Haha we got a huge box Fedex’d from High Point and opened it up and there was one single pen inside the giant box. Nothing else. It was hilarious, but a huge waste of a box. They must spend millions on their marketing.
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Just wanted to say thank you to everyone in this thread. I enjoy watching everyone’s journey through the mess that is college admissions and can’t wait to see how things shake out in the next few months. 
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Or you can be the nosy mom. 
It was Northeastern EA decision day,
AND Senior Night for his Varsity sport.
DS2022 was trying to keep his cool and only focus on the amazing night: team was winning, and then he beat his opponent, so he was on fire 
!!!
After I finished recording his match, I went online to Northeastern to check the portal and learned that he was accepted to Boston campus with a large merit scholarship (making NEU a possibility).
So I went to congratulate him on his win over his opponent, and then nudged him to check his NEU portal (pretending I didn’t know of the acceptance).
He did and yay! his entire team celebrated his acceptance with him! What a great night! 
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I would totally be that mom, but my son would strangle me if I did that!
Something easy for day off:
- balloons in the college colors
Buy them the day off, put in closet, find out acceptance:
bring out balloons! Celebrate
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We had a weird “juju” going during college decision time.
Whatever colleges he checked on his own, he was deferred or waitlisted.
Whatever I checked, he was accepted.
So the joke with his #1 college (he had checked EA and he was deferred),
he wanted me to check on RD day.
and LOL: he was accepted.
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I second this. I’m so glad I found this group. Everyone is so kind and supportive. In this day and age, it is no small feat.
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D24, DH, & I were talking last night about the U of A (Arizona) financial controversy that’s been in the local news here the past 2 weeks. The university has a $240M budgetary short fall and only has 97 days’ worth of cash on hand for continuing operations, instead of their normal 157-something days’ worth of cash on hand. The university president has been raked over the coals by the Arizona Board of Regents, students, professors, staff, etc.
The U of A student newspaper (the Daily Wildcat) had a very thorough article on it recently. One thing that the article mentioned is that the university president blamed some of the budgetary short fall on “too many investments” along with basically handing out too many merit scholarships. Now there’s serious talk of eliminating the current ‘deal’ with incoming freshmen, which basically holds annual tuition at the same price each year as what tuition costs when you enter as a freshman.
the article was pretty great. It even went into the stupid purchase that U of A did which got them into the “U of A Global Campus” nonsense (they purchased a failing for-profit ‘university’ a couple of years ago). And it talked about how starting in 2021, U of A handed over $51M to the athletics department with an agreement that the athletics department would pay back the loan from the university (but those repayments haven’t really been happening like it was originally planned).
I predict that increasing “fees” outside of tuition will be in the immediate future as well.
D24 said that literally everybody in her senior class has been talking about this. She also said that she’s very frustrated by it and it has her second-guessing about U of A being her #1 choice right now.
This whole thing made me think of a comment that was made a few weeks ago in one of the “Your College Bound Kid” podcast episodes…they talked about considering how financially sound the college is that you’re thinking of sending your kid to.
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Wow I am way too superstitious to buy swag prior to an acceptance. I mean maybe if the school had a 50%+ acceptance rate, was my kid’s #1 choice, and they had a perfect SAT and GPA…but even then!
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I’d personally (but that’s me) not be worried about this.
It’s a prominent state flagship and the state won’t let it fall apart.
Will fees or tuition go up…maybe.
Will merit go down - maybe - it’s been cut from $35K to $32K for the 4.0s already.
For anyone who signs a deal - it’s going to be there.
If someone doesn’t sign, then they may be subject to new terms.
Perhaps some non popular majors could be reduced.
But I would assume a lot is posturing now.
That doesn’t mean others should think like I do…it’s just how I think.
If it was my #1, I wouldn’t change it - but that’s me.
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That’s how I feel too. To be honest, swag isn’t even on my radar. S24’s ED school is just so competitive that I’ll be surprised if he gets in. Not because he isn’t a strong candidate - he is very strong - but because so many fantastic, high achieving kids will be rejected.
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Same situation here. But I dropped $20 for a t-shirt and it’s in the back of my closet just in case!
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C24 has been pretty clear that they don’t want swag from any school they won’t actually attend, so I’m buying nothing college specific.
However, Christmas this year will have a college theme – they’ve be getting some cold-weather gear (since all of their schools are in the North and my southern child thinks a hoodie is a “coat.”)
As far as opening their decisions, that’s a dangerous game. My parents opened my decisions (back in the days when such things were sent via snail mail) and told my grandparents the results before I even got home from school. I remember feeling so helpless and infuriated that something as consequential as my college decisions couldn’t be mine. I totally empathize with the desire to know (and I know I’ll be sorely tempted just to casually log on to a portal or two), but I’m going to be resisting that temptation with all of my might.
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This is all so interesting. I don’t even have my child’s passwords to any of their portals - or the common app - never occurred to me. Also, it would feel invasive to me to check before her unless I had her permission to do so.
It also never occurred to me to buy any school’s merch - it’s not even superstitious - just putting the cart before the horse. With a couple of exceptions, all of her schools are very competitive so nothing is even remotely sure.
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For parents going through this for the first time, be aware that some schools embed confetti or some other fun congratulations graphic, but it only works when the decision is first opened.
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Each kid and family is different. Mine wants the help and thinks the merch is fun, to each their own, right?
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If we visited and my kids really liked, we got a shirt or mug. So we have Purdue, IU, William & Mary, Oklahoma and a few others around the house.
When I’m on campus - even campuses not my kids if I stay nearby and walk in the morning - you see kids wearing shirts from a lot of different colleges. Maybe bought in pre application visits ?
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It only works once?? OMG I’m so glad you told me this.
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When we were touring schools and S24 wanted all the merch, I said we could buy something small t-shirt, hat and sweatshirts would be bought if he thought was a school would be a top contender. It worked for us, because his list was small. He wears the t-shirts to bed so not a waste either.
He did have receive his decision for first choice and we went out to dinner to celebrate and bought a haul online that night, LOL. He will get some stuff he doesn’t know about for Christmas.
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@sarahbrown24 Same here.
Although when we were touring we did end up buying things from most schools. One time it was a shirt that said the name of the college and “Dad”. My daughter thought it would be funny to wear for sports practices.
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