S21’s friend was accepted to both Williams and Vassar, and Vassar offered her much less, too. Surprising and disappointing.
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Gorgeous Sushi!!! But after living in OH for 17 years, I’ll happily take my 5 minute walk to Lake Michigan, and we don’t have sharks in the water ; ). (I had a traumatic event in my childhood in NY after seeing Jaws ; )).
Ya, but I wear shorts, t-shirt and flip flops for about 50-ish weeks/year. 
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That sounds great right now, except I wouldn’t want to have to worry about fires and the water issue and possible earthquakes. 
But worse, traveling from the West Coast to the East Coast is brutal.
I might be mistaken, but I thought Vassar had made a switch to more need-based aid than merit-based aid.
Maybe that’s the reason?
Full ride at Delaware thru Eugene Du Pont scholarship vs Half Tuition at USC Viterbi - which is better?
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@ganseliesel, congratulation to your son. You might be interested in listening to the recent Inside the Yale Admissions Office podcast episode about likely letters. Inside the Yale Admissions Office Podcast | Yale College Undergraduate Admissions (episode #14)
What I took away from it was that (outside of athletic recruiting) a main reason schools send likely letters is that they predict having more trouble getting a particular candidate to enroll (potentially based on other options they expect the student to have or where the student is coming from and their background, etc.) and hope that the likely letter gives that student more time to learn about and fall in love with the school as the top choice.
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We’re now in the process of raking the forest floor, just like Finland. 
Between sharks, fires, earthquakes and drought, I’m surprised anyone remains here in CA. BTW, the last significant earthquake in Northern CA was 1989.
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Take the full ride and save your $$ for grad school.
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Take the full ride and go to grad school at USC. 
Both Skidmore and Vassar’s offers are need-based; apparently they’re using different formulas to calculate need if they’re coming up with such different responses.
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Both schools have huge endowments and generous needs-met financial aid. Williams’ endowment is over $2 billion for a school of about 2200 students, Vassar’s is around $1.1 billion for 2600 students – that’s a lot of cabbage for SLACs. If your S’s friend prefers Vassar, they should appeal to Vassar and include Williams’ offer. They have nothing to lose.
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The obvious differences are the ones related to size. UCLA is huge over 31K undergrads, G-town is about 7K. There is a huge difference in the number of large classes a student at UCLA is likely to have vs Georgetown. Housing - on campus students at UCLA live on ‘the Hill’, which is mostly high-rise towers…not sure if you’ve visited but it’s like a little city with like 10,000 + students there…and it’s literally on a hill, away from most of the classroom areas and the center of campus. Many love it, my kids found it disjointed. Greek life- Most of our family friends who attend/attended who loved UCLA (and the students that my kids know who are current upperclassmen there and seem happiest) were/are in greek life there…it’s how they found their connected communities, their housing, etc. This commonality surprises me given that a relatively small % of UCLA students participate in greek life. Georgetown is a highly residential campus (I think it still requires 3 years on campus) which I think supports a connectedness to the campus community, and when/if you move off, it’s still in DC. Westwood is fine but being from a beach town in SoCal where my kids have had ample to access to LA not to mention all of the great outdoor activities their whole lives, DC is a far greater draw than LA. And while I do not know the reputation of different majors at G-town, the reputation of the majors that D19 was considering at UCLA (bio science related) are consistently ‘competitive’ vs collaborative environments for students, based on feedback from her HS counselor as well as a few students she knew at UCLA. I am NOT knocking UCLA. Kids who go there in state get a top notch education at a great price. It comes down to personal preference. My kids prefer the 5,000 - 10,000 undergrad schools, which are generally big enough to be diverse, well-resourced, and sufficient department variety should they (gasp) change majors or want to pick up an interesting minor, but offer the positives of small schools in terms of small classes (helpful in connecting with classmates and professors to optimize learning), consistency in advising, campus-centered residential life (many schools this size require all students to live on campus for 2 - 3 years), and often still have at least one sport that the whole school community rallies around (if your kid is into that, and mine are). Again, whether the differences make one school better than another is purely personal preference! Good luck, you have great options!
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Beautiful! My D21 was accepted to SLO and will not be attending. Coming from another beach town in CA that has amazing trails, the SLO surroundings, while beautiful, are just more of the same and add nothing to the value of SLO for her. When she says things like ‘who thinks being 10 minutes away from the beach is a reason to want to pick a college?’, I remind her that she’s the pot calling the kettle black, in that she’s looking for colleges where she will have legit seasons, rainboots and a reason to have a winter coat…
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Lol (but seriously). Incoming helicopters 
and lawnmowers …
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I appreciate your sharing that experience. I do think colleges want to know who the student genuinely is, and a glowing letter of rec from an employer would demonstrate that. My D19’s common app essay intertwined what she loved about her fairly mundane job (where she worked for several years) with future aspirations and I felt it was a connection that she would not have made had I lined up a different opportunity for her.
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Funny and true about your surprise ! Nearly all of our new neighbors here in the sunshine 
state (basically moving abroad) are from CA and NY/CT … and they did not cite those as reasons - but they are plentiful, particularly now 
The issue we are grappling with is the charm and brand image around USC versus Delaware / the low acceptance rate at USC is another aspect - have to make a choice now !!
I like it and believe it will be effective !
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This is my S too. 
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