparison to Kalamazoo and Wooster. It is so poor, it knocks them off the list. D doesn’t care, at this point, she has her top 3 so she just needs to decide. We are doing accepted student day at Michigan State in early April. We will probably do one more visit to Kalamazoo College. Then its decision time. Ah, at least all decisions are known, with 11 acceptances for 13 with one denied and one waitlist.
@MomStudent2017 that really speaks to how poor the updating is at some of these schools. It makes one wonder if they simply don’t even bother to update that stuff until after 5/1 and then fill waitlists from there.
@tacocat333 bummer on the waitlisted but if he doesn’t care, yes that makes it easier. Hey at least TacoSchool “has” conferences. We do not. Never have. BTS night and anything else is really upon request (demand). I feel your (and @klinska 's) pain on the grades. They are not looking good here. Largely due to the week absent for college visits and the lag in grade updates for the missing/excused work that is either turned in late but not penalized or tests taken late but not penalized. Still at the moment it is a bit heart attack inducing even though I do trust it to turn around.
@klinska congrats on Denison, that’s fascinating as when I ran the NPC for S19 a few months, that’s what came up exactly. Not sure I can convince him to think of Ohio as an option though but I’m not going there yet with him (it was for a precalc assignment). I share your underwhelming position though it is complicated by the strength of the program at UVM. However, it’s also a good program at WWU.
@KMich really nice overall results, sorry Denison didn’t come through with comparable merit but it sounds like your D is happy with her top 3.
Yay, we have all escaped from the Denison waiting room!
@eandesmom congrats on UPS extra cash, that certainly doesn’t hurt.
@snoozn congrats on fly-ins, nice to be courted a little bit!
@tacocat333 sorry about the waitlist but he has great options already and one less school to worry about isn’t so bad either at this point.
Lots of news came in today for my S. Here goes:
Accepted at Denison with $26k
Accepted at Fordham (can’t figure out their FA portal)
Accepted at Franklin & Marshall (no $)
Accepted at Reed (no $)
Waitlisted at Grinnell
He is on Cloud 9. Me too.
This just in too…accepted at Kenyon. What a day. He can’t stop smiling.
@93pilots, that’s fabulous! Does he have any favorites?
I have S who is just finishing up the college search…solid 3.6 student at a wildly competitive public high school in the Boston area. (The type of school where kids who get a 1520 on the SAT retake it because they will "never get into X with a score that low.) He is into two of his top schools with his huge reach (Penn) 13 days away. All of that said…sssshhh…he’s going to end up at McGill…he just hasn’t processed it all yet.
My younger son is a sophomore who is incredibly smart but very ADHD and last year got walloped with depression (brought on by the stress of the HS). Bottom line: grades dropped to a 3.1 and he feels like he is screwed. This forum has been helpful and insightful. The craziness of the past few months left me a bit unnerved for my younger son. This forum really helped. Sincerely appreciated.
Just now we got word TacoSon’s in at Franklin & Marshall, so he’s 10.5/11, as he puts it! (He calls the VT waitlist decision a 0.5, and rightly so, I’d say.) It’s too bad F&M is a non-starter since they don’t give merit aid and we don’t love him enough to pay $70K/year. But nice to have another acceptance and it’s a lovely school.
This has been a very active day in admissions (and rejections) land! Are all the adcoms pushing out the decisions in order to start their St. Patrick’s Day celebrations? Congrats to all.
Wow wow and wow! What a day! Reed is FA only so perhaps that is coming later (unless your EFC is more than their COA). They are quite good with the FA but it’s a pricey school to be sure. How in the world will he pick?
@SwimmingDad join us on the 2019 main thread, there are several of us from her that are over there too and definitely some kids in the same boat as yours.
Congrats on McGill!
@tacocat333 congrats on F&M. You mean parents you, not loving him enough to pay 70k a year. Why I never! LOL. The price tags really do kill me.
Just looking at the last couple of pages. Kenyon, Reed,Denison, Wash U in St Louis, Frankin and Marshall??? Wow. That’s wonderful with gpa’s under 3.4, What I have read so far is very inspiring and makes the admssions process look less ominous.
@eandesmom --skiing in BC, drive to Pullman WA, then fly to Sacramento. . . . If the stars align 
Same news as @tacocat333 here-- S17 waitlisted at VaTech. Also waitlisted at UW, and rejected at Case Western. On the bright side, makes decisions easier. 
Congrats on the Denison acceptances, but “boo” on not enough aid granted. Congrats @93pilots --great day for your S! Makes for some hard decisions.
Welcome @SwimmingDad. I have a sophomore as well, and similar position (I think–we’ll see).
D was accepted to VA Tech today and waitlisted at Case Western. I guess we’ll see later if Smith and WPI allow her to finish the season rejection-free. Oldest D had five acceptances, five rejections, and one waitlist, so I’m getting better at this. Right now I’m trying to decide if I should set up a last minute spring break college visit tour for S18. I really can’t believe I’m right back at the beginning again.
The flyout money from RIT is for all accepted women engineering students. While obviously I’m glad it helps D, I also like that they are serious about getting more women into engineering.
@eandesmom, congrats on the UPS theater tech money – every little bit helps. I hope Ursinus will see their way to a bit more generosity.
@MomStudent2017, congrats on being done and I agree that “waitlist” is an annoying non-decision.
@tacocat333, sorry about the VT waitlist, but if he didn’t care I don’t think it was going to happen anyway! Congrats on Franklin & Marshall – even if it’s not a contender it’s nice to have an acceptance to balance out those “0.5” decisions!
