Thanks for the updated recap! I wonder if the snow is still going to be around when we're there in a couple of weeks 🙂 . People not talking in class was one thing DS noted at the first class he sat in on in Hendrix, which kind of bummed me out....but then on our next visit he tried a different class, and there was a lot more discussion. It's so hard to tell anything from a single visit (or even two!), but that's all they have to go on to make such a big decision. Glad your DD feel like St. Olaf would be a good option!

I think the only thing keeping me from an emotional breakdown over the idea of DS leaving is that I can't think about anything beyond getting all his decisions yet. It will be nice to know where he's going soon, but it's also going to make it all seem more real, I bet. Williams just announced yesterday that decisions are coming out Monday. We're expecting a couple more before then based on historical precedent, but that's the next one we know for sure. It's one of his favorites and also the one with the second lowest admissions rate of all he applied to (after Harvard). So we'll be pretty surprised if he gets in. And, secretly, I won't be that sad if he doesn't, because it's so in the middle of nowhere that getting him there and back sounds like a logistical nightmare.

Grinnell, Hamilton, and Oberlin all had someone hack into their admissions data last week. For Oberlin and Hamilton, we only knew because they sent out an e-mail telling about it. For Grinnell, everyone who applied got an e-mail from the admissions department e-mail address, offering to sell them their admission file, complete with notes from the committee, letters of recommendation, and tentative decision. The e-mail had DS's birthday, the names of the subject tests he submitted, and the name of the person who interviewed him....so it seems like they really did have access to everything. Grinnell's response has been less than impressive. For hours and hours they had a very brief message up on twitter and facebook, but they didn't e-mail anyone about it until late that day or maybe the next day, and they still haven't really said anything about how it happened or exactly what information was compromised.

We should have 2 or 3 more by the end of the week, including two of DS's top 4, so that's a little scary. One of them in Grinnell, though, and I'm not sure if they're still on schedule, what with the crazy hacking thing last week and all (did you guys hear about that???? THREE of the colleges DS applied to!)

I'm sorry to hear that 😞 . You're seeing St. Olaf this week, yes? I hope she loves it (and I'd love to hear your report after you visit)

argh--The suspense! Good luck to her!

DS accepted to Macalester with a DeWitt Wallace merit scholarship and surprisingly generous need based aid. We're entering decidedly non-safety territory now (still 11 schools to go!), so this was a big relief for him. We haven't been there yet, but have a visit scheduled for spring break in a few weeks.

Ws can be a problem for financial aid if there are too many of them (if they're too high a percentage of total classes taken), but one mixed in with a bunch of completed classes shouldn't be a problem. Has he been to class since the grade came in? It's possible many students did badly on the test and the prof will offer some sort of extra credit opportunities. I have a perfectionist kid, too; it's so tough!

My third go round with an 8th grader next year....my goal is to give him a fun and interesting last year before high school, because I've learned that things get intense fast then! Math: finishing his never ending Algebra 1 (Jacobs) and maybe starting Geometry LA: WWS 2/3, Grammar for the WTM Lit: I'm planning on a year long Shakespeare study for him and his 10th grade brother. We'll see what that looks like later. History: I think I'm folding this into the Shakespeare study; some stuff about Elizabethan England and probably also Ellen McHenry's Excavating English, since he's expressed and interest in etymology lately Science: I asked him what he wanted to do, and he surprised me and said botany. So I'm thinking of Guest Hollow's botany, with extra focus on drawing added in Spanish: Spanish 2 with Georgia Virtual school (I feel a little on the fence about this...I don't love doing Spanish online, but we've lost our good in-person options. Eventually he can do dual enrollment, but he likely won't until 11th grade, which leaves us with FOUR years to do online. I would have just waited until high school, but he'd already been doing Spanish with a tutor, and I didn't want him to forget everything. But it's gone pretty well this year, so....) Other stuff: lots of music. He's taking piano and French horn lessons, playing both in a homeschool band, and is auditioning for a youth symphony for next year (which might be a long shot). Maybe a drawing class. Probably an acting class or doing a play somewhere. D&D. Volunteering at the library.

