QOTD: DD has some friends that applied and were accepted into (EA) lottery schools that may not attend, for financial or other reasons. Perfectly acceptable, I think. If money or fit concern is at all a consideration, then why not balance prestige/academics/financials/fit for all options once they are on the table?
Virtual friends: I think we should all have a convention and meet when this is over. All will get so much merit that there’s money left over for some frivolous travel. Nominations for location?
I don’t think there is really a “norm”. Everyone’s financial situation is different. Some people are all set and on track for retirement, and others, ahem, are far behind. Some people have been able to save for an expensive college education and others have not.
The single most helpful thing I did for myself was make a spreadsheet laying out the FOUR YEAR cost and where that money was going to come from. Out of current earnings? Savings? A mix of that plus loans?
It was so eye-opening to see school v. school. Whereas some of the more expensive schools were “possible”, the price difference between the best $$ offer, and the worst, was staggering. Big real dollars.
The spreadsheet added in 3% inflation each year, and added in estimated personal expenses, estimated books, and travel.
We made a prudent financial decision, and we took a full tuition and room & board package at an OOS public (UKy), despite admissions to much sexier (much more expensive) schools.
We’re looking at the long game here. Retirement. Safety net. House repairs. Helping D1 get launched after college graduation in May, & positioning ourselves to help D2 with grad school (since we are saving a mountain on UG).
Wow so much to catch up on and I’m at work so I’ll stop back in later when I have more time to read and catch up! I wanted to share some exciting news for us as D received acceptances at her 3 safety schools all in the same day - Drexel being the top of her list in that bucket and we were quite surprised and thrilled that they offered generous scholarships/grants which I think makes it a stronger contender.
It’s crazy how you start to question your safeties, so it really was just a relief to us to finally have some options.
To sweeten it, this morning D texted me that if she doesn’t get into her top choice, she knows she would be very happy at Drexel - I couldn’t ask for better words honestly!
@RightCoaster and @carachel2 D also got deferred at Northeastern. (nor did she show much love - but I personally think it (or BU) would be a good alternate if she doesn’t get into her top choice).
I didn’t get that far in the posts so I’m sure I have much to still congratulate on! TTYL
I’m disappointed about Case moving their decisions to Monday evening. It’s a reach for D and Monday is the day before we leave for vacation. She knows a rejection is fairly likely, but she only has acceptances so far. Case will be the first of her reaches to release decisions. A rejection might really sting and it would have been nice to have the weekend to process things. Then again, maybe the vacation will help her forget about college stuff altogether. Oh well, I’d worry either way I’m sure!
QOTD: D2 didn’t apply to Ivies, but she did apply to UMD. It’s a top contender, but so is UAH. In terms of prestige they are night and day, but she’s more concerned with $$ and opportunities within her major.
As for a post-acceptance convention, I’ll offer up my “Normal” town in Illinois as being pretty centrally located…
@texasmissy --welcome! We have a few Texans here. Congrats on the BC admit!
@Mom22DDs --oh that’s the million dollar question for sure! (no pun intended). I would agree with others and say that is very much unique to each family. We would have to start at our original budget and see just how much of a stretch it was and just examine the heck out of every detail for comparison.
If it was within a few thousand of your original budget and it’s a kids fave I would be inclined to say YES! But there lots of other things to consider for sure.
@mom2dd Great info! The best recommendation I ever heard- or at least made me put some things into greater perspective was a college counselor who said you don’t want to pick a school that will put you in so much debt that it will influence career choices. To think my D couldn’t accept a dream job due to student loan payments put things in perspective for me. I’m also a huge believer that you can get a GREAT education anywhere and a sub-par one anywhere as well- its about taking advantage of the opportunity. My 2017 D is all about the prestige but I’m working on her
@NerdMom88 No offense, but I don’t picture Normal when I think “frivolous travel destination.” But maybe that’s just because I’m from the glorious Midwest – maybe all you Texans and Californians will find it exotic. And it is close, so I’m game.
@stencils How about a CC class of 2017 cruise? But I don’t think we’d be able to agree on weather - Caribbean or Alaska? I hear you have to wear pants in Alaska.
