Ice Day and College Admissions!
Well, yesterday since the wintry weather closed school for both my children, I decided to stay home too and also miss the first day of the "new I-64" switchover which coincided with icy roads. That sounded like a bad combination to me: having people drive new routes they had never driven before in rush hour with ice on the roads. That's what those billion PTO days I have are for! So I was able to spend quality time with my kids, which meant badgering them about being productive and beating them in a game of Scrabble.
The other fun activity we did yesterday was wait for the "early decision" results for my daughter's college application to my grad school alma mater and current employer, Washington University in St. Louis. It appears they like sending their acceptance "package" using UPS, and one girl from her high school received her package around noon, but we did not receive anything that early. Luckily, due to the wonders of the Internet, we were able to check the online status every hour or so since the Wash U Admissions web site said they would post the results by the "end of the business day" of the 15th. Finally a little before 3:00pm, a new link appeared on the status page and my daughter was able to click it to see her acceptance letter. We knew she had a very good chance of being accepted but nothing is guaranteed, and she also had the possibility of being deferred which would have really bummed her out (especially since her one friend was already accepted.) Luckily everything worked out well and we all celebrated. Personally, I do not mind her attending a top tier national university where I do not have to pay the tuition! It rather takes the sting out of the "Congratulations" letter that also tells us to immediately send her enrollment and housing deposits by December 31. "Congratulations, please send us a check!"
One thing that I am sad about now, however, is that we do not get to visit or research any other schools now that she has committed to a college. I actually wanted to visit one in particular which sounded quite interesting, the University of Tulsa. Before my daughter had started looking into schools, we had not considered Tulsa, but once we started researching it, the school started sounding very appealing. Not only do they give incredible merit aid to National Merit Semi-finalists (free tuition plus room and board), but they are definitely a school "on the rise", not afraid to spend their endowment to try to appeal to higher caliber students from across the country (and, in fact, the whole world). They have some very unique and innovative programs in their engineering school, and have improved student facilities on campus to be top notch. Some folks deride Wash U for spending too much money to increase their image, and doling out merit aid to attract top students, but Tulsa seems to be on the exact same game plan. Plus the admissions rep they have hired for the St. Louis area is an excellent representative, even though she did not even attend the school. Three students from my daughter's high school went there last year (including one National Merit Scholar with perfect ACT scores) and they all seem to love it. Ironically, it is going to cost us more to send our daughter to my very prestigious employer where I receive a full tuition benefit, than it would have been to send her to a top 100 private university with an excellent engineering school, where Wash U would pay only half their tuition. Maybe my son will be interested in a few years...
The other fun activity we did yesterday was wait for the "early decision" results for my daughter's college application to my grad school alma mater and current employer, Washington University in St. Louis. It appears they like sending their acceptance "package" using UPS, and one girl from her high school received her package around noon, but we did not receive anything that early. Luckily, due to the wonders of the Internet, we were able to check the online status every hour or so since the Wash U Admissions web site said they would post the results by the "end of the business day" of the 15th. Finally a little before 3:00pm, a new link appeared on the status page and my daughter was able to click it to see her acceptance letter. We knew she had a very good chance of being accepted but nothing is guaranteed, and she also had the possibility of being deferred which would have really bummed her out (especially since her one friend was already accepted.) Luckily everything worked out well and we all celebrated. Personally, I do not mind her attending a top tier national university where I do not have to pay the tuition! It rather takes the sting out of the "Congratulations" letter that also tells us to immediately send her enrollment and housing deposits by December 31. "Congratulations, please send us a check!"
One thing that I am sad about now, however, is that we do not get to visit or research any other schools now that she has committed to a college. I actually wanted to visit one in particular which sounded quite interesting, the University of Tulsa. Before my daughter had started looking into schools, we had not considered Tulsa, but once we started researching it, the school started sounding very appealing. Not only do they give incredible merit aid to National Merit Semi-finalists (free tuition plus room and board), but they are definitely a school "on the rise", not afraid to spend their endowment to try to appeal to higher caliber students from across the country (and, in fact, the whole world). They have some very unique and innovative programs in their engineering school, and have improved student facilities on campus to be top notch. Some folks deride Wash U for spending too much money to increase their image, and doling out merit aid to attract top students, but Tulsa seems to be on the exact same game plan. Plus the admissions rep they have hired for the St. Louis area is an excellent representative, even though she did not even attend the school. Three students from my daughter's high school went there last year (including one National Merit Scholar with perfect ACT scores) and they all seem to love it. Ironically, it is going to cost us more to send our daughter to my very prestigious employer where I receive a full tuition benefit, than it would have been to send her to a top 100 private university with an excellent engineering school, where Wash U would pay only half their tuition. Maybe my son will be interested in a few years...
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