Comparing Options After College Acceptances

If you have a senior, they’ve likely heard back from some colleges already regarding their admission status. Whether admitted, deferred, or waitlisted, decisions need to be made soon and for some, it can be difficult. Your student may decide to remove themselves from a waitlist, or determine whether or not they should hold out for some rolling admission decisions or move forward with the decisions they already have. Some students may only be deciding between two colleges, and others may be deciding between multiple. Whichever situation your student is in, it’s important to dive in to decision time!

Criteria

Your student hopefully had a list of criteria that helped them determine where to apply. This may have included aspects of their future day-to-day experience on campus, like weather, location, or the majors offered; it may have also included the campus culture, clubs and extracurricular activities, Greek life, or the size of the town or city in which the college is located.

Regardless of your student’s criteria, this is the time to do a final comparison of which colleges they’ve been accepted to check which boxes. Every student weighs their criteria differently, which is why fit is different for every student. Encourage them to take a long, hard look at their list of acceptances and see if they can imagine themselves happy and thriving on that campus.

Financial Aspect

While the financial aspect is largely the financial aid offer, there’s much more to consider. Transportation, for example, can include the cost of having a car on campus which means paying for a parking permit, gas, registration, and regular upkeep. It can also include flight costs, which means you’ll need to budget how many trips home each year your student can make. Cost of living in the city or town of the college matters too, especially if your student will move out of the dorms after a year or two. Apartments in Tucson are vastly different in cost compared to apartments in Los Angeles.

When your student receives their financial aid offer in the mail - which often comes after the offer of admission - it can be confusing to understand each part. There will probably be two columns - one for fall semester and one for spring semester - and a few line items to show the varying amounts of federal aid (if any), merit aid, subsidized federal loans, unsubsidized federal loans, federal work study, and the estimated cost of attendance. The cost of attendance will likely be broken down as well to help you understand the amounts for tuition and fees, room and board, materials and supplies, and more.

Make sure you are clear on what is aid or scholarships (“free” money) versus loans (money that needs to be paid back). This isn’t always clear. Dependent students can take up to $5,500 in federal loans their first year. If you have any questions at all about your financial aid offer, do not hesitate to contact the financial aid office of the college in question.

What to Do Next

National Decision Day is May 1, and many colleges require a decision by this day. However, COVID and extremely high application numbers have prompted a few schools to extend the deadline to a few weeks into May. Take some time with your student and the rest of your family to weigh the decisions. This is a big - and exciting - step in your child’s life.

Don’t Forget

If your student has crossed a student off their list, and was accepted, waitlisted, or deferred, they need to contact the college and ask to withdraw their application. This is a respectful and important part of the process so colleges can focus on the students who are awaiting a decision. As your child narrows their list, this should be done with each college they are no longer interested in.