DD was accepted to Grinnell. It is one of her top 2. We are still waiting on financial aid information. Happy dancing tonight.

I am so sorry. How does he feel about his acceptances? How many more decisions does he have yet to come?

MN is having a big snow melt right now. Temperatures have risen and they were supposed to get a lot of rain. Flooding is predicted. The not talking has always pushed my DDs to prefer the highly selective schools. It definitely could have been this class but my older DD had a similar experience in an St. Olaf humanities class a couple years ago. That said this DD may not have a more selective option.

We have not been successful. When we asked, we were told that the only way we could get more was if we had a significant change in our financial situation which we did not.

We got back from our second visit to St. Olaf last evening. The campus was covered with snow but the walks were clear and most were where sneakers. Campus is fairly compact and has only one dining hall. DD spent the night in the dorm and then we did the typical visit, admissions presentation, tour, spoke with financial aide, she sat in a class, and we both ate lunch with a student in the cafeteria. DD had a good overnight. There were two prospective students and as their hosts were friends, they hung out as a group playing ping pong, pool, touring the best study spots, and grabbing shakes. DD had been provided with not only meal passes but $10 for the snack bar/coffee shop so the shake, the next mornings' coffee drink and pastry were all on the school. St. Olaf definitely scored points on food. DD is on a gluten-free diet and St. Olaf definitely has the best accomodations. DD had a waffle (albeit frozen at breakfast), a pastry from the the coffee shop, and two desserts for lunch. No other school we visited came even close. Standare gf sweet fair is Udis brownies or chocolate chip cookies and ice cream. Our tour guide and lunch student were both engaging, fairly knowledgable, and low key. The guide had homeschooled through 10th grade and then dual enrolled and earned a AA prior to graduation which is similar to DD's situation. The guide claimed that she had successfull transferred a large number of credits including some which qualified for her major. In hindsight, I wished that we had talked to an Admission's person about transfer credits, honors, and a few other items but that was not an option when signing up and I did not think to ask to do that. DD was impressed with the buildings with their expanses of windows and light wood. Even the dorm room had a large bay window which differentiated it from others we had seen. DD attended a 300 level conservation class. She said that the students did not participate in discussion without prompting. The professor spent quite a bit of time both before and after the class talking to the two prospective students and gave DD a contact for further information. My impression is that St. Olaf is not as competitive as Macalester and Carleton but still provides a quality education. They work with students with unique major desires to make them work. DD was quite pragmatic about St. Olaf. She acknowledged that there were somethings that she would prefer not to have like the religion requirement but realized that she would have some type of reservation about every school. She is still hopeful that one of her outstanding schools will accept her but feels comfortable with St. Olaf if that does not happen.

DD did not get into Macalester. They had a significant increase in applications and an 8% acceptance rate. I wonder how acceptance rates for other schools are trending.

Congratulations! I just saw that DD’s email came BUT she is not home. Oh, the wait! I didn’t realize that your DS had so many schools still outstanding. Best of luck.

You might also look at test optional schools.

The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Actually you have enough to check further afar. We take time to see the neighborhood as my kids like to get off campus on a fairly regular basis. Not having to go too far for an alternative study location is a plus to a campus. They will explore the larger city on days off but the larger city doesn’t impact their decision as much/quality of life as the surrounding neighborhood.

We like to spend some time exploring the area around campus. We scope out the closest ice cream shop, coffee shops, and restaurants. Campus is for covered well enough with the tour but you have to make an effort to check out the local neighborhood.

That is our plan also but since it is next week we were only intending on visiting those we had affirmative answers from, hence St. Olaf’s at the moment.

Congratulations! Dd applied there but didn’t get anything today. Maybe something will come tomorrow...

On a Sunday? I would have never thought that acceptances would come out over the weekend. A favorable decision could change our plans for next week. Dd is currently scheduled to spend the night at St. Olaf on Monday night...I wish your son some acceptances.

Thanks for the heads up. My DD is adamant that she won’t be going down to the bitter end. But then she never goes down to the bitter end. Edit: @Calming Tea, thanks for starting this thread. IRL I know of no one still waiting and DH isn’t the best to commiserate with. Best of luck to all of our DC this month.

DDs college spreadsheet has the school reported decision dates on it. I am trying not to be so desperate as to look last year’s actual dates up. DD wants to be surprised.

I wish that it was in Florida. The school we are going to visit is one that she was accepted at. The weather won’t be grand but very typical weather for March.

Here's to obvious decisions!

Agreed but that seems the way highly selective schools roll. Realistically she won't have 9 schools to select from on April 2 as some have acceptance rates of less than 20%. For those she is on the lower end of their ACT ranges and probably doesn't have good enough ECs. I just hope for her sake that she gets one or two more acceptances and that the choice is obvious. Luckily, she has visited all except two of the schools and I believe that she has a mental ranking but won't share due to not wanting to get her hopes up.

DD still has 8 decisions plus 1 defferal to Regular Decision out there with most of them to come on April 1. I have no idea how to prepare for April decision making. My prayer is that the decision is an obvious because too many choices will be rough on DD. I am inclined to go visit during Spring Break her top choice from her currently accepted schools so that is a visit that won't need to be made in April but she wants R&R. Time will tell.

Both of my DDs during the Spring semester of their Junior year were ambivalent about college. They both knew that 4-year college was their next step but they had no idea what they wanted and definitely had no idea what they would major in. Both of them were dual enrolled and would receive their AA prior to completing high school. Over spring break of their Junior year, we visited a few colleges so that they could start to get the feel for different types of colleges. They got summer jobs and did pre-college program. By fall, they each had a better idea of what they wanted in a college and had participated in developing their college list. By Spring semester of their senior, the amount of growth each experienced was exponential. Each has or will enter college undecided but by choice. They want the opportunity to explore their options prior to selecting a major. All CCs are different but our CC definitely would not provide our students with the opportunity to grow in independence that a go away 4-year school will grant them. That said, dual enrollment has been terrific for my DC. None of them placed directly into college level English but they learned so much from learning to write on a college level in remedial English while also learning how to function in a college setting. I highly recommend that if she even barely qualifies for dual enrollment to go ahead an take a class or two. There is no reason decide now. Apply to a variety of schools 4-year and CC. Investigate gap years. Have her get a summer. This next year will be a year of great growth for your DD particularly if give her the opportunity to try and explore her many options. In 12 months, she and you will be better prepared to make decisions.

For those dual enrolled a lot can happen from fall to spring semester, my oldest had a class drop and she had to scramble to add another which gave he a lighter load. My current senior was concerned that the same would happen but in the end she added a class. Unless it is a significant drop in load or key classes required to get into a program or meet graduation requirements, I don't think that it matters that much. Schools just want to make sure that they didn't totally blow off their final semester.

My DD is in a dual enrollment program. Her transcript did not include her Senior year classes at all. In filling out the Common App, some schools had her input her classes into their school supplement while other schools require that she submit a mid year report which included her Fall Semester grades. In addition, when filling out her classes in the Common App, she still had to anticipate her Spring Semester classes as she had not yet enrolled in them.

DD just got an email from one of her colleges announcing when they would be posting their early evaluations. We both agree that being surprised is better.

Darn! DD didn’t hear from Grinnell either and she finally let on that it is one of her top choices. I won’t tell her that the first round went out. We just back from Drake’s NAS day. She is just soso with it. Though DS, who tagged along, is definitely interested in it being on his list in two years. DD holding up better than I am. This has been a long wait. She should get at least on more notification before the end of the month.