Hey everyone, Happy New Year! Congratulations to all on recent acceptances – too many to name!
I’ve removed my previous avatar as my girl has been very much less-than-impressed with both the FB group for her year group and the Reddit for the school. I won’t go into detail.
She finds the groups for two other schools she has been accepted at (she applied to one I’ve been, ahem, nudging her towards for months and was accepted over the break) much, much friendlier, open, enthusiastic and accepting. The contrast has been interesting. She really wants to like her first choice, but just doesn’t. The only real problem with both of the other two schools is the very cold weather.
She wants to like her warm-weather school but just doesn’t like Albuquerque that much. I know she researches these things like crazy, so the only thing that could change her mind is visiting. She really, really wishes she could visit her schools.
Has anyone else had this experience with the FB groups at a school you couldn’t visit? I just wonder how accurate an impression they give. I would be more skeptical if she weren’t having this contrasting positive experience on the other schools’ groups.
@Kardinalschnitt I’m curious about your question as well. My D has not joined any fb groups, mostly because she is not on facebook and is reluctant to join. But she has considered it just for the purpose of these groups, hasn’t done it yet though! I guess my concern is the one you’ve brought up, what if she gets a negative impression from the fb kids? My thoughts would be to see how many are signed up in the fb group and compare that to the number admitted not the number enrolled. I would guess the percentage is small and possibly not significant. But I don’t know.
I would be curious to know if anyone has signed up for the fb groups and also visited the school and found a difference in the vibe between the real campus and the fb group. I would tend to trust the visit more.
I was a late joiner to FB, only a few years ago. My kids both have accounts but rarely use them now except for things with cousins, clubs, or things of a very general nature. FB is much too public to post a real opinion on, or share anything good.
I wouldn’t pay much attention to it. I use it to follow sports teams, a few groups i’m in made up of high school or college friends, and a few individual friends. Oh and my college and my kids’ colleges.
FB is for old folks now. Kids use snapchat or tmblr, or other outlets that are newer and more private than FB.
I’m not on FB – or any other social media. My dd has an account but never posts anything, only follows (doesn’t even have a profile picture). I don’t think she has any social media (including snapchat), except Twitter, on which she follows brain surgeons and such.
Like I said, I would agree with both of your assessments (I’ve also thought that this has to be a very limited group of kids) if it weren’t for a) the Reddit is like that too and b) the groups at the other schools are the complete opposite.
Argh, I really wish we could visit. I don’t think she has decided against the school yet. But it’s definitely making it a harder decision; she is definitely giving more thought to the other schools than she was.
There are some great acceptances listed here for our kids. It is very encouraging that our kids can get into these great schools with merit.
My son with 3.4 weighted (lower now due to 1st semester senior year grades) has been accepted to Dickinson (ED), Juniata, Fordham-Lincoln Center, Seattle Pacific, Ohio Wesleyan, College of Wooster and Allegheny. He has decent merit scholarships to all except Fordham, which may come later but not holding breath. Deferred by Lewis & Clark & Kalamazoo so far. He withdrew from schools he did not hear back from before he accepted Dickinson (ED).
@liveonboca Congrats on your S’s acceptances! Dickinson is on my list for my S… unfortunately, it never made it to my S’s list L&C still confuses me in that it seems to have good stats but doesn’t seem as popular here on CC (generally, people don’t seem to like the vibe). Any reason your S picked them vs UPS or Willamette?
@chippedtoof The rep came to his HS school and he had a Skype interview and he had an interest in Reed and L&C but did not like the rep from Willamette. He liked the location of SPU being in Seattle but not UPS or PLU in Tacoma.
^^ Thanks, it is very interesting how things turn out like this. I was not impressed with the WIllamette rep either, but my S was ok with him and liked what he read online and in the CTCL book, so he applied. The L&C was the opposite where he didn’t click with the rep at a college fair.
Re: FB, we haven’t joined any of the FB groups, although I think it would be interesting. I’m leery of trusting too many impressions made on FB though… it’s such a tiny window to view things through.
@liveonboca Congrats on your son’s ED at Dickinson! D and I loved it and it became her first choice. It must feel great to be past all the stress of wondering!