...and, while you're absolutely right to make sure he has some good safeties on his list, you never know about the reaches. I can see somewhere like Vassar finding a kid who's a solid but not exceptional student with some quirky ECs like bowling really intriguing (especially a male one, in Vassar's case)

I think he'd have a great shot at getting into both Cornell College and Knox from that list, particularly if he can get the SAT up to a 1300 or so. Why isn't he interested in Knox? Is it the Greek life? We visited, and definitely left with the impression that it's not a dominant force on campus. My very anti-frat DS liked Knox a lot, and they offered him very good merit. Hendrix would be another one to look at for a likely admit and good merit. And Hendrix doesn't use CSS AND meets 100% of demonstrated need with certain test scores and grades (not super high, but I can't remember off the top of my head what they are), so that might help you out. Knox doesn't use CSS either, but they do have their own financial aid form--I can't remember if it asked about non-custodial parent income.

DS applied to Hendrix this year, and we've visited twice. It's a great place; everyone there has been super friendly/helpful, the students all seem happy and engaged, the campus is lovely and they're doing a lot of building/improving. Everyone who's gone there seems to rave about it. Lots of emphasis on experiential learning and on the liberal arts experience--exploring different interests, designing your own major if you want, all that kind of thing. It's sinking on DS's list a bit lately mostly because it has a tiny math department, and he's nervous about limited course offerings and professors and all that, but we're still big fans. It seems like a great environment that's nurturing but also pushes kids in good ways.

gotcha. Well--I hope they come out Sunday then! (and I'm sorry if I spoiled the surprise--I'll stop talking about my spreadsheet dates now!)

That's how they've done it the past two years, according to college confidential threads. Good luck to your DD! We have a Minnesota spring break scheduled right now, with visits to Carleton, St Olaf, and Macalester....subject to change depending on how things go this month.

He definitely will....he's a perfectionist from way back. Some rejection will probably be good for him, though--it's the kind of thing you just need to learn to deal with if you want to be a human 🙂

Yes, those requirements haven't changed since I've been following it. Meeting them requires some planning and hoop jumping, but not as much as it might sound like at first. UGA is difficult to get into in general these days; 95th percentile on the ACT is a 31, which is pretty much exactly the average for UGA admission the past couple of years; i.e. it sounds very tough to get in the 95th percentile to satisfy the math and English requirements, but a kid who doesn't meet that will have a hard time getting into UGA anyway. I don't think (although I haven't checked carefully) that less selective public colleges have the same kind of requirements. Aside from math and English, which can be covered by SAT or ACT scores, the CPC requirements are something like 3 years of science, 2 years of foreign language, and maybe US History and World History (government?) DS had AP US history and took World History and political science DE at KSU. His first two years of Spanish were with a private tutor, but he took 3 semesters at KSU, so had enough credits there to fulfill the requirement. He took chemistry at an accredited hybrid school and physics DE. He's doing biology at home this year, so he doesn't have any "proof" since he hasn't finished it yet, but no one said anything about that. So he was able to fulfill all the requirements with one AP exam and one non-DE outside course (both of which he would have taken anyway, UGA requirements or not). For my younger son, I am planning to have him take more subject tests as we go along just so he has them if he needs them. I won't pretend it's not a bit of a pain in the butt to deal with UGA's requirements, or that it may not be worth it to you to spend the money on a transcript service to make sure you have all your bases covered. I just wanted to make it clear that you don't HAVE to use one to get into UGA, because I do see a lot of people out there who are really intimidated by the requirements and feel like it can't be done. Particularly for a kid who's going to take a lot of DE classes, it's really not as much extra as it sounds like.

According to his spreadsheet 🙂 DS will likely hear from Macalester Sunday and then a few more over the following week. Eek! I'm kind of freaking out--I really have NO IDEA how this part with all the most selective schools is going to go--I can't imagine how it must be for HIM. He already has a few great options, but I know that he's going to be seriously bummed the first time he gets a rejection. I just hope there are at least a couple of acceptances mixed in!

For sure. Before I researched financial aid more, I assumed UGA or GT would be my kids' best options, and I was (and still am) very grateful to know they're there and affordable for us.

