Okay, it was an e-mail, but the official letter is coming.
It’s not his first choice, but this college said come on over.
He was nervous about applying to colleges (the school makes them apply to a miniumum of six by Thanksgiving) because although he is smart, his grades aren’t top notch. He kicked butt on the SAT though, and the counselor said he should have no problem getting in to some of his schools. But Ivyboy, being the smart kid who knows everything, dilly-dallied, figuring what’s the point.
Well, when we found out that he hadn’t applied to ANY, there was much tears and frustration (on his part) and lecturing and yelling and browbeating (on our part) and we finally got them filled out and in the mail.
Now the pressure is off…he’s in at least one college. His top choice happens to be my alma mater, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he can get in there. We think Massachusetts Inst of Tech is a loooooooong shot, but he wanted to apply, so we gave it a whirl.
Wow. This time next year he’ll be gone. Where the blue frick did the time go? :eek:
Six applications? Dang - I know it’s good to encourage kids bit wow! My daughter applied to 2 - her first choice and her safety. She was accepted at both, and naturally took her first choice.
All that aside, congrats to your son! And you’re right about how the time speeds by. My baby is halfway thru her junior year!
That’s freaking absurd. I applied to ONE, and I wouldn’t have started working on the others until this Friday even if I hadn’t heard on Tuesday. Filling out six applications, especially if they don’t all use the Common App, must be exhausting.
My folks couldn’t afford multiple application fees, so I was only allowed to apply to one. I don’t think they knew that sometimes the fee would be waived.
Six is high, but not THAT high, especially if we’re talking about a high school that expects its students to attend college (private, prep, or otherwise). I applied to… umm… four or five, I think, when I sent in my applications about this time of 2001. Only two of them used the common app. If you’re aiming reasonable-to-high (which is to say, stuff other than your “safety” school), you may well only have a 20 or 25 percent chance of getting in even if your scores and grades and whatever else fall in the range of what the school typically takes.
By Thanksgiving is a little early, since most of the deadlines are early January-ish… but it’s probably more of an artificial thing so that we get what you got - the family going “Oh, crap!” in late November when there’s still time to go instead of in mid January when there really isn’t.
My sister (Zahava424, currently studying abroad with limited internet access) applied to, I think, eleven schools. The list of acceptances and rejections was weird - she was rejected by Barnard, my alma mater, for example, but is going to Princeton in the fall.
Once you get in somewhere you’re happy with, you’re playing with house money. Things can only go up from here. Congrats!
I guess six applications isn’t that much, but I know our school just pushed kids to apply at all instead of work and get addicted to the small amount of cash and not realize there isn’t a promising future in it.
I only applied to three, my first choice, my backup, and my dream. They all accepted me, but I couldn’t afford my dream school (a private college half-way across the country) so I looked at the other two. I actually went to my backup for the first semseter before I moved/transferred to the school I am at now.
I only applied to one, but that was early decision, and I had the regular applications ready to go if I didn’t get accepted. Six is high, but not that high- most people I knew applied to three or four, and that was a school where the vast majority of graduates go on to college.
Congratulations! Any thoughts yet on what subjects he’s interested in?
I remember the application process was a huge pain in the butt. I decided to apply to two colleges early, then only apply to the others if neither accepted me. Fortunately, that wasn’t necessary.
He wants to design computer games. FairyChatMom knows which college is his first choice, as The Perfect Child [sup]TM[/sup] goes there. It has a very good digital media program and just graduated their first batch of masters students. We’re urging him to get a degree in software engineering with a minor in digital media.
He said it all seems real now. We also have to make a road trip to tour the college that accepted him.
