Look up the term ‘soiling the nest’ and you’ll find some articles explaining the phenomenon. I’ve seen it from all 3 of my kids as they were seniors. The basic idea is that kids start to act crappy at home in preparation of leaving the nest to make the separation easier. Ahhh the joys of parenthood!
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I’m sure being at home much more than most of them would be normally due to Covid makes the soil level much higher!
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I’m over on Twitter spying on some AOs. They are stressing about the unpredictability of yield this year. One blogger said he expects that schools will practice a form of yield protection by having lower initial acceptance rates, pushing more good candidates to the wait list, causing more summer activity. No bueno. He’s at a pretty highly selective school, not an ivy.
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And this is where the US News and World Report is damaging. If it weren’t for worrying about their stupid rates they wouldn’t be putting kids through additional trauma during an already tough year so they can keep a stupid ranking in a magazine.
Sadly, it will work which will only encourage them to do it more. But in this house, you can put my kid on a wait list, but we’ll have moved on. I don’t care how high your ranking is. Love the schools that love you back is a big motto here.
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I do wonder if kids will be less likely to want to participate in extra waiting and uncertainty this year. Btw, they also mentioned anticipating double and triple deposits, not that I am endorsing that.
On the other hand, the variant surge is expected between mid-March and May. If things improve over summer, a good wait list offer coming after that might not be too bad?
Our CC told us that if they catch you doing that that you can have both offers pulled. We had a family discussion last night and once the financial decisions come in for two schools lower on his list unless it is something amazing, he’ll deny their offers. This way other kids may benefit from that. The others he’s been accepted to we need to visit them, but we plan to have the decision wrapped up in April during spring break. If we haven’t heard from a school by then , they are off the list.
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Isn’t that prohibited? I thought you could only deposit at one school.
It is but people do it, especially 2020. I feel like it’s very unfair to others but maybe that bake some of that into their acceptance numbers and process.
Edit, Nevermind, I see the deposit issue has to do with waiting on covid restrictions. Now that does make sense from the applicant perspective, but yeah, I don’t think we could do that. I think if you deposit in California (being the prime example), you need to do so knowing that fall might not be fully open. There are three CA schools on lists here and we have not been paying close attention to them for this reason.
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right. I think waitlisting kids they want might backfire. Kids want certainty and to know where they are going to school. They could lose a lot of kids that way. What would happen if these schools just played by the book they usually use pre-pandemic (whatever that is for each school)? Would that really turn out worse for them?
I’m not certain but I don’t think D will bother with waitlists…unless RD is absolutely full of them.
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That’s tough. Luckily mine is checked out not wedded to any particular school yet. We have had similar email where he applied RD but it’s an easy hard pass for us.
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I hope in an attempt to hit their yield the colleges will be more generous with merit. Not that they should give every kid who qualifies a scholarship, but as students withdraw their applications, schools should re-allocate those funds. I know some, but not all schools already reallocate merit scholarships that become available.
I do believe good things will come to those who wait, but what 18 year old wants to wait months after everyone committed to make a decision. This is a generation that wants instant gratification. I think the later it gets, the more schools will bend to hit their yield. It is just my opinion, based on the increase in applications. 3 years ago when my son applied, he was an anomaly applying to 13 schools. This time around, we panicked when my daughter only wanted to apply to 8.
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I like your sleuthing. Made me chuckle. Or cry?! It’s what we all pretty much expect but still hurts to see it confirmed by an AO.
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I expect schools will do what’s best for them. If a big brand name enough waitlisters will hang in. Maybe more if the variant & vaccination timing goes as predicted. We full pay people will probably get some WL action I expect.
Depending on how things go down I see it as a potential benefit for reaches if midsummer herd immunity is foreseeable. You’ll have the benefit of maybe being able to trust fall planning announcements more than in April.
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IIRC, last spring many colleges went to their waitlists earlier than usual, prior to the May 1 decision deadline.
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I am thinking it isn’t just about the rankings. If a school ends up with a class size too small then they miss out on badly needed tuition revenue. And if the class ends up too big then they may not have capacity, housing etc. So I think getting class size wrong has bigger implications than the ranking and they just can’t predict their yield number this year.
I feel much worse for the kids in this situation, of course, and they should make the choice best for them - but I wouldn’t necessarily resent a school just because they have to do this.
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I feel for you. No perfect answer. I could totally see D blaming me if she wanted to ED2 somewhere but I told her to stick to RD and then she got waitlisted or denied. She has one school in particular that sends her “want to move to ED2 updates” maybe every other week and she does like the school but, same as you, have not visited. She’ll just stick with RD… She’s not pushing to move her app.
Is there any downside to your S doing ED2 and getting accepted? Financial reasons? Or do you think he would just be better off waiting and seeing all that comes in?
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Aside from helping my S navigate this, I find it really fascinating. It’s like a big game and I love to hear about how the sausage is made. At least we went into it knowing the back story.
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This totally blows!! It also is somewhat what I had been saying all along, but this is even worse when they say into the middle of summer!! I had been saying that I think a lot of high stats kids will get waitlisted or deferred at a lot of schools as opposed to just rejected. Due to the fact that so many students applied to way more schools than usual and we all know that at the end of the day you can only attend one. Also things will shift as kids realize they can’t afford to attend certain schools or the money doesn’t come in like they expected. I have already seen people saying that to U-Michigan. Thanks but no thanks, too expensive. Not sure why they applied then. But to hear them (AOs) say they think it will go until summer? Aghhh!
Also, I just want to scream when I keep hearing about their stupid yields. Like who gives a crap at this point. Put the kids first for a change. Everyone knows which schools are a good fit for them or not and they’ll still have thousands of applicants. I don’t think yield is going to affect any Ivy, or schools like Michigan, UCLA, Texas, UNC, UVA, Wisconsin, etc. I have never even looked at a school’s yield in my life when determining fit for my child. Next year will also be more of the same as more and more schools are going test optional, so these AO’s better figure out how to deal with it.
But as far as high stats kids being deferred/waitlisted this year. Dead on. My son is a victim of that. He has been admitted to 2 schools, rejected from 0, waitlisted to 1, and deferred from 2. His school doesn’t rank, but we know what the highest GPA is in the class and the top 10%ile. He is probably ranked in the Top 5 of his class of over 400. He is not one of my anxious kids and just goes with it, but I’m the planner and this is so frustrating. Either way he’s stuck waiting at least until April and I do thank god every day he is my chill kid and just going with the flow but I feel bad that this is the sh*t show of his senior year.
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I just hope that means accepting the same number and then having longer WL. Not accepting fewer from the get-go.
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