College: Applied, Accepted, Now What?

PoS was supposed to keep you all updated.  I keep reminding her that this is a joint blog, but she's all "I've got finals," "I need sleep," "I'm an angsty teen," blah, blah, blah.  So let me bring you up to speed on senior year thus far.

She applied early action to Beloit, Knox and Ohio Wesleyan back in November.  If you'll remember, Knox is the school with the 14-day turnaround from the time you hit send.  She was all, "they'll never take me because Sassafras got in & they gave her $ 11,000 and she's so much better than me." And I was all, "that just means Sassafras applied earlier & she's her, you're you."  Let me tell you, if you've not had a child go through their senior year yet, you'll learn that you spend half of your time playing cheerleader and the other half playing therapist. 

So every day PoS is watching me get the mail, trying to pretend that she's not looking, while she really is.  Then it dawns on me that even though Knox doesn't request ACT or SAT scores, she checked the box on her application that said she wanted them to consider them.  The problem is she took the ACT with writing in October and it takes them more time to score the writing portion, so her scores were delayed. (Side note: I strongly suggest that you have your student take their first ACT/SAT no later than June going into their junior year.  That way you can gauge where they are and what they need to brush up on.  Then have them take it again the June going into their senior year, especially if they're planning to apply early action or early decision).  Anyway, scores finally come and PoS went up a whole...point.  Like a whole point since she took the test in October of her junior year.  But I digress.

Shortly after Thanksgiving an envelope arrived from Knox, a small envelope.  PoS and I had already had a discussion about what a small envelope vs. a large envelope means.  In her mind, small meant you definitely didn't get in and large meant you did.  So she opens the small Knox envelope and, surprise, surprise, she got in! Not only did she get in, they gave her two scholarships totaling $ 56,000 over four years.  She did the "I got in" victory dance and immediately called her Grandpa.  Lucky me, I got to call her grandmother, aka Debbie Downer, who quickly reminded me that it wasn't enough to cover tuition and why couldn't PoS just go to a big, state school that was more affordable, yada, yada, yada.  PoS isn't a big, state school kind of kid.

Moving on, by the end of that week PoS received a big envelope from Ohio Wesleyan that we thought was a Christmas calendar based on the decorative envelope.  Turns out it was a one-pager acceptance letter. She wanted to write them a strongly worded letter about playing with people's emotions, but I stopped her. There was no mention of money, but since the school wasn't really on my radar, it didn't bother me.  PoS seemed less than excited also.  And then the pacing started.

We knew Beloit planned to notify by December 15 per their calendar. But did that mean notifications would go out on the 15th or would we have something in the mail by the 15th?  So I turned to the Beloit alumna I've befriended on Twitter and asked (okay, I gave her the third degree) what she remembered about the process.  Well she didn't remember, but she knew someone that did, and we learned that some acceptance letters would go out on the 10th and the others the following week.  It depended on when applications were submitted.  Knowing how slow our mail man operates, neither of us expected to hear anything before the 20th.  To our surprise, her acceptance letter was in our mailbox on the 13th.  PoS did another, "I got in" victory dance coupled with a Snoopy cackle and happily updated her Facebook status.  Me? I kept looking through the envelope for something that said, "And here's some money."  Of course, it wasn't there.  So I turned to Twitter again and was assured that if it wasn't included, it would probably be by the time we submitted FAFSA.

When I got home yesterday there were two pieces of mail from Beloit.  I assumed they were generic letters, but it turns out one was notification of a scholarship for $ 40,000 over the next four years.  The other was their financial aid form.  How's that for irony?  Did the scholarship make me feel better? Meh, it puts a dent in tuition, but it's not nearly enough so PoS will spend this holiday season finalizing essays for various private scholarships.  Did the scholarship make her feel better?  We completed the housing questionnaire for Beloit late last night, so I'd say yes, it certainly did.

Wait A Minute, Mr. Postman

The first wave of college applications have been sent and PoS, worrywart that she is, is pretending that she's not worried. On Halloween, she applied to Beloit in Wisconsin, Knox in Illinois and Ohio Wesleyan in...never mind.

Knox has a 14 day turnaround time from the day you apply. That's great, except perhaps they shouldn't have told applicants that. As you can imagine, 14 days is a long time to mope around the house trying to figure out if you're in or out. It leads to conversations like this:

PoS: Susie got into Knox.
Me: That's nice.
PoS: And they gave her $ 11,000. And that's not even financial aid!
Me: That's nice.
PoS: (crazy look on face)
Me: What's wrong?
PoS: Nothing (more crazy in the face)
Me: Isn't Susie like super athlete, super student, super community service girl?
PoS: Yeah
Me: Okay. Well if she heard back, it just means she applied earlier.
PoS: Yeah
Me: It's going to be a long November, huh?

