D is waiting to hear from UVA EA next, sometime before the end of January. I thought we were done with mail until March when the RD decisions come, but S19 got his first piece of college mail today.
Oh HELL no.
My S19 has been getting emails for a few weeks but same thing, first actual mail yesterday. Ugh!!!
@LoveTheBard - I have a post in the summer program forum. The Cal Poly program that @Ynotgo recommended there seems great - one of those STEM survey programs, which furthermore is not only focused on rising 12th graders.
I donāt really know if DS knows what he wants to do, though my guess is something STEM related. Which is why a survey program (as opposed to a specific program) seems like it might be a better fit for him.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek and @Ynotgo Iām not sure-D18 showed me his insta page and heād taken a screen shot of the deferral. I think I remember seeing āfall 2018ā, but Iām not 100% sure.
I do remember reading about the same thing on the Northeastern page. If we were in the same boat, I think D17 would not take it because it would really feel to her like she would be delaying the start of her college life on the track she wants, and trying to find a community college for that year would make her really sad.
I think it is good that GT announced before the 1/15 deadline for other colleges-I think there are going to be a lot of kids adding in more apps today, maybe some solid safeties (I hope).
@thermom wrote
That is the best feeling in the world, I think. For me when that happened for D, I was even happier than when she got into NEU and WPI. Iām weird.
D17 said yesterday āI just canāt wait to be at collegeā (boyfriend drama). I gave her a hug, but I wanted to burst into tears because no, I like having you around! I can understand it, though, she had such a good time talking to people and seeing what theyāre working on on Friday that she canāt wait to get started on her own journey.
@STEM2017 So sorry for your son, but totally agree with him!
Wait. What? We are getting some kind of snail mail almost every day.
I think itās really sad that schools do spring admits to protect their precious stats. It goes against all the talk of of āholistic admissionsā and āconstructing a freshman class.ā Itās more like āWe love Joe, but his SAT could contribute to a decline of our USNWR ratings. Spring admit!ā Ugh.
The NE deferred admittance was to Fall 2018. Iāll see if I can quickly find the post so everyone could see what it said.
I agree @snoozn it is really sad for schools to protect their stats by deferring students to the spring and while that is bad enough, I would guess a student deferred to the spring would then spend the semester they are not in school doing something they would enjoy (a volunteer position, an art or music class, a course at a local cc).
With the 2018 deferral, you have to spend the year at another college, take set number of classes and have a certain GPA for the automatic transfer to occur. I think thatās unfair and cruel to do to kids to keep it hanging over their heads for a year.
Protecting/improving stats for the purpose of USNWR rankings is the true root cause of the new college admissions hysteria we are dealing with. Something has to give.
If kids REALLY want to attend a certain school, then the Spring or Fall 2018 admittance is a really good thing. Kids can decide if thatās what they want to consider, or move on to other choices, as if they were rejected. Some kids make friends easily anywhere they go, and simply want to attend their favorite college. If USNWR eventually changes their methodology, Iāll bet these options donāt go away.
Here is the post with the letter NE sent out:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20117041/#Comment_20117041
There is another post (#452) from a parent saying his/her son and his friends were accepted to the class of 2022 (rather than 2021) which the parent was inquiring as to whether this 5 years was factoring in co-op. These were kids who applied ED1 so imagine getting a letter like when you were expecting admitted, rejected, deferred or NE IN)
NE IN is a program where students are accepted to NE IN and study abroad their first year and apparently those stats are not factored in for USNWR.
Hmm, go away for a couple of days and there are 12 new pages of posts, time to catch up!
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I read that Harvard report when it came out and I am skeptical. I agree with @paveyourpath - it seems to be upping the bar for community service hours. Itās all rather maddening. Some kids are intellectually wired, others pursue sports, drama, music, art, writing, coding, science & math competitions, etc. Others have a passion for community service. They are all worthy kids. Do they have to prove themselves in all areas? The emphasis on leadership bugs me. Not all kids are natural leaders. How many anxious posts have you seen here from kids who participate in lots of clubs but are fretting because they didnāt hold officer positions? Rant over.
@RightCoaster Good for your son for having integrity!
Congrats to @Dave_N @twoforone99 @nw2this @NerdMom88 @socalmom007 @jmek15 @itsgettingreal17 @CA1543 @thermom for acceptances, scholarships, great grades, etc.
