Congrats to the many kids that have decided where they are headed next year!
Anyone else have a child stuck in indecision hell? My D23 was accepted at 5 of her 11 schools (waitlisted at 4, rejected at 2). She has great, affordable options, including the school that she has loved from the start. We have visited twice, including last weekend, and she loved the whole experience. But she WILL NOT COMIT yet!! It’s making me nuts. I know she technically has a month left (and we are trying to give her space to decide), but I am a planner, and I just want to be done with the process!
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Don’t press her. This is their way of dealing with uncertainty. They are learning decision making. One of my kids found out his outcome on December 13 one particular year and did not formally send a commitment until April 27th the following year. I was worried that all of us (the kid, the parents, and the CC) will simply forget that a commitment has not been sent.
It wasn’t even lack of a decision – he decided on December 13th – really by late September when deciding on where to apply EA. He was just too lazy. It required an affirmative action of clicking a button. And that was a step too far. It is a complex emotion.
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My kids can’t decide where to choose for dinner if there’s like 5 options…and college is a bigger decision…so give her space as you are and it’ll all work out in the end.
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We had some of that with both kids. My better half sat them down and had them rank the schools based on different attributes like campus life, cost, etc. It gave both kids some more clarity on the decision. We literally had little pieces of paper with school names on them.
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Another thing you can do (we did to help narrow the list) - start head to head matchups.
If you can clearly pick one over another (when looking at just two), it’s a way to eliminate at least a few vs. looking at all 5 at once.
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My ivy stipend was $14K in 1996 through 2001, no healthcare, no vacation. I am glad this is changing. It is outright shameful how PhD students are exploited.
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Graduate student workers are Univ Mich went on strike this week.
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Is she typically a kid who needs to process information in her own time and space? That was my S21. While we were waiting for him to decide, he was quietly creating flowcharts and spreadsheets to analyze all the components of making a good choice! He didn’t finally decide until they were having a pennant ceremony at his school and he didn’t want to be the kid with TBD on the map.
You may not know how she is contemplating her choice, but I think you will not regret letting her figure it out in her own way as long as she doesn’t miss a real deadline. I know it’s frustrating, but you do want her to feel confident that she made the best decision.
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My daughter was stuck until the last possible day between two, excellent choices - the “emotional” one and the “intellectual” one. Both in the same city - so even that criteria wasn’t available.
Letting go of one that (subjectively) implied “happiness”, and starting to believe/realize that (objectively) happiness could also be found at the other, was a journey that she had to take on her own. We were there to add perspective when asked, but were very careful to not even remotely impose our opinions.
The final push came from an unlikely source: talking it out with a young(ish) teacher she had connected with who ran the after-school Drama program, and who hadn’t even known her academically at all.
She ended up at the one the parents had thought were the better fit and choice (Mom is always right) - and was both very happy and successful.
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D23 fell in love with her choice around this time last year but went through the motions of the application process, assuring us that she’d really consider other options along the way. She committed a few weeks ago, though she would have been happy doing so when she received the acceptance in January. Meanwhile, our D21 had a strong favorite throughout her senior year but, for various reasons, didn’t commit right away. She visited her current school for an admitted student event in April and ultimately surprised everyone, including herself, by deciding it was the right place for her. She didn’t confirm until maybe April 29. Unless there is a clear benefit to committing early (housing preference, class registration, etc.), I also recommend letting them take their time, which I recognize is easier said than done. May 1 seems like it’s so far away, but it will be here before you know it, and the decision will be made!
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Hopefully he’ll listen to explanations that college students are busy studying and with activities on campus. We live only a couple minutes from a beautiful beach. Even my high school students weren’t hanging out there… many other things have priority and there is only so much time.
Both my husband and I did undergraduate at midwest universities, and both of us left after graduation. His choice does not need to determine where his future career location will be.
But I get it… when I was looking at grad schools I was pretty wowed by the SoCal beach in February, coming from Ohio lol.
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I mean, a kid is picking where they’re going to be living for the next four years (and possibly beyond)—geographic area and climate are pretty important factors, given that.
ETA: Sorry, this wasn’t supposed to be responding to @tsbna44’s post, it was supposed to be responding to @2plustrio’s post immediately following.
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And if you do it today or tomorrow, you can call it something catchy, like “March Madness”.
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Same. I actually went to CWRU and I still don’t wonder why. Great school, but a hard to sell location.
