Parents of the HS Class of 2023 (Part 1)

Parents Forum Class of 20xx Community
9705

Of course… happy to share if it helps. Hugs to all!!!

Some disclosures…
S23 (3.8uw, 33 ACT) was looking for a midsize private school with a direct admit business program or at least an easy pathway to business after admission.
He thought he wanted warmer weather as we live in the snowy Mountain West.
We did not apply for FA, but we were hoping for around 20K merit/yr.
Rejected from Notre Dame REA (brother currently attends)
We did the demonstrated interest as described in post #9515 to the accepted schools below:

State flagship - accepted EA - 6K/yr merit -admitted to business school as a Business Scholar

Baylor - accepted EA - 14K/yr merit - attended I2E (after acceptance). Impressive event! Applied for more scholarships, including I2E, but withdrew app before final merit released

TCU - accepted EA - 18K/yr merit

SMU - accepted EA - 20k/yr merit - accepted Cox business school - applied for more scholarships, but withdrew app before final merit released

U Miami - accepted EA - 14K/yr - accepted Herbert business school

Tulane - accepted EA - 18K/yr - biggest admission surprise. I think it was son’s best essay and prior year admitted freshmen profile revealed only a 2-3% matriculation from the Mountain West.

============

USC - deferred EA - completed demonstrated interest - but this school was a high reach

Santa Clara - deferred EA - minimal demonstrated interest

Richmond - deferred EA - minimal demonstrated interest

Villanova - deferred EA - minimal demonstrated interest BUT… son visited campus & toured w/ friends… unofficially. All of his research & interactions were not “trackable”, but were definitely beneficial & informative. He did not put in the demonstrated interest like he did for the other accepted schools, because he was worried about the cold! :cold_face:
HOWEVER… this deferral stung the most. It was a light bulb moment for him. He realized Nova was the school he wanted. SO, he converted his deferred EA app to ED2 and was accepted! I guess ED really is the ultimate form of demonstrated interest. No merit. But when he converted his app to ED, we applied for FA, as we were told their FA was very generous & worth a shot. He received 20K/yr grants & eligible for the basic loan. So, it worked out… what a journey!!!

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9706

And that is why we love SLACs!

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9707

Yeah, Bryn Mawr waitlist stung, that one seemed like she should have been a lock.

I wonder how much applying for FA hurt her chances - I know Grinnell is need blind, but the others I believe are at least partially need-aware.

Last year Bryn Mawr only accepted 17 off the WL - while the ‘odds’ are still SMALL at Wes and CWRU, at least Wes had ‘up to’ 90 and CWRU had 400+ the last year or two.

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9708

Given the school size - 17 isn’t bad.

Where did you see that - the WL section in the CDS is blank.

I don’t think you didn’t get a school based on that you asked for aid. In fact, most schools say you should. I also think if you didn’t, then you couldn’t go anyway - so that makes no sense.

You’ll never know why you didn’t get in - and there’s no point in trying to figure it out. I know we all want to - but the truth is, you won’t know. I’d say if you had huge need, it’s more likely to impact but less need, not so much.

Given how many people go on wait lists - even if they accept some - the fact that a school like CWRU puts everyone on it -the odds are still small. That she loves Sarah Lawrence - I mean, how great is that she has a school she loves!!! Whether it’s there or Grinnell, i’m sure she’ll have a great four years.

Bryn Mawr College is need-sensitive with respect to admission. Once admissibility is determined, funds are distributed until the financial aid budget has been exhausted. If there are places remaining to be filled in the class, a student’s eligibility for aid may be taken into account.

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9709

I googled the waitlist stats for Bryn Mawr - not sure how accurate.

Going purely on stats, she got into all her safeties. Of her targets, she got into the only one that is need-blind - need-aware were all waitlists. Though Grinnell was arguably more of a reach, even.

Only outright rejections were the ‘lottery’ schools (MIT, CalTech, UChicago).

We’ll never really know. But to other parents on here looking at future years, I’d encourage considering ‘need-aware’ schools to be MUCH harder targets if applying for any significant FA that what the stats would otherwise imply.

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9710

Grinnell was a reach and more with her stats will get rejected. That’s what people miss. My daughter got into W&L. My hypothesis is it is because we are Jewish and they are trying to grow there. Truth is, we’ll never know.

You just know Grinnel, Sarah Lawrence, and Stevens love your daughter - but maybe Steves as a technical school doesn’t know how to show empathy or sell :slight_smile:

She can only go to one. Going to Grinnell does not guarantee her success even with the name. Going to Sarah Lawrence doesn’t mean she’s dead in the water, even if they’re not known for STEM.

Going to Stevens sounds like dad has to sell the house and move into an apartment - so that’s not good :slight_smile:

She has an option to have a world class education at an affordable price - I’d say what else matters?

It’s going to great whether it’s door one or two - and that’s the most important thing to know!!

WL - sign up and walk away - just assume - you have Door 1 and Door 2 - I wouldn’t even assume Stevens. Maybe send them the Grinnell offer and say, I want to consider you but this is what you face - what are you going to do about it? And then walk away.

Had you not applied for aid at BM - and got in - you’d be paying a lot more than Stevens - so no point in thinking - what if? But you woulnd’t end up there full pay so a WL (rejection really) is just as well.

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9711

Yep, agreed.

At this point working through the decision process with D so she’s excited about the final school is the main thing.

I’m 90% sure it’s going to be Sarah Lawrence - and I know she’ll thrive there!

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9712

I think the impressions are from the big 2017 data study that came out about what percentage of students at different colleges are from what income percentile. Here is a link Some Colleges Have More Students From the Top 1 Percent Than the Bottom 60. Find Yours. - The New York Times

Colgate was memorable in the news for being one of the richest schools. (Though Wash U took that prize.) This was widely covered in the news only five years before the class of 2023 applied, so it is not surprising, particularly when no large public study has been released since then on the same scale, that people assume these numbers are still valid.

