@BigPapiofthree @carachel2 We received numerous “Save $76,000! We will help you with getting in-state tuition!” postcards from Texas realtors so I think it is pretty common practice. 
It is good that Texas school system makes it easier than other state schools.
**JOTD:/b
Q: What did the farmer say when he couldn’t find his tractor?
A: Where’s my tractor?!
Congrats on all the good news, and here’s to your DC finding a roommate without BO!
Congratulations @Agentninetynine <:-P <:-P
Congratulations to all who have decisions! =D> <:-P
Good luck with thinking, thinking, and more thinking :!!
@Agentninetynine yay! So good to “see” you!
Go mustangs! Wonderful choice though I am obviously biased. Alaska has added SLO to its route…
Yeah, horrible place to visit.
@carachel2, It didn’t take much work to figure out texas. It is on the website, and one phone call to the office of residency explained the rest. A full time administrator helps all looking for clarification. I am always happy to help others, and share the savings.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek, Mac’s daughter is going to Michigan State. She needs a roommate. I think he knows you miss him. I would say his life is Grand.
Trying to keep up with how fast this thread moves>>>>!
Congratulations to @mamaedefamilia on Oberlin (A S16 top pick. Fun, quirky & challenging school. We have a friend from L.A. in his 3rd year, and loves it in OH. Already vegan & dyed his hair blue his first semester there! Our S ended up at Grinnell via ED),
@socalmom007 So happy for your D and Cal Poly SLO - as a former So Cal gal, I’ve always loved that campus and the town for decades! Hope D and her BF both have wonderful experiences, as a couple, and apart.
@moonpie for The School of Visual Arts in NYC - living there will be such a creative adventure for your D!
@caroldanvers - Congrats to your future Spartan! Several friends loved their time in Lansing (including an x-boyfriend, but we had fun attending the Rose Bowl in 1988!)
@srk2017 - Vanderbilt is gorgeous and Nashville is a ton of fun! Congrats to your DS! S17’s girlfriend’s bro is a freshman there, and is having an amazing year.
@reba66 - Thank for sharing your S’s story and congratulations on the Honors Tutorial College at Ohio University. Hope he finds it is the perfect outlet for his interests and creativity!
Have spent most of this past year on the “3.0 to 3.4 thread,” with several other posters, here, but it is fun and touching to read about the journeys of your higher stat kids, as well. We are very happy that S17 found his home at St. Olaf College!
Thank you for sharing your stories! 
@morningside95 Congrats on St. Olaf! I really liked that school a lot. We know a young woman who just graduated from there last year and she had a great experience. D really liked the study abroad and music emphasis. But Oberlin’s quirkiness and eclecticism won out in the end.
So for those of you who are following my D’s decision process with bated breath - and I’m sure there must be hundreds - the pendulum has now swung to WashU. Yesterday we met with a CS prof who I actually interned with 30 
years ago. DD thought he was great, and he made her feel a lot better about having good interaction in CS classes. They typically break these classes into lecture and “studio” and/or lab time. Studio time is essentially supervised / judged (?) coding. Lots of (small) group projects. (I’m not sure if “lab” time is significantly different, or pretty much the same.)
Also, sitting on a bench hanging out in the afternoon, she commented “wow, lots of cute guys walking around…” :-/ 
Anyway, we’re in Terre Haute today. After an obligatory trip to play in the local bridge club, we’re off to RH.
At least at this point, the worst case is that she’ll really like both schools…
@reba66 congrats to your son on his decision, I have heard great things about OU and the honors tutorial college.
I wish it was closer to us.
I wish Michigan had similar to TX policy for OOS students:(
Seconding all the congrats on recent decisions!! Happy for you - and a bit jealous as we are not there yet. But I sense we are getting close - UPenn vs. USC for EE &CS. Although admitted to GTech, CMU & Rice among others,for various reasons they are not at the top of the list at this point. More likely UPenn it seems bc closer (we are in NY) and good flexibility to take a variety of engineering and CS courses and other things as well. But the noodling and weighing of factors is not over yet! @mommdc & others whose students have not yet made a decision - well we only have 11 days left in any case, right? So ready to move on mentally and to start taking next steps for housing and other things (orientation, courses, planning transition etc.).
@thshadow – good luck to you D - liked she liked WashU! RH may be a big hit too but hopefully she can decide.
Great idea seeing your two top schools on back to back days @thshadow. She’ll be able to make a fair comparison and she shouldn’t favor the one visited most recently - as we often do.
Anxious to hear thoughts on RH.
Good luck!
