This is true. My son is in a bit of a unique situation in that he goes to a grade deflating private. His unweighted GPA is a 3.75, weighted 4.64, yet he was still ELC at the top of his class. Arizona gave him 20k off of 58k, which was ok but not great. He had a full ride offer at Alabama and a 10k scholarship off of 40k at Purdue, which made those two preferable.
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Absolutely agree with you about the early, affordable admit. I was clear with DS23 that he needed to have a backup plan(s) for schools beyond the 5-6 UC/CSUs that he was interested in. He probably got tired of me telling him there was no guarantee heâd get into any of them.
For future California applicants: I encouraged him to look at less impacted CSUs, as well as WUE schools, and auto merit schools (such as Arizona).
In the end, he applied very early (in August) to UMTC, which didnât have auto merit but did have rolling admission. He was admitted fairly quickly and had a merit offer before November 1 so I then felt comfortable having the rest of his schools be targets and reaches.
Also - we celebrated each and every admission decision he received no matter how âselectiveâ the school.
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Understood. You need the 3.9. They donât round and they donât weight. The perfect school for the kid seeking a nice name who says I have no rigor nor activities !! But still very solid with many great programs.
Bama is the best of the best financially âŠwell it likely is but I noted Arizona for its proximity to those wanting a UC to stay near home. My nephew called it UCT (Tucson) as loads of Californians go. He was from Nevada tho.
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We had our final parent meeting last week at school for our 12th grade class, and there were a lot of us near tears at different points in the evening; some of it was for our departing children, but also we realized that we were losing our community of parents in the class.
Itâs a lot right now to process.
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I feel the same way about my sonâs sports team. Heâs been playing with the same group of kids since 3rd grade. In addition to all the time during the school year that we see the fellow parents, many of them play on the same travel summer team, so we spend the summers traveling and hanging out at hotels/restaurants together. They are currently in the middle of their last season right now. After 10 years, we all realize that not only are our kids moving on, but our parental community will also be losing itâs center.
My first had the stress free experience but not from ED. They chose their safety with full tuition scholarship. Applied to everything EA or rolling. They had acceptance in hand in October with guaranteed merit and were so excited to attend. By Halloween, had 4 great options. In early fall put in applications much closer to home and also some reaches in the event they changed their mind during the looong senior year. They ended up getting accepted to all of the schools applied but never second guessed their first choice. It made for a great senior year. It is not just families with financial opportunity to go for ED who can have an easy application season.
This time around it was much more stressful. However, it was parent induced stress. DD knew where she wanted to go and it was a match. Receiving merit seemed like it would be a stretch. Being a match we knew that there was a chance for disappointment. She had a fabulous instate early admit so the pressure should have been off. Instead, we insisted that she broaden her list and add more match and likely schools. That resulted in flying all over for visits and many extra essays. She missed out on school events and was extremely overworked. She liked but didnât love any of the others so we kept searching. Then she began to second guess her first choice and get all turned around. As admissions rolled in, she wasnât sure what she wanted anymore. She was admitted to all 10 schools that she applied and 7 came in at or under budget due to merit. She did end up getting large merit at her original #1 which made it well under her budget. We are pretty knowledgeable about the process and realistic about the college admissions gambles. I wish we hadnât put so much stress on her and had been more all in for her first choice early on.
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DD is my 1st one going through college application. Looking back we made so many mistakes. We didnât do campus visits; she didnât try athletic recruiting although she could; she didnât apply ED/EA; she crammed almost all her applications at last minute, submitted at 11:30pm-11:59pm; and so on⊠But, we did one thing right. I dragged her to a college fair last year, and she talked to a representative from a school she never heard about before. She was intrigued and applied to the school (also at the last minute, and missed interview request deadline, and missed supplemental submission deadline), and she got in! We are still amazed and over the moon.
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This doesnât sound like you went too overboard. I have students who got confused, parents pushed, and they ended up putting in 25 plus applications. 
those girls were tired and in tears much of senior year.
