Macalester (accepted EA with merit $)
UVA (EA decision due mid Feb)
Brown
Vassar
Wellesley
Smith
Bryn Mawr
Mt. Holyoke
William & Mary (incl St. Andrews program)
UMass Amherst
UConn
Anyone else feeling a little sick to their stomachs now that apps are all submitted and it’s just a waiting game? So many of my friends kids who graduated HS ‘21, got SO MANY rejections! She is lucky to have the Macalester acceptance in her back pocket but I am kind of freaking out!
Congratulations on having Macalester in her back pocket! What happens now happens, and she can only go to one school. Pretty sure she will have choices come March - good luck with the waiting!
If Macalester is affordable, then she (and you) can relax, since she now has the best kind of safety – one that she is already admitted to and can afford.
It’s so hard to let go and wait. My D22 finished her RD apps on 12/31 and I’m the one hanging out here, hoping for updates!
My daughter has been accepted to Mac with a nice merit scholarship, too. She really likes it—we will wait to see how the others pan out, but it is her favorite of the EA schools she has heard back from/been accepted to.
I think that one of the things that sucks most parents into their kid’s college search is that it is a genuinely meaningful chance to be part of their kid’s life. It’s fun to go on visits together, to talk about what the future might hold, to see how your kid sees the world, themselves, and their hopes.
So the flurry of application activity coming to an end is also a lull in this part of the relationship. There is the wait for decisions and the stress about what options might be there (or not!) But if the first part is playing into how you are feeling, find another way to engage with your D. And hopefully one that has nothing to do with college!
Having an acceptance from Mac is a great start (and frankly, a potentially good end), and I’d bet she will have some other good options.
One of my hints is just let it go. My son told me that the whole college thing and waiting was bad since we the parents put so much emphasis on it. He was fine waiting. Talk about something else. Stop talking about college. They know if not accepted to x they should now focus on why. I learned a lot but would do it totally differently if I could. Bringing undo stress into their lives when they are already stressed out isn’t good. They will find you if they want to talk about college
The waiting part is never easy too! There is this lull in the winter months until the decisions start coming in. Enjoy your senior (I just dropped my college freshman off yesterday and the house is so quiet again!) and best of luck! I bet she will have some great options! My D applied to some of the schools on your list.
Gardenstategal/ Ok, you nailed it. It’s not so much that I’m having to wait; it’s that this process—at least the part with open possibility— is over. Now she’s back to theater, AP chemistry and her boyfriend. I guess I just miss her.
Macalester is a GREAT school. IMO, a much better choice than some of the others she applied to. I see no cause for concern here. She’s definitely going to college.
I personally would not have bothered to apply to U Mass, U Conn, UVA, maybe even Holyoke (unless the Holyoke vibe appeals to her.) I think Mac is better than those schools, but I am biased in favor of LACs. All her other schools are small LACs. The big state schools seem like odd men out, unless she is in state for one of them.
IMO this would be a good reason to celebrate your D in some small way – make her favorite dinner, get a “done with applications” cake or something along those lines. She should understand that she has worked hard, done everything right, and no matter what the outcome is of her other applications she has a FANTASTIC college option (with merit money) already in hand.
It might be fun & informative to ask your daughter which school or schools that she is most excited about if COA (cost-of-attendance) was the same for each school. However, if she has not yet visited each school, then the order could change.
Assuming that your daughter is undecided on a specific major, then the most interesting schools might be Brown, Macalester, Virginia, & College of William & Mary / St. Andrews joint degree program. But, that is just my impression–and my vote doesn’t count in this matter.
I assume that you are residents of Virginia, hence the inclusion of the two top Virginia publics for a non-engineering student.
Lindagaf/ Yes, UConn and UMass Amherst were definitely safeties for her (to me, UVA is a different sort of school). She probably wouldn’t have applied to those two if she had her Macalester decision in hand when she applied-- her college counselor encouraged her to apply to a couple of regional state schools thinking they might give her a full ride. Then, she would get to decide whether an honors college within a larger university with almost no money going out of her college account was a worthwhile trade-off, given she is likely a grad school person. And yes, MHO is probably the LAC she is least drawn-to, given its rural setting.
Publisher/ We are actually in Maine but she fell in love with a particular major at UVA and we did make the trip down to see it and W&M. She actually bounced when she stepped onto the UVA campus. So, there’s a magic there. She knows it’s a long shot as an OOS applicant, but she wanted to try.