Thank you. Was your kid also deferred from MIT?
Yep.
Did they have an interview during the EA round? If not, will they request one now? We are trying to decide what to do. My daughterās high school is not used to dealing with top colleges, so Iām not sure who to rely on for help about this process. Her high school is absolutely great, but itās definitely focused more on getting kids graduated, into trades, and community or state colleges.
Back to the 24 applicationsā¦
It will be interesting to see if she gets in at any of her reaches or if her apps lacked quality because she was trying to write all of those essays. Oh there were a lot of essays! 
We used a master google doc with all of schools and due dates, and from there linked to individual school docs. The school docs had everything from important dates, essay ideas, potential activities, to NPC $s. It was a lot of work just creating all of the different docs.
We thought her safeties would be quick and easy, but most of those had essays for the honors college or a scholarship.
The upside is her writing improved dramatically. Her final essays were full of examples, insights, and flowed. My spouse and I reread her first few essays and they were good, but lacked the bits that make an essay excellent.
We were able to reuse her topics a lot. We didnāt copy and paste, but since she had written about her community impact numerous times it was easy to write another one tailored to each college.
ETA: one more thing! I wish we had set up one login ID and password that we could use across all of the platforms. It was close to impossible to keep track of all of them. We ended up using one chromebook as the college app portal and had chrome save the login/passwords. I hope that helps someone who has a future senior.
6 Likes
Iām not 100% sure but check what MIT historically has done in the past. I think I have heard that they tend to defer a lot of kids similarly to how some other elite schools do. Basically reject/accept very few, and defer everyone else.
Ah yes, the password thing is key, until you get to a portal that has a whole other system or numerous login pages! But overall makes the system much easier!
We have one email account set up for college applications only. That was nothing personal gets sent to it and/or is missed. We also have a shared google doc with all the pertinent data. It also comes in handy for future kids as Iāve used it as a template for each kid and also referenced it from my prior kids so I can see what schools have changed deadlines and notification dates, etc.
Either way, itās all a lot to keep track of, especially in this crazy year.
1 Like
Slightly off topic from number of applications submitted, etcā¦
Butā¦ did others receive an email today from Chicago encouraging oneās S or D to complete the application with an extended deadline?
My daughter applied to 14. She applied near and far. We feel that this year is such a crap shoot and wanted her to have options. She wasnāt able to take the SAT because it was cancelled 6 times, starting back in March of Jr year. Sheās heard back from a few. Acceptances from schools she thought were reach and rejections from places she thought would be a yes. Good luck to everyone 
9 Likes
I like your phrase near and far. S21 applied all over the US: West Coast, East Coast, South, Midwest. He has 7 matches with 3/3 acceptances so far and 7 reaches (but thankfully his stats are at 75%+ for those). All affordable. After he got his acceptance at a school he genuinely likes, I told him to go for the reaches and forget the safeties.
2 Likes
We are in CT. My son is a college sophomore at a school in SC. My daughter is drawn to Florida for school but most universities there require SAT. Itās anyoneās guess where she will actually land lol. Good luck to your S
2 Likes
She couldnāt repurpose all the essays. She started repurposing a few of them after she applied to 15 or 20 colleges and having written some essays about community service, volunteering and why major essay which were proofread and rewritten many times. Only thing is the cost. It costed so much to apply and send test scores.
2 Likes
The app fees add up quickly. Hopefully those applying to 15-25+ schools have a lot of waivers! My kidās got to really love a school and be able to picture herself there, in order for me to give them $50-$80 to look at her application. Her one safety ended up being free on a special day that our state had for in-state applicants.
I refused to pay for anything application related. If we didnāt get a waiver, we didnāt apply. If they wouldnāt accept the pdf scores downloaded from the collegeboard website, then we didnāt send test scores. I wasnāt paying for that either.
2 Likes
How do you get a waiver? We didnāt get any waiver except for UChicago.
How do you get waiver? At least I will know how to do it for my son, now that I am learning from you all. He will graduate in 2024.
In our experience, top tier schools do not give waivers. S21 applied to a few schools with no app fee and got one waiver emailed after doing a virtual tour. Heās been getting emails from some T20s these last few days encouraging him to apply, but even this late in the game they donāt offer any waiver.
A few schools sent unsolicited emails a while back that said that, if the fee was a financial hardship, we didnāt have to pay it. But in truth it isnāt a hardship for us so we just paid it.
2 Likes
The only school my son was offered a waiver too was SMUā¦and he had no desire to apply there lol.
With my S23 twins, Iām definitely going to look into asking for waivers since they are casting a wider net and applying to more schools then S21
2 Likes
My son used a waiver for UMD College park due to his NMSF status. We did not know about it, so appreciative of one sweet parent from this group !
2 Likes
Ooh, I like the burn-the-books idea! My S21 is a pyromaniac and will be all over that.
2 Likes
I can imagine your Dās thought process, scrambling after the denial. She should end up with many choices!
1 Like