@novicemom23kids — that is MOST unfortunate. Sorry for all of you, as inadequate as that sounds.
@novicemom23kids yes, that is disappointing. Is your D applying for the Nordenberg scholarship as well?
It is also for instate students.
@novicemom23kids Btw my D15 got the invitation to apply for Stamps about a month after being accepted. The invitation came via email. Her merit notification arrived a few months later via letter.
The notification that she was not moving on in the Stamps competition arrived via email a month or more after that.
@mommdc - Yes, she has completed the Nordenberg Leadership application but is not confident that her leadership is enough to win one of the ten available scholarships. She knows someone who did receive it in the past and they were an amazing “superkid” and so deserving. She is also not confident in her chances for the Stamps but completed the application to give it a try. She is currently in essay overload and ready for this entire process to be over. She hasn’t heard anything back from her Stamps application - hoping she is still in the running but not counting on it.
She has moved on and is getting excited about other opporturnities but if Pitt came down in costs she would love to attend.
@picklesarenice - Congrats on your D’s acceptance. MSU Bozeman is my D’s first choice. She loved it when we visited last summer. It’s oos for her, so we are relying on merit to bring the cost within our budget. Unfortunately, they picked this year to cut back on the automatic merit. So far she has been awarded WUE but is hoping for more to make the cost closer to the excellent offer from UA.
@novicemom23kids - that is ridiculous. I feel like some colleges mislead students when they are younger telling them they are more interested in a well rounded individual and strength of schedule than a perfect GPA and yet even one B can make thousands of dollars of difference. On one hand - “Don’t be helicopter parents” and on the other no merit or inadequate merit which seems to send the message that you had better push harder and harder if you don’t want loads of college debt. Thankfully, my D’s class this year is not that competitive, so her ranking is fine. Our school did away with valedictorians years ago due to all the game playing, but they still rank.
@Dolemite, S’14 has had a very good experience so far. He is currently leaning against going for the BPhil but expects to do a thesis for departmental honors. He doesn’t need the flexibility of the curriculum for his goals and he’s heard from friends that getting a committee together for the BPhil can be a pain. He’s not the type who would enjoy chasing faculty at other universities, but he could do it. He’s a good student, but doesn’t necessarily swim upstream.
He’s taken enough neuro classes to get a feel for the department. Many of the neuro requirements are available as honors classes. Neuro at Pitt is biochemical focused. If you complete the major, you have enough chemistry for a minor in chemistry. He did research at Northwestern in Organic Chemistry over the summer with OChem grad students and was well prepared for it. (He chose to take Honors OChem 1 & 2 is now an undergrad TA for those classes.)
He’s done research in brain injury since his second semester of freshman year. He now has his own rats. Apparently, that is a thing…
He participates in a club sport and that’s where most of his social life originates.
Hope this helps.
@Dave_N and @novicemom23kids – Did I read that correctly … that both your Pitt applicants have exactly a 3.94? It stinks that class rank may be the reason for thousands difference in merit money. Sounds like a very lazy approach to awarding merit money by the college. By the way, that kind of GPA would probably put a kid at #1, 2 or 3 in our class of ~150, so congrats to your kids.
And congrats also to all others with acceptances already.
We still have a ways to go…
The daughter got a letter in the mail today from Muhlenberg, urging her to apply and try for a new merit scholarship they have, which is a $40k/year award. They’re only offering five of them each year, but while Muhlenberg freely gives aid, they don’t give big awards—but for those five students, this would make them competitive with the big merit colleges.
From Parchment Transcript:
Cumulative GPA(Unweighted)3.9412
Cumulative GPA(Weighted)4.6765
Test Scores
35 ACT (36E and 35M, I once heard that was all they looked at) and 1530 SAT (concords to a 34) Maybe we should not have sent that one. Maybe she should have taken the ACT one more time?
It’s their money, they have to have some sort of system. It’s a long shot, but I hope some of her intangibles pull her through in the Chancellor’s competition. She’s a NMSF and has a good set of consistent ECs for her major.
But, congrats to those did pull off the 36 and 4.0! I don’t want to take anything way from such amazing accomplishments.
Sometimes there are limited funds and the others did better on the criteria the college uses.
Congrats to all of the new admissions and scholarship recipients and hopefuls. Sorry to hear of some disappointments. I think this process is going to keep us on a roller coaster for a while.
D17 just received notification that she earned the CU-Boulder Chancellor’s OOS Scholarship ($6250/yr) which we are super thankful for but recall during our visit (and written in my notes) her stats were closer to the Presidential. Website states top 1-3% of applicants earn Presidential so the applicant pool must have been quite competitive this year. Happy with our offer but had to change the #'s in the spreadsheet!
CU-Boulder is the highest on my DD’s safety list and may even bump some of the RD round applications if the ED lottery does’t pay out. I can see her being very happy there.
Kind of gave up on a Pitt scholarship…accepted in Sept and not a peep.
Congrats to @STEM2017 and @itsgettingreal17! When did you guys hear?
@jeepgirl S got a snail mail letter yesterday (Monday). But if you look in social media, it seems like people have been getting letters for a few days.
@jeepgirl Same. If you trust that they all went out at once, everyone should hear soon depending on speed of mail.
We heard from USCar yesterday in the mail too. Ds was accepted. Not sure where it is on our list but it’s nice to have another acceptance! Congrats to everyone else receiving the big YES envelope!
Hoping DS will work pretty hard over Thanksgiving break & get 3-4 more apps done and submitted - I imagine there is no reason to wait to submit a completed app until closer to the RD deadline, right - just submit when ready? Once submitted for a few of them, can see about interviews I think.
I have a questions for you experienced folks. D17 was just admitted to Knox College in Illinois with 20K in merit. We also applied for need-based aid but haven’t heard about that yet. I am assuming we will not get anything, but let’s say for the sake of argument that we are found eligible for some aid. Will they apply the already awarded merit aid to that need, provided it is less than 20K? Or will they award need-based aid on top of the merit? I am sure this is a dumb question but realized I don’t actually know the answer. I am assuming that they do factor that in, but wanted to confirm.
@CA1543 I would just submit them as soon as they are ready. No reason to wait. You can always update the app later if some good news shows up or something.
S realized last night that he had a five page essay to write for literature class - due today. He sat down at 8pm and cranked it out by 11:30pm - and I’m sure it’s a fine piece of writing.
…this is the same kid that I begged and harassed for weeks during the summer to write a 250 word personal statement.
I think he does this on purpose. ~X(
@CA1543 The only reason to wait would be if DS is waiting on EA decisions and is willing to forego decisions from other schools and wouldn’t submit those RD apps. Otherwise, submit as soon as they are done to get the app file started so you can start checking portals to make sure SAT or ACT arrived and make sure the app is complete.
@stem2017 - That’s called priorities LOL