Absolutely. That’s what I found telling about the practice. It was unusual that Northwestern followed suit- what’s up with those Chicago area schools grubbing for the big denominator in their acceptance rate?
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This probably varies by student characteristics or location. My S23 has received an uncountable number of emails and also lots of physical mailings from U Chicago (with some of these schools, I really wonder about how much they are spending on the fancy brochures!!!), but nothing much from Northwestern. We are in CA so maybe Northwestern doesn’t target our state as aggressively?
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New good news for my D23: Acceptances to Montclair State and SCAD. As with all the others, neither of these are surprises (and the Montclair State was was effectively guaranteed due to the pre-application she’d done) but they’re nice to have anyway. SCAD delivered the news via email, and Montclair State sent an email stating only that there had been an update to D23’s application’s status with a link to their application portal.
The only financial offer yet received has come from Montclair State, which is nice but not worldbeating. (D23’s goal, she says, is to get merit aid that results in a lower COA than either of her older sisters, who both got pretty fabulous scholarships to their colleges. Montclair State’s doesn’t get there, but at least results in what I consider affordable, albeit at the high end of that.)
This means that among her submitted applications, the only one with no decision yet is the University of Colorado Denver, and they’ve told her that their initial wave of decisions won’t be released til early to mid November.
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Our FAFSA EFC and CWU need calculation was almost exactly the same. I think they were one of the schools that made an adjustment to FAFSA to make it equal, but I am talking within $1000, not $10000. We do qualify for a Pell, but different CSS schools calculated our need differently but within a $2000 window, which adjusted the size of the Pell grant.
That is really good to know. Our EFC is usually about $35K but we will have 2 in college next year (one year only.) My son’s EFC is about $16K as is my daughter’s for 2023-2024. He has 3 CSS profile schools on his list and I assumed those extra questions (like how much my 401K is worth) would help them recalculate our need downwards. Hopefully it will stay the same. Thank you for speaking to your own family experience as I’ve heard different things.
Our high school said zip; my son was given his certificate privately by the school chair and they sent a very nice email to me about it. I was curious to see if it might be mentioned at their weekly assembly or newsletter, but no.
My guess is that they didn’t want to have any of the students who didn’t score well on the PSAT to feel badly, and I can understand that. At the same time I was a little surprised that it wasn’t noted at all!
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Yes, we received his NHMS certificate by email but he did not get one from the school and he/we did not receive any school notification such as an email. I assume the school was notified, but maybe they just keep that low-key, which is fine. I saw another local high school make a big deal over PSAT recognition, with a group photo and even invited the local newspaper to come for a picture. I guess every school does it differently.
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My son received college board national recognition Hispanic scholar. His counselor let me know they were notified, but there was no acknowledgment through the school at all.
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This is the way that our kids’ school handles it now as well, they don’t even post honor roll anymore. Score a touchdown though and you’ll make the newsletter.
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So true!
I think schools should absolutely celebrate these accomplishments more. We bend over backwards to celebrate athletics, but far too often ignore academic achievements in the name of not hurting someone’s feelings.
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My sons school did a nice all-school recognition thing and likened the NMSF as an academic counterpart to to winning a sport championship. My daughters school said nothing at school, but put it in the weekly newsletter.
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MIT sent a mailer in a plastic cover, was fancy and all but in this day and age when there is so much awareness about environment and sustainability, I was surprised that a top university such as MIT would send a brochure covered in plastic. 
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Harvard sends a nice brochure to CA students.
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At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if UChicago sent D23 an Italian beef sandwich and season tickets to the White Sox. The correspondence is getting that ridiculous.
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I missed going to Portillo’s when I was in Chicago. I should get my daughter to apply to Chicago so I can go there 
.
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Interesting theory about UofChicago - our DD has been inundated with mailers from them -including a really expensive piece/booklet/carrier envelope last week - they must be spending a ton on marketing, and she’s never expressed any interest.
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This is a well known practice since Nordoff became the Dean of Admissions there over a decade ago.
Word. Same at our school.
Plastic covers: It’s surprisingly widespread. I will say, though, that the amount of postal mail has certainly dropped since the days of my D17 and D19.
University of Chicago: I think they buy the contact information of every kid who gets at or above x1 on the ACT or x2 on the SAT and inundates those kids with recruiting materials. (If I am correct, from my observation x1 is at most 30.)
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