Parents of the HS Class of 2023 (Part 2)

I attended Penn for grad school and I really liked it but I wouldn’t call it quiet. It’s gentrified quite a bit, mostly because Penn has bought up a lot of the neighborhood, but West Philadelphia is still a higher crime part of Philadelphia.

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Let us know how he likes the admitted student day on Friday.

I took D23 on March 30-31 - she was waitlisted, but the AO said she was welcome to still come, as IF she is offered a spot off the WL she wouldn’t have alot of time to decide. And THAT demonstrated interest better than anything else we could do - so hopefully it moves the needle.

After the 2 days on campus, she is 100% sold. We are doing the admitted student days at Mt Holyoke this next Sunday/Monday, she’ll be deciding between them and Sarah Larence to commit to before May 1; but if she gets on the WL at CWRU she will absolutely go (they already gave us the financials so we would know what we’d be getting into).

For her, wanting to focus on STEM, but almost equally drawn to theater and the arts CWRU would be a great fit - somewhere around 30% of the students there double-major, and it’s “normal” to do so in totally non-overlapping fields. She loved the performing arts center - she reached out to a professor ahead of time and got a private tour and some one-on-one time, the professor even emailed someone in admissions to hopefully “nudge” things along.

I was very impressed overall. Of course, selfishly I’d prefer that NO ONE here on CC pick CWRU - that means more potential people off the WL get to go! Definitely share your impressions after your visit :slight_smile:

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Well done, mama!

Just a tip for the Mt Holyoke admitted student day, we went with our D23 today. Make sure you take a tour with other admitted students. We ended up on a tour with two other families but both students were juniors and D23 was the only admitted student. Would have preferred to have more admitted students on the campus tour.

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Oh now I feel bad! Your daughter was really smart to show that demonstrated interest and impress a professor enough to get a nudge! Sending all the good vibes in the world that she gets off that waitlist!

We are actually scheduled for the “Unity Banquet” Friday at 6pm as described here:

“I am pleased to invite you to Case WesternReserve University for the 33rd annual UnityBanquet. The annual banquet takes place the evening of our two-day Admitted Student Program, which you are also invited to attend.*

This semi-formal event will take place on Friday, April 14 at 6:30 p.m. Eastern at Landerhaven in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, and will include dinner service. During the banquet, we will celebrate and recognize the great achievements of our diverse current students.”

…so we plan to either sign up for the accepted student events on Friday or see if we can “create our own day” since we went to the open house last year which overlapped with accepted student day and feel an ideal day would be:
-meeting with financial aid
-meeting with department that handles transferring college credit
-shadow a psych student to a class & observe a class
-chat with a psychology professor
-maybe see a dorm

My son was trying to avoid another whole day off from school (missed a day for regional gymnastics, will miss a few days for the band trip to Boston, will miss 3 days for gymnastics nationals-ugh!) but I do think it’s important now that we can say CWRU is financially feasible. So just going to make it work. Sounds like you are in the same boat with college visits but what can you do? Let us know how she likes Mount Holyoke and WHEN (not if!) she gets off the Case waitlist!

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We are at a difficult point right now, with S23 trying to make his final decision. He is going back and forth between a few schools, feeling like he is sure of his decision, but then doubting himself and changing his mind. Crossing a school off the list and then putting it back under consideration, etc… he is feeling confused and stressed!

My kid already said no to CWRU, maybe that will help a tiny bit :crossed_fingers:

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IME, the area around Penn is dead around 10pm. Most of the restaurants were closed and I couldn’t even get pizza delivery at that time. I consider that quiet. It also seems quieter to me than parts of CC.

Of course, I’m also comparing it to the area where I went to college where places are open late and it’s not unusual to see students out and about at all hours of the night/early morning.

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If only kids could ‘give their spot’ to a specific person on the waitlist lol.

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Thx, we’ll take all the good vibes we can get!

I suspect she’ll also fall in love with Mt Holyoke - but CWRU being in Cleveland, which is the 2nd largest broadway district (behind NYC) PLUS the great physics program is a big draw that will absolutely win out, WHEN she gets off the WL….

If you S wants to meet with a professor, he ought to email. D emailed on Monday and was able to set up a time for Thursday evening the same week.

D and I went to a dance performance Friday night that one of the tour guides was performing in - she and D started talking and it turned into an invitation. It was an amazing performance in a small venue on campus, the students she met were all very friendly.

Enjoy the banquet!

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We are actually attending the ‘experience MHC’ days - I believe only open to admitted students.

I suspect she is going to love everything about MHC :slightly_smiling_face:

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I’m sure your daughter will love the campus. It was our second visit. We thought our tour would be admitted students only but after we registered for the day we went to the Admissions lobby and we split up into groups only by tour guides not by admitted students and prospective students. In hindsight we would have paid attention to those that were wearing the admitted student lanyards. Unfortunately we were pressed for time so we couldn’t spend the whole day because my D23 is leaving for a school trip to Europe later this week. The food exceeded our expectations. We are only about an hour away so we could possibly sneak another trip in if need be. Hope your daughter enjoys Mt. Holyoke.

Ha ha good thought! My poor D23 is on waitlist of three Ivy and two top tier schools.
So that would make her happy!
So should we consider showing up in any of these schools for their admitted student days though she is waitlisted?

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I definitely would not just show up but you can try to contact admissions and ask.

Will try that.

Waitlisted students are not admitted students (and have an extremely low probability of eventual admission) so I doubt they’d be ok with this. But I guess, no harm in asking.

@swan1 - IMO, it’s best to consider these as rejections and focus on the schools you’ve been admitted to. That’ll help you and your kid make the best decision.

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Yeah my concern here is an emotional one. By going you are giving your student hope that may not be there. You could look at prior WL years to see would it make a difference. Plus there’s expense in doing so financially, not just emotionally.

Case may be an exception. Their yield is very low and they let 436 off the WL last year. That’s a big #. Others are zero. So that might give reason to attend, etc if the family can afford. I forget if they’ve been yet or not. They might attend and decide you know - it’s not for me although considering the strength in the academic area of interest vs Sarah Lawrence and remoteness of Grinnell, that’s unlikely. Case is also sending a message on WL possibility by giving financials up front b4 admission. Not sure if others do that.

Most people applying to ‘hard ins’ have a college they’ll remember as - wow. I really wanted that. I wanted to go to Northwestern for undergrad. Ended up at the Cuse. That’s became a part of my life story.

What are your WL schools?

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Yes we have considered it as rejections.

Depends on how you look at it. Some schools have a much lower population of kids receiving a pell grant. For example Notre Dame has been one of the lowest in recent years if that is what you what for your kids then that is good if you want more diversity then that is bad.

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I have been telling my daughter to go ahead and put the deposit in for her choice of school. I think it is hard for her as she got waitlisted in top four schools so she needs to move on.
I used to dread he scenario of waitlisting even for one school now have to deal with four!
Life has a very good way to teach us lessons.

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I don’t know if I would recommend that - but given that CWRU heavily weights “demonstrated interest”, AND they took 400 applicants off the waitlist last year, we are hoping it will move the needle. And of course ask first - it’s the right thing to do, AND engaging with the AO is more “demonstrated interest”.

The other consideration was that CWRU was one of just a couple of schools we hadn’t been able to visit - on paper it was a top choice, but if she is offered a spot off the waitlist, she will need to decide relatively quickly, and there may not be time to visit at that point; she wouldn’t want to commit without having visited, but given that it had become her top choice she wanted to be sure.

For a school that does NOT consider “demonstrated interest”, I wouldn’t bother (we didn’t even ask about doing the event at Wesleyan, they told us when we visited in the fall they do NOT track demonstrated interest). Though she IS writing a LOCI to them; though not “required”, it certainly can’t hurt :slight_smile:

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