@thshadow, Good luck to your D in her decision. No bad choices. And nice to hear that your D plays bridge. My S is a bridge player. He plays with both youth and adults and plans to go to the national youth tournament this year (in Toronto!). There is a ACBL club near his school choice also, but alas, it doesn’t look like there is a bridge club at his school. 8-|
Almost every college we visited boasted of the hundreds of clubs that they have. And almost invariably they would say, “if you don’t see one that you want, start one.”
So there’s that.
3 college revisits done, and I think he’s no closer to deciding than when he started. Sigh. I was hoping that he’d hate something about at least one of them, but no such luck. There are different things he likes about each school, and nothing in particular about any of them that he really dislikes, though the three schools are fairly different from each other – Georgetown (SFS), Dartmouth, and Middlebury. Given that he’s not entirely sure what he wants to study, I think he should pick Dartmouth, as it offers the most flexibility for him in terms of course of study. But he saw several kids he knew from his high school at Middlebury – not close friends, but people he generally likes and respects, so spending time with them during revisit day meant he had a really good time and he could really see himself there. To me, that was actually sort of a negative – why go to a college that feels like another 4 years of the same thing you’ve just had?
Congrats to those who have kids who’ve made commitments since the last time I posted! <:-P
My D has pretty much narrowed it down to 2 fantastic choices at this point. Although she had a perfectly nice visit at RPI on Wednesday, it wasn’t going to knock Smith from her default favorite, and is not seriously in the running. On Monday, though, she had an absolutely amazing visit at Hamilton, and now Smith is going to have to fight to win her back!
My D is a small town girl, so Hamilton’s fairly remote setting just felt peaceful and chill to her. The campus is beautiful, large and well maintained (which I’d hope was the case considering how expensive it is, lol!) Their Taylor Science Center was instant love. D spoke to professors and students in physics, chemistry, and geology and they were all approachable and friendly but had a level of intensity about them too. I think every student she spoke with was a double major. All of the faculty offices have student lounges outside where kids do their homework and projects together and pop in to see profs when they need help. It’s just the sort of collaborative atmosphere my D craves.
So! This has suddenly gotten interesting. We’re heading up to Smith tomorrow, and she’s spending the night with a current junior who’d gone to her HS (who D didn’t know, but is a friend of a friend.) I told her I thought the best thing would be that she had a great visit at Smith too, and then had to do some real deep digging - both into course catalogs and her own heart - to make a decision. Mostly, I’m just glad (like, almost ready to sob, actually) to see her excited at last.
Just a few more days! :D/
Totally understandable for your D, @mamaedefamilia! S16 and I really liked our visit to Oberliin! Had great lunch, with awesome tater tots at The Feve! We thought the fact that they had their own art museum and arboretum were pretty cool too!
Congrats to all who have made decisions. Must be a load off the shoulders that now you can focus on the road ahead. The hard part is now over but make sure to get all the paperwork into your schools on time way before the deadline and certify each parcel sent.
We had a nightmare situation two years ago when my son sent in all the requested materials on time. UCSC either misplaced them or the post office did. It was a good thing that all the documents that were requested from CC and HS, were paid with credit cards or checks.
Son was one of hundreds of accepted students denied entry, even to the welcome days he signed up for, because they said the paperwork did not arrive on time. Basically he had no options because by then it was way past May 1st, declare day. He was an orphan with no schools. He wrote a appeal letter with all the paperwork with mailing dates, credit card payments and checks. The tracking information that was available was also sent of course. For two weeks everything became dark because of things out of our control. We looked into him going to missions in Mexico, Africa or Asia to keep him from getting depressed and making the best of the situation. It was some of the darkest days our family went through and I hope all of you will never experience it.
Two and a half weeks after the appeal letter he was invited back in because they acknowledged we did our due diligence in getting the requested documents in early and that something went wrong between mailing and arrival. We never received and answer to who really screwed up, but my hunch is a careless student employee at the admissions office. Only about 40 other kids got re-accepted from about 450 if I remember correctly. I feel really bad for the 410 and how their lives were greatly altered because of a missed deadline.
So, take it from somebody and family that went through some dark times in the college admissions process that just making the decision to where you go is important but get your paperwork in with certified mail and early. Congrats again.
Congrats, @mamaedefamilia! I remember reading about your D’s visit to Oberlin and how much she loved it. It’s great that that worked out for her. I’d be curious to know what the final COA worked at to be at her top choices, if you don’t mind sharing. We’re trying to figure out which schools might offer enough merit to make them feasible for my dancer D (and which we should cross off the list b/c even with merit they’d still be out of reach).