We still laugh about the Fordham one. Quick 2-3 minute intro, 27 minute video that was on their website, and then nothing. The chat was full of “is it over?”. Cringy side of funny.
It looks like Jeff Selengo is starting to do interviews again. Kindly share any tidbits here on the thread.
@homerdog I know you wanted to hear about U Denver but i hate to tell you we didn’t see much!
It was snowing on Monday and my Florida kids did not want to be outside too long. I asked D what she wood do if she went to school there but she said she’d be fine with the right clothes. I looked and she was wearing jeans with a holes in the knees and Chuck Taylor sneakers - not exactly cold weather gear!
We drove to U Denver which was about a 45 minute drive from Boulder. We had downloaded a self guided tour but the kids did not want to walk around too much so we mostly drove through campus as much as we could. after Boulder I think D was only going to see DU to make me happy anyway. Campus was really pretty! Mostly traditional red brick buildings which D and I love. It seemed like a pretty compact campus with a true campus feel, not a city school at all. It kind of reminded me of BC - a contained campus on the outskirts of a city and you would have to take an Uber or train to get to downtown Denver.
The surrounding town was not really adorable or anything but it was fine, again reminding me of BC. We drove around a few different ways and I saw restaurants, Starbucks, bars, etc. all right there within easy walking distance.
It was snowing and we couldn’t drive all the way in to campus but we did see some kids walking around. I would say they all looked “normal” which I know sounds bad, but all I could see were jeans and jackets really! Hard to tell if they were preppy or sporty or artsy or anything like that.
Sorry I don’t have much information!
Thank you for sharing this. It all makes sense and is so unfortunate and stressful. While my daughter did a respectable job on her Feb ACT in the areas she studied for, she felt that April would have been “the one.” With all the starting and stopping, as someone previously mentioned, along with the distraction of wearing a mask, by the time she took it in the fall, her grade went up in the section she really focused on, but she was rusty in the other areas, which only yielded a better super score. She’s done; she submitted what she has and let the chips fall where they may. I know admissions decisions are going to be unexpected, and can only hope for the best. Wishing everyone good luck as they navigate through this.
@steph1027 I am curious to see what happens to some TO candidates as well. In a case like @JanieWalker, who’s child had some super elite high level EC with weekend competitions she wins, I don’t think TO will matter.
For high achieving kids applying from geographically diverse areas no one from their school applies to, or whose area barely gave tests, I don’t think TO will matter.
I hope it will matter when more than a handful of kids from a school apply to a particular college and most of the applicants have scores, and the kids that don’t aren’t doing anything special. Hopefully an AO realizes those kids are shooting for the moon due to TO, at least where my kids are applying! Our school gave so many test sittings, there’s just no way a kid from their school couldn’t get a few in (they could’ve gotten like 6 or 7!).
And, I’m a proponent of scrapping the tests across the board because the high cost prep does work (we did it for 2 out of 3 of our kids, with our S21 being our guinea pig!), and it’s unfair to those who can’t afford it. But this cycle isn’t that, and the kids we know using it aren’t those kids.,
@momtogkc Thanks for the Denver write up! Families around here know that you do not bring your kids to Boulder unless you want them to go to school there. Everyone falls in love! Glad you guys liked it too!
Congratulations to everyone who has acceptances!
D21 is slowly getting her applications done, two more were submitted today so that is 6 total. The only ones left are her reach RD, there 4 of them, so I think she will be working on them through December. She is more inclined to do her school work then supplements.
She showed me her essay for Reed, and I really liked it. It really showed her personality. I wish she could use it for all the schools. Reed is the one school on her list that I wish we were able to visit, it is such a unique school.
A bit off topic, but our conferences were on Zoom this year and it solved the usual problem of having to wait outside the classroom due to other parents (or us) going past the alloted time. The teachers were pretty good at saying, “So nice that we got to talk, b-bye” and then kicking us out of the Zoom room right at the 10 minute mark.
@havenoidea, I don’t love testing either. I just don’t know that eliminating them entirely is a way to level the playing field.
Low-income kids can get fee waivers for tests, and even though they can’t afford expensive prep coaches there’s Khan Academy and a myriad of You-Tube study resources. With no testing, there’s a greater emphasis on school quality/ranking and to me, that is a bigger hurdle of access for a larger group of students (in a range of SES levels). Some lower SES students in urban areas can enroll in magnate schools with strong reputations. But, face it, the majority of schools with strong reputations are in wealthy urban and suburban areas of larger cities. What about rural and small-town kids? I don’t see how a system which encourages colleges to choose (even more than they do now) students from top high schools in wealthy communities is going to make things fairer for bright, hard-working kids of any SES level who happen not to live in these hand-picked areas.
100% agree with this. D19 has lived most her life in CA and doesn’t want to go to college here…I’m from the NE and her fam is all on the east coast, and she is very well traveled…but there was no convincing of her of even looking at any schools in the SE like Alabama. She always looked at data of where they students came from and ruled out other schools where the vast majorities were from the SE or the MW.