@STEM2017 Sorry on the deferral!
@paveyourpath --that gave me a headache just reading about it. I canāt imagine doing all that and would encourage my kid to pass unless there were just no other options.
@carachel2 My thought exactly.
WRT Spring admits - itās very unlike me to not be cynical :-), but I think it makes sense even without USNWR. Because you can stagger when the kids are taking the basic classes. Which would help reduce the ginormous sizes of the basic freshman classes, reduce the competition for enrolling in classes, etc.
Catching up on about 10 pages!
@Mom2aphysicsgeek Thanks for posting the article, iām with you, twiddling my thumbs, bored, so this stuff is interesting. @paveyourpath I agree that itās silly schools now ārequireā community service. So everyone is doing it whether they find joy in it or not. Kind of defeats the purpose. @itsgettingreal17 says āService should be a lifelong pursuit.ā Yep. It doesnāt help with admissions if itās a requirement but they now have to do extra to show they ācareā. Cāmon. @thermom itās certainly true that many students sign in and just leaveā¦ D sees this happen all the time.
@nw2this congrats on the OSU honors!
@NerdMom88 How lovely to come home to all Aās!! Congrats to your D!
MIT and other difficult admissions: I think the problem is most parents donāt understand the landscape today. They have all these college seminars at High School and talk about safety, match, reach, but they donāt talk about how each of those categories have jumped significantly since we were all looking for ourselves. Also there is so much (word of mouth) misinformation about how financial aid works.
Financial Aid and Gaming the system: I would never quit my job to get financial aid, that just seems silly to me. I do wish, however, I was taught about merit aid 4 years ago. I wouldāve put more emphasis on the importance of SAT in the context of getting merit aid. I only have one child, but I certainly plan on staying current with these topics and educating my nieces and nephews.
@payn4ward we should all go out and buy some lottery tickets!
At Hās company you can choose to defer your salary until a set time in the future. Like, we could have chosen to live on 50% of his salary, it would have shown for tax purposes as us making half of what we really do make, and the Fafsa form would have reflected it. We could then defer it until the girls got out of college and then collected it.
If we had known about it when we were selling our last house circa 2008, we probably would have done it and just bought a really small house. But, as it is, we kind of roped ourselves into the lifestyle we have (which is by no means living paycheck to paycheck or anything like that), so we couldnāt do it because the cost to sell the house would have wiped out any college benefits we would have gotten, and we really would have had to have taken a 50% pay cut to make it possible to get need-based aid.
It would have required really strategic, long-term thinking and a desire for the kids to attend an expensive or elite out of state school that gives generous need-based aid, and there were just too many unknowns 9 years ago for us.
Looking back, though, with the benefit of 20/20, I think we could have pulled it off. We were hyper-frugal all through our 20ās, we could have done another decade of it to avoid paying sticker price for colleges. I hate paying sticker price for anything. 
@MotherOfDragons I see some advising business opening up in this area in the future
@MotherOfDragons --yeah, but Iād be poking my eyeballs out of I lived that way for years and then my kid turned out to be completely happy with our state school!! OR had an illness or learning issue and just couldnāt get into schools that now seem to have an ever increasing bar for admission.
@payn4ward Although my daughter was deferred at NU (we expected a deferral and it wasnāt in her top 3) - I still think it could move up in her mind if she was accepted - I loved our visit there. great campus, great pitch, etc. She actually liked the BU campus better (opposite the way most people feel like @jmek15 ) - she likes the idea of no campus feel in a vibrant city. As far as sinus infection, we all had it here. It was brutal. Hope son feels better soon.
@jmek15 Congrats to your Son on CU!!! So exciting! We may have to get your take on BU/NU if D gets accepted at either.
@RightCoaster Are you snowboarding right now?! Iām jealous!!
@vegasmom23 we are a Physics family tooā¦ D is anyway!
@STEM2017 Sorry to hear about the deferral, that stinks and I understand about it leaving a bad taste. He has some terrific options already!
@socalmom007 Congratulations on your daughterās acceptances. Seems to me she has some wonderful options already, it does provide some relief when they realize they are going somewhere!
@thermom D decided to apply for the Honors College at Drexel, itās not due until 2/1 but I just wish sheād get it done already! Then I can truly say sheās done.
@CT1417 Oh boy, Iām not looking forward to all the housing to doās!!