Admissions results are starting to come in, and in the coming weeks, seniors be making a final decision about where they will enroll next fall. The College Office shares important steps for seniors this spring.
PLEASE enter ALL of your application results in Naviance –use the edit (pencil icon) for each college on the “colleges I’m applying to” page. This information is essential; it helps us to identify students who may not yet have been admitted somewhere, and the historical data helps us to guide future classes.
Carefully review your financial aid packages with your family. Compare the total costs of attendance (tuition, room, board, fees and other expenses like books, travel, etc.) with what you were offered in grants and scholarships, work study, student loans, and out of pocket contributions. Assess how much you will need to borrow and/or pay out of pocket over not just your freshman year, but what that will look like over the course of four years. If you applied for financial aid and did not receive a financial aid offer with or soon after your acceptance notification, contact the college or university’s financial aid office asap! Finaid.org offers a great free online cost comparison tool: https://www.finaid.org/calculators/awardletter.phtml
You may submit a deposit to only one institution. Sending multiple deposits is considered unethical and will not be supported by Stuyvesant High School. We will send your final transcript to the one college you plan on attending at the end of June. Once you have decided where you'll enroll next fall, inform other colleges to which you were admitted that you have chosen to enroll elsewhere. This can be done via the colleges’ applicant portal or a short email to the admissions offices. This small but important step helps not only the colleges and universities, but other applicants.
May 1 has been the traditional deposit deadline for admitted students, but that may change given the current climate. Make sure to follow the deadline your college communicates to you. If, after May 1, you are admitted to an institution that wait- listed you, you are free to change your plans regarding where you will enroll in the fall. You can submit a deposit to the institution that admitted you from the wait list and inform the college where you originally intended to enroll that your plans have changed. Unfortunately, you will likely lose your original deposit; deposits are typically not refundable after May 1(or the stated commitment deadline).
Fall Reopening Plans: Many seniors are naturally wondering what the fall semester might look like at their various options (in person vs. remote, hybrid, etc.) Colleges are actively planning for the fall, but, exactly what fall re-opening plans will entail may vary from campus to campus, and much is still unknown. Make sure to follow the communications sent by your colleges in the coming weeks.
Advice for Wait-Listed Students: Many students and families have questions regarding what to do when wait-listed. It is important to remember that selective colleges and universities use wait -lists primarily to control for enrollment needs that arise after May 1, when they know which of their admitted students will actually enroll. If the institution needs more boys, or students from the south or the mid-west, or soccer players, or clarinet players, or students who can pay the full costs of attendance, etc., they pull such students from the wait- list. These are institutional needs over which individual applicants have absolutely no control.
You cannot assume you will be admitted from a wait- list. While it can happen, the reality is that highly selective institutions admit very few students from the wait -list from year to year. Some may admit none at all. Make sure to deposit at one of the colleges that admitted you, the one that you believe to be the best fit, and plan on enrolling there in the fall.
So what can you do if you're wait listed?
-Commit to staying on the wait -list (use their portal, send back their reply card, etc.)
-Reaffirm your interest in attending said institution via a concise but informative email to the admissions office or statement uploaded to your portal. Let them know that the institution remains a top choice, and why. If you would DEFINITELY enroll if admitted from the wait list, let them know that. Notify the admissions office of any new and noteworthy accomplishments about which they are currently unaware, whether they be inside or outside of the classroom. If the institution allows for the submission of new materials, feel free to do so…so long as you are sending something significant that is not already within their file.
-Don’t pester the admissions office. Frequent communication, superfluous documents, etc., can actually be counterproductive. Reaffirm your interest, share anything new and important, but then leave things to play out as they will.
Please remember that we cannot call a college to which you've been waitlisted to advocate for your admission. There are several reasons why we can't do this. First, there are simply too many of you...we have over 800 seniors... and too many of you are waitlisted at the same schools. Advocating for some students, but not others, is unfair. Also, this kind of advocacy is ineffective, particularly at highly selective colleges and universities; they aren't going to pull students from wait lists just because we ask them to. Their institutional enrollment needs will dictate who, if anyone, will be offered admission from the wait list, and any attempts by our office to convince or pressure them to admit specific students are not only pointless, but potentially seen as amateurish, and may jeopardize our professional relationships with our admissions contacts…relationships that are important for the sake of our current and future students.
We wish you the best of luck as you make your final decisions…remember, this process is about finding the right fit. Choose the institution that suits you best given all of the factors that may be important to you and your family.
Please contact your assigned college counselor if you need assistance!
