For seniors, admissions results are starting to come in, and in the coming weeks, they will be making a final decision about where to enroll next fall. So, we want to share with you the important steps for seniors this spring. We apologize for the length, but, there is a lot we need to make sure to tell you.
PLEASE enter ALL of your application results in Naviance this spring –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!
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. 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).
***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.
For example, take a look at what’s happened over the years with one highly selective institutions’ wait list; they shared admit rates with waitlisted students last year by undergrad division. The fluctuation from year to year is wild, and those higher percentages for 2020 may well have been at least partially the result of the uncertainty families were feeling about the fall of 2021:
