Pi Day

Update:  I have not been following the admissions process very closely, so I misunderstood the timing.  The earliest we may hear from some of the other schools is March 15, but it could be 2-3 more weeks.  So we wait.  And he did not get into MIT.

It's Pi Day, which means Lucas will hear from MIT today.  They are releasing their admission decision at 6:28PM Eastern time, which baffled me (why not 1:59?) until Lucas pointed out that it's two times 3:14.  I then pointed out to him that it also means the MIT people can release the information and then go home rather than begin to field phone calls and emails.

If he gets into MIT, he almost certainly will go there.  Getting into MIT is the sort of thing you dream about your kid doing from the day they are born, so if he gets in, some little thing like money isn't going to get in the way.  Jackie and I can always live out our senior years in destitution so that Lucas can have the best.  No problem.

Similar story if he gets into Stanford but not MIT.  Similar likelihood -- it's a stretch for him to get into either school, but still possible.

MIT lets people know on Pi Day, because they like to be clever, but everybody else (except we're not sure about Berkeley) releases the information on March 15, so we expect a celebration this weekend.

Here is the complete rundown:  Olin College, an exclusive engineering school in Massachusetts similar maybe to Harvey Mudd in California, already rejected him.  MIT did not either accept or reject his early application, but deferred the decision to today.  We are waiting to hear from everyone else.  Both MIT and Stanford are so difficult to get into, it is only reasonable to expect that he will not get into either; if he does, it will be a pleasant surprise.

The other three are Berkeley, Cornell, and University of Washington.  I would expect him to get into each one if I had to guess individually, but it wouldn't surprise me too much if either Cornell or Berkeley rejected him; a rejection from UW would be a surprise.  Lucas has a 3.9 GPA in his high school classes, 3.5 in his Running Start college classes, 3.7 overall, 710 average SAT scores (lowest was 690), a year of college physics and a year of college calculus already complete, nearly two years of college credits, and some good extracurricular activities between Boy Scouts and archery.  There can only be so many kids in the world who have more impressive credentials.

I suppose that I should point out that we are very proud of Lucas.  It occurred to me recently that he reminds me of my father, which is high praise in my view.  There are differences (I don't remember Dad procrastinating the way Lucas can), but he is very reliable, responsible and competent.  If you tell him to do something, you expect it to get done.  Anyway, it's a good list of schools, and we finally get to find out tomorrow.  Or possibly at 3:28 today.