@klinska, congrats on Denison, but sorry it’s not on the table. UMass and UVM are great options!
@KMich, congrats/sorry on the mixed results from Denison. And welcome to the final decision-making club!
@93pilots, wowzers, congrats on Denison, Fordham, Franklin & Marshall, Reed, and finally Kenyon! Sounds like a lot of work still to do – are those all on the table?
@SwimmingDad, I hope your S is excited about McGill. McGill is a popular choice here and I’ve heard good things about them.
@Hankster1361, ouch, sorry about rejection and waitlists in a bunch there, but yes it does get you closer to the end.
@snoozn, congrats on VT acceptance and the Case waitlist – our situations are reversed there! Unfortunately, the MUCH more expensive one is the one TacoSon got into. @Hankster1361 , sorry about the VT WL and the others. I totally agree that this whittling of the list ultimately makes things easier.
I just thought to check the F&M FA portal and it turns out TacoSon got a package of about $22K, including $18K in grants. That brings the cost from “completely impossible” to “laughably out of reach” – but nice to see!
My son just got the news he was waitlisted at South Carolina and accepted to Virginia Tech. So he has heard from all of his colleges now. Has 12 acceptances, and a “Bridge” offer from Clemson, and a waitlist from South Carolina. No outright rejections! Will be taking final visits to Colorado Boulder, Colorado State, Virginia Tech, and perhaps Furman.
@93pilots WOW!! Congratulations!
@tacocat333 congrats on F&M. Sorry the money’s not there, but the yes is great!
@snoozn and @lakeviking congrats on VT – sorry about the WLs.
Congrats and condolences to all respectively.
The great successes the kids on this thread have had is making me second guess my strategy with techson17 of not allowing him to apply to any reach schools or schools that I didn’t think we could afford without merit aid. OTOH, he has one choice that is a top program in his major and that has actually come in under budget! He is having a Skype interview for the program next week and if he is accepted, we will visit for accepted students day.
I have not been able to do the college tours many of you have done with my kids. My D accepted a school sight unseen and loved it, and since we put down a (refundable) deposit for techson17 on the state school, again sight unseen, I really hope that he likes it. D visited the school for techson17 while she was in school and thought it was lovely, but it didn’t have her program.
@eandesmom We reached out to Beloit about the lower FA and they told us to fill out an appeal plus a copy of the other FA offers. I got everything ready but D is pretty set on UNCG Honors College. I am in the same boat wondering whether it worth the effort. We still haven’t heard back from 4 of the colleges but I asked her if any of them came back YES would she be ready to go and she said she wasn’t really excited about any of them. She felt a bit out of her element at Barnard (reach anyway), has not felt either way about Conn College and both UNC-CH and NC State were ones she threw in because she felt she had to. Of course, all of those had the most expensive application fees lol. Anyway, at this point I think we can safely accept UNCG Honors. At the end of this month we will send in the acceptance and let the other colleges know. I always wonder “what if” but it feels good being settled. She will commute the first year and we will apply for merit aid and outside scholarships for sophomore year and she can dorm there after that. She is excited because it is an International Honors College and one of the requirements is study abroad. Right up her alley!
CONGRATS on all the acceptances! This has been quite the ride!
@citymama9 Just a note of caution, not everyone posting on this thread has kids that fit into the title. A number of people I think just felt more comfortable here bc it’s more chill or their kids had other “weaknesses” that they felt made this more appropriate. Wash U and a few of the others aren’t going to be very likely for kids with actual GPAs in this range, so you need to look at the kid’s profile. eandesmom posts an admission list every so often for the thread and you can see the stats of the kids and where they get in, which is really good info.
D17 also got in to Denison yesterday with 24K merit and work study money, like her twin @klinska s D17. She’s not really considering it, unfortunately. I wish I could talk her into taking the free flight out there to check it out. So she is 11/11, which seems crazy to me. Only Smith to go, which could very easily be a deny.
Congrats to all on the admits and commiserations on the denies–too many to list! This thread is kicking some serious butt.
Well that was a crazy day.
@swimmingdad McGill,is awesome, congrats.
@tacocat333 congrats on F&M–bummer that the cash is not quite enough but still great to hear a yes.
@snoozn and @lateviking congrats to your D on VA Tech. @snoozn, does your D have a front runner now? (I haven’t heard much about Rose-Hulman lately, did Terre Haute scare her off?)
It’s great to see things coming into focus for everyone and I can’t wait to see what everyone decides. For people with waitlist offers: are your kids all accepting spots just to see or are they thinking of saying no, just to be done? S always said he would decline any and all waitlist spots but with one now looking him in the face he is considering taking the plunge.
I have no idea what S is going to do. He hasn’t taken anything off the table and honestly wasn’t thinking very hard about the reach schools because didn’t expect to get in. Now his head is swimming. @eandesmom we would be full pay at Reed, we can swing it if we have to and told him not to think about the money side of things, but he is apprehensive about it–really likes it and is super excited but is also wondering how crazy hard it is to get through. He’s ready to work hard but is still a little bit nervous about that.
@citymama9 and @kt1969 --S17 was one of the admits to WashU. His GPA does fit in this range, but he has a 36 ACT score to go with it, so I suspect that made a big difference. Don’t think we’ll ever know. We thought it was a reach for sure, and he has been rejected at schools generally regarded as less selective schools too. His major is engineering if that helps (I certainly had to learn ALOT about different stats apparently needed for engineering majors). S17’s college counselor at his school said he was “a maybe everywhere.”