<p>Me too Jay</p>
<p>At our high school, about one-third of our senior class applied ED or EA. Most of the schools were ivies, and the other obvious top schools. About a third of these students were accepted and the other two-thirds had their apps ready to go as soon as they heard they were not accepted. All of my friends who were not accepted ED/EA have applied to anywhere from 3-9 schools. Each person has their priority list. If the top school on their list gives them a thumbs down, they then move on to #2 on their list and so on. My friends do not seem to be too concerned about weighing one school's financial-aid package against another. And according to them, their parents don't seem to be using financial aid as a major factor in the decision-making process.</p>
<p>One friend was turned down at MIT but accepted at Cal Tech. He is still sulking about MIT. Personally, I would be just as happy at Cal Tech if not more.</p>
<p>So many of you young people (and parents) seem so sure of exactly where you want to go first. My D still can't make up her mind, so she applied Rd everywhere. But here is how I think she would rank them, if money were not a factor:</p>
<p>Cornell (visited overnight)
Brown (did not visit)
Oberlin (visited)
Swarthmore (visited twice)
Wesleyan (did not visit)
Penn State--University Park (visited) (accepted)
Muhlenberg (visited)
Amherst (did not visit)
Lehigh (visited twice)
Ursinus (visited) (accepted)
Dickinson (visited)</p>
<p>Hm. I might have been misunderstood here. I was trying to suggest a different psychology, that's all. It was based on experience. One of my kids had his heart set on an ED but didn't get in. He was kinda...crushed. And from that, he decided (while mired in the other untouched 7 apps throughout his non-holidays!) not to rank his springtime outcomes. It was to protect himself from some pain. Maybe it's just his personality, somewhat pragmatic.</p>
<p>The only way I found out he was feeling this way was when I asked him in mild curiosity, during January, "what's your rank order for all the other 7 places?" He said he preferred not to rank them but wait and see what was actually possible after all the RD announcements. </p>
<p>At that moment, all 7 became tied for Second Place in his mind. In the Spring, he was really open to considering the 4 that accepted him, the 2 that waitlisted him, and not care so much when his ED-hope rejected him and one other was a reject. He didn't walk around saying, "my #3 turned me down so now I have to deal with my #5; how frustrating." </p>
<p>Anyway, if you throw out an idea, it's like spaghetti against a wall; it'll stick for some and not for others. YMMV!</p>
<p>Plainsman...I think your daughter did the right thing by visiting many of the colleges on her list, and in some cases, more than once. In hindsight, I find it very interesting how my initial list changed dramatically once I visited the schools in person. I live in the midwest and last spring we visited Northwestern and U of Chicago. I really wanted to attend one of those schools, in part because I love Chicago so much. Last August we visited Syracuse, Middlebury, Dartmouth, Bowdoin, Bates and Amherst. Amherst was the last leg of our trip back home and we were all tired and just wanted to get back home asap. We debated on our drive from Bowdoin whether we should just skip Amherst. We didn't and I am so grateful we didn't. Amherst and Bowdoin turned out to be the very best experiences of my college selection process (campus, faculty, tour guides, admissions, community, etc). I had planned to apply ED II to Bowdoin, had I not gotten into Amherst ED I. Good luck with your daughter's application process....tell her to weigh everything carefully and decide which school is the best fit for her.</p>
<p>For exactly the reasons laid out above our GC said that asking what our S liked about one school or another or why they liked it at all was a question worth asking. Asking him to rank them, however, was strongly discouraged. He too got rejected ED but once he bounced back from that (which made for a really stressful Christmas), it was more about waiting to see what the options might be (and is why there are virtual ties in his list). And as she said, a lot of what you think is perfect can change between applying and May.</p>
<p>Our issues are not in comparing financial aid, as we don't get any. And none of his schools even offer merit aid. So for him (and us) it will have to be about comparing what the future will be for schools he gets into. Are their endowments ready to disappear? Do they appear to be making sound decisions for their financial future as it pertains to the education of students? It's not my money I am necessarily worried about, it is theirs!!</p>
<p>Even schools who give only "need money" can differ drastically in their financial aid packages. Three years ago my son's packages ranged from 22,000 to 2600 for 5 different schools. Some of these were merit $$ but some even gave need money on top of the merit money. Our EFC at that time was 30K and average tuition for a top private school (including R & B) was about 45K. I expected most schools would come in with about 15K for us but Tufts was the low ball figure with only 2600. Although Tufts would have been a nice school for my D we didn't even bother because of this. She did apply to other NESCAC schools which are known to be more "generous" such as Amherst, Wesleyan, and Conn College. I think my D is smart enough to consider the fin aid as part of the overall picture. There are also other factors besides academics, small class sizes, etc. entering into her priorities (the list posted earlier) and these are the ability to play a sport (D III vs D I) and how much the coach has kept in contact with her, prestige (unfortunately - but I think there is some of this to all CCers), ability to get into grad school after (I suppose this is a valid reason for paying attention to prestige) and even just how the college looks and how the students seemed to her when we visited. We visited every school of the 9 she applied to while school was in session (no summer visits) and plan to go back after she gets accepted to the top 3 on her list. In addition to great academics she wants to be in a nice, pretty, environment where the students seem like somebody "she could hang out with". I did require her to apply to a few schools that give merit aid, which is how PC and Stonehill got onto her list and those are kind of safeties for her. RPI also gives merit aid but that is on there for other reasons and surprisingly she loved the school and felt she could go there. We'll see....but in the meantime I am going crazy!!!</p>
<p>
[quote]
We'll see....but in the meantime I am going crazy!!!
