Best Wishes and Congratulations, and question on college list (current junior)

Parents Forum
1

As a current high school junior’s parent, going through the recent decision threads was fascinating , daunting and overwhelming at the same time. Hats off to all the families that have gone through the grueling process. Congratulations and best wishes to all the kids and families.

We are currently making shortlists of colleges ( match/safety etc) - some of the criteria 1) economics/science focus , 2) tuition ( We are In-state CA but open to out of state as well) . Stats are - GPA 3.97 (UW) / 4.47(W), SAT ( scheduled ). couple of ECs, some community service but nothing in the league of what we saw in the admission threads this year.

Based on your observations of the college admission process this year, what were your key take aways? What is your advice for juniors applying this fall while shortlisting colleges? Thanks.

3 Likes
2

This is a great question and Im sure many folks would be happy to provide takeaways. To do that best it would be ideal for you to calculate the CSU and UC GPA for your student unless you don’t plan to apply to public’s in state. If you search these forums there will be links yo how to do that. Rogerhub I believe is the name of the site where you can figure that out.

It would also be good to elaborate on their ECs, what were they, how many hours, leadership roles, related to major, what major etc.

These are good stats and they will have several options but you are smart to get a good handle on this now.

1 Like
3

Budget. Budget. Budget. If you haven’t already figured out how much you are willing to pay per year (and where that money is coming from), that is the biggest task to complete. Communicate that number to your child, and be ready to explain your hard limit to make sure they understand it.

Figure out what kind of college experience your child envisions. Not the school name or area of study (there are very few areas of study that are so arcane as to reduce the initial college search). But what kind of campus (small, medium, large)? What kind of location (urban, suburban, small town, rural)? What kind of campus…do aesthetics matter? Do they want that traditional quad? What kind of amenities are important? Are competitive sports a draw for your child (what Division)? Do they want a rah-rah campus and what does that look like to them? Is weather important, and if so what kind? How close/far from home do they want to be? Do they expect to be able to bring a car? Are you willing and able to get them to a more distant school?

Once those two pieces are done (and if your budget is unlimited, congratulations!) help build that college list from the bottom up. Your child’s safeties and matches are more important than the reaches. Reaches are easy to find and fall in love with. Spend the time necessary to find at least 2 safeties your child likes enough that they would happily attend the school if they were rejected everywhere else, that you can easily afford. That way you know they will have two good choices at the end, no matter what.

Finding those two safeties might take a lot of time, especially if you have a very competitive, highly qualified student whose knowledge and experience of colleges right now is narrow and based mostly upon conversations with their peers. But that is why answering all those “college experience in your child’s imagination” questions first can be so helpful. Those are the parts you can look for on any school’s website, their tours, Fiske guides, etc. There are affordable safeties for every student, if they are willing to look with an open mind.

If your budget is not unlimited, I highly recommend you prepare yourself for the added work of figuring out which schools will be affordable to your family (through either need based or merit based aid or a combination of both). Do not expect your child will be able to do this part of their own. Run those NPC, call schools if you have questions, figure out if it makes more sense to add some schools whose financial aid is very transparent. This is an area where asking for help on CC is essential if you are having trouble figuring it out. There are so many incredible parents on this site who have the knowledge and experience to help anyone find affordable schools.

When looking at matches, remember if your budget is a constraint, an academic match can easily become a financial reach. There are stories every year of students and parents who weren’t prepared for low or no merit aid offers from schools they thought were academic safeties. That is why budget is where the search should start.

Good luck, if you have more questions, remember this site is anonymous so don’t worry if you think some of the questions you have are basic or ‘stupid’. There are never stupid questions; it is much worse to assume you know something and find out on the back end of a college search that your assumption was flat wrong.

14 Likes
4

@beebee3’s post should be pinned - if not required reading for every Grade 11 parent!

3 Likes
5

I agree with everything that @beebee3 said and will add a few things.

First, CC is a VERY skewed sample. Don’t believe for a second that the cases you see posted here represent the average student applicant. They don’t.

There is one area of interest that will immediately narrow a list…engineering. There are over 5000 accredited colleges and universities in the US, but only about 500 that offer ABET accredited engineering. That’s still a TON of choices.

We often say a safety should be a school that is a guaranteed admit AND affordable. I’d add a third criteria. They should ideally flip enough levers that @beebee3 mentioned (or what ever is important to your student) that they compete for the top choice, not just content to attend if nothing else pans out. It’s a big mistake to assume the hardest school to get into will be the best fit. My son almost chose to attend the easiest admit on his list.

You are in a WICHE state which means your student is eligible for WUE. There are lots of good schools that participate in that program. Look it up.

Don’t write off high sticker price schools completely. Some are generous with merit and some are very helpful meeting financial need. Do though set financial boundaries (if you have them). It’s important not to fall in love with a school only to get the financial award letter and find it’s out of reach.

Lastly, don’t write off the CSUs. There’s a weird bias against them in CA. As was previously mentioned, you need to dig deep, beyond reputation to learn what the student experience is like. My son chose Cal Poly for engineering from out of state. He had the stats to get into UCB (he had classmates with lower stats that did), but he had no interest in the giant classes and bureaucracy. Look at more than the bumper sticker.

Good luck!

6 Likes
6

Don’t think that you need a fixed list from the start. Using rolling and/or EA admissions can have impacts on your list. When my DS got an acceptance from a EA school, it completely removed all of his RD school list. It got replaced with 2 new reach schools. He also had 1 early rolling admission acceptance to release the pressure from the process. The school that he is currently attending didn’t even make it on the list until mid December of senior year.

5 Likes
7

I would add one more thing. Visit a close, likely safety candidate that you think your student would be OK with (that’s a little tough in CA because many of the publics, including some of the CSUs are competitive). Ask them if they could see themselves there. If the answer is yes, you have one safety and you can let them know that no matter what else happens (drop in grades, underperformance on ACT/SAT, etc.) that they have that one in the bag. It takes some of the pressure off. My son actually had 3 safeties, our flagship in Oregon and 2 WUE schools. He liked them all.

2 Likes
8

Listing “tuition” as one of your two main criteria seems to imply you are sensitive to cost. It is unclear if that means you are full pay, but let’s assume so (since the advice would be very different if you are seeking substantial need-based aid).

Many full pay parents in CA look at the cost of our UCs (~$30K per year) and have to think long and hard about whether to pay more than that. They may even have used UC costs as a benchmark when saving for college.

If that’s the case then you really have three main buckets of schools to compare with the UCs you get into (and you should have some choices there, though perhaps not the most competitive ones):

  1. Expensive top tier privates with no merit, where you will pay $75K-$80K per year
  2. Mid tier privates and publics with merit, where you will pay $45K-$55K per year (unless lightning strikes and you win a super competitive scholarship), and
  3. Lower ranking schools with merit, where you will pay around $30K per year, and possibly less if you are lucky with merit.

You may decide to cut out bucket 1 straight away, or you may be able to afford to pay that much, so to me that is the first decision in drawing up your list, basically what does $200K difference mean to you? Is it easy to pay or impossible to pay? Would it mean loans? Would you offer some or all of that difference to your kid for grad school or a home downpayment if they chose a cheaper option? If you can’t afford it then don’t apply to those schools, it is a waste of time you could spend on applications to schools that are financially feasible.

Then move onto bucket 2 and ask the same question. For those colleges it may be a question of throwing the dice and comparing the pros and cons at the end, depending on what UCs you get into. And in bucket 3 you at least want some affordable auto-admit options, which may include some of the WUE schools, plus nearby flagships with decent merit like Arizona, ASU and Utah.

3 Likes
9

These schools certainly deserve to be in the third bucket for price, but depending on major, may not, thus offering a great value. I guess it depends on where the cut for “lower ranked” is and whether or not you care about that, but Utah for example has pretty well ranked Chemistry, Math, Engineering and Earth Science to name a few.

4 Likes
10

Agree. My point was that a full pay parent should understand which of these three price buckets any potentially interesting colleges fall into before deciding whether or not to apply.

We decided to eliminate bucket 1. S applied only to bucket 2 plus UCs, ended up at UCLA since none of his 10 or so bucket 2 offers were worth the extra cost. D applied to (audition-based programs in) buckets 2 and 3 plus UCs, ended up with full ride in bucket 3.

1 Like
11

We did the same. Especially for engineering where the field is very egalitarian, it made no sense to go over $200K when our state flagship was half that.

I was just trying to clarify your point about bucket 3. There is very good value there. In the end it’s much more about what a student does with the opportunities in front of them than it is about the name on the diploma. :+1:

2 Likes
12

@nucities - planning to apply to publics - will check out the CSU GPA reqs etc, also expand the stats details and circle back. thanks for the pointers.

@beebee3 - thank you indeed for the input. I really like the discovery questions you mentioned and started using them ( today in fact ) and getting a better picture of what my daughter is looking for.

@eyemgh - I did not know about WICHE/WUE terms, looking them up. I appreciate what you said about CC/ skewed sample.

@eyemgh , @beebee3 @Twoin18 - your generous input on match/safety schools, price points/budgets is super helