We had a similar process and my DC also was accepted ED1 by UChicago. It was truly their first choice and they are very excited to finally attend admitted students day this week, so it has been very stress free and they are glad they did not experience the same last few weeks as many of their friends. But I am mindful of the privilege that led us to led us to this point: the ability to be full pay, their status as a student at a private that both has a good relationship with UChicago and that also could provide a better COVID experience than many area publics. So yes, it was pretty low stress, but it was not all our doing. A lot of families have much more to navigate and I am grateful that we did not.
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I appreciate you. Youâve worked so hard to find an ideal match college for your sonâand while navigating the trickiness with an ex.
You rock! Look at that list! And all the affordable options, including Syracuse. 
I look forward to hearing what he chooses.
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As a family that needs a lot of FA, we took a chance allowing DS to apply ED1 to a 100% meets-needs SLAC in the location he really, really wanted. He got in and itâs doable (close to the the FA Calculator), but he will have loans and we can only hope the FA holds up in the coming years. I did all the research and was prepared to help him apply EA and RD to a range of schools that could meet our needs, and maybe he could have made it into one that doesnât require loans for low-income students and even lower parent contribution, but he wasnât in the head space to do that. (Including being diagnosed with some level of ADHD this year, a bout of depression, and barely pulling through with a C and a B in early college online classes.) It hasnât been easy sailing, I would say, but he sees the light at the end of the tunnel for this last semester of early college online. We just bought plane tickets for the cross-country flight there and the RT for winter break, so I sure hope it all works out!
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You sound like supportive and nurturing parents. I hope he has a fab time at college and that itâs all he wants from a school!
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Thatâs quite a family to have affiliations with all of those schools. Did you grow up in a family of professors?
My wife, my immediate family, and I went to them. No professors. If you live in the Bay Area and Chicago, itâs not too unusual to also have friends that went to these schools.
Itâs fun to talk outside the tours and get some of the personal history behind some of these schools. I think they become more relatable and it helped with his personal essays and his interest in attending them.
I donât know if thatâs universally true. There are a few students from my sonâs private high school who are high stats/full pay and got denied from an ED that seemed reasonable. Then denied/waitlisted from EA RD schools. Parents are left bewildered and scrambling. If you miscalculate the ED selection, most of the advantage goes out the window.
For us, he decided to ED because he very much wanted to go there, but he was applying to other schools at the same time. If he got into any of these schools, he would have been happy. If he didnât get into any of these schools, I think he would have felt disappointed but he/we would have been perfectly ok attending our state school, where most of his friends are going to.
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I think now that offers are in and my ex sees that there are affordable options, he is now more relaxed. I even got a thank you from him!
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Itâs true that ED does not work for everyone, even if they are full pay. I take your point, and have seen so many parents here talking about their kids who are in this situation. Everyoneâs feelings of sadness and disappointment are valid, no matter whether they could ED or not.
But for many students, the odds are stacked against them for a lot of reasons, and they canât even try for ED. For those with the factors @Kombucha22 mentions, or for the simple fact of financial risk, the majority of students canât have the ultimately smooth process of ED-and-done-at-favorite-school. The interesting thing is thinking about the school my son would be attending if weâd been able to do that. Iâm not sure he would pick that one now that heâs gone through the more difficult process.
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Same for my son. And we got surprisingly generous aid from us ED school.
A few of his classmates were not as lucky. Schools that should have been deemed likely did not work out either. There may have been some yield protection or too many kids from the same small high school applying to the same school. They will be fine, but being full pay did not seem to help them.
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Yes. I think financials definitely complicate the application process, especially given the very high tuition for all these schools. I think the other thing that helped us was that we would have been happy if he went to the local state school. It added less burden for him.
With our second child, she wants to stay local, so weâre encouraging her to apply at the state school. No T20 for her.
Covid definitely was a bear for everyone.
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I totally get that. I chatted a bit with a few parents on the Northeastern board who had to make the agonizing decision not to let their kid apply ED. We were definitely lucky in that sense.
We were also lucky that he already had an acceptance at a school he liked with generous merit. It was a distant third or fourth choice, but it was still good to have that in the bag before any other decision came out.
I would advise anyone now to have that one school that youâll find out early, is affordable, and your kid can see themselves there to take the sting out of any denials at the tougher or pricier schools.
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I think the âfind out earlyâ is critical! My son had one response from a school that he really likes and that we knew would come in one week before the responses from other reaches started coming. It took the pressure off tremendously, IMO. (I donât know what he would say. Iâm speaking for myself :))
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A well deserved thank you!
I can not emphasize enough how important it is to have early, affordable, desirable yeses. My son has had Alabama in his pocket since December and Purdue since January. That honestly sucked all the stress out of this process. We knew he had great quality schools he could attend if things didnât work out in California.
My kid wanted to go to a big research university close to home, so that put him into the very unpredictable process of applying to UCs and CSUs. Results were indeed unpredictable. I think getting into a UC is doable, but that application took significant thought and planning. I think the reason my son did as well as he did in UC admissions is because he told a cohesive story through his essays and activities and awards sections and he came off as passionate and authentic. I had him start his essays in June. We had a standing weekly meeting to go over college stuff and work on tasks. Iâm a high school teacher, so I edited his essays and sent him back to the drawing board repeatedly.
Putting together a successful UC application is no easy task. I knew what he was up against as this was my third go round. His sister was shut out of the UCs in 2017. I think her missing the ELC cutoff by a hair and him making the ELC cutoff made a big difference too.
In the end, he was accepted to schools I thought were super reaches and denied at schools I thought were liklies. If youâre reading this and looking to apply to California publics in the future: apply widely, have out of state safeties, treat that application like itâs your doctoral thesis. It cannot be slapped together haphazardly if you want a successful outcome.
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And I think for those who want to stay close to home - with a strong UW GPA(3.9 or above), if current merit holds, U of Arizona provides that close to home safety at a lower cost - than UCLA for example.
It ma be ranked lower but its students will be sitting side by side in the work place.
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Hello! My DD has decided on her college. Itâs far though. I wonder if the admitted student day is necessary for students. Will she miss out on a lot if we choose not to go? Also, do parents usually go with their kids for this? Thanks.
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It is 100% unnecessary if your kid is already feeling good about her decision. It has the potential to make an on the fence or uncommitted student still pining for a WL school to feel better. It also has the potential to make an uncommitted kid find something wrong and feel worse, despite the collegeâs best efforts.
Yes, a parent or parents usually (but not always) attend and are always welcome. Often they make some activities open to everyone then branch parents and kids often to some different things.
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Congratulations on getting through the process! 
If she has a decision, she doesnât need to go to the admitted student day. Those events are for students who are still deciding, or who can conveniently attend and just want to come and celebrate being admitted.
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Thank you!
Thank you, this helps!