To quote the famous Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars: “It’s a trap!”
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So, I think I’ve read someplace here about the potential significance of emailing a Why Northeastern essay to one’s regional AO.
Is there any acceptance benefit to applying early during the EA/ED window? Or do schools wait until after that Nov 1st deadline to start reviewing?
There really isn’t, however I do encourage applicants to submit applications at least a few days ahead of the due date because glitches do happen. (And illnesses.)
With S23 we backdated due dates two weeks, and I also made sure that he requested materials, letters and the like typically a month or two prior to when you would typically ask for them because we also wanted to add in padding for illness or any other hiccups.
Neither S23 or I had yet to have Covid, and there was the chance that his letter writers or college counselor might get it as well - hence building in bigger buffers than I might normally suggest in case any one of us became sick and needed to take a week or more off from working on anything.
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That is exactly how I explained the current state of affairs to my parents. D had the package, but would she also get her name pulled out of the hat? She applied to 21 in the end. Results were mixed in no predictable way.
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My D24’s big list currently has six reaches, five targets and five quite likely, but the more that I talk to her, the more it seems like she just pulled those 16 colleges out of a hat without much thought. I thought there was some reasoning to her choices beyond location (she wants to be close to family) but apparently not.
The college advisor at her school has approved the list but wants her to get it down to under 10 schools as do I. In some ways, I think cutting it should be easy enough since (unfortunately), I don’t think that she is head over heels with any of them. On the other hand since she doesn’t have strong feelings about any of them at the moment, it is hard to figure out which to eliminate. She says any are probably fine, but I think that she really needs to focus and figure out what she wants. She has a month before school starts and I would like her to have a pared down list by then and some of the common app done.
I still have to run some net price calculators. Almost all of the schools on her big list were on her older sibling’s list but it has been two years since I ran the calculators on some of them, and their prices or aid policies might have changed. If she can’t make some decisions, I am tempted to tell her to apply to the 3 most inexpensive in each category (targets, likely, and reach) and call it a day. But I’d rather that the 8-10 on the final list reflect her genuine interests not just the lowest numbers.
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They’re applying mostly to BA programs, and likely shooting for a double theater/education major (or, at Emerson, the Theater performance and Education Major)
Happy to chat with you over pm if you prefer. Emerson was pretty stingy with aid but academics should not be in issue, it is all about the audition. My S21 had a 4.2 W GPA and 1460 SAT and got no merit from them but was accepted EA for theatre and performance bfa.
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One thing I found very helpful when trying to narrow down college choices was to do a sample 4-year plan, making sure I had filled out all the distribution requirements and requirements for my intended major. For some, they might think, way too many requirements! Others may be really excited by their options. Others may be like, where are the electives? (That was my reaction at schools where the expectation was 4 classes/semester as compared to 5+.) But once I figured out I didn’t like what my college curriculum would look like with only 4 classes/semester, I was able to eliminate all colleges with that type of schedule (with one notable exception that had no distribution requirements).
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Playing around in Common App. URoch requires students to list siblings in college, name of college and grad year - anyone know what the purpose of that is?
Also interesting, the URoch writing supplement requires the applicant to attest that they did not use AI such as ChatGPT.
Most schools consider the number of siblings in college in their financial aid packages. From what I remember, most if not all colleges have asked for sibling info either at application, financial aid app (FAFSA, CSS), or just as part of the info you fill out upon enrolling.
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It was a little while ago but a relative turned down U Roch (after negotiating financial aid no less and having Roch meet another offer) and their sibling was still accepted (and attended) two years later. Anecdote of one obviously but I doubt it’s about trying to weed out - more likely about aid.
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Thanks - it must be due to the FAFSA changes, though I have not seen any other college ask this question in its questions section. (Not applying for aid.) It just felt a little weird.
Thanks! That is a great idea. I’m not sure that I’ll be able to get her to engage enough to make a 4 year plan, but it is worth a try, and I bet the exercise could help her narrow the list down. On the other hand part of the issue is that she doesn’t have a major in mind. As far as I can tell, she studies because she likes learning but she doesn’t have any real idea of what she’d like to do with the knowledge/skills except learn some more.
Her older sister at least had a general idea about possible majors as she entered her senior year. Maybe D24 isn’t ready for college next year. She is a very strong student, but she doesn’t have any clear career ambitions and she is equally interested in most of her classes --even the handful that she didn’t like stemmed from a dislike of a particular teacher or group dynamic; it wasn’t that she disliked the material or topic.
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Plenty of applicants don’t apply for aid and/or fill out the FAFSA. These questions are in the application section, so can’t be related to aid. Additionally, the new FAFSA does not provide a discount for having multiple kids in school simultaneously.
They’re probably looking to gauge your connection to the school, to better predict yield. I think the presumption is that applicants whose sibling(s) attend(ed) are more likely to enroll if accepted.
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The sibling question comes just prior to a discussion of legacy and subsequent legacy questions. If it were about legacy connection, it should go with parent/grandparent or other relative, which is also asked. It just seems weird where it is and especially that it’s mandatory.
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If your D24 doesn’t want to go to college next year or doesn’t seem adequately mature (whether emotionally, socially, common sensically…) then that’s one thing that I completely and totally understand as a rationale for putting college off for a year or more. But if it’s because she’s interested in too many things? I think that’s all the more reason to go to college. She’ll have the chance to delve deeper into the fields and see if her interest continues to grow, or if it wanes (or plunges). Additionally, there are fields she hasn’t been able to study (and maybe hasn’t even heard of). I think that college is such a great time to explore and learn about different areas that I’d have a hard time suggesting a pause because my kid was so open/undecided about a possible area of study.
I think that the students (or their parents) who come on CC and have known since they were 8 what they wanted to do and have geared all their ECs and electives toward that path are the rare exception. It just so happens that the rare birds like to flock to CC.
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Sounds like a prime candidate for a LAC. My daughter was like that, and the fewer requirements the better. She is at a place with lots of equally invested in learning for the sake of learning people and has never been happier. She has also settled into a major and a minor.
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At the moment, almost her entire list consists of small LACs! There are a few exceptions like Wesleyan, Brown, and Brandeis, but those aren’t big universities either. She is applying to a couple of fly-in programs so that might help her narrow the list down. The biggest issue on my mind is financial aid so running the NPCs is probably the next step.
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Has she looked at Grinnell? Their merit and financial aid is very generous. If she likes Wes and Brown she will probably like it as well.
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