I didn’t know that it is like getting into Stanford.
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That’s so cool!!
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I am on the Stanford Parent Group 2025, and there are quite a few families from the Chicago suburbs and also a few sets of twins. Just some fun facts
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Well H and S are winding up the Northeast tour. Had an official tour of Colgate and just walked around the rest. My son felt compelled to see it and he did all those app essays, so I’m glad they went. We had friends who said he would step onto a campus and fall in love, but that still hasn’t happened. They did love green New Hampshire and Dartmouth but that’s off the table. When he gets home we will narrow it down, drop the obvious nos, then he will sound things out with the GC on Monday. He won’t get everything on his wish list so now it’s about trade offs. My wildcard pick of Vermont Honors was a bust but they did see Bernie Sanders pass in the street!
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They called out Kaiser specifically as not being qualified or high deductible plans (why does that even matter?!) and require proof of insurance. I’m going to call and see if I could do the high deductible plan. This sucks because I have to get on the company plan again just for this so it’s another $2200/yr with my company. And they would still treat Kaiser as the primary insurance carrier!
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Thank you!
My main beef is isn’t particularly known for her speciality - seemed like a lot of older kids who enrolled there ended up majoring in something else.
Also, my daughter is a strong introvert (hence the art) and I don’t see her benefiting quite as much from Harvard’s greatest asset - its high-powered student body. I do feel like Harvard has a bit of a type, and D21 isn’t quite that type. Just a feeling.
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The Claremont Colleges (Pomona, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd (STEM focused), Scripps (womens), Pitzer) are true academic gems. It is an amazing collection of LACs that can satisfy virtually any academic interest. The schools are highly respected re employment and grad/professional schools, as you know.
Claremont is a beautiful upscale little town right near the mountains. It gets hot out there during the summer. Skiing up at Big Bear about 90 minutes away.
If your kiddo doesn’t desire the hustle and excitement of a big city (although L.A. is only an hour away and the Orange County beaches about the same), it’s a wonderful place to go to school.
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This must be college specific. I expect there are some colleges that make money off these plans and so have an incentive to force as many people into them as possible. Also it probably helps support their own local on-campus health clinics since it is probably easier for them to bill their own plan than to try to bill Kaiser from out of state or something.
Maybe you can get on an approved plan just long enough to get the waiver approved then go back to your regular Kaiser plan. It’s not like they will know or check up on it.
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So over the moon happy for D’s bestie, he is the one that got into UT Texas for CS, Rice for CS and Princeton for CS. His EFC is extremely low. So Princeton is costing his family 4% of the the COA. So incredibly happy for this boy!!!
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I think that they don’t like Kaiser because they only cover emergencies out of area and they want the kids to be able to get care there besides in an emergency.
We have a senior in college in CA and a sophomore in NY. We live in MD. We had BCBS when the oldest started college and have had CIGNA the last two years.Fortunately for us, both the plans have covered our kids in their college states so we were able to waive insurance. Both have had to utilize insurance while at school so we were lucky to have good coverage in both states (one for routine dr appts and the other broke his wrist and had to see an orthopedic surgeon). We usually do the waivers in August so it appears as a credit on our bill rather than a charge.
Interesting dinnertime conversation last night. S21 is starting to decline offers, and I told him to be prepared for surveys asking about his plans. (I recall this from D18’s process). He asked why they ask, and I replied to help them predict future yield. My H then jumped in and talked about how much he hates yield protection and suggested my S not answer the questions b/c they might just ‘hurt students’ down the road.
My first reaction is I don’t like yield protection at public universities where many top students may not have affordable options outside of flagships so I can see ‘making a statement’ by not answering. For private schools, I am more ambivalent.
Anyway, he’s going to do what he’s going to do on this, but I’m curious whether you or your kids have considered this kind of minor ‘rebellion.’
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I think this is school dependent.
For schools widely known as being overly protective of yield percentages, I agree with your husband. These schools are using yield projection as yield protection to disingenuously suggest higher academic prestige and I don’t agree with that.
For schools that use yield projection solely (or just mostly) to help in not overadmitting and causing a housing shortage on campus, I agree with this sort of post-decision polling. I think it’s important to remember that the percentage of colleges that practice yield protection (as a status marker) is exceedingly small in the grand picture.
Most schools are simply trying to predict how many accepted students will eventually attend. When they can see which schools are regularly chosen ahead of them by accepted students, it helps them more accurately project yield in future years. And the better that schools can project yield, the smaller the reliance on the Waitlist which means the smaller the waitlist, which means fewer students/families in waitlist purgatory. I think that’s an admirable goal.
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In addition to econpop’s excellent answer, I’d add that you could actually be helping future students because the information could be used by colleges to determine increasing merit $ to entice students to their school.
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I admire your approach to college admissions with your daughters. Offer guidance, listen to them and let them choose their own paths.
I will add (when you start your college search for D24) that if you are a good student, some very selective schools are able to offer more merit/ aid. My son applied to our state university along with selective colleges. After all the FA packages were received, the state school came in as the most expensive at almost double the price of most of the other colleges where he received acceptances. The state school offered almost full tuition, but room and board drove the final cost way up. It would cost slightly more to go to the state university than it would to send him to Boston College, which also gave him a generous aid package. We are very appreciative of the scholarship/ merit awarded, but we will likely decline these offers due to their cost. We will go with a less expensive option that will still give him an amazing education here in the Northeast.
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D21 was a tough one, no idea what she wants to do, but knew she wanted a small to medium school. Her one caveat? There had to be an aerial arts gym close by. We picked a couple of locations on the east coast. FL near her sister, Va, PA, New England, Canada. We also asked her to pick one in state (NC) and one rolling admission. Thanks to CC, I learned that there were a few schools, maybe 4 in the US, that had aerial arts as part of their dance program.
She applied to 8 (all safeties) and was accepted to all. We were lucky that she just liked schools that her stats were high for!
PITT- rolling
Rollins $32K/yr
Eckerd $22K/yr
CNU
King’s College $10,250
Dalhousie University
UNC Asheville $5k/year
The winner is… University of New Hampshire!!! Trustee’s Scholarship ($12k/yr) and Honors. They were the first in the nation to incorporate aerial dance into their dance program. We visited last week and she got to peak into the aerials class and her face lit up!!!
Congratulations to all the kids on their acceptances! To those in Waitlist hell, I serve up a great Painkiller drink! I hope some of these offers come up quickly!
My motto for the Class of 21- When every feather was clipped, you still flew!!!
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Love this – you’ll have one in FL and one in NH! At least you’re in the middle for when they come home!
So cool that she’ll be able to cultivate her passion in college - who knows she might be a professional one day or own her own gym!
Well done!
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WL gang: maybe not meaningful because they are a large public and have their own unique system, but apparently Cal Poly took some kids off the waitlist yesterday. A sign of things to come?
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If true, it would be remarkable that they are tapping the WL before May 1, especially considering how incredibly competitive Cal Poly was this year.
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