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DD already got in a school she likes very much but it’s 3000 miles away, and she’ll be missing her dog so, so much if she attends that school. DD applied to 5 Ivies. If she gets in one, she will be much closer to home and be able to see her dog much more often. Everyone in our family bet on how many she’ll get into. The winner will get $100 award, and the losers will walk our dog for a week. I bet the dog bet on one acceptance at least! hahaha
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I fell FAR behind in this thread
I am late to the safety/prestige/peer discussion but feel I have a data point of 1 to offer.
My oldest did LOVE her safeties. She did apply to a few matches and reaches for ego or possibly affirmation - however she had zero intentions of attending. Her list was a little “all over the place” because she knew what she wanted to study but was struggling with the other factors that she wanted (location, size) when she was applying (Late summer/early fall). As senior year progressed she narrowed down her focus. So many of her friends also loved their safeties so the idea that safeties are “last on the list” as a general fact is ridiculous to me. It is as ridiculous as parents saying: “well of course my child is so disappointed that they didn’t get to buy the Bugatti or BMW and have to buy the new Toyota or Honda. We can all agree that everyone would be disappointed to have to drive those lower level cars.” No - the regular world does not agree that safeties are last on the list and it is normal to be disappointed to have to attend such lowly schools. The reality is that the overwhelming majority of the US parents would be thrilled and crawling all over each other to have the options that people on here are dismissing as “natural disappointments” at having to attend safeties.
The idea that there are distinct stratas of students that filter from top universities (best of the best) down to the “meh” students at schools not in the top 20 (or top 50) is equally ridiculous. The top universities have significantly limited seats and fill those with a range of students who hit the minimum criteria and then meet institutional priorities. That top cello player is likely weak/lacking in other areas. The same with the recruited fencing athlete (fill in any sport here). The theater standout may be below average in analytical thinking and may be a far from the intellectual nerdy type as possible. With smaller pools of people, it is actually more difficult to find a cohort of your people. Those assuming that all of T20s admits are peers to their perfect child are mistaken. There are hundreds of thousand of top students and superstars. There were over 3.5 million US high school graduates last year - 200,000-300,000 tippy top students. Our children are amazing to us but not unique gems. (I do have a second who does have some “unique gems” qualities and has won multiple state, regional, and national level awards in addition to perfect/near perfect stats) After those tens of thousand T20 seats are filled, where do all of the other two hundred thousand+ top students/superstars end up? They end up in wonderful schools that people here are determining “less than…”, of all levels, all over the country.
The elite attitude of parents is on hyperdrive this year. I have been around CC for nearly a decade and I have never read so many parents who are so convinced that the system is rigged against their amazing kids or broken or lacking transparency or letting in “lesser” kids because of…(fill in the blank: test optional, diversity, income, etc). Your child may be a regional superstar but the world is a big place.
Rejection is disappointing. Adjust expectations. Realize that your child will bloom where they are planted as long as it is the right environment (and there aren’t that many different “unique” environments). There isn’t much measurable difference in academics for top students at a T20/T50/T100 or even T200 level institution. There are superstar, top of class, “best and brightest” at all schools in the top 250 lists. (Don’t get me started on the ridiculous nature of those rankings lists) If size is a consideration, look for honors colleges, LLC, and special programs inside of larger schools to make them more like LAC. If special programming is important, look for schools that let students design their own programming or interdisciplinary programs with built in supports. Those are things that will make your top superstar stand out in interviews and internships. If you misfired this year, maybe a gap year is in order and then reapply next year to a better crafted/more realistic list. However, don’t assume that by reapplying your child suddenly has a better chance at schools that waitlisted or turned them down this year.
College is all part of the journey. It is not the destination. There are thousands of amazing paths. Some better than others but none is the only right one.
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Do PhD candidates have to pay tuition?
If the department is giving you assistance, then the department is paying tuition. It is often coming out of a Prof’s funding that s/he raised from grants. I was told by a friend that he needs to raise 500k (100k/yr) to make an offer for a PhD slot to a student. Of the 100k, some portion goes to the student as a stipend, and some portion goes towards tuition.
If the department is not giving you assistance (then you shouldn’t bother with that program) then you need to pay tuition out of your pocket.
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You’re not the first CC poster to say this but whenever I see this statement I wonder: did those students choose Bama for academics or because of cost? No dog in this fight. I’m just curious about the microdata.
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