Daughter #1 (in birth order, she is minutes older than her siblings):
Deciding between Boston College (good financial aid package, but not enough) and Middlebury (great financial aid package, but she would be a “Feb”, starting in the Spring semester). Accepted to: SUNY Geneseo, SUNY Binghamton, waiting from Rochester.
Son:
Choosing between Macalester and Occidental, both gave him very nice scholarships and grants. Accepted to Stony Brook, as a University Scholar (to the school of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences). I would love him to stay close (NY), but he really hated the campus. He was accepted to University of San Diego, UC Santa Cruz, SUNY Buffalo, and a few more.
Daughter #2: Accepted to Siena College (safety), with a good scholarship, accepted directly to the school of business at SUNY Albany, accepted for the Spring semester at SUNY Geneseo, Syracuse and U of Georgia in Athens. She fell in love with Athens, it is a beautiful campus and everyone was so friendly, but we’d pay out of state (ouch!) and it is far from us Rejected from U Carolina Chapel Hill, waitlisted at Babson.
These are our only children, so I had to do everything for the first time in triplicate (FAFSA, CSS, College Board), husband did nothing except offer his opinion and moral support! Although we have been giving them as much input as we can, it pains me to say that the choice will ultimately be theirs to make. It looks that at least two of them will graduate with no debt. Good luck to everyone out there!
Wow! That’s a lot of work all at once but at least you’ll be done with college apps!
For D1, go for Middlebury. From what I’ve heard, being a Feb is great. She could use the fall off to travel, work, explore other interests - in general get a little break from the academic grind, a mini gap year of sorts.
For your son, I really liked Macalester when I visited. Great location, great international focus, top notch campus food.
I’m not too familiar with most of the schools on D2’s list.
Good luck to all! Now, what will you do with that empty nest come September?
If there is a combination of college choices that, in total, would be unaffordable, do you and they have a means of resolving who gets his/her choice and who has to settle for a less expensive choice?
ucbalumnus, we have set limits in terms of loans they can take (we won’t take loans ourselves). Luckily we were able to save since they were born. Also, they have lots of APs, which will give D2 as much as a full year worth of credits if she chooses Georgia, so it seems that whichever choice they make, they will be within those limits. The rule was: you can go to the best school that we can afford. Thank you for your replies and encouragement. I really don’t know what will I do with my empty nest. I will miss them terribly.
Yes bookworm, he visited both, he was waitlisted for UCSD, he was admitted to the private catholic University of San Diego. He loved Oxy, it was his first choice from day one, but it is really far. At least I go to the upper Midwest every few weeks for work, so I could see him if he went to Macalester. Yes, twoinanddone, Georgia is far too, but it is so cheap to fly there from NYC (I paid $64 for each roundtrip ticket when we visited a few weeks ago!). Thank you to all of you for your replies, it makes this process more bearable!
Sounds like you have three winners with great choices-- and I think it’s fascinating that they are each traveling different paths. Another word in favor of Georgia-- the Atlanta airport makes getting ANYWHERE in the world really, really easy…and, in many cases, relatively inexpensive. Athens will seems a lot closer than you think (a lot of our NY friends have been pleasantly surprised by how great their kids’ Georgia experiences have been). UGA’s reputation continues to grow-- and it’s now even a very competitive school even for in-staters (some very, very good students we know didn’t make it in and will be considering some very, very good schools as alternatives).
Sorry, I didn’t pay enough attention that it is USD, which is a beautiful campus. Still, it seems like your son has a specific focus in mind. I’m not sure f it is marine biology or what. You mentioned one department of Marine and Atmospheric Science. Since his top choices are LACs, I would see which college has more courses in his field. Of course, he may shift focus, but he would want options. (My son ruled out Oxy cuz they didn’t have enough physics courses, though he didn’t end up majoring in this).
I have a girlfriend who has triplets who are seniors (one boy and two girls). I am waiting til after college admission season is over and decisions made to get together with her as she has her hands full!
And they decided (we gave them our input, but we emphasized that the decision had to be THEIRS): Boston College (financial award was increased), Macalester College (I was surprised, my son’s first choice -from day one- had been Oxy, but we visited this past weekend, he loved it and loved the people there), and U of Georgia, which I knew was her first choice from the moment we visited Athens. Now we have to figure out the logistics to drop all of them off in August at three different places. Georgia starts early, but Mac and BC start the same week. Thank you to all of you for your feedback, and good luck to everyone!
Congrats! My friend with triplets has her decisions - I don’t want to say specific colleges since it would be too easy to identify them, but she has one in northern New England, one in NOLA and one on the west coast and they all move the same week! And she’s a single parent - though I’m sure her ex-husband will be part of this.
For your two with same week starts, explore possible pre-orientation trips that mean you get to go a week early. Congrats to them all. Lots of kids around here love UGA.
Congratulations on getting all three children settled and happy. You may have to “divide and conquer” with your H for your children and Mac and BC but if you got this far no doubt you will figure out move-in logistics as well.
Rejected from U Carolina Chapel Hill, waitlisted at Babson.