My D got into TCNJ, a major in their school of math and sciences, which is generally a hard admit. Her grades arenât great, but she filled out the special circumstances section in her common app so maybe that helped. She would be part of a program that she would take a low course load the first semester and a course to help her transition to college. I donât think she interested but I think that would be great for her.
At this point, she is mostly deciding between UMaine and Ursinus. I decided to do a financial aid appeal in the hope that the Ursinusâ cost could come down a little closer to her other acceptances. But Iâm concerned about what will happen in future years because of the changes in the FAFSA. We would be very dependent on FA if she went there and I donât know if we could afford it if there was a big change.
A point for Ursinus over UMaine for me is the gpa requirement to keep a scholarship.
H and I would be happy if she decided on Rowan because it would eliminate any financial stress for future years because we know our FA wonât change much there since they use a different way to calculate need. It has everything she likes and we could see her doing well there. The only downside is that it is close and she would like to be farther from home.
There is one more decision she is waiting on at a college that was overwhelmed with apps this year.
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Oh gosh no, neither your daughter or yourself would be missing out at all - theyâre (maybe) helpful for people trying to make a decision on where to go and feel as if they donât have enough information. But the other thing to remember is that an admitted studentâs day is not a âday in the lifeâ of that college, either.
All the colleges are rolling out the red carpet on admitted studentâs weekends - it would be as if someone visited your high school on a spring festival day to decide if they should enroll there - you wouldnât tell a visiting family that the spring festival is a representative day to make a decision about the high school as itâs not a typical day at school.
If you can easily go to an admitted studentâs day/weekend? Sure, why not - theyâre often fun! But please donât feel that youâre missing out in any way.
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The end of senior year can be really hard for some parents, it certainly was for me. Random tears from time to time out of the blue (like driving to the grocery store random) and a âwhere did the time goâ feeling, as well as some anxiety over my kid leaving home, no matter how ready she or I thought she was. Hugs to all who are finally through with the college admission/decision stage and on to the reality of âmy kid is about to leave homeâ stage.
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Could you please share your thoughts on Ohio State (COA $47k) CS vs University of Central Florida CS (COA $26k). OOS student. TIA.
Major ?
Whatâs important. Weather. Money. Something else.
Otherwise which does the student prefer ?
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Major: Computer Science. Kid likes big school, football culture which both schools offer. Would love to hear any positives or concerns or challenges with either of the schools to help with the decision.
Warm vs cold
Big time football vs not big time. Reality of UCF.
For what itâs worth niche rates one 93, the other 105 in CS.
I think you go to OSU because you want to. Itâs a great name. Everyone respects it.
But is it $21k more ?
Well Niche ranks them similar but UCF higher. Rankings shmankings and 93 or 105 who cares.
Go to UCF for warmth and Disney or occasional beach access.
Go to OSU for a likely football playoff experience.
Good luck.
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DD wrote an email to FA office at her first choice to see if they would match her second choice offer (both are meet need and need blind schools but a 16k a year difference in COA). She was told they donât match but to file an appeal and include the other offer. I am trying to talk up the second choice and telling her not to get her hopes up that first choice will increase the FA. Interesting thing is the worse offer school has fewer students and a slightly larger endowment. Hoping for this to be over soon and DD will be happy with whatever the outcome is!
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Twin 1 got his acceptance to Honors College at UTA and invitation to apply for an additional scholarship for incoming Honors College freshman 
.
It has been sitting in his UTA email since last week. I asked him tonight if he was monitoring that email, he said NoâŠhe will be from now on lol. The scholarship deadline is April 14.
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My kidâs penultimate decision is in! And now, one more to go that I wish heâd just open up. I think itâs waiting in his email.
We were speaking a long way back in the part 1 thread about gifts and swag, and he got the coolest thingâan absolutely beautiful USC Thornton school sweatshirt. Whether we can send him there or not is yet to be seen, but I hope he is very proud. 
Weâll know soon.
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My son also skipped Admitted Student Day at his school on the opposite coast from our home. Your kid will still attend some kind of orientation before classes begin anyway, and my sonâs school had optional activities for parents available as well when we made the trek (by plane with 6 suitcases mostly full of his things).
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