@eahaz I don’t have much to add to what I posted above you in #858, perhaps you didn’t see it? :-/ But if you have specific questions I can do my best to answer based on what we saw. I hope you have a great trip to LA!
D18 got two acceptances yesterday, UMaine and Susquehanna, along with very nice scholarships. So exciting 
@tavengirl how wonderful! Are those schools high on your daughter’s list?
@amom2girls She likes them both, but neither are in her top three at this moment. UMaine was the financial safety. She very much liked Susquehanna and could envision herself going there, so it’s nice to have an option she’s happy with this early in the game. But, I need her to stay motivated–she’s got six more apps to submit in two weeks!
@1822mom my DD2018 jokes about all of the new engineering/buildings she has seen…when we are on tours and the guide says and this is our new…she mumbles "let me guess our new engineering/science building and then we pass by the old crusty buildings he says “let me guess that is either the history or english building?”, she is inevitably correct. She is resigned to the fact that she will rarely if ever see the inside of these shinny new gems and will probably be studying in the crusty old buildings. She wants to know why the engineers are being shown all the love!
At my DD’2016’s school the new engineering building is only accessible by the engineering students, like they literally have to swipe in and only the engineering kids have access. DD2016’s BF is an engineering student so she goes in with him to study in the super nice new study spaces.
DD received acceptance at Loyola Chicago yesterday. They send their scholarship offer with their acceptance letter. (Which I found to be the case with most of the catholic universities and small LACs with DD2016) DD2018 was offered $21k for 4 years ($84k). I just wanted to say this to let ya’ll know there is some very good merit money to be had out there for B students.
This makes Loyola very competitive and likely to be less than the cost of attending several of the large out of state public schools options that DD has applied to. And only $10k more per year than our state flagship where she is unlikely to be accepted and even more unlikely to be given any money.
DD2016, also a B student, received $18k per year from her catholic university. We are not even Catholic, but I can honestly say that it certainly feels like the Catholic universities are more welcoming of the B student and willing to give them a chance.
@taverngirl it is still wonderful to have the acceptances (and money!!) in hand. Great positive reinforcement. I do understand about the motivation, though. My daughter has all 8 applications submitted, but each has a supplement dance application and I can see that she has lost steam. It would be nice if each of the supplements wanted the same information and in the same format but they are all over the place. Sigh. Back to poking and prodding.
S18 just submitted four applications last night, and I am so relieved to finally get them out! I will feel better when he gets in SOMEWHERE. Now we have to work on the UCs and a couple others. He is my second and I thought we would be farther along in the process, but he is very different from his older brother. The essay took him weeks to finish, with multiple revisions, but I think the end result is pretty good. He is applying all over the map.
Anyone else dealing with a NSLI-Y app? Due tomorrow. Doing final edits of D’s essays tonight. That app is a bear…
I have no clue if she’s competitive for the thing, but I’m glad to have gone through the process, because it’s given me good insight into just how much nagging I’m gonna have to do for the Common App next year.
The engineering building usually contain some pretty high tech equipment they need (white boards, a new electrical grid, labs). It’s easier to teach history with a blackboard and some chalk than chemistry.
Also, many of those new buildings are paid for with grants from high tech industries. IBM paid for a lot of the engineering stuff and donated old computers and stuff to my university even back in the olden days and those computers and $$ never made it to the history or English departments.
I do feel your daughter’s pain @labegg . I had most of my classes in the ‘old’ builidngs (one even named Old Main) with desks probably from the grade school across the street and never enough of them. Squeaky floors, bathrooms new when indoor plumbing became popular…
A nice mailing came from Wooster today and out of all those we have received from various colleges over the last year, I’ve decided my D looks like a Wooster student most of all. Her face could be photoshopped in any of the pictures and she would fit right in. 
Before she got her hair cut, I thought Davidson.
Hey I’m never here so I’m the one with the S18 doing his senior year in Germany – kind of a different college search experience with this kid! He managed to get two of his three EA apps done on time yesterday (#1 choice George Mason and in-state safety CSU). He flubbed UMBC and did not get it in. I’m not thrilled, but I guess that one will be RD.
I’m glad he only applied to five schools. His local school counselor thought he would still be able to use Naviance, but that did not turn out to be the case. He wrote to all the schools and luckily most were willing to have the high school and recommenders send stuff by email. I still took five addressed stamped envelopes to the school office last week to send in hard copy transcripts just in case!