As for LMU…D21 attended a large catholic CA HS that is a big feeder for LMU and from what I’ve seen, many kids coming out of her school who go to schools like LMU, Univ of SD, and Santa Clara tend to be more conservative than what I’d call the more typical liberal CA kids (like mine, who were actually raised Catholic but do not consider themselves Catholic!). I think a liberal midwest student will be pretty in sync. You just might find alot more kids who surf and snowboard whenever they can than you’d find in the Midwest…
Just an update…I’ve been coming here to read pretty often but decided to dial way down for awhile to get the college anxiety in check (that on top of the election was…a lot).
I’m going to eat humble pie here…the GC at my D’s school did attach the earlier transcript (with the higher rank she had reported to my D) so the rank that my D wrote in on the Common App does match that on the transcript. Now I feel a bit foolish how I overreacted. At least when I emailed the GC to ask about it I made sure to ask in a neutral tone that was cordial (hope it came across that way). I just asked which transcript was sent and said my daughter was worried she (herself) had misreported it. So that’s that. My D just feels a little bad that her friend (who really has the same rank but simply scheduled the GC interview a couple of weeks later) shows a lower rank on the transcript. It won’t make a difference in admissions, but still.
Re ‘Bama, my brother and his family live in the Birmingham area and SIL would be thrilled for D to go to the flagship. Has been pushing it a little! She has seen D only a handful of times and would love to have a niece to invite for occasional weekends, especially as she had two sons but no daughter. My D’s not having it though! My brother’s youngest son went to ‘Bama and thrived after college…landed a marketing job in Manhattan and found an affordable studio apartment on the Upper East Side…he’s that kind of kid who always seems to live a charmed life. During the pandemic he moved back home but I think he’s working the same job online. So, another ‘Bama success story. I grew up in Huntsville until I was twelve, and even though there are things that drive me crazy about the South, there’s good there, too (and plenty of intelligent people). I mean, legions of southerners put us on the moon (as well as lots of people from everywhere). My Dad grew up dirt poor in Montgomery, Alabama, graduated from Auburn after WWII (thanks to the GI Bill) and helped design the air-conditioning system of the Apollo 11 in Huntsville.
Ha! right. No surfing going on on Lake Michigan. We would buy D21 a skateboard if she ends up in CA. 
Well- D21 finally had an opportunity to go to HS hybrid this week- has been remote all year. They let the underclassmen in first and kept delaying the upperclassmen entrance to hybrid. And now COVID is surging in our state and community so they are sending everyone back to remote only for the rest of the term. It was nice for the 2 days she got?
Damn COVID!
@whyboydanny Ugh what a shame! S21 was in two days per week for 7 weeks, ending tomorrow. I am sorry to see in-person end but I think the school is making a wise decision. So sorry your D didn’t have more time in-person. Fingers crossed for a return before late winter/early spring.
@inthegarden so glad the transcript/rank is a not an issue.
Look Alabama is a large public university. If your child would decide to go there their major is available and they would get a very good education. If they do well academically they can get into a myriad of graduate schools and/or good jobs.
The real issue as @homerdog mentioned is whether a school like Alabama or Auburn or Georgia etc are a fit socially for your child. The other issue is the incredible merit money they give to OOS high stat kids to get them to attend and whether that is something that makes sense for you child and your family. A good friend of my D18 goes there and absolutely loves it and has not issues with being from the north.
Moreover as I said in my review it is a beautiful campus with lots of school spirit. Obviously not for everyone but it does have a lot to offer to the right student.
Common app edit question. Our S21 submitted 2 EA apps (Clark and Wooster) earlier this week and filled out the self reported ACT score from his first test. After applying to these schools we got his 2nd ACT scores back and he’s updated the common app with those scores. Will these 2 schools he’s already applied to get the score updates or does he need to email the admissions office to notify them of the new scores?
We’ve already made a mistake updating the FAFSA by not removing all 10 schools then adding 10 more…we thought you could add more schools at anytime and not have to wait for it to be accepted again. Oops!
He’s our oldest so all of this is all new to us! Thanks as always for the great information shared.
The schools where he already submitted his app will not get the updated scores. He will have to update his test scores within the portal, and if that’s not an option, send an email to his AO with the new scores.
Good luck!
Thank you!
I have this somewhat irrational fear that D21 will be rejected everywhere she applies. Does anyone else worry about this? She has great stats, ECs, references, but it’s a niggling fear that won’t go away.
I think this fear is partly because something similar happened to the daughter of friends of ours last year. Kid was a national merit scholar, an IB diploma candidate, took 5 HL courses, 5.2 GPA, 35 on the ACT, and here’s what happened:
Rejected @ Harvard
Rejected @ Princeton
Rejected @ Penn
Rejected @ Northwestern
Rejected @ U of Chicago
Rejected @ Tufts
Rejected @ Emory
Rejected @ William & Mary
Rejected @ Georgetown
Accepted @ Drexel
Accepted @ U of Minnesota
I get that her list had pretty much all reaches but the results were just devastating. This haunts me.