Is she landing in Pune or. Mumbai? if the latter it is a long road trip to Sangam. I assume that is all arranged.
@VickiSoCal She will land in Mumbai & a driver is supposed to meet her there. Her flight gets in Sunday night. But she does have a ticket to Pune for Monday if for some reason she doesnāt connect with the driver. When we were rebooking the flights, I had them add the Pune leg because we werenāt sure how she was going to get from Mumbai to Pune since the rest of the group sheās meeting is getting into Mumbai at 11 am Sunday & traveling by bus.
Just nerve-racking because we thought we had it all planned out, but weather happens. It didnāt help that we had driven the hour+ to the airport to get there just to return home. Then drive back there today.
Just need to vent, otherwise, itās bite my nails & worry! How my mother must have been when I did these same things - except without the ability to communicate as easily.
So S18 decided to go on a road trip with his friend for the weekend. The plan was to go tubing on a river near Austin, TX. Ok, so he left one morning from Houston, went to Austin, then ended up in Waco for the night (hmm), the next day I get a snap that he is in Arkansas, then in Memphis, then Mississippi, then Louisiana, and ended back in the hill country of TX this morning at a camp he had attended every summer for 13 years. Who know where they will be tomorrow but they are supposed to come home tomorrow night. Guess it is just his time to go explore.
@michiganbuckeye I hope she has safely arrived.
My husband goes to Pune for work about twice a year and usually flies in to Mumbai. He says the drive can be long and traffic can be bad but Sunday night should not be too bad.
@VickiSoCal DD just texted to say she is in the car on the way to Sangam - so I can finally relax!
@thinmints thanks for your suggestion re EA. She has 2 safety-ish schools on her list that allow EA, so Iāll definitely have her do that.
What about EA for highly competitive schools that allow EA - U Chicago or Georgetown for example. Is it harder to get in EA than RD at these highly competitive schools? I seem to recall that Stanford allows EA, but it can be the kiss of death because they outright deny rather than defer a lot of kids, and they are even more crazy selective with the EA pool. Does that sound right, or sound like Iām having a bad dream?
@Ynotgo oh, you are so right about starting earlier rather than later but suspecting it might not happen. Iām hoping sheāll do it this month, but Iām not going to push because itās her neck on the line - oh, alright, I might drop a friendly reminder every now and then. 
@michiganbuckeye glad your daughter has landed and has arrived at her destination. What a relief!
@melvin123 One thing I found was that some colleges donāt always update their NPC until the late fall/winter. I ran the NPC for the college my D wanted to apply to in October and it said our EFC was $8,000 When I ran it again in December using the exact same information it said our EFC was $55,000.
Just something you might want to be aware of. We also had an email address that was just for college stuff. Both my D and I had the password so I could check it if needed. Teenagers often send emails to to trash that might have useful information in them.
Thanks @botcom.
@melvin123 - In general, the EA rates for highly selective schools are higher than the RD rates. That said, the EA applicant pool has a lot of āhookedā kids, including athletes, children of big, donors, legacies (Georgetown is the only exception to this ā legacies must apply RD), and high stats kids that donāt need their senior year grades to bring up their GPAs and are ready to apply by Nov. 1st.
Stanfordās EA, like Yaleās, Harvardās and Princetonās is restrictive (they call it SCEA or REA for SIngle Choice / Restrictive Early Action). Under this program, you CANNOT apply EA to any other schools besides public universities, nor can you apply anywhere with a binding decision (i.e., no ED schools). You CAN apply to any in-state or OOS Public and/or Regular Decision schools with rolling, non-binding decisions), and you CAN submit applications with early deadlines for merit scholarships, as long as they are part of an RD admissions program. The only exception is one that Stanford offers for EA ā if you must apply EA in order to be considered for a ānamedā merit scholarship, then you are allowed to do so. (The only case we found was Tulane; all the the other named or unnamed merit aid that D17 applied for were RD).
Itās pretty much a crapshoot with HYPS SCEA. Stanford tends to not defer as much as the other schools. One strategy is to try to make a calculated decision based on your schoolās naviance data for how EA and RD applications have fared in the past, and where you think the other top students in the grade might be applying. And, of course, if there is a clear favorite, your D18 should choose that one.
Hi @LoveTheBard . Thanks for the information.
Iām from '18 too. I appreciate reading the advice.
Seconding @botcomās suggestion of a separate email address for college-related stuff. Your childās email account will be inundatedāhelping my daughters set up throwaway accounts for their college junk email was probably the single most useful thing Iāve done in their searching.
@melvin123 For UChicago, I think definitely apply at least EA. They added ED1 and ED2 this year. The rumor is that their RD acceptance rate was as low as 2%, though they havenāt released that data yet.
@melvin123
Not to underestimate the amount of communication that happens within each family. Each family finds their own way of determining who gets to decide whatā¦ in a process where all parties involved have a stake. And by how working together, usually leads to really good outcomes.
An area that can be harder than you might think is when to make a final decision with a school. Do you wait until you hear back from all the schools with acceptances and $ decisions, or do you make an earlier binding decision? Having a clear favorite helps, but often families wonder about what could have been. However, waiting until the end of April can seem like forever.
Good luck on your journey!
@botcom ā wait from 8k to 55k is a HUGE difference!! What do you think happened??
Thanks @botcom for your suggestions. I fall into the category of notoriously unreliable NPC anyway since I own a business, and Iāve been told I fall into the donut hole anyway. But that is absolutely CRAZY that your numbers would change that much. How can you plan ahead? And itās really unfair to give an enticing number so you let your kid apply; if you had seen the real number you might have told your kid to pass on the application.
@dfbdfb @botcom thanks for the advice on the separate email account. Thankfully weāve already started that since she already gets a ton of emails.
@HappyGoLucky2017 oh boy, thatās a biggie, particularly being from a divorce situation where communicating with the ex is a real problem. Iāve everything in writing to help minimize misunderstandings.
Iām just feeling strapped for time now. I wish we had started this process earlier!!!
@carachel2 Iām sure @botcom will shed some light on her experience but I believe what may account for the difference is those that re-ran the calculator after Dec 1 found that the number was much higher. The school has a Dec 1 deadline for merit scholarship and, based on other posts I read at the time, it seemed after Dec 1, the EFC jumped dramatically. Iām not sure we will ever know for sure. I think the school may have adjusted their calculator because they were making financial commitments to their ED1 and merit scholarship recipients and after Dec 1 there was no guarantee as to what was left for them to distribute. Weāll never know but @botcom was not the only parent to have that experience. I read one or two other posts that were similar.
Happy Tuesday!! Some good dorm deals on Amazon for prime day, purchased some bedding and electronics for my DS. Worth a look :-B
Popping in to say D got a 5 in ap bio, and 4ās in stat and lit. Iāve been badgering her to check and see if itās shown up on her portal yet to see if she gets to exempt out of any more classes, but since sheās actually at college now sheās finding it remarkably easy to dodge my questions /
Iām also getting a ton of snail mail for D2 from U Chicago. Like a ridiculous amount. Dās stats are 3.0 unweighted (barely). Iād just like to say shame on you U Chicago for killing trees in a pathetic attempt to boost your applications.