Tuition Exchange for Fall 2022 Freshman applicants (Class of 2026)

So she did get the TEP at Syracuse. Just found Financial Aid in portal. Still not reflected on TEP status page. Full tuition with her other scholarship! Still waiting on USC and a couple of other decisions which should be by the end of this week.

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Update on DD with GPA 4+, SAT 1530, hopeful physics major:

Agnes Scott awarded TE
RIT awarded TE
Lawrence (Appleton WI) awarded TE via acceptance letter, but TE portal not updated
Rhodes- on waitlist for TE, but offered 30K scholarship with admit letter
Case Western - per TE portal, awarded TE, BUT is on WAITLIST for admission–so that’s weird
Mt Holyoke, admitted today with 20K scholarship, no mention of TE in admit letter. Portal still has TE decision pending

I’m appreciating the input of others!

We are still waiting to hear from a non-TE offering school, and then she will start making decisions/declining offers.

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Did he receive an email? Or, did his status update on the portal? Thanks! And, congratulations!

Just in case this is helpful on Mt Holyoke. My daughter was admitted last year but waitlisted for TE. I got in touch with the TE contact who was very helpful. She at first suggested that I appeal for more merit money which I did and they increased by a few thousand and then eventually they offered her a TE slot at some point in April. (But they do not stack TE with merit.) However my daughter chose else where. I know that there was another family in last year’s thread that had a similar experience of getting off the TE waitlist at Mt H and did ultimately attend there. Good luck!!

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We are feeling a great sense of relief that our DD received TE at the nursing school at the top of her list yesterday. We were beginning to think that nursing might have been a program in which institutions decide not to offer TE because of cost and popularity/ability to get families to pay full freight. It is full tuition at the University of New England in Maine. This is extra special for my kid as she’ll have the opportunity to study a semester at their campus in Morocco where she’ll get to put her four years of studying Arabic to good use. We also have a home nearby making for a super option for visiting. The stress during this round was WAY more than my 2019 graduate, but that might have been because we will have three kids in college next year!

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Congratulations, wonderful news! Sounds like a great fit for your daughter!

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@2plustrio in response to your question if Syracuse still pricey after TE… Our son got the set rate of $40,000 + an additional $10,000 merit. That brought the annual cost down to $27869 for tuition, room/board and mandatory fees. That does not include any loans or work study. For reference RIT ended up $29486, Merrimack was $21609.

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@rubisuz - I’m not sure if your question was aimed at us. In all cases our son received an email stating there was a status update. The TE website was changed way after the fact, so that is not the place to get the first information!

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@Momof1boy Thanks so much. That is what I figured. With the high price tag of Syracuse, even with TE it would likely be too pricy.

Even room and board are lot higher at Syracuse compared to Michigan State where my son is a sophomore. He is living in an apartment now. Now new students at MSU have to live 2 years on campus and it seems like Syracuse is the same. Off campus costs seem to be high at Syracuse too. I guess that is NY and high taxes.

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SMU is around $25K with full tuition paid as faculty kid. $18K for R&B and $7K for fees. They don’t do tuition exchange or offer anything if F&S kids go elsewhere.

My daughter received TE at Case Western, WPI, Stevens Institute of Technology, and Syracuse. All are set rate school at $40000 per year. Intended major is CS. Declined admission at USC and BU. Unfortunately, her first choice is BU. We visited Case Western in Feb. We are planning to visit WPI and Stevens Institute of Technology next week before she makes her final decision.

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Good luck!

How was your visit to RIT? Were you able to see things that you hadn’t been the first time you were there? That’s one of our top options, but the virtual accepted student days really aren’t doing it for me.

My D22 got TE scholarships at Lawrence, Dickinson, Case Western, Lewis & Clark, and Pitzer. Didn’t get awarded TE at Puget Sound or Oxy. She’s written to decline at Lawrence and Lewis & Clark, and after going to a local admitted students event for Case this weekend, is going to decline admission there as well. So three scholarships are back in the pool already. At this point, I think Pitzer has the edge over Dickinson, in part because Dickinson is so challenging to get to from the West Coast.

From what I had read in previous years’ forums, it seemed like TE wasn’t always awarded with admissions, but all these schools (except Puget Sound) said yes or no about TE in their initial letter, even the ones she applied to Early Action.

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That would be lovely, but that was not our experience in 2019 or this year. At my hubby’s place, the only person to hear with the admission information was a student who applied ED to Drexel. Those are very nice options and especially with Pitzer as they are a new TE school!

Would you mind sharing her stats? I understand if not. My son is interested in the schools that granted your daughter TE, and I have no idea how competitive he’ll be (will apply for engineering next year). Glad you’ve got such great options!

Just wanted to share in case it helps others:
D22 denied TEP at Skidmore, wait-list TEP at both Bucknell and Fairfield. Skidmore and Bucknell both came in the mail along with the acceptance letter. Fairfield showed up today in the portal.

Also applied for TEP at Siena and Villanova, but already declined Siena admission and was wait-listed for admission at Villanova (her top choice but we also know TEP is very difficult to get there).
Fingees crossed on Fairfield or Bucknell! Now just more waiting, although we are considering calling the schools to see if they can tell us where she is on the waitlist.

These poor kids, this was a hard year for college acceptances. So many of her friends have been rejected or waitlisted from schools they didn’t even see as a reach.