@dfbdfb I totally agree-hate the cold but LOVE snow! Last night with the frigid temperatures and crazy wind we are having here ds said “This is why I do not want to stay in the Northeast for college”. I get it but I’m not sure he really understands how hot and humid September and October can feel in New Orleans or Tallahassee.
How about Vegas for the meet? Goes well with Vegas motto, ie once we leave Vegas we all can pretend that we don’t know each other and stay anonymous on CC
@Mom22DDs - Ah, yes: the $64K (a year!!) question. One which we hopefully will be facing in the spring.
Everyone should have a safety or two (meaning a financial and admissions safety at a school with strength in programs that the student is interested in. Bama, for example, would probably not be a good fit for my D as it is not as strong in the types of programs that D wants to pursue; it’s too big; it has a bit too much school spirit for her taste. D picked an OOS public honors college as a safety that was a better fit).
Whether a lottery school is worth stretching the budget for (if there is indeed a budget to be stretched) or for those for whom paying full freight is not a stretch of the budget, is very much a personal decision how much a lottery school education is worth.
In D17’s case, she is applying to a number of schools that give merit either through separate applications or by virtue of having been nominated or as part of an admissions offer (only two of D17’s schools give automatic $$ for NMF, and those were contingent upon acceptance; the rest are either lottery scholarships or that give up to half-to-full-tuition or, in a couple of cases, full rides). Our state flagships (Berkeley/UCLA) could also be viable options at half the cost of her lottery school. I’d imagine that for the other kid that was accepted to the lottery school from D17’s graduating class, it’s one and done.
D will be cranking out the essays over break and we will see where the proverbial chips fall.
But it’s nice to have options. We consider ourselves quite fortunate.
@chillkitty My D emailed her interviewer very excited about her ED acceptance. I feel a little bad about her other five or six interviewers for the colleges where she isn’t even going to apply now.
D is looking forward to Sunday when about a dozen new admits are going to meet up in NYC. There is a very active Facebook group for those who got in ED. And enough in the tri-state area that they can get a good size group to meet for lunch and a museum. Anyone other kids meeting their college classmates already?
I guess the twice daily bombardment of emails and snail mail worked. Good for them - bad for applicants. Surely this will have the intended affect (effect?) of push their acceptance rate down to the teens.
When your child is following colleges on social media to learn things like when they’re releasing admissions decisions, you discover some interesting things. Today’s meaningless but intriguing insight: Kenyon College follows Penn’s admissions office on Twitter, But Penn doesn’t follow Kenyon.
@snoozn - I think we may be in the same boat! Case is my S17 reach school. So far he has gotten accepted in all the EA schools with the exception of Fordham - they deferred his application to RD. He doesn’t really care about that school and probably got RD because he showed absolutely no interest. He is a hard-working student but only started taking school seriously his junior year although he got A’s in all his science classes- the classes he was most interested in. The 9th grade C and 10th grade D in Spanish seriously made a dent into his cumulative GPA. I still don’t understand the weighted and non-weighted GPA but by the end of Junior year his weighted GPA was 3.58 and non-weighted was 3.47. Senior year he is taking all AP classes, 2 of them sciences. and A’s in all of them. When he applied EA, these GPA’s plus his terrible test scores (SAT 1130 and ACT 24) made him lose confidence in applying to certain schools. He told me it wasn’t that he didn’t know the answers but that he didn’t have the time to answer them all. He knows he needs to work on that.
Anyway, on the positive side, the high school College guidance counselor said that out of all the college essays she has read in the past, his was by far the best she has ever read. One college even wrote a personal note in handwriting that commented on his essay! He also interviews well and has very good rapport with adults in general ( I think having homeschooled in his early years with 3 other siblings and his grandmother and auntie living in the same home helped in that department) After interviewing with an alumni in our area, he felt confident he had a chance to get into Case. She even sent him a copy of the report that she sent to the admissions committee and it was very favorable. Still he is afraid that his low scores won’t measure up especially now that the latest CWRU email said that they had quite a number of highly qualified applicants they had to postpone the decision! So that didn’t help his hopefulness of maybe gettting in. He was really waiting to hear about it tomorrow. I will post the decision either way. He knows he has some decent back ups so he doesn’t want to worry. In the end, all he cares about is going to a school that will give him the education and environment to help him get into medical school.
We all promise to wear pants.