<p>Is anyone else out there struggling with getting the mail and seeing a BIG fat college envelope and then waiting for your senior son or daughter to come home and open it? :)</p>
<p>Well at least you wait for your senior. My parents just open it up themselves lol.</p>
<p>Oh gosh...
I would never open it! But it is driving me insane! :) My daughter applied to 15 colleges (she is going for merit $$$) and so there is a constant parade of envelopes coming in the mail.</p>
<p>i would open it, and then call him/her and tell them. </p>
<p>course, thats what my parents did/</p>
<p>I wouldn't open it. But I will admit to having indulged in the old hold-it-up-to-light trick to see if I could make out anything.</p>
<p>I don't know what I'll do next year about those envelopes. I bet ds would say he doesn't care if I open them, but I know I should let him. I am so not good with patience.</p>
<p>It helps if the envelope has something revealing like, "CONGRATULATIONS" written on the front. One of my D's envelope was like that. I put it back into the mailbox for her to pick up later. She wondered why I made her get the mail that day...</p>
<p>^^^ ha ha cross posted!
My D always wanted to know right then and there, whether she was home or not. So if she happened to call home, or get a text about an envelope, she most certainly would call and exclaim, "Well open it up and tell me what it says!" And then we were both in the know.</p>
<p>When she was younger and we would wait each spring for summer ballet intensive results, I recall a very anticipated envelope from NYC. It was a few days overdue. I called home about something totally unrelated, and younger D mentioned the letter had come. "Is it big or small?" I asked. "It's very thin," she explained. I felt bad, as D1 had felt really good about her audition. "But mom, she's in", D2 insisted. "How do you know?" I wondered. "Easy, you can see the words CONGRATULATIONS showing through the cellophane!!!" Sometimes they did show right through, but a few taps in the right direction......</p>
<p>My D was accepted EA to one of her top four schools. When that big fat envelope arrived, it nearly killed me. That school sometimes accepts you to the college, but not the major and defers on the major for regular decision. So I had to wait for her to get home from rehearsal to see if she was really in both the school and the major (she was.) It was hard! But I looked at the name on the envelope. It wasn't my name. It was hers. She was the one who did the application. She was the one who worked hard to get the grades, did all the extracurriculars, took the stupid college board tests, did the difficult audition (or interview as the case may be.) It wasn't me. So it shouldn't be me to open the envelope. It should be her. I should be there to wipe either the tears of joy or sorrow as the case may be and write the checks. That's my job. These kids are often 18 years of age. They are adults. It is legally their mail. Not ours. We just need to remind ourselves of that fact. We have waited sometimes months for these envelopes. We can wait a couple of hours more to see what is in them.</p>
<p>But yes.... I too will put it up to the light to see if I can read anything. You can't. The schools know that trick and make the envelopes too think. :)</p>
<p>arent they all or mostly emails and status checks online nowadays? the snail mail envelope comes like 2 weeks after you find out online</p>
<p>I deliberately left the big fat envelopes in the mailbox so S would have the pleasure of discovering them just as I remember discovering my own acceptances.</p>
<p>Not all of them notify via email for admissions, and all of the scholarship stuff all came by snail mail. I didn't open S1's mail. It's his. I would call him, though, and tell him there was an envelope and ask if he wanted me to open it. At that point, I'd do it and tell him the results immediately over the phone. Sometimes he wanted me to; other times, he wanted to do it for himself. (Depended on how much he liked the school, I figured.)</p>
<p>What I thought was really considerate on his part was to wait to open email notifications until DH and I were both available to share in the moment.</p>
<p>Well, if the results are sent via e-mail I'd just log on to his account a thousand times a day and peek! j/k But not really. Eek!</p>
<p>But, seriously, as a child I would wait by the mailbox on Tuesdays for each new copy of My Summer Weekly Reader. I love mail. :)</p>
<p>Wow, do colleges still send out big packages? My two D's got most acceptances via email.</p>
<p>I put all the fat envelops back in the mailbox (loved the ones with big congrats on the outside) along with some junk mail, then waited, bit my lip and said nothing until he checked the mail and told me. The standard envelopes I held until we spoke and I was sure he was ready for bad news, then calmly handed him his mail saying there's something for you, but that wasn't necessary as the small envelopes were all acceptances as well. Only later, after it was all over did S tell me most of the schools notified him by e-mail prior to us receiving the snail mails.. Seems the joke was on me.</p>
<p>I put all the fat envelops back in the mailbox (loved the ones with big congrats on the outside) along with some junk mail, then waited, bit my lip and said nothing until he checked the mail and told me. The standard envelopes I held until we spoke and I was sure he was ready for bad news, then calmly handed him his mail saying there's something for you, but that wasn't necessary as the small envelopes were all acceptances as well. Only later, after it was all over did S tell me most of the schools notified him by e-mail prior to us receiving the snail mails.. Seems the joke was on me.</p>
<p>Fortunately, my daughter ended up getting the mail the days the fat envelopes arrived, so I never had to pretend about anything. Unfortunately, I got the mail a couple of times when there were thin envelopes...</p>
<p>We had a mix - most colleges sent e-mails, but a few sent envelopes. Carnegie Mellons was cute. It had huge tartan letters that said something like "Big Fat Envelope". It was pretty obvious it was an acceptance. By far the worst was Caltech. They sent out acceptances priority mail and rejections by regular mail. It took SIX days for the rejection to arrive, while tons of CCers were reporting good news. I never did open mail, but held up at least one thin envelope to the light to see if it was indeed a rejection.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your wonderful and honest stories! I have felt so badly when I put the envelopes up to the light or "shook" it to see if I could read anything! I love the one "post" about how those envelopes have our son or daughters name on them... and they are the ones who took the grueling SAT's... and they are the ones who studied all 4 years for those good grades... and they are the ones who wrote and re-wrote the essays to get them
"just right". </p>
<p>They are the ones who should open those envelopes.</p>
<p>I will remember that sentiment when the next "BIG fat envelope" arrives! :)</p>
<p>Lesson Learned...</p>
<p>S called his #1 school to see if all was in as there were some complications with some of the app. and the Admin said he could tell S his results on the phone.....AND! S said he wanted to wait and read it when the letter arrived. (over a weekend. He also said he did not want to lose out on his "college experience" of reading the letter. He is a very quite calm kid so his passion came as a surprise. Now when D went through this she would ask me to open everything and call her...</p>