We are an ice cream family. Our motto is “It’s never too cold for ice cream. “ Though it could be too cold to walk 1 1/2 miles for ice cream. 😃

A couple of years ago I know that the number on credits that transferred was severely limited. I have no reason not to believe our guide but I definitely recommend following up with the school if this is critical in the decision making process.

Smith came back with the possibility of spending Wednesday evening on campus. DD decided that she didn’t want to miss another day of classes, so she will just spend one night there. On another note, I am ever amazed about how much maturity my DC gain in their final year of high school. DD is approaching tasks that were traumatic last year with confidence, self awareness, and relative skill.

My DD has been accepted at Smith. She is attracted to the school's social consciousness, the energy of the student population, house residential system, the opportunity to take classes in the 5 College Consortium, and the town of Northampton. Another women's college to look at is Mount Holyoke. It is also part of the 5 College Consortium. Our take is that it is not quite as socially conscious nor as academic but easier to get into. Price-wise Smith came in for DD next to the bottom of the 100% need LACs while Mount Holyoke came in a couple K higher. DD has stats high enough to get her into these schools but she is not as high as your DD potentially could be. In addition, DD doesn't have the same drive just solid ECs. Finally we fall in the middle financially. This is our second time through the admissions cycle and found that though both of our DDs got scholarships at every school (LACs), they never got enough scholarship money to exceed our need. The only exceptions were our state public universities (we are in a state which highly subsidizes public universities) where the cost of attendance was less than our need; at those schools, scholarships made a significant difference in cost.

Do a search for Grinnell, Smith, Macalester, and maybe Washington University. We visited all of these schools and I believe that I wrote something about them except maybe WU.

Smith. Dd put in a call this afternoon to make one last plea. We will see what happens tomorrow when she hears back. But if someone is in the area, please PM me. A backup plan would be nice.

DD already asked. They pointed us to local hotels.

DD is currently planning to do an Admitted Students' Day in two weeks. Flights are tough and Admitted Students' Day is two days Thursday and Friday. She will be able to stay over Thursday evening at the school but they don't allow them to stay an extra night to ease the flight issues. Has anyone had a 17 year old stay in Airbnb or hotel alone? We don't have friends or relatives in the area.

The two things that worked for DD was applying to schools with 30 - 50% acceptance ratings and playing the geographic diversity card. The New England and West Coast schools seemed to need Midwesterners to fill out their cohorts. My DS's list will be a little different. 1. No womens' colleges. 🙂 2. He currently doesn't have the drive of the girls so I assume that we will not be including any sub 30% Acceptance Ratings schools. 3. He has a strong preference for urban colleges. 4. Money has been best for us at 100% need schools so I hope to find a couple that might fit the above requirements. 5. He will want to keep his list short and minimize the number of essays. 🙂 DS has been tagging along on DD's college visits this year. He has already identified a couple of match possibilities which fit the above categories. I have my fingers that my next go around is less stressful.

In-state public schools vary greatly in cost; our in-state Us are the least expensive schools in the state. Similar is true at some but not all of our surrounding states. The first time through the college application process I kept expecting the LACs to give DD additional money due to the assumption that public Us were more expensive but finally I realized how great the difference is on a state by state basis.

$10,000 difference is significant. I also wonder what is up. Every school outside of the public Us stacked merit and need for DD with the exception of one which gave straight need. We fall in the category where our need is greater than standard merit. I was surprised by this our first time around. What it now does for us is guarantees a base and then changes in our financial status impacts whether we get need and how much from here on out. It also means that price won't play a significant part in DD's decision.

DD was wait listed at Carleton and she did not get into Barnard. In total, she was accepted into 8 colleges from 13 applications and have 5 which made the final cut. The final 5 are all 100% need, CSS LACs. Financially, we fall in a place where dd's need is greater than automatic merit scholarships and DD did not receive any top scholarships. I find it interesting that the range on the net price is tight (approximately $3,000). Even the one FASFA non-state school was close though slightly higher. Only the state schools where significantly less expensive but it is expected as our state highly subsidizes it public universities. I am curious whether others are finding similar closenes in numbers.

DD's final acceptance came in yesterday. She got a yes from Smith. Today, we are starting to strategize how to make the decision.

Definitely! DD has seen all except one of the schools still on the table but 4 of them were either quick visits and 3 of the four were during spring break or in the summer. DD doesn't like missing classes at CC nor college visits in general so that will work to our advantange so I can see her culling her list down to only one visit. That said I just checked Occidental's website and they are limiting overnights around their Admitted Students days. Coming from the Midwest will require at least one overnight.

There are many definitions of selective. A pretty common one are those with less than 50% acceptance rate; however, on this board we typically mean highly selective or even statistically impossible when we say selective. For me highly selective starts in the low 20s. On that list I would include Grinnell, Barnard, Wellesley, Williams, Ivy’s, and many of the UCs.

After tomorrow she will get down to the business of deciding. She has refused to express a preference because she knew that many were fairly long shots. Slowly over that last month she has started to differentiate between accepted schools and even prioritize certain factors which is great progress but until all the decisions are in she doesn’t feel that she can start the next step. For this reason I am glad that she is not going down to April 1. There will most likely be at least one more college visit prior to her decision.

DD’s last three decisions come tomorrow. Does anyone else’ DC waiting on decisions tor tomorrow?

Occidental notified DD of her acceptance this evening.

That must be the difference between a son and a daughter. I wouldn't dare pick out college supplies for my DD. She is going to want/need to pick out everything. Now my son will be a different story. He won't care if we send him with our old towels and I am sure that a shower caddy will be too much trouble for him. 😉

DD was just notified that she was accepted to Mount Holyoke.

For her, following a stellar test taker is rough. Her application is almost exactly like her sister’s except for her test scores which though in range are lower. Right now she is still waiting on 6 college notifications.

Macalester and St. Olaf are different enough to provide your son with real choices. Urban - Small town. Hip - Laid back. Residential - Upper classmen off campus. And so on...

We are having similar conversations here. DD feels that she isn’t doing as well as her older sister but her older sister was accepted by a number of schools which were really out of the running before she was even accepted. DD has a couple of solid choices. She wishes that they weren’t all in the Midwest but at least they are not in our home state.

Smith

Oh, I know. Wholistic review and developing a cohesive, diverse cohort means that there are so many things out of the applicant’s control. Hopefully with time he will see options in what he has. In addition, 10 is a lot of decisions that could go his way.