Class of 2024

[SandyinMonterey]

I couldn't find the old 2024 thread so I thought I'd post this. With 2024 graduations approaching, the very late release of FAFSA and its effect on admissions, etc...was wondering how everyone is handling it. My daughter applied to 7 colleges. Heard back from 3 very quickly. None of her applications were early decision or early action. Two of the three were safety schools, one was reach and she was accepted to all. The reach school is out of state (cha-ching$$$$). These colleges started to ask for freshman deposits, dorm deposits, etc.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

I couldn't find the old 2024 thread so I thought I'd post this. With 2024 graduations approaching, the very late release of FAFSA and its effect on admissions, etc...was wondering how everyone is handling it. My daughter applied to 7 colleges. Heard back from 3 very quickly. None of her applications were early decision or early action. Two of the three were safety schools, one was reach and she was accepted to all. The reach school is out of state (cha-ching$$$$). These colleges started to ask for freshman deposits, dorm deposits, etc.

There is a 2024 thread, but it hasn't been seeing a lot of activity. I unearthed it a while back, but it just never gets a lot of responses. Someone started it back around the time all of our kids were beginning Kindergarten.

With the FAFSA opening I was thinking about digging it up again and posting.

 

[sam_gordon]

I think DD is only applying to one college. She hasn't found any others that meet her requirements. She's almost got the application done, has a question she needs to ask her counselor about.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

We started the FAFSA the other day, but I need to finish it up. It's my understanding that nothing will be transmitted to schools until the end of January and to expect lots of glitching. I've been in a Facebook group for things like this for the last year or so and I'm not optimistic that we'll get much if anything out of it, but our state requires that we do the FAFSA. I hate that it was released so late but hopefully there's truth in it being heavily simplified.

Beyond that, we're also getting slammed with housing stuff. DD17 applied to 14 schools...she's still waiting to hear back from four (including her top choice)...and she's been accepted to 10. I was shocked how quickly we heard back from many of these schools. We got in before the early action deadlines, so I guess that's part of it. Several were a 2-3 day turnaround, which blew my mind. A number of the schools she applied to are public out-of-state, but we focused on ones known for being generous with merit aid. A number of the school offers put the out-of-state costs on par with going to an in-state school. Others weren't as generous as we'd heard they normally are...or maybe our expectations of costs are just out of touch? We just don't want to do anything until she hears from #1. Of course, #1 asked for a non-refundable housing lottery deposit regardless of admission status. So that already has me pretty spooked. I've got a growing fondness for ones that require freshman to live on campus and pretty much guarantee housing. We shall see, but hoping to hear from the remaining four by the end of the month and have a decision.

 

[amylevan]

Of course, #1 asked for a non-refundable housing lottery deposit regardless of admission status.

My oldest is a 2027 grad, so I just opened the thread to take a peak at what life may look like in 3 years, and this caught my eye. How much of a deposit are we talking? That seems so ridiculous, and honestly borderline unethical, that I’m thinking I’d be turned off.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

My oldest is a 2027 grad, so I just opened the thread to take a peak at what life may look like in 3 years, and this caught my eye. How much of a deposit are we talking? That seems so ridiculous, and honestly borderline unethical, that I’m thinking I’d be turned off.

My younger one is a 2027, so I've got my eye on that year as well. She wants to play college ball, so we're already getting into looking at schools for her. It's a lot to juggle.

The non-refundable deposit is $50. So, it's relatively small. Now if you're selected in the lottery, I believe you have to put down a several hundred dollar deposit which is supposedly refundable if you're rejected. Other schools she's been accepted to won't even let us touch the housing deposit section unless she accepts their offer. That still doesn't stop them from sending emails about housing and the benefits of making a choice early.

 

[TwoMisfits]

I think DD is only applying to one college. She hasn't found any others that meet her requirements. She's almost got the application done, has a question she needs to ask her counselor about.

My kid applied to one college, got in with a small merit scholarship (state school, so it's not pricey to start with), and accepted. Easiest and lowest stress college app experience ever. Gotta love a kid who knows what she wants.

 

[SandyinMonterey]

We started the FAFSA the other day, but I need to finish it up. It's my understanding that nothing will be transmitted to schools until the end of January and to expect lots of glitching. I've been in a Facebook group for things like this for the last year or so and I'm not optimistic that we'll get much if anything out of it, but our state requires that we do the FAFSA. I hate that it was released so late but hopefully there's truth in it being heavily simplified.

