I am stunned to see this morning that some of y’all waited all day yesterday and got no update in your portal. This college process can be brutal and the wait is sometimes so difficult. Yet, it seems that if a school says they are going to do something (which several of us were told by USC that it would be in the portal on Friday afternoon) they should follow through.
What’s worse is that some schools deliberately mislead, do something else, and still don’t get to every student. Several were told Friday but the merit results started to show up at 7pm (PST) Thursday (10pm EST for some. This led to our staying up on the East Coast til after 1am and disrupted my son’s day at school on Friday, even though his portal updated around 7:45am (EST) Friday morning. I was tired most of the day and ended up canceling an appointment with a client yesterday.
I really don’t get it. Actually, I could understand how a school might have IT issues with a roll out for 20,000 or 30,000 students, but come on, this is 1200 students at most that needed to be notified. UCLA regularly gets 100,000 applicants and somehow manages to deliver with their portal. Wash U and Emory this past week gave a date in advance and delivered, although S was waitlisted at Wash U but at least we had the results on time.
I hope you all will have your answer this morning because the whole system is going to go nuts at midnight tonight for 55,000 RD USC applicants (who did not get a merit award in January) checking their portals. It felt like Chinese water torture to me at 1:30am early Friday morning when I went to bed not knowing if not getting the update somehow meant that my S did not get any merit award, but he did in the end get it and I can only hope that the good news will be there for some of you as well today.
@Nomorelurker My S finally got a chance to check his USC portal. $4000 Directors down from an interview for Trustee. Disappointing news and may take USC off the table. Even if he names USC as his first choice as NMF, we can’t swing the remainder. So it’s more waiting until the FA package is released next week. He thought the interview went well and he did get a postcard from the panel.
Congratulations to all the award winners!
Is there anyone that got “bumped up”? i.e. from Presidential to Trustee? It’s been kind of depressing that most people here on CC that’ve checked are getting bumped down…
@hafamama, I am very sorry to hear about this news. However, as you said, if USC with NMF is half tuition and you can get enough financial aid, maybe your family will find a way to make it happen. We are also waiting on financial aid and the stress of waiting and waiting is not pleasant!
@saltyandpeppery, I am speechless that you still have to wait. It was posted on the other USC thread that now they may be releasing RD decisions at noon tomorrow instead of midnight tonight. Maybe there are serious IT issues going on at USC?
@MrReshokar, have not heard of a bump up on CC but S heard of one on one of the USC group chats, so it is possible but has not been common or reported.
Still waiting - no news!! My son is an international applicant and appeared for the trustee interview. It’s been almost 40 hours since people started receiving their results and we are still clueless does anyone know how long will the suspense last?
@saltyandpeppery I cannot believe there is still no news for you!
@MrReshokar I haven’t heard of any scholarship upgrades and am also curious to hear. @Nomorelurker Thanks for the kind words. My son is taking it in stride — I’m the one who’s indignant on his behalf. Also, in a way I’d “gambled” on a scholarship when we bought his airline ticket for the interview. It was not a cheap ticket. I also burned 70,000 airline miles that I’d been hoarding to use this summer for a family vacation. Oh well.
Hope everyone else gets good news today.
We haven’t received anything either…but did you hear the 27th? Does anybody have any idea what’s going on? Is this a tech thing? A bad thing? A good thing?
@marylousquires The 27th is when financial aid packets are supposed to be available. At this point I’m m questioning everything though. Everyone says there’s probably no correlation between no update and “bad news” but it sure doesn’t feel that way.
I’ve messaged the Admissions Team via Snapchat of all things :)) , asked questions on the blog… Feels like I’m in Limbo right now. This is just as bad as waiting for the acceptance letter. Please let’s keep ourselves updated as much as possible on here!
My daughter from SoCal, got Presidential award for half tuition, although she was interviewed for Trustee.With our middle-class income , she will get none from financial aid, and with her 2 siblings who will be looking for colleges not too far from now), she know that she can only have a chance to go to USC (her dream school) if there is merit award to help out with tuition, room and board. She worked hard on that, and a bit sad when she got bumped down from Trustees first. But after a morning, a day to let it all sink in, and read other message boards, about how her friends, and other kids still waiting for acceptance result from USC and other colleges, we feel so thankful, and blessed. We will have some tough decision to make with her when look at all her options, but for now, we wish all kids who out there will have some results soon, and wish them the best. Hope they will know this is first one of those first steps into adulthoods. Things may not always be the way we want, but that should not stop us to fight on, and take everything in stride!
My DS was awarded the half-tuition award that s(he) was nominated for. However, we heard of a couple of friends who also interviewed for the full tuition award; one ended receiving it and the other go bumped down to a quarter tuition.
There are no IT issues, this is how it is done every year, not sure why. But it is. I get the frustration of not hearing yet. But If someone is being given 100k to attend any college in any form, I think being grateful is better than complaining about inconvenience. There are thousands with just as good of stats and/or NMF status that are not even getting accepted. If a student sincerely has a great bio, they should have other options. There are more affordable option out there, that’s for sure.
@colparents , thanks for reporting your daughter’s results and the importance of accepting the outcome which others who received awards may also have to face, that USC may still be too expensive. We still have some hope that we can make USC work, but if not, fortunately there are other offers on the table as well.
@Mom6, congrats on your son maintaining the Presidential which he was nominated for. Sorry to hear that another Trustee was bumped down to 1/4. Seems like a brutal process out there. I hope that as the time passes, it does not mean that they have saved the bump downs for last.
@blueskies2day, if there are no IT issues, how is it possible that a top school like USC would not be able to roll out 1200 results more smoothly and without such tumult for students and families? I think it is possible to be both grateful and annoyed with the way things are going for fellow students. Yes it is true that there are thousands of USC applicants, 55,000 or so who will be outright rejected and that is an amazing and humbling stat to consider.
@MrReshokar, any luck with your communications with USC?
To the rest who are still waiting, including @marylousquires , I hope you will eventually get better news in the near future.
@blueskies2day what do you mean by “this is how it is done every year”? Do they usually delay the notifications of some scholarship finalists? Or should all of us in the dark just expect to be knocked out of the award pool? I really hate this feeling right now. My enrollment depends on this news, and I haven’t even told my parents I’ve been waiting anxiously yet cuz I wanted to surprise them hopefully with good news… Maybe I should just give up…
Thanks! My daughter reached out through a DM on an Instagram chat and they had no idea a lot of people still haven’t heard. Unfortunately I think they are just students and the admissions officers are not there on a Saturday. USC probably should have kept the office open on such a big day. I guess we will not hear anything until it’s posted in the portal. It really stinks. Good luck to everyone and fight on!
but at least we had the results on time.