@paveyourpath - Too much too little time, especially with all the APs, finals and year end projects. Banquets, college visits, family time and my D trying out to speak at baccalaureate and/or graduation. We know how you feel and how busy your S is. Take it all in…it will be over soon and the drama of college will be upon us before you know it.
Congratulations to everyone who’s done! And good luck to those who are still anxiously awaiting the final decision… we are still in that latter category. My D is heading back home as we speak from WPI: it was her last admitted student day. She has narrowed her top two to WPI and Pitt, for Biomedical Engineering/Bioengineering. I think if money were not a factor, she would have picked WPI a long time ago. If she picks Pitt, we will pick up the full tab as it would just be room and board; but if she chooses WPI she would be responsible for around $8,000 a year, most of that being loans. I am feeling sort of bad that we are not able to just say "we’ll cover it!”, but after many years of being a young, broke family, we’re doing a lot of retirement savings catch-up and we just can’t commit to $28,000 for four years. We have our D19 as well, and we’ve told them each we’d pay the same as our in-state schools (around $20,000).
My D is getting so stressed from this decision constantly weighing on her. Yesterday morning she said she wanted to cancel the trip to WPI and just go with Pitt. “It’s the smarter choice”. I knew she was just tired and stressed but I was ready to say ok to that and hop online and order her some swag. My husband, probably wisely, thought they should make the trip so she’d have no regrets over her choice. I spoke to her a little while ago and she sounds miserably confused and torn 
It was a great presentation/visit from what I heard.
@Fishnlines29 I was impressed with the biomedical engineering presentation at UDelaware: the faculty and students were so enthusiastic about the program. They also seem to have a great honors college. That was a serious contender for my daughter. Your nephew would probably be eligible for some good merit aid.
@Agentninetynine thanks for asking, he is headed to the opposite coast…University of Vermont. For his major, “fit” and the best possible academic environment (small college within a mid sized college) it’s the right choice. It’s a tad more than we’d like to spend but they did give him a generous scholarship which brings it in a bit over SLO (though not horribly) but almost half overage of that is travel. Hoping he will get a merit bump, they will revisit after 2nd semester grades are in.
We figure, away is away. And getting SD14 home from SLO isn’t all that fast either, she just doesn’t have the time difference to deal with!
SD14 is very very happy there, I hope your S will be too!
@jmek15 - Believe it or not he was not bitter with the experience and he ended up being a RA this year. Basically, he has paid for the room and board himself with extra toward tuition. He as cost us a few thousand dollars in books and pizza delivery costs. Quite happy but getting sick of the rain and wants to live the city life again. May transfer to UCSB or UCI next year. When there are more trees then students on campus, it has gotten to him.
I feel for your S. When the doubts come into play it makes everyone a little jumpy. Same with us with D. Her heart says Columbia (she loves NYC) but her mind (and everyone else) says Stanford. All of our friends say we are crazy to even think about sending her Columbia, but we want it to be her decision. She, at Phil’s Fish House at Moss Landing, on April 30th will make her choice after visiting Columbia this weekend and Stanford the following weekend. So as you can guess we are still on eggshells.
Suggestion…buy a whole lot of Purdue stuff that can’t be returned…no buyers remorse then.
Just catching up. Congrats to so many who have made decisions. :D/ =D>
Special Congrats to @socalmom007 and @Agentninetynine on the Calpoly decision! Stop by here for coffee on your way up there sometime!
We aren’t there yet, but there are only 12 days left of Indecision 2017.
Wishing clarity of thought to the kids who are still deciding!
DS and I got back from a trip to CMU yesterday. Tomorrow he leaves for 2 1/2 days at Caltech. Still no decision, but perhaps after the Caltech trip.
At CMU he felt he could see himself spending 4 years there. The food was reasonable, dorms were reasonable. City and campus are both very pretty. The CS classes he sat in on were well taught. I thought that they didn’t do a very good job of selling the admitted students, as the CS info session and tour were mixed in with a bunch of prospective students.
He doesn’t feel like he’s ready at this point to commit to a CS degree instead of a physics degree. I guess it will come down to “fit” issues at Caltech. He has joined the Caltech FB group for admitted students but not the CMU one. (So, yes, I think that choice on his part says something about what he’s thinking about the final decision.)
There is still a longshot waitlist that he’s got his hopes on. As with some other people here, there’s a girl involved. But, if that doesn’t happen (or maybe even if it does), I think they can see each other over breaks and via Skype. The workload at all schools in question is such that weekend trips probably won’t work.
Schedules are getting crazy. This week’s CMU trip got moved up because of semifinals in an economics-related competition. Then, DS has to go back to CMU next month to accept a CS-related award with his team. That moves one of his AP tests to the alternate date. Other possible date conflicts are possible. May is a busy month!
@Ynotgo where’s the girl going???
@ChalkPastel Oh yeah, I forgot about AP tests. They’re another source of stress, but I don’t think she can focus on them until she gets at least one of the other projects out of the way (and picks a school!) @jmek15, no repeat of the stress dance – yet. :-S
We have an official decision!
D has committed to Indiana University for the School of Global and International Studies, the Arabic Language Flagship, and the Chinese Language Flagship.
She is deferring her admission and scholarships to Fall 2018 because she will be spending the next year in Taiwan on a Rotary Youth Exchange!
D is so very excited and thrilled She’s even letting me order her an IU tshirt 
@socalmom007 UChicago
@WhereIsMyKindle Congrats! You must be so proud. <:-P <:-P <:-P
Oh wow @Ynotgo … so mine should really be happy to be in the same state!
@socalmom007 She lives in New Jersey now, so almost anything is closer.
Oh wow, ok… so they’re used to the distance thing!
@gr8pl8, I had a friend whose D was caught in the UCSC debacle also. She did get in, but couldn’t go to the admitted student event and she was very upset about the whole thing. I am glad it worked out for you and is a good lesson learned. I am going to follow up on the all of the transcripts that have to be sent to S’s choice.
@curiosa Sent you a PM!
@mtrosemom - I am glad it worked out for friends D. It was not a happy time during those few weeks. Hope it will be a warning to keep on your toes till move in day.
Congratulations @WhereIsMyKindle on IU and exciting gap year! <:-P <:-P
I’ve been lurking with great interest…
@LoveTheBard, @Testingearly, @gr8pl8, I appreciate your posts on Stanford, and I hope you (and anyone else looking at it) will continue to post any thoughts.
S17 is having a hard time with his final decision, and will attend Stanford’s admitted student event, getting home on the 30th. The goal is to have the decision made and portal updated the night of the 30th and not take a chance on having portal access issues on the 1st. Unfortunately, that also makes it hard to for anyone attending that event to post anything before decisions are due.
gr8pl8, S17 has a similar choice, but will have to skip the Columbia event because of a conflict, and will attend one of the half-day visits next Tuesday. DW and I tend to favor Stanford over Columbia because Columbia’s COA is about $6k/year more than Stanford’s.
@Fishnlines29, I may have missed someone suggesting it, but for your nephew, is Penn State on his list? It seems to tick the boxes-- driving distance, campus setting, in-state tuition, strong engineering program.
I might be wrong but I don’t think he will get into PSU main with a 1200 SAT. Especially for engineering. Also the cost would be over $40k OOS.