We're in a financial position such that needs met private schools will cost us about the same as our in-state publics (even though tuition is covered at in-state publics through Georgia's lottery funded scholarships), so DS has a lot of good options. Hey--being married to a teacher and having 4 kids is finally paying off for something 😂 . If we made 2 or3x as much money, though, it wouldn't even be a question of whether we COULD afford to send our kids to very selective colleges at full price; we just wouldn't do it because it wouldn't make sense to us to spend $50,000 more a year on one of those schools than UGA's honors program. The very rich have a ton of options; the very poor to lower middle class have a lot of options IF they have very high achieving kids...people in the middle either have fewer reasonable choices or have to think long and hard about how to prioritize limited funds, depending on individual financial circumstances.

DS is not a fan of surprises 😂

I might not be the most practical person in the world, but I'd love it if one of my kids wanted to major in classics. I think the big things to remember are that most people change majors and most people's jobs end up having little to do with what they major in anyway. Not always, obviously, but a lot of the time. I know two people IRL who majored in Classics; one is a vet, and one ended up being an elementary school teacher.

Because we are a little nuts, DS and I looked up the exact dates when decisions came out at all of his colleges last year, and he put them in his spreadsheet (all of them SAY April 1, but historically they usually come out earlier--mid March to late March)

I haven't used a service like that, but you don't have to have an accredited transcript to get the HOPE or Zell....you either have to be in the 75th percentile (93rd for Zell) on the SAT or ACT or get a 3.0 in your first 30 hours of college (to get it retroactively). I think the law was different until a few years ago. I totally understand wanting the peace of mind of having a transcript service, but it's definitely possible to do it without one....my oldest is a senior this year and was accepted at UGA and into their honors program with a homeschool transcript.

She sounds a fair bit like my 9th grader 🙂 . I have a senior in the thick of the college search right now and also a 9th grader....here's what I'm prioritizing for my 9th grader, based on what I've learned from the process with my 12th grader (with the caveat that he's still waiting on the majority of his decisions, so we don't know yet how well we did first time around....) *start visiting colleges early to find out what kind of environments he likes, but don't make a huge thing about it. I do wish I'd done some college visits earlier (we didn't do any until spring of junior year), but, at the same time, I don't want my 9th grader to feel like everything he's doing for the next 3 1/2 years is all about college. It's pretty easy to show him colleges casually, since he's along for the ride on some visits with his older brother. But otherwise, I'd check out different types of colleges locally and some in other places when we happen to be in the area. *help him figure out which extracurriculars he's most interested in and facilitate/encourage him to stick with them. ECs were probably the weakest part of my oldest's application, and I wish I'd pushed him a little earlier into the things he wound up doing....but honestly he's my super introverted kid who's prone to social anxiety, and I was already so tired from YEARS of trying to figure out how much to push him out of comfort zone that I was on a bit of a break by the time high school rolled around. But he did take piano lessons starting in 8th grade, and in 10th grade I pretty much shoved him out the door one day to audition for a play....so he found some things he loved doing and wanted to stick with through 12th grade. Again, we haven't heard back yet from his most selective colleges, but it's been striking to see how much of an impression his ECs seem to have made on the small LACs he's been accepted to so far. They seem to think of him as the mathy kid who does theater, which is kind of what we were going for in his application (his common app essay focused on his theater experiences). This is my long-winded way of saying that I'm not as worried about ECs as I was when I started out. I've read over and over again that colleges want to see kids have a couple of things that they're passionate about and stick with, and so far that's ringing true. And, of course, there are tons of less selective colleges out there that just flat out don't consider ECs. My 9th grader's main EC is music (he plays piano and clarinet, and might be interested in a music major), and he's pretty happy to do as much of that as I suggest (so far); he has lessons in both, plays in two different ensembles in a homeschool band group, and he'll add in some more stuff next year. He also spends a lot of time at our local library doing D&D with a group there, so I encouraged him to sign up to volunteer shelving books as well and go to their Teen Advisory Board meetings. I feel like he's doing plenty now, but he's doing things he really enjoys--not just stuff for applications. My other stuff wouldn't apply much since your DD is in school (stuff like "take subject tests after finishing a class, in case he needs them"). As far as the EFC--definitely run some Net Price Calculators and see how things turn out. I would guess you'd get a decent amount of aid at needs met colleges at that income level (though they'll also expect you pay a decent amount), but you just have to plug things in and find out. And there are a lot of great schools that offer substantial merit, too.

Not knowing where your kid is going to live in a few months is such a weird feeling!