Congratulations to everyone getting acceptances back! We heard back from the third (and last per my D20) college and she was accepted to Texas Tech! We had a long discussion about all 3 acceptances (Tarleton State, Texas Tech and Alabama), and after a good process of elimination, she has decided to stick with her first choice of Tarleton State. The majority on CC would consider it a safety due to it’s mid to high acceptance rate and stat requirements, but she loves it and it aligns with her chosen field of study (Vet Medicine). It’s part of the A&M system, which is where she wants to go post grad for vet school. It has a great College of Ag Science with an awesome pre-vet animal sciences department, is on the lower end of expenses (which was a big consideration when we started discussing her potential 8 years or more of college) and she feels at home there. So our college application season ended almost as soon as it started. LOL Now we are just anxiously watching for the housing app for Fall 2020 to open, so she can get that completed and hopefully be high on the list of her preferred dorm. Knowing where she will be going already (this is just the 2nd week of Senior year) has really eased her mind and now she can concentrate on having a strong, happy senior year and focus on her keeping her grades up and her internship with one of the local vets. Best of luck to everyone just starting this process and fingers crossed for lots of acceptance posts in the near future! I will, of course, be hanging around to follow and discuss all things college and Senior Year. Now if someone could find a way to slow time down and make this year last extra long, that would be great because I’m already getting weepy and all we’ve done so far is senior pictures. LOL
What a fantastic outcome for your D. CC is often unhealthy, so it’s refreshing to see your post. Congrats and good luck to your D.
@AnRsMom congrats to you and your D20! There is nothing wrong with choosing a safety that fits exactly what she wants. My S20 will likely be doing the very same. He’s only applying to 4 Cal State schools (all safeties for his stats and for our finances) and he already knows which is his favorite. We’re just waiting on the app to open up on 10/1, and are hoping for an acceptance before the holidays so he too can get his housing request in early.
D20 finally had chance to speak to Longwood today to get her acceptance call (playing phone tag all week). So both S20 and D20 received offers of admission to Longwood! I hate to use the term “safety” but at least now they both know they have somewhere to go if their top pics so far don’t pan out.
GC’s at our school don’t use the term “safety”, rather they call them “foundation” schools.
This +1000. This site gives such a skewed perspective of college. There’s nothing wrong with going to a “safety school” if it’s the right school for you.
I’m going to make people completely appalled 
S20 registered for precalc and biology at a CC for dual enrollment, along with three classes at the HS. He had the first day of precalc on Monday and was pretty excited about it. He had the first day of biology Tuesday and came home and said “I’m going to drop it.” I can’t fault him - it’s five credits and it is a ton of work, two lectures and two labs a week with a ton of assignments and tests. So he talked to his GC about options, and he dropped it and picked up … gym. It was pretty much the only class that was open and would fit into his schedule. So his schedule is now the precalc class, gym, chemistry, English (dual enrollment at the HS), and student assist for economics. (Student assist is helping the teacher, not taking the class.) Yeah, not much rigor there
Me too! I have never used the term “safety” when discussing D20’s list of colleges. I may have told her some of them were harder to get into, but I never wanted her to think her final choice was a bad one or not good enough. I wanted her to choose the one that was best for her in her eyes, which she did. She’s already found 2 clubs that she plans to join and is looking forward to planning how to decorate her dorm room.
Thanks to everyone for the congratulations.
@AnRsMom congratulations! She sounds like my son! He just wanted out of TX though. He only applied to safety schools but we didn’t even know that’s what they were at the time. They all had great animal science departments and ties to vet schools. He turned in his vet school application yesterday! These schools are great choices! Good luck!
I like these term, all but one of the schools on my son’s list are “safeties”, but realistically they are “target” schools for him.
Congrats to all those with acceptances under their belts! It will be Dec/Jan before we hear from the schools he really wants.
Unfortunately here in NOVA…they are pretty much indoctrinated into use of “reach”, “match” and “safety”, especially since their school relies heavily on Naviance. But I have tried hard to not use those terms at all with D20 and S20. Focus has been on finding a school offering degree in their fields of interest, size/vibe they are looking for, cost, etc. That being said we are also being realistic given their stats and budget constraints (twins in college all 4+ yrs!).
My son received his first acceptance today to University of Iowa! The application was super easy and it’s a quick turnaround. It’s nice to be starting the school year with a yes!
Congratulations!
@Marcie123 - Congrats! Yes, definitely nice to start school year with one school in the bag!
@Marcie123 Congratulations!
S20 just left to take the SAT - this will be his last one and we are crossing fingers that the Kaplan class he took in July pays off a bit and he improves upon his 1090 score from May. He should get into his 4 target Cal State schools regardless because his GPA is decent, but it would still be nice to have that SAT number a little higher.
Good luck to anyone else who is at SAT today!
@thedreamydaisy how did the SAT go? My son thought the reading was the hardest of all the tests he’s taken, but writing and math weren’t bad. He’s done regardless but hoping for a little improvement in scores.
@Marcie123 my S20 said much the same. He thought the Math was definitely easier than in the past. Thought the writing wasn’t bad and the reading was a bit tough. We are hoping for some improvement at least in the Math. The Cal State schools he is applying to all superscore I believe so even some improvement in Math alone would be good. Now we wait 
After first day of school S20 discovered his AP Comp Sci class was all coding and teacher recognized majority of students from last year’s Comp Sci class. He doesn’t know coding and not interested in it. Only options for switching were: Personal Fitness, Journalism or Digital Art. Guess what he picked? Personal Fitness.
@scoutmom2002 My S20 was going to take a dual enrollment biology class at the CC this semester. He came home after the first day and said he wanted to drop it because it was going to a ridiculous amount of work (it’s five credits). So he’s taking gym instead.
My D20 is taking A&P online for DE credit this fall but dropped the lab portion after the first day. They did wanted her to do dissections at our dining table and it was a whole big no-go for my girlie. That said, she loves the lecture part of the course. We are going to do a lab intensive in the spring for her homeschool lab credit.