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I know the feeling!!!!! Same with S about sports, but seriously I can't tell where he is on any of these coaches lists. They call and then don't, and then just when you think they've passed, they call again. Who knows, and again, I can only be happy that S has the grades and scores that he doesn't need the bump per say but it'd still be really nice AND whereas he thought he'd be OK with not playing (ED school) he has definitely changed his mind on that one. He seems to have pushed this whole college thing to the back burner while I am still posting on here and reading the school's websites!! What's with that?</p>
<p>Modadunn and Jessephen...good luck with son/daughter decision process in selecting a school. I was recruited to play basketball at D III schools in the midwest. I can tell you that while D III schools don't give athletic scholorships per say, they can always find some extra academic scholorship monies to entice student-athletes. Staying close to home would have given my parents the opportunity to continue watching me play basketball four more years. My parents, however, encouraged me to find a school that was the right fit. My own personal views on continuing to play basketball beyond high school......I have been playing competively year round since I was in the 7th grade. At this point in my life I am anxious to get the season over with so that I can enjoy the remainder of my senior year in high school. When I get to college I would like to be a complete student and do everything and experience everything that I wasn't able to do as a student because of my athletic commitments. But that is just me. I know others want to continue playing their sport in college. I plan to do a club sport at Amherst, perhaps crew. </p>
<p>Jessephen...your daughter seems to have the right idea by taking into account the size of the school, academics, environment and having a comfort level with friends. Those factors sold me on Amherst and Bowdoin more than any other school I visited. And prestige does play a major role in it, too. I'm not saying prestige in a snooty or arrogant way, but in a way that lends itself to getting into a top grad school. </p>
<p>Again, good luck to your kids! Perhaps we'll be classmates at Amherst in the fall.</p>
<p>I'm a transfer student and money is an issue for me.</p>
<p>Here's the List:</p>
<p>Amherst
Cornell
UPenn
Middlebury
Georgetown
Bowdoin
Vassar
Wellesley
Smith
Columbia GS</p>
<p>I change my ranking all the time, but Amherst keeps making it to the top.</p>
<p>Hmm.. I guess this is my list for now (only a junior)</p>
<p>Middlebury
Haverford
Willams
Cornell
Amherst
U Roch
Swarthmore
Hamilton
Geneseo
Binghamton</p>
<p>Amherst
Middlebury
Williams
Wesleyan
Dartmouth
Vassar
Connecticut College
UVM</p>
<p>Yale (accepted SCEA)
Dartmouth/Williams
Amherst
UNC
UF</p>
<p>I noticed several people listed Amherst ahead of Dartmouth. We're looking at the two closely and would be interested in your thought process comparing the two if you care to share. Thanks.</p>
<p>Brown</p>
<p>Amherst</p>
<p>Williams, Wellesley, Harvard</p>
<p>UChicago, Georgetown
Cornell, Colgate</p>
<p>D rated Amherst ahead of Dartmouth because of the feeling of closeness she got at A when she visited, extra small class sizes, and the opportunity to participate in DIII athletics.</p>
<p>
[quote]
At this point, our GC has advised the kids not to truly rank their schools because it's probably not good to get too set in your preferences as those might change as acceptances and rejections come in. This said, TODAY my son's list probably goes something like this:</p>
<p>Amherst/Middlebury
Colgate
Tufts
Georgetown/Johns Hopkins
Hamilton
Trinity
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Here we are a week later or so later and as was predicted, there has been some movement:</p>
<p>Amherst/Midd
Johns Hopkins/Colgate
Tufts
(then the rest). </p>
<p>BTW..My son applied ED to Dartmouth, but had not even seen Amherst until after rejection. I can say this about the two: visiting Amherst got him completely over ANY residual feelings of disappointment about Dartmouth.</p>
<p>I sort of agree that it might set kids up for disappointment to definitively rank their schools. Personally, I'm trying to get myself excited about all the schools that I applied to, thinking about all the positive things that I would find at each. At this point, I'm happy enough with all of my schools, and I really just want to know. Even if I only get into one of ten, I'll be okay, I just want this over with.</p>
<p>my D's list:
Princeton
Yale
Columbia
Georgetown
Duke
Brown
JHU
Emory
Uofchicago
UF(accepted)
FSU(accepted)</p>
<p>Middlebury
Amherst
Brown
Bowdoin
Tufts
Carleton
Macalester (accepted)
UNC Chapel Hill (accepted)</p>