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@Askmj – you motivated me to share our Tuition Exchange story for next year’s class. For them, I’m hoping the college application world settles back down a little, back to a pre-pandemic normal and not the rollercoaster ride the class of 2026 has endured. If it doesn’t, at least they can head into their TE process knowing what to expect as it relates to the challenges of the college acceptances compounded by the scarcity of tuition exchange imports.

Bottom line, D22 went 1 for 4 in the Tuition Exchange world. Only Syracuse came through, which was a college where she would kinda sorta maybe rather not go. As a triple legacy (mom, dad, older brother is a junior – in case my CC name doesn’t reveal that enough!) – she’d like to venture on her own to a different college experience. We are still awaiting four more non-TE schools this week, not expecting any confetti since it’s down to remaining Ivies and the likes, but we shall see where she ends up!

Here’s the longer version. I mean really long. No need to read, if you have other boards to check on. :slight_smile:

S19 is in the college class of 2023. He had long planned to go to SU – Whitman School. He was well within their stats and EC range. He applied ED1 and was accepted in their first wave. As an ED student, he learned in his acceptance letter that he had a $15K scholarship - then we had to wait over a month before the TE was confirmed. I called financial aid and they said the school absolutely did not stack awards. (Spoiler alert – they do!) It was not until we received our first tuition bill in May that I saw that yes indeed, they stacked. We have been blessed with his awesome SU education and experiences beyond our dreams, even during a pandemic, all for roughly the cost of room and board. His guidance counselor scolded him that no one in the history of our high school ever applied to just one college or university. He did. And he never looked back.

Could you imagine a Class of 2026 student applying to just one school??? No. Way.

Fast forward to our post-pandemic college world and D22.

D22 is like all the kiddos I see on this board, especially over here in TE. High achieving, driven, volunteer-focused, 1500 SAT, 4.0 unweighted at a rigorous high school in NY, great ECs, nice kid. Thankfully, no spot on the Common App for this, she watches too much TikTok and possibly suffers from a non-genetic allergy to keeping her room neat and organized. She aspires to go to college for business. We tried to focus her on strong business schools on the TE list. She fell in love with Boston last year when we toured on our own during the pandemic then returned two more times as they slowly opened, but they award only 10 TE spots per year, so, recognizing the odds, we made a short list of 4 TE schools where she liked the business program, plus another 7 schools that did not have TE.

She was starting with 10 more apps than her brother… She ended up with the same number of TE offers. LOL.

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TE Schools, for which we incorrectly assumed she would receive acceptances to all 4 schools and TE offers to 3 out of 4:

~ Syracuse (accepted to the school, TE awarded – 3/16)
~ Richmond (accepted to the school, TE waitlisted – 3/18)
~ Pittsburgh (waitlisted from the school on 3/18, TE denied on 1/28)
~ Boston (rejected from the school, TE denied – 3/26)

A few lessons learned, for next year’s TE families:

We did everything Regular Decision. If you really have your heart set on a TE school, it is not a bad idea to go Early D, because if you don’t land the school or the TE, there is still time to look elsewhere. Your export school needs to get the TE application in by the import deadline, then your student has time to submit applications.

My opinion of Pitt, at least as a TE candidate. When Pittsburgh says rolling admission, they really mean first come, first served. She applied in December over break, when she sent in all her other apps (except Boston on 12/1, since we foolishly thought she was a great match for BU’s Honors College and other scholarships, so she applied a bit early there…). Pittsburgh had long reached their max acceptances for the business school before her app was even unsealed. We thought the school looked great, from a virtual visit perspective. We never dreamed they’d have such a rush on applications. Nor did they, apparently. APPLY EARLY to Pitt if you want to be in the running for TE.

Pitt is the one and only school that updated the parents’ Tuition Exchange Application Status online before they told us status directly. In fact, they updated her status in January to say TE Application Denied. Gulp. It was our first true reality check as to how bad this college season would be, as we did not receive her actual application status until March (waitlist), but by that point, with no TE, Pitt was mentally off our list, so we were fine that they didn’t want her. Take that, Pitt! (A little nod to Aesop and some sour grapes there, for y’all.)

Except for Pitt, my tireless daily checking of the TE App Status, hoping for a sneak preview that would magically reveal her many college acceptances, was a waste of time and clicks. Her three other TE colleges all updated status within a few days of her admission result, sending emails to my husband. Don’t waste your time looking there. Or, be careful if you do, it presented us only with bad news.

Syracuse did a marvelous job with her TE notification. Very different than our Early D experience. She received one of their half-tuition Leadership Scholars packages that others have noted on this board, and within 2 days her Aid package was updated showing the stacked scholarship and TE, with no tuition balance remaining. Syracuse’s marketing of their Leadership Scholars has been – bar none – the very best thing that has happened to her this application season. Wow, wow, and wow. We can’t wait for their Leadership Scholars dinner in April – they can woo like the best of them. She feels like they REALLY want her. I think so many kids on this particular board are the type of candidate they are looking for, as Leadership Scholars, which are selected for all colleges at SU. Since Syracuse guarantees TE, my advice for this school is to consider Regular Decision, as D22 landed a much better scholarship outcome than S19’s ED. I can’t say for sure, but I don’t know if ED students are considered for Leadership Scholars – my son knows a lot of Leadership Scholars now, and none of them were ED. (Terrible, non-statistically valid sample size, I realize.)

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