The curse in going to a small school is that everyone knows everyone's business. If PoS had 500 seniors in her school, she'd only know where a handful of students had been accepted. In a senior class of 24, everyone knows the intimate details of to where, and with how much scholarship money, everyone has applied and/or been accepted. So what do you do as a parent? Give pep talks and silently curse the admissions department.

Oh Really?

I follow a few mommy bloggers on Twitter and have watched with fascination as one of them tweets about her football playing sons and their ACT scores.  It seems that said sons are having problems scoring at least a 15 and it could affect their ability to be recruited for college.  I'm sorry, what?  Having never relied on her sports acumen to get her into college, I can't really relate.  Yet here's a mother that's has verbally expressed that she's not really concerned with their grades or scores, as long as it's just good enough for them to keep playing football.  I wish I could say that this was the only case I've seen, unfortunately it's not.

I have a co-worker whose son was on academic probation his freshmen year in Catholic school.  She threatened to take him off of the team, though the school was more than willing to let him continue to play.  Ultimately she let him stay on the team.  He flunked freshman year and guess what?  He's playing again this year as a second year freshman. I just had to know why she would allow it. Better yet, why keep him at a school that clearly does not have his best interest at heart? Her answer, that's where his dad went to school.  Okay...and?  I'm happy that your husband went there and went on to college.  Your son has the potential to be a couch potato.  I'll check back with you a few years from now to see if he's worn a hole in his spot on the sofa.

And finally we come to a dear friend of mine whose son was a year ahead of PoS in school.  He's a brilliant young man.  He's been a straight A student for as long as I've known them.  In his first 8th grade year (yes, I said his first), he decided he wanted to play football in high school.  His father, a former pro player, decided that he was smaller than the typical high school player.  This was due to the fact that he'd skipped a grade when he was younger because, you know, he's smart.  Anyway, he and his father had the brilliant idea to have him repeat the 8th grade at another school to give him time to bulk up.  You read that right.  His parents put him in private school so that he of the straight A's could repeat the same grade in order to play football more effectively.

So now he's a senior. I know the whole school thing is a sore subject for his mother, but when we do our check-in phone calls, I feel obligated to ask how the application process is going.  When I spoke with her last week, she said they were waiting to hear back from schools.   Of course I asked which schools had they applied to, to which I was told, none.  They're waiting for scouts to finish checking their son out and then going with whomever offers the most money.  I held my tongue and redirected the conversation, but in my head I was screaming, he's smart! What do you mean you're waiting?  What in the hell are you waiting on?  Are you really selling your son short by hoping he gets into a school based on what he can do on the field versus what he can do in the classroom?

Is it me? Am I overreacting here?  As MC Lyte would say, "Just like a test, I cram to understand you."

Early Decision vs. Early Action

In my quest to make sure we don't miss any deadlines, I've created a spreadsheet of schools PoS is applying to along with scholarship information.  As I was creating the list I noticed that some schools had early decision dates, some had early action dates and a few had both.  It hasn't been THAT long since I applied to college.  Ok, fine, it's been over 20 years, who asked you.  Anyway, I had no clue as to what the difference was between the two so I turned to Google.

In simple terms, early decision means that the school you're applying to is your first choice.  Your application is binding and should you be accepted, you are obligated to attend. Because of this, you can only apply to one school as an early decision.  The deadline tends to be November 1, though a few schools give you until December 1.  Early action simply means that you'd like to know sooner rather than later that you've been accepted into an institution, but you're not obligated to attend.

So we've got that straight and deadlines are set for applying.  But before we can jump that hurdle, we have to apply for special visitation programs at two of the universities.  Remember those road trips I planned? Yeah, well these schools have their own plans.  PoS received invitations to visit Carleton College, which wasn't on her list even though she wanted to apply there (long story), all expenses paid including her flight.  The catch is she has to submit essay questions, her senior schedule and a transcript in the next week or so.  Miami Ohio has a similar weekend that she's been invited to, but theirs requires two essay questions, recommendations from her counselors and additional info, all due next week. I feel like we're pre-applying to apply.  Needless to say, road trips are on hold until we find out if she's been accepted for those trips.

The silver lining in the cloud is that five of the ten schools she's interested in will be in town in a few weeks at a fair and she'll get to speak with their admissions counselors.  Hopefully this will give her a better feel for which schools she still wants to apply to and which can come off the list.  In the meantime I'll keep counting pennies, waiting for the go ahead to load up the van and set off on an adventure.