<p>17 (or 18?): there are only seven activity slots on the common app</p>
<ol>
<li>If you stay more than a few days on CC, you may be in for life.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>First thing parents need to do in the college search process is fill out a financial aid estimator online to understand what their financial commitment is expected to be. </li>
</ol>
<p>Ha Ha bethie. How true</p>
<p>Greta, I agree. Also, seeing a room won’t give you the info about who you will be living with, who your floormates/dormmates will be, or if you will be tripled in a double sized room. These are all things that can effect the freshman year experience much more than whether the walls are cinder block, or if the current students lofted their beds. As long as a student has enough space to hang clothes, and a desk, it is the fellow students one is living with that can make that dorm experience a great one, or sadly, not so wonderful.</p>
<ol>
<li> If you don’t do well on the SAT, try the ACT.</li>
</ol>
<p>I don’t understand what is meant by “holistic” schools. Someone please explain.
Thanks</p>
<p>Re: Holistic schools</p>
<p>Those schools that are more likely to consider the “whole” applicant, giving significant consideration to recs, essays, EC’s, individual circumstances, interest, interview, academics, etc., as opposed to those whose admissions may be more formulaic. Some schools will admit anyone who meets minimum academic criteria, some really pride themselves on holistic admissions, and most fall somewhere in the middle.</p>
<ol>
<li>There are no schools that are need-blind to those with very large and open checkbooks.</li>
</ol>
<p>22.A. Come to think of it, there are no schools that are need-blind. ;)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You should be planning for the SAT Subject Tests by 10th grade at least. 9th would be better.</p></li>
<li><p>The real deadlines for submitting college application paperwork are not the ones set by the colleges. They’re the ones set by your child’s high school for dealing with recommendations and transcripts, and they may be as much as two months earlier.</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>Sit down and have the money talk with your kids. Tell them realistically how much you are willing to pay/borrow for their education. Run your numbers through the finanical aid calculators using both the federal and institutional methodologies. </p></li>
<li><p>Financial aid is based on what the school things you can afford to pay, not how much you are willing to pay (there is often a big disconnect).</p></li>
<li><p>If your school uses the CSS profile yes, they will ask for the finanical information from both you and your ex-spouse along with the financial information of your current spouse(s) if applicable. In short in the college’s eyes there are 4 people with income and assets to pay for your college, however YMMV.</p></li>
<li><p>Students, if your parents tell you that they are only willing to pay $ “X” for your education, beleive it. Don’t think that just because you have been accepted at _______________, with no $ that all of the sudden it is going to magically appear.</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li> Plan on getting a second (or third job) to pay for all the dorm supplies your child insists they will need.</li>
<li> Plan on carting a quarter of the needed supplies home in August when child discovers there is not enough room for it. Another quarter will probably come home in May without ever being used (and after you have tossed all receipts).</li>
</ol>
<p>“First thing parents need to do in the college search process is fill out a financial aid estimator online to understand what their financial commitment is expected to be.”</p>
<p>So true sly_vt. I never realized that a not-for-profit administrator and high school teacher were considered “rich” until I found out my EFC!</p>
<p>Go goaliedad!</p>
<p>FYI on the visiting dorm rooms: several schools we visited had unoccupied rooms to look at that were furnished by Taget/Walmart/IKEA. Believe me…I’ve never seen dorms rooms looks so nice (and totally unrealistic!)</p>
<ol>
<li> If your host, at an accepted-student overnight, brings someone back to the room and begins making out (hooking up?), immediately leave the room.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>Unless your child is superhuman, superorganized, insanely mature, insanely well read on the college process, or doesn’t sleep, do not expect your child to do this alone. He or she will be at a disadvantage without some support (organizer?).</p></li>
<li><p>Understand the concepts of yield and enrollment management as they relate to the college admissions process today. </p></li>
<li><p>Recognize the reality of grade distribution in high school (B is the new C?). Understand what having SATs in the upper 2% of the population really means in terms of thousands of applicants. Use the tables provided by the SAT for this information.</p></li>
<li><p>Search for activities in your child’s area of interest/passion that are outside your high school to give your child more depth in their interest area and also another place to have fun and develop friends and skills.</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>Applications, if done well, take time to percolate/ripen/cure/mellow. It is not a linear progression. As a parent, accept that essays may happen in fits and starts.</p></li>
<li><p>Encourage your student to take contemporaneous notes when visitng colleges. Helps to distinguish “which one had the great ice cream but lousy profs?” later on.</p></li>
<li><p>Rolling/EA can be a very good way to get a feel for a student’s competitiveness in the applicant pool. It sure is nice to have an answer in hand in December.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Agree w/Marian on knowing when the HS wants forms and getting testing done early – a) so your student knows what schools are competitive for him/her and b) it is easier to do well when it’s not November of senior year and your S/D’s OMG ENTIRE LIFE OMG is riding on Saturday AM’s SAT.</p>
<ol>
<li> Relating that the process is going well, with little involvement of you, is not appreciated, even if you are asked.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>Find out your HS policy on test scores. I had D take the ACT very early as a practice as the scores are optional to send. The HS automatically puts all scores on the transcript. I then had to fight with them to remove the score she wasn’t going to send to the schools anyway. With the next kid I won’t let them put a school code on their tests at all! This will eliminate the HS from getting the scores. They go directly to the house.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>Don’t be afraid to take a gap year. If college is not right for you in this point in your life, don’t waste your money on it now. You can either apply as a senior and defer admission for a year or two… or you can apply a few years after graduation.</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t outrule a class of schools (urban, suburban, large, small, rural, “preppy,” “athletic”) based on one college visit to one type of school. I did this when I visited one LAC and immediately dismissed all LAC’s… that was a big mistake on my part.</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t use US News Ranks (or any ranks, for that matter) as the final determining factor between schools. </p></li>
<li><p>“Your mileage may vary” may as well be the theme of everything college-related. So many variables go not only into college admissions but also the college experience… if at first things aren’t working out for you, do your best to change your environment. Change your profs, change your major, change your dorm, change your EC activities, change your friends. Many students are somewhat unhappy the first semester/year of college, before they have a chance to get to know the school better and figure out how to reap things from it.</p></li>
<li><p>Parents, recognize your limits. Your kid is going to college and applying to college, not you. Drop the royal “we.” Ideally, parents should be there to support their children, to talk money, to spew age-old advice from time to time, and to offer to read over applications. But nothing more. If a tour guide asks your son what he is interested in studying, for example, do not answer for him.</p></li>
</ol>