@SoProudofMyChildren Kansas, so all are far away.
- Emory 2) UM 3) USC. If you are pre-business or pre-med, Emory or UM is way to go, if you are doing arts-related stuff USC is good.
Venting here a bit. My S went to 1st scholarship weekend. Ended up not getting Stamps or Singer, but got letter notifying him of additional 4k award, for a total of 29k, which is a generous scholarship. The letter did not, however, mention anything about Foote Fellows, so I contacted his admissions counselor who confirmed that he had not been invited into that program. Not to sound arrogant, but I was stunned. Stats are 2250 SAT, 35 ACT, 4.8 weighted GPA, National Merit Finalist, Cum Laude, 9 total AP courses (3 last year – all 5s, 6 this year). ECs related mostly to music; he sings and has received honors and awards at the local, state and national level for his singing accomplishments. Wants to be in an a cappella group in college. He has other great choices, and to be honest, UM isn’t in his top 3 choices, but he most definitely would not want to go there if he weren’t in the honors program. I can’t wrap my head around why UM, if they wanted a kid like him, wouldn’t invite him into the honors program. Any thoughts here? Anyone in the same or similar boat? Baffled.
@tennessee1 if you will search the forum every year you will encounter such quirky decisions. There are students who have best scores/grades and got accepted to so called higher rated school and got rejected from a lower rated school.
On a different note acceptance in a honors program should not become a key factor in the case of UM as it just makes you skip some core requirements, there are other ways to do that in UM (look at the da vinci program and see if it suits your S and you can write to them about it, may be it is a better fit)
@dudefromnowhere You are exactly right, and we are fortunate to be complaining about not being accepted into an honors program rather than not having been accepted at all. So many of my S’s friends (other high-achieving students) were rejected or waitlisted at schools where their stats were above the middle 50% this year, and there’s a lot of disappointment. I will check out Da Vinci, although it appears that that is an A&S program, and my S is in the Business school. Thanks for your post!
@tennessee1 are you guys still considering UM? my D was strongly considering it but she had a full tuition from another school. And the cost difference is becoming sizable for us to ignore it. She had loved the location and the feel of UM when she visited it during the scholarship weekend.
Now it looks like the numbers will overrule the feel 
@dudefromnowhere UM isn’t in his current top 3, although he hasn’t eliminated it, and it is entirely possible that he will circle back around to it. He is visiting UVA this weekend, Northwestern next and USC and UCLA the following weekends. He has a 1/2 scholarship to USC because of NMF status; that gives him about the same amount of $ there that he would have at UM. He loved UM too. What are your D’s other choices?
Northwestern in Chicago is in a complete different League then the other school you just mention.
@tennessee1 These do sound like excellent choices, Are you from CA, UCLA might have a great value for money. UVA and Northwestern are great choices (I have heard NW is a very tough school for grades). Do share your opinions after the visit
D is looking at UVA (like your S) - we visited a couple of weeks back. The she has Georgetown (visiting there in the next couple of weeks)
Pittsburgh is a contender too as she has a scholarship from there. So unfortunately UM has taken a backseat
@abcninja
Looking like USC for.my child. Lots of remorse no matter which choice was made.loved both.