@xyxyxx Thank you. I am so happy that he is done with applications and wondering where he is going to go. Now he needs to work on scholarship apps and maintaining good grades so I can really relax and breathe!
Happy New Year to everyone! It seems like people are really hunkering down and making choices. So exciting (and a bit stressful!). S18 has been accepted at WSU with full tuition (just have to pay room/board), Gustavus with nice merit $$ and the possibility of some more, UW Eau Claire, University of MN Duluth and U of Manitoba. He’s going to go with his dad to visit WSU the beginning of March during their “distinguished scholars” event. Right now he’s got WSU and Manitoba as 1& 2. Not sure which is which ;). We’re still waiting on UMN Twin Cities and New College of FL, but Twin Cities definitely is not at the top of his list and I"m not sure FL will come through with enough $$ to make it work. I think that $$ wise Manitoba and WSU will end up being about the same - so we’re really narrowing in on the programs he’s interested in to see which will be the better fit. WSU is a bigger pain in the *ss to get to from MN, so that will probably factor in as well. Although he’s determined that he wants to go “away” to school. I wish I could go on the WSU weekend, but it’s just not feasible from a work or $$ perspective. So I"ll just have to trust his judgement.
S is disappointed that Ithaca didn’t come through with enough grant aid. We didn’t expect him to get in, since the major he applied to is in the school of communications. Hopefully he’ll make his peace with going to McDaniel. My take is that when a private college makes the cost of attendance the same or less than that of in state publics they want you. To me a small school where you just have to stay on track to graduate to keep your scholarship is a good fit for a talented but unmotivated student.
Let’s get this thread going again! @Momtoatrio WSU is Washington, right? Congratulations on that scholarships! That is very impressive! Congrats on Gustavus (I tried and tried to get dd to apply). Manitoba sounds nice, too.
@Time2Shine Congratulations! Dd has lots of nice kids from her various former schools going there. @mstomper Too bad about Ithaca. I’m sorry! McDaniel seems like a nice, “nice kid” school from what I’ve read.
Dd has pretty much given up on ISU but is not withdrawing her deposit yet as she wants to see what the FA offer will look like (what a chore, by the way!). She is now 90% about Wyoming, has aleady made many friends on FB and is really looking forward to it.
I have a rather odd question. Does anyone in the dorms hang-dry laundry? I’ve never had a dryer in my adult life so the thought of putting certain things in there feels very risky to me. I was thinking of getting dd a detachable laundry line that she could hang in her room when she needs it. How do kids wash wool, for example? I suppose they dry-clean it? But dry-cleaning is icky to me – with all those chemicals.
@Kardinalschnitt I did see a foldable drying rack in one of the girls’ suites we toured at USC. It was actually kind of nice that the girls didn’t put everything away so we could actually see how they lived.
My daughter solved her laundry issues by rarely doing any! When she lived in the dorms she often brought it all home or more often to a friend’s home and his mother did all the laundry while they played cards (with a big expensive washer/dryer that had many settings like steaming and fluffing). The things they mostly hung in the dorm room were wet towels.
@Kardinalschnitt when my daughter does laundry at home, I regularly find her tops, sweaters, etc either laying flat all over her room or hanging on the rim of an indoor basketball hoop we have in the basement. I assume she does something similar at school. Me? I try to avoid as much as possible clothes that can’t go in the dryer.
I’m thinking line-drying in the room is a great idea in Laramie’s dry climate – the wet laundry, especially wool, will surely act as a great humidifier!
@Kardinalschnitt We used to humidify with drying clothes in the winter in Japan.
After ten years of having no dryer, I adjusted very quickly to using one again. Having one during rainy season and after a stomach virus can be very helpful!
Yes, rainy season is really terrible…when my clothes won’t dry for three days! Here in Vienna it’s not so bad but at our house in Brittany (very humid) where we heat with a woodstove only…OM stinkin’ G. Yes, I know I would adjust quickly too.
L&C still confuses me in that it seems to have good stats but doesn’t seem as popular here on CC (generally, people don’t seem to like the vibe). Any reason your S picked them vs UPS or Willamette?