I think the publicity from this study explains some of the radical shift to change admissions in certain ways, so if now only 50% of Colgate’s students are full pay, compared to 77% being from the TOP 20 percentile income in the previous study, then they have presumably changed some factors.

Anyway, this graphic and the story are really useful and might help explain the perspectives of people commenting since this was only 6 years ago. As usual, the stories and the study only defined “social mobility” if someone from the bottom 20% moved to the top 20% as an adult. These researchers seem oblivious to the fact that moving from the 40th percentile to the 70th is life changing too! We have lived as a family of four fluctuating between 40-70th, and I can tell you, that is a huge difference in the ability to sleep better at night, save even more money, get medical care, or maybe take a vacation (I can dream!) So if Colgate and peers are actually admitting and funding more people in the 40-70th percentiles, good for them. I would love S23 to go to a school like Colgate, but his biological father’s wealth rules them out, but he won’t be paying for any difference from the 529 to full price at something like Colgate etc.

Good luck to your student in the decision!

BTW, for those interested, this site is great for putting in metro area and household or individual income. It also has a page where you can look at other years (since the inflation of the past 2 years has been so rapid that is messes with what your family might have been with the same income in 2019, say. )

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9713

D23 has a 41k award to Sarah Lawrence, but it leaves COA at close to 40k still. I love SL, grew up walkable distance from it, and I love what they do. But I can’t justify 40k a year to send her there (not given our financial means).

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9714

This is mostly true, but I just want to point out off the top of my head elite schools with merit based scholarships. These are ones where I know people who had or were offered anything from full tuition to full rides:

Vanderbilt
Wash U
Rice
Duke

Next tier(?)
Notre Dame
Villanova
Boston College
Holy Cross (for Classics, this is highly selective and regarded)

Those are just some where I knew winners (my age or my children’s ages) or had them offered to my D17. Unless we are saying Duke or Vanderbilt aren’t selective, I think we should concede there are some merit awards at these schools. Are they rare and hard to get, sure, but they exist.

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9715

n/m

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9716

Have you visited Sarah Lawrence?

9717

With decision time upon us I just want to throw out my recent experience with my D19. D19 will graduate in about 6-7 weeks with no college loans. As they say here on CC she was an average high stats kid. 4 years ago at this time we weighed a lot of options. We had a budget we could contribute. D19 choose a school that she was going to be just short on the budget. In the end she found a way to keep from having loans.

She is very happy at this time not to have loans. Almost all her friends have loans to some extent. Getting herself started in adulthood is definitely easier without a loan payment of $300-800 a month coming eventually.

She attended a financial aid seminar with some kids she mentors last semester. At her school the average amount of loans is $30K for the graduates.

We all have different situations for sure. But it is worth contemplating at decision time.

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9718

Back in the fall our S23 was similar… really excited at first but then all the essay writing… ugh! He got through a few and then just shut down, had tremendous writers block. I even threw out like 4-5 ideas for every essay but he just couldn’t get his thoughts on paper.

However he was stressed with actual school which made it hard to think about college applications. It was both his senior swim season (he was team Captian and had goals to make podium - He did!) plus it was ModelUN season - he is president of our high school’s MUN Club AND was elected Secretary General for the county conference, so twice the meetings. AND the conference was scheduled for the week of the State Swim Championships (it’s been that way for 4 years - he changes like Clark Kent from sports coat and slacks to gym clothes to catch the bus (or I drive him) So also in the Fall he has two major qualification swim meets for State in the three weeks leading up to the conference. These leadership ECs on top of AP Calc, AP Gov, AP Lit, AP CompSci and honors Spanish IV… oh and working part time as a lifeguard.

Honestly if he could have just sat with someone from admissions for 30 minutes and just told them in an interview all that he managed to accomplish, plan and organize last fall - and still get straight As … he would not be sitting on waitlists.

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9719

Congrats to her on not having the stranglehold of debt.

I always laugh when I see this line - with grade inflation, that’s like 80% of kids today :slight_smile:

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9720

I think a lot of kids were in this boat - how do you express it all in an activity resume? A lot of schools rank “character” as high, but how do they know/judge?

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9721

I always laugh when I see this line - with grade inflation, that’s like 80% of kids today :slight_smile:

Have two kids go through the process and being slightly different has been interesting. D19 didn’t quite have the GPA we would all like. Taking too many APs Jr year probably played a role, but she did have the ACT. D19 was more of a 3 or 4 scorer on the APs. Contrast that with D23 who has a slightly better GPA but not as good of an ACT. D23 has been more of a 4 or 5 scorer on the APs.

With all that from one school both kids got the same deal in terms of merit. D19 took it and the rest is history. D23 is turning down the offer and taking a full ride at a state directional school. D23 got the full ride from a scholarship competition. 400 kids for 20 full rides. Competition was write two in person essays about anything in US History. Here is the deal I know there were plenty of kids that had better scores and probably better GPAs than she did out of those 400 kids. D23 loves history and can write. I only bring this up because scores and GPAs are only part of what the kids really are. All our kids have a story and some are just more appealing to some schools. It doesn’t mean one kid is better than another. In a lot of ways the college process is like dating. Colleges have their preferences as does the students. I think the best course of action is for the student to be true to who they really are and things will work out in the end.

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9722

UChicago
John Hopkins
Emory
USoCal

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9723

Sounds to me like mom and dad got off on the cheap!!! Two kids!! One full ride - and one with big merit.

Congrats - you can retire at 65 now :slight_smile:

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9724

This is where a well-written LOR can make a difference.

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