Beyond that, we're also getting slammed with housing stuff. DD17 applied to 14 schools...she's still waiting to hear back from four (including her top choice)...and she's been accepted to 10. I was shocked how quickly we heard back from many of these schools. We got in before the early action deadlines, so I guess that's part of it. Several were a 2-3 day turnaround, which blew my mind. A number of the schools she applied to are public out-of-state, but we focused on ones known for being generous with merit aid. A number of the school offers put the out-of-state costs on par with going to an in-state school. Others weren't as generous as we'd heard they normally are...or maybe our expectations of costs are just out of touch? We just don't want to do anything until she hears from #1. Of course, #1 asked for a non-refundable housing lottery deposit regardless of admission status. So that already has me pretty spooked. I've got a growing fondness for ones that require freshman to live on campus and pretty much guarantee housing. We shall see, but hoping to hear from the remaining four by the end of the month and have a decis

We put a $150 deosit for housing at one school. I don't know the deposit cost of the other school (daughter's reach school that she was accepted to) is but for that school you have to commit to going there in order to put housing deposit. I was surprised too at how quickly some of these schools were coming back with decisions already and my daughter did regular decision on all her applications. The schools seem to want to know an answer quickly, but with FAFSA opening so late, how do they expect you to make that decsion so fast?

 

[SandyinMonterey]

My oldest is a 2027 grad, so I just opened the thread to take a peak at what life may look like in 3 years, and this caught my eye. How much of a deposit are we talking? That seems so ridiculous, and honestly borderline unethical, that I’m thinking I’d be turned off.

WE put a $150 non-refundable deposit on one school. Mostly because there is one dorm in particular that everyone wants to get into. But the other school my daughter was accepted to wants you to commit to going there before housing deposit. I've heard from one parent that a deposit was about $1000 to $1500.

 

[SandyinMonterey]

We started the FAFSA the other day, but I need to finish it up. It's my understanding that nothing will be transmitted to schools until the end of January and to expect lots of glitching. I've been in a Facebook group for things like this for the last year or so and I'm not optimistic that we'll get much if anything out of it, but our state requires that we do the FAFSA. I hate that it was released so late but hopefully there's truth in it being heavily simplified.

Beyond that, we're also getting slammed with housing stuff. DD17 applied to 14 schools...she's still waiting to hear back from four (including her top choice)...and she's been accepted to 10. I was shocked how quickly we heard back from many of these schools. We got in before the early action deadlines, so I guess that's part of it. Several were a 2-3 day turnaround, which blew my mind. A number of the schools she applied to are public out-of-state, but we focused on ones known for being generous with merit aid. A number of the school offers put the out-of-state costs on par with going to an in-state school. Others weren't as generous as we'd heard they normally are...or maybe our expectations of costs are just out of touch? We just don't want to do anything until she hears from #1. Of course, #1 asked for a non-refundable housing lottery deposit regardless of admission status. So that already has me pretty spooked. I've got a growing fondness for ones that require freshman to live on campus and pretty much guarantee housing. We shall see, but hoping to hear from the remaining four by the end of the month and have a decision.

We completed the FAFSA. It took 3-4 days because we could do only one contributor at a time. I've spoken to some counselors/advisors at colleges and they said the new form is mostly about helping kids in need, those who have been homeless, parents or guardians are deceased, etc. We don't hold out too much hope for anything but filled it out anyway and just keeping fingers crossed.

 

[VandVsmama]

ODD applied to 7 colleges, got accepted to all of them. Most recent acceptance letter was on New Year's Day! 4 of the 7 colleges were rolling admissions schools and for the remaining 3, she applied to those as EA (early action).

We paid about $200 (or maybe it was $250?) non-refundable housing deposit at a large in-state university because it's a school that ODD is really interested in attending AND they don't guarantee housing for all freshmen AND the order in which you're allowed to pick your dorm is based on how early (or late) you pay your housing deposit. You can pay housing deposit w/o having paid the enrollment deposit.

Not every college does it the same way.

For the 3 EA colleges, those are much smaller schools (about 1500 students each) and each of those guarantees housing for all 4 years that you attend, so there's no non-refundable housing deposit to pay there.

Waiting to hear about merit scholarship from 1 of the EA schools. Another of the EA schools is affordable and ODD is pretty interested in attending. We're doing in person visits to those 3 schools over the next couple of months.

ODD did not apply anywhere that was a 'reach' school. She got some nice merit scholarship awards despite having a 3.22 unweighted GPA (above 4.0 weighted) and applying as test optional almost everywhere. We are grateful that she has some options to choose from in terms of where to attend and grateful for the advice from the school counselor through this process.