OK, since we’re all sharing. My D21 applied to nine schools - all LACs. She’s looking for a small, progressive, accepting environment. She is part of the LGBTQ community. Her focus will be on international relations or environmental science or German or women and gender studies! So yes, quite undecided!
Not sure which way she’ll decide - Oberlin is current favorite among the admits (in part because we were able to visit pre-Covid). I think Vassar is probably overall favorite so we’re at WL bar as well!
The number of colleges to apply to can vary, for example if you are chasing merit, you will need to apply to relatively more schools.
It’s easy to get to high numbers when a student applies to many of the UCs and CSUs (which makes sense because they get more and more competitive, and will still be test blind next year). After that…definitely minimize reaches, as it’s tough to do adequate research and great essays for lots of schools.
My daughter is in poli sci/public affairs. Bc the pandemic hit in the spring of D21’s junior year, right when we were about to begin looking at colleges, she ended up applying to a bunch of schools (even more than I listed above). She had no idea what type of school she was interested in, or even a firm idea of what she wanted to study. Also, she got her final ACT score so late (October), so she applied to some schools on a whim without fully vetting them. We had targeted mostly big 10 schools. It wasn’t until we actually began seeing schools this past fall, on virtual tours mostly, that she realized she preferred a smaller school. I also didn’t know what to expect with merit, so we took a “let’s just apply and see what happens” approach to things. On the merit front, I now know you can pretty well predict what you’re going to get and can factor that in. It’s rarely a surprise.
Casting a wide net was a good idea for her, because we could really think about the schools as they came in. I think if you have a kid who has a good idea of the size of the school he or she wants ahead of time, what type of atmosphere, and what they want to study, it’s easier to make a more focused list. When you have a kid like mine, you tend to say, “screw it, just apply and we’ll figure it out later.”
All that said, she found a school that fits her very well academically, with a vibe that feels right to her, and isn’t stressing us all out financially. Even though we had to go through about 17 schools to find it.
I wondered that too. The fact that schools went TO necessitated them accepting a decent percentage ~40+% of the TO candidates otherwise it would seem the policy was at worst a lie or at best insincere.
I would offer a couple of pieces of advice after having now gone through 2 kids processes in the past few years.
Figure out what your budget or price expectation/comfort is… and understand and work with that from the beginning. No sense having your kid fall in love with some school that is going to break you or them (or be a non-option). In our case, we were very lucky; we had two great students who could have each gone to top 25 LACs, but cost was so high they decided to shoot for next tier down schools that offered significant merit money. For them that made a lot more sense.
If finances are a real issue (as they are for most), have candid conversations with your student about it. So you’re all on the same page and everything is out in the open.
RELAX. There are so many kids and so many parents that blow the whole thing out of proportion. The reality is (based on my wife and my jobs and all of the career employees and workmates we’ve come across…), it doesn’t REALLY matter that much where you go to college. It’s about finding a good fit overall, and then making the most of the opportunity when you go to that school. I cannot overstate this enough.
See point #3.
Congrats to all, and best of luck to the future college hunters!
We will know if and when schools report the acceptance details. I doubt most schools will get very detailed, but if the proportion of TO accepted students equals (or is close to) the proportion of TO applicants, my base assumption would be they separated apps into TO and non-TO groups.
My D is not a science kid either. Into languages (Arabic and Korean) linguistics and studio art. Deciding between university of Toronto and Macalester. 2 thousand or 50 thousand students.???
With most selective schools poised to go test-optional again, I’d say that if your family has a clear-cut favorite in the tier of schools that award only need-based aid, ED is critically important.
They are so different (except that they are both city schools), that should be easy once your D figures out which they prefer! We have not seen Macalester in person, but we vacationed in Toronto summer of 2019 and did a 2 hour tour of the university. It’s fantastic, truly, we loved it, both the city and the school. Some of the colleges are so Hogwarts-esque, which is why my D wanted to go there (she was accepted to Victoria). She still hasn’t turned it down and I doubt she will (they’ll just have to slowly pull it away from her).
Having been through “the rapids” with a couple of kids --one of whom has now graduated – I offer a couple of observations.
(1) Don’t let your son’s rejections/lack of acceptances define him (or you). As hard as it is to accept, it’s not really personal – the schools are a business, and making an offer of admission is a business decision; it’s not a personal judgment. So just remember that the schools which did not accept your son outright are the real losers here, because they will never know what a high quality person he is!
(2) Several years ago a poster here on CC wrote that what a person gets out of a school is 20% due to the school and 80% due to the student. As I have seen my kids progress through college, I think that this statement really hits the nail on the head. Your son has some very fine schools which accepted him, that should account very well for the 20% portion; and from what you have told us about him, he should have ample opportunity to make the most of the 80% portion.
(3) The sun will come up tomorrow morning, just as it did today, and life will go on. Don’t beat yourself up over schools that you didn’t apply to, or choices that you didn’t make. Your son will do just fine wherever he ends up.
Congratulations to all the students!! So much hard work is really paying off and they all have such great choices! So excited for them to start their exciting adventures.
My son applied to 17 schools and he does not regret it.
Accepted: Carleton, Hamilton, Middlebury, Williams, Macalester, URichmond, Kenyon, UW, Union, Oberlin, Occidental,Furman, Clark, St.Olaf,St. Lawrence and Lawrence.
Rejected: Columbia
It is down to Hamilton, Carleton, Williams and Middlebury. We got our 2nd dose of vaccine today and head out to visit the final four on Friday! Hoping to come home with a commit and some swag .
My D ended up applying to 23 schools and even though it was a lot of work we will do the same for our last kid. Keep in mind 6 of those were public schools instate or close by that were easy to do and safeties. She ended up with some great merit offers from safeties, and 4 top 25 acceptances.
If we lived in California I would have my D (STEM kid) apply to all of the UCs, Cal Poly, and San Jose State. Those are all great schools. After that I’d have her apply to as many reaches as she wants to plus a few schools with big merit aid.
She knows what she wants — but last night had a tearful conversation about college. She feels robbed of her high school years and isn’t ready to move on to a higher gear on college. Feel for these kids. How did your D move along — did she eventually enjoy the process?
It is fascinating (in kind of a horror movie way) how different D21’s experience was compared to my S16. She has very high stats, is studying math and CS at a college junior level, and has somewhat conventional (but excellent) EC’s and awards - and got into almost every CA public she applied to. My son, who was a CS superstar, earning almost a full tech salary in high school and competing nationally in his sport and internationally in CS but had a .15 lower GPA got into no CA public schools but almost every private he applied to. He was one of the ones who got into CMU SCS but rejected at Cal Poly. Count me slightly skeptical about the holistic review. So after that plus COVID, D21 applied widely, and I’m glad she did. Her only regret is one school she didn’t apply to, not applying to too many.
D went 8/8 on acceptances. Didn’t apply to any big reaches because they were all out of reach of what her donut parents are willing to pay . We are in NC, so criteria was net tuition cost needed to be in same general stratosphere as NC in-state rates. Clemson at 3x tuition cost after scholarship was only one that ended up not meeting that criteria.
.
. We are in NC, so criteria was net tuition cost needed to be in same general stratosphere as NC in-state rates. Clemson at 3x tuition cost after scholarship was only one that ended up not meeting that criteria.
for final answer from D soon.