We had a great day today! I’m feeling much more hopeful at the moment. Child was humming to music . . . .
He disappeared for awhile from the apartment and husband texted me in a panic. Child had walked to my office, without letting Dad know, and sat there with me. Child did his “work” on computer he brought, and we listened to whole albums together (while I edited websites) and ate lunch, and drank tea. I let husband know we were just fine.
@poblob14 , I haven’t read every post, so this might have been mentioned, but there are some really great resources which will help you navigate the process. Off the top of my head, college data is super useful, as is this site, of course. My D personally found Niche to be very useful for getting student perspectives. Get a good college guide book, like Fiske or Princeton, which will give info about a large range of all kinds of colleges. Be aware that there are plenty of other good colleges that don’t make it into those guidebooks though, just because people actually need to be able to lift the book:-)
If you child ends up looking at colleges not in the guide books, you can get a lot of useful info yourself by checking out the Common Data Set for any given college. If you need to be more of a detective, look closely at first year retention rates, and four year graduation rates, which are good indicators of student satisfaction and administrative support. Use the Supermatch tool on this site to start getting some general ideas of colleges that fit your child’s stats.
You can get other books that will help you navigate through this, and it is probably worth doing so because you are going to find it a pretty all-encompassing activity until all the applications are submitted. There is a lot to learn, and the whole game is different from back in the dinosaur days when we went to college. I have been on this site a lot in the last two years and it is safe to say there are many ordinary students and their parents using CC. Rest assured that there are plenty of colleges out there for all types of students.
@stem2017 Unless your kid is applying to selective schools which require multiple essays, I would give him a break about working on the essay. Average kids generally only need to write the common app essay so there really isn’t a need to get working on it over the summer. Only the more selective schools have supplemental essays. Of course its nice to get a head start on the common app essay, but not really necessary.
@STEM2017 he’s too busy playing LAX and melting in the sun right? While I agree kids can pull it off once school starts, only you know what his workload will be then and depending on what that school list looks like yeah, you might need to lean on him.
Worried or concerned? No, I think he’s totally normal. And, he is some doing college activity really, on the recruiting side. However I have found that many schools that may not be considered “selective” at least here on CC, (state schools in particular with their own apps) may have more supplementals, or their own prompts, than one might think so having an idea of the overall app load is helpful.
I also think it depends based on if he is doing an ED or EA and when your school year starts. We don’t start till 9/7 but that first month will be pretty nutty. I am shooting for most of the common app, if not all, done by then as he has a lot of EA’s on his list. Not super selective by CC standards but if he can be done with the CA by then, take the ACT again 9/10. then that leaves October to get the stand alone apps done with a minimal amount of stress and school interference. What that means is he gets another couple of weeks to play and then I’ll go into nag mode.
Not every school uses the common app, so I’d make sure that schools that he’s interested in don’t have their own essay requirements. Most sites go live the beginning of August , so I’d check their website . Also look at scholarship requirements for schools, many have a deadline of Nov or Dec. There’s certainly time , but it doesn’t hurt to check deadlines.
I wasn’t intending to post further in this thread - thanks again to all - but I needed to send a special thanks to @threeofthree and @Dustyfeathers for bravely posting their children’s stories. Dusty, I hope things turn out as well for you as for Three.
Every child is special. Check out Wichita State University. worked at IT help desk for 26 golden years. best and smartest went there. I know apll about it
CC is a barometer for the angst level of (mostly) parents who post. If you cut through the anxiety, trying to get in the heads of top 50 college admission committees and the tendency to put the best spin on an application/situation, there is sage wisdom from those who have been through or are going through the college process.
I never understood the stress aspect of the college admission. Why to stress about it? The kid’s future will be in the kid’s hand no matter what UG the student attends. This is the truth that is overlooked by vast majority and maybe it is the reason for the artificially created stress. Place will not make any difference! As one of the coaches of my favorite NBA team said: “Hard work is undefeated!”, the one absolutely cannot go wrong at absolutely any college, the lowest of the lowest ranked still produces those who go on achieving their ultimate goals.
Count mine among the ‘achieving just enough but will never be Ivy material’! 27 on her ACT, 4.0 GPA but she attends a small charter school and their AP program is less than stellar. She’s got some semi-selective schools on her list, but no Ivies, no U of Californias. We have a good selection of public universities and a few private universities she really clicked with, but we will not be playing the “I’m-a gonna apply to Stanford because it’s on the Common App” game. She wants to stay in the Midwest, and we support that. Thanks for this thread - it feels like home!
My youngest is the poster child for hard work, and sure, it has taken her far enough. But hard work alone is insufficient for some accomplishments. Ivy League admissions is probably one of those accomplishments. D has worked far harder than her elite school siblings, but simply cannot achieve what they did, beginning with standardized test scores. Furthermore, she physically cannot handle insufficient sleep as well as they could. At our heavy workload high school, that makes a difference. So no, she is not an academic, athletic, or musical superstar.
^The point about needing to get enough sleep is an important one. I’ve always been the type who could function well on little sleep, so I never thought about some people being different! But my 18-year-old daughter needs a good bit of sleep. If she’s not in bed by 10 pm at the latest, she’s a mess the next day. Her anxiety gets worse and she’s grumpy.
Also, some people thrive on being extremely busy, while others are stressed by too many involvements. I like to do just a few things, and do them very well. If I become too busy to maintain quality control, I feel anxious. Some of my friends love doing lots of things all at once, and tolerate “good enough” better than I do. We are each suited for different sorts of roles. It takes all kinds! But the person who can juggle a lot is probably advantaged in top school admissions.
One benefit of being “average” is you don’t intimidate others. That can allow you access to places the superstar can’t go, because you aren’t thwarted by others’ jealousy or their fears of being outshone or usurped. My older two definitely experienced the effects of jealousy.
My kids don’t want more sleep, just more free time for some R&R. They need downtime to just be normal kids, not wake up, eat, school, sports, study,study,study repeat all 4 years. Sometimes they want to sleep, see friends outside of school, ride bikes, skateboard, take dog for a walk, play games, pleasure read, go to movies etc.
I think they could probably get into some higher “ranked” schools if they got rid of their “fun” time, but then they’d miss out on being kids.
Some kids are just driven at a younger age to more mature activities, like internships, research, lots of studying and test prep, etc. Not mine. They study enough to do well, but they just don’t have the desire to put in the time needed to get into those tippy top schools. Fine with me.
^^^ And that jealousy is often coming from the parents, not the kids. All I want is for my kid to find a school where she will be successful and happy. She is an excellent student, but neither she nor I have much interest in the ‘high profile’ schools. I’ve always told her that I expect her to be HER best, not necessarily THE best. She knows kids whose parents pressure them relentlessly about doing well enough to get into a tippy-top school. The kids are full of anxiety and go into a panic when they get anything less than a perfect grade. I find it scary – and sad.
