That’s true. There are a good number of CA students at Northeastern. Their parents frequently seek advice on winter clothes in the parent FB group.
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I’d say there are at least three girls from CA on my daughter’s swim team at Northeastern.
I bet they are full pay too.
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I’m thinking so based on the schools from which they hail. Most division I athletic schools play games with their athletic money to entice full pay students with “some” athletic dollars to discount the tuition.
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Re: The UCs - your stats get you put into two buckets, qualified and unqualified. Then out of the qualified bucket, it’s a lottery. Even knowing this going in, I’m always shocked as decisions roll out.
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This is amazing! I can not conceive of the world in which my son would reach out to an unknown kid and ask questions even if it would make his life infinitely easier. Bravo to your kid!!
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If you are not already connected with kids in the school you are going to, you should ask your GC to introduce you to the kids that went from your school to the college of interest over the last few years. And there will be tons of them. And they would all want to help.
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My son is struggling with disappointment over his results so far. He got into three great schools (two with merit and one is instate and affordable), but unfortunately they were the bottom three on his list. He was rejected from his top choice schools, waitlisted from a school he thought he had a good chance at and still has others to hear from, but he is not optimistic. He feels like he overestimated his stats and where he could get in. His older brother (HS class of 2018) said that the one thing he regretted was not applying to “more good schools” so I encouraged my younger son to apply to more reaches and fewer safeties. Now he wishes he had applied to more “50%” schools, so he would have more options now. Also, I realize that the Naviance data we were relying on was outdated because it looks at the last several years and these past two years have been so much more competitive. I am trying to get him excited about the schools he got into and I keep telling him how there are so many kids who didn’t get in to them that would love to be in his place. I am dreading the next few days when he finds out about his other top choice schools he thought he had a chance at and the reaches he never thought he would get into anyway.
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It’s hard. I try to remind myself that this is a lesson for my D. She will not get everything she wants in life and she just has to keep working on it. Sometimes the best things in life are those you did not get “easily”. There are just so many competitive students and the admission process is unpredictable.
My D also got accepted to her safeties (bottom of list) and most likely will be denied for all her reaches.
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I live in SoCal, and many kids from my daughter’s school end up at SDSU every year. My friends that have kids there now say that their kids love it! It’s a great school with tons of clubs and activities. The food choices are excellent, and you can use food points at the little restaurants around campus. San Diego is beautiful!
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Unfortunately, the vast majority of kids will have disappointment primarily due to all the changes from COVID. Everything about how we envisioned this process being and how things unfolded was completely different in reality. I think a lot of people are in the same boat. Although we are grateful for our acceptances, we also wish we had more options. But, in the end, our kids will put their best foot forward and make the most of our opportunities. College is great, but it’s the kids that define themselves and their future. Congrats to all of us for having survived so far!
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It is brutal this year. Mine was waitlisted at her top choice and has had to do some rethinking too. I think that they will all feel better when they commit to a school and start to make connections and fall in love.
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My daughter was fortunate enough to be admitted to some top 40 schools, but is probably going to attend a school with an 80% admit rate.
It was a “safety” school that started at the bottom of her list, but she really liked it after she visited and the price was great.
At first I was concerned that she might not find her academic peers there to challenge her and help her grow. But as I have looked at the profiles of admitted and current students, I have been so impressed with how accomplished they are!
Sometimes I think we lose sight of the fact that it is an accomplishment to be admitted to any four-year college. In our area right now, 40% of high school grads are not applying to college at all.
And college is expensive! There are amazing students at every kind of school — some because of cost considerations, some because they could play their sport there, some because they were waitlisted at their first choice, some because they needed to stay close to home for personal reasons, etc. Schools with high admit rates are not “Colleges Reserved for the Merely Mediocre.”
After taking some time to feel his feelings, I hope your son can re-evaluate his list and consider why his top choices were his top choices. Was it based on someone else’s evaluation of what the “best” school was? Or was it about personal fit? Why did he pick his safety schools to begin with? — presumably he liked something about them more than their admit rate.
By classifying schools as “safeties,” I think we psychologically plant a seed in students’ heads that these schools are somehow beneath them — when in fact they are perfectly wonderful institutions that happen to admit a higher percentage of applicants. I hope he is able to give them a second look and is favorably impressed.
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I really needed to read this right now. Going to share with my D. Thank you for a great perspective.
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My D knew she wanted the beach a city & a Journalism or Business -Advertising major. Most of the best schools for her major~ Syracuse, UT Austin, just we’re not where she wanted to live.
SDSU has her program and she realizes that some UC’s were “more prestigious” but they didn’t have here program and that as an undergrad, it really wouldn’t make much difference. So she’s really excited to move to San Diego, take surfing lessons and work hard. She can always get a graduate degree at a UC. And as parents, it’s saving us a lot of money!! ( More for me, so I can fly out and see her!! )
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This is why I don’t have to worry about this one. 
I’m sure your son will be just fine.
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A huge yes to the comments about the beauty of likelies and target schools. D22 spent much more time looking at these and put in extra time applying for honors and additional scholarships they had. Right now these are her only choices but she really likes them. The more she researches, the better they look. This process takes you in unlikely directions without a doubt!
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Partially it was because of status but also it was because of location. He really wanted to go to school in a city and he fell in love with the city where the top three schools were. Two of his choices are in not so fabulous cities and the third is in a great small city, so he is leaning towards it over the other two. His brother actually is graduating from that school, so we are very familiar with it. He had actually really loved the other two schools as well when we visited (one in particular my husband and I had fallen in love with), so I am hoping he can get excited about one of them again.
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Kind of in the same boat with you. DD still has 7 apps to go, but so far is only into 2 safeties. We are talking up merit, honors college ad potential savings. I think, even if she gets into some of the upcoming, these two will still be contenders. Hopefully, there is a lot to love about your 3 acceptances, and your DS just has to uncover it. And, hope he will have more choices to add!
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Update, rejected USC, waitlisted Northwestern for spring
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