fabulous!
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@lisabees Fantastic news! Congratulations to your daughter!
No need-based aid for D21 at Kalamazoo but a generous merit scholarship and a $6,500 legacy scholarship. Definitely within our range. Curious to see Beloit’s FA offer.
D21 is finishing up the last remaining credits she needs for graduation working 1:1 with instructors at small private school. She is almost done and will graduate next month, a semester early. She would like to make a college decision before she graduates but we’ll see. We don’t want her to rush into anything.
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@auroranights Crossing fingers that things become clear for your daughter in the next few weeks! Congrats on the K scholarships!
Can I ask you two more questions about Kalamazoo? We’ve never been there but it’s always lumped as a school for quirky, artsy, social justice-y kids (this is D21)! I have gone through their social media accounts for the past year and, for the life of me, can’t see that evidenced anywhere. I haven’t seen one nose ring, funky dresser, etc. In fact, the students look extremely mainstream, conservative. Can you speak to this?
Can you also speak to how the campus is separated from the city (busy roads etc)? Are there any coffee shops/restaurants right off-campus or is it a 15 minute walk?
Thank you! I think D would like to Facetime with a student to really “see” campus. Grrr, COVID.
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@lisabee I’m guessing you’ll find some funky dressers and a decent amount of nose rings but probably more mainstream/earthy in terms of fashion. I think people are accepted no matter how they dress. My D21 is definitely very artsy/quirky/liberal but you wouldn’t necessarily know it from looking her and that is true of many of her friends. With that said, she automatically ruled out any college that isn’t progressive because she wouldn’t fit in there and she says she had enough of that in high school.
K-College is off of some major roads but walkable. There is a Dairy Queen, Jimmy John’s, Walgreens and a few other restaurants/pubs within a 5 minute or less walk from campus. K now has a coffee shop on campus, in the library, but I think other coffee shops may be more like a 15 minute walk away. D21 is an avid coffee drinker so we were keeping an eye out for that when we last visited Kalamazoo. (She is also addicted to boba tea and is hoping to find a walkable place that offers those.)
If you daughter speaks with her admission counselor maybe they could pair her with a current student to answer questions? My friend whose son currently attends K actually lives in your area but, unfortunately, he is a freshman and hasn’t lived on campus yet since everything has been virtual this fall.
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@auroranights Once again, thank you! And what a shame your friend from Philly hasn’t experienced campus. I’ll have D reach out to an admissions counselor.
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Very happy to answer any questions! D21 was able to go on a tour with a student in October but it was pretty much just us and admissions staff on campus so hard to get a real feel for campus culture, etc. She wants more current student input too. Not her mom’s who graduated almost 25 years ago. 
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Congrats to everyone on the acceptances!
My D got her acceptance to Oregon State yesterday with a WUE award. She says she’s still 75-90% set on Montana State (to the point we paid the housing deposit) but wants to visit OSU to make sure. I booked a trip out there for February, hopefully we’ll be able to go.
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Congratulations!
We heard from Stony Brook University today. Mention she I’ll get a merit award, just don’t know what yet.
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Congrats! And, yes, that’s the hard bit this year. Kids actually trying to make up their minds when they can’t even visit a school. 
Fortunately we went to MSU in February. We were able to go to Utah State and Northern Arizona in September, things were a bit limited but still open enough to get a good sense of them. We were going to go to OSU in October but classes were all online so there weren’t many students around and it was at the peak of the fires in the area, so we cancelled. Hopefully we’ll make it in Feb.
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@johnny523 D has visited 3 schools. Only one had a few kids on campus.
I guess it makes things easier b/c she’s not attached to one particular school.
Crossing fingers things will be different for you in February.
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@Johnny523 and @AndreaLynn congrats on the acceptances!
S21 noticed today that he had an email last night from Willamette telling him to check the portal. He was accepted with two merit awards - made it cheaper than I’d predicted but it’s still his most expensive so far and at the top end of the range that I think we can pay, and I expect a few other schools to come in around that mark? (which is right around our EFC whereas other schools have been below EFC). We told him it might not quite make the affordable list…though it’s not completely out on that basis, but I think it may end up being one of the first eliminated ? Now we wait a month for Wheaton(MA) and Clark.
Who here is expecting notifications from schools before the end of December ?
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Yay! Your S is on a roll!! Congrats on the acceptance and TWO merit aid awards!
We’ll hopefully be getting Wooster, Drew, Clark, and St John’s College in MD before the holidays. I think in previous years the latter two were released then.
More importantly, I’d love to get some f/a packages in. Still waiting for Knox.
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@Johnny523 @AndreaLynn @nichols51
Congratulations on recent acceptances and merit awards.
@lisabees I am very local to St Johns College. You don’t hear it mentioned often due to its size and unique curriculum. Great college town, but I’m biased 
My son is 3 for 3 - today he got into St. Joseph’s in Philly with merit.
@nichols51 I confess that I have no idea when he will hear from the rest of his schools. He applied EA to all but I have not looked at my spreadsheet recently to see when they release decisions. Since he already heard from his top choice and I don’t think the others will beat it from a financial standpoint, anything else from now on will just be nice backup. We also missed the deadline for CSS for one of his schools; we filled out FAFSA but CSS was due 12/1 and despite reminding dh, he forgot. However, I’m fairly sure it would hurt any chances of financial aid so not really that sorry he forgot and we saved the $25 fee. Plus, the school is one of the most expensive so doubt any merit would be enough to make it a contender.
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D has heard from 9 schools now, 8 acceptances and one deferral. She should hear from another 2 or 3 over the next 3 weeks, including from her favorite school. Then, one or two more in February. She didn’t seem too upset about the deferral but the remaining schools are definitely reaches including one or two super reaches. Congratulations to all who have had acceptances so far and commiserations to those who have been denied and keep the faith to those deferred.
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Awesome! Congrats! I went to St Joe’s for grad school. 
And, yes, Annapolis is amazing. SD18 attended St John’s Summer Seminar. Very special school. D21 attended the virtual version of the seminar. She was obsessed with the school in the beginning of her search. As many do, I think she’s become very worried about it for a few reasons.
Congrats again!
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Wahoo! What a great track record. She’ll have wonderful choices.
We got a deferral here, too, so I feel you! D wasn’t shaken by it either.
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Congrats on your son’s admission and merit scholarships. Would you mind sharing how much are the merit awards? I have a class of 22 dd. I am following class of 21 stories in order to try to shed a bit of light on admissions. Willamette is a possibility for my dd, but only if costs fall in line with that of a UC or lower. Just trying to gauge if it’s worth an application or not.
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@InfoQuestMom Sure. The Willamette awards he got (one was the Trustee’s Scholarship and the other was the Impact Award) added up to a little over $23K. Willamette has reset their tuition lower for next year by almost $10K in comparison to where it was…so this comes out to Tuition, Room/Board, Fees (not including health insurance or anything else) of between $34-$35K. Hope that helps!
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Yes, it does! Thank you so much for sharing the details. All the best to your son!
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