I think he’s really going to be choosing from three schools: George Mason, UMBC, and Towson. George Washington (most selective of his schools) is #4 on his list, but I do not see them making a better offer than the others which are all cheaper to begin with. (Assuming they even accept him!) He only has the in-state safety because you always have an in-state safety in this house. But Towson and UMBC are in range at full price if he takes (reasonable) loans and he definitely would to be in the DC area. GMU’s NPC is not quite there, but the adcom we met with during our visit really seemed to like him, so we’ll hope they are more generous in the end.
@MACmiracle and @xyxyxx hope that Ursinus comes through for both your D’s. I believe they made the most generous LAC offer my D11 (B student) got. She enjoyed her visit, but ultimately took the cheaper in-state option.
@1822mom nice trip report on Whittier – it sounds like a great place!
@taverngirl, wow acceptances already! That must feel nice.
@labegg I told my D11 about the fancy engineering facilities D17 saw on her tour of D11’s college. D11 (dance major) pointed out that several of their dance floors were coming apart and one had a hole they have to avoid. There is also no funding to send dance students to the big annual college dance conference, so they have to hold bake sales. Funny thing the football team doesn’t have to hold bake sales to get to their oh-so-important games. But it’s not always bad. D17 and I visited techy RPI and they have an amazing performance building built with money which was donated with the proviso it had to be used for arts!
@snoozn It was great to see your post. I hope you get good new from the EA schools soon.
I applied to college as an exchange student in Japan in the days before the internet. I have no idea how I got information because I really lived in the middle of nowhere. I applied to IU only because I had heard it offered Japanese, and then my instate flagship as a back up.
My mom must have been running around for me but I was too clueless at the time to appreciate how much she must have been doing.
Maybe my D should apply to RPI. I just found out one of the schools on her list is really lacking in ensembles.
@MACmiracle We received a Wooster mailing recently as well. Wooster goes up and down on S’s list but today it’s pretty high. I do hope our DCs get a handful of schools to choose from. Personally, I’ve been watching various promotional videos from the schools (which I haven’t done since the initial compilation of S’s list) and I’m starting to get a little of the mojo back. Plus several of the schools that we’re looking at updated their websites recently, so I’ve been spending some time looking at that. It’s been distracting me from asking my S to check the status of his applications on the portals again.
It’s been straining us keeping grades in-line, dealing with fall sports, and balancing all the application work. I hope those that had a Nov 1st deadline made out ok in this neck of the CC woods. At some point, hopefully our kids can start enjoying their last year in high school.
@snoozn, I did some law school applications from Germany back in the day. Which means, now that I’m thinking about it, that I also handwrote the applications. Yikes.
We are leaving mid-day tomorrow to do an overnight before daughter’s first dance audition on Saturday morning. Excited and nervous for her. Including this weekend we have 3 travelling weekends in a row of auditions. Then December, January and February.
@MACmiracle @chippedtoof My son also received a Wooster booklet. Did you apply EA? My son likes Wooster and plans to do an overnight if accepted. He had been getting bombarded with mailings the last few weeks from schools he hasn’t sought out, and they’ve varied widely in the types of schools. It’s started to slow this week. I wonder what the return is…how many mailings actually get an application? BTW my son enjoys the mail from the schools he’s interested in, I’m the only one who reads all of them.
@chippedtoof I feel like I’ve lost my mojo, too. We’ve had a lot to deal with lately. Besides my D’s concussion, my immediate family has been okay, but a lot of our friends and extended family are suffering right now and it’s sad.
And I’ve been thinking tonight that the college search is just full of compromises, like there is no single college that really checks all the important boxes. For example, she plays her instrument on and off all day, most days. It’s been a big part of her life, and it’s just sad that so few of the LACs we’ve been looking at will give her an opportunity to continue playing. I’m waiting for a call back from another music department.
Meanwhile, there’s a scholarship competition coming up and it’s a big trip but I don’t really have much hope that it will be worth it, except we’ll get a chance to meet people there and get a good feel for the vibe.
I’m sorry to read about everyone’s distractions. I hope things smoothe out for everyone/the kids.
I changed my avatar already! Daughter is sure about ISU. We were discussing last week the possibility of deferring and her spending a year serving one of her countries because she really wants something active and vocational, but she is definitely sure that she will go to ISU. So nice to be done already! I wonder if it will be this easy with DD23?
Lucky you @Kardinalschnitt I was hoping my son would find an ED university and maybe we could be “one and done”, but he wants to keep his options open. Sigh. So, the work continues.
Along with college admissions, my older still-in-college son is working on the summer internship search, which is a whole other process. I thought the stress would subside as they get older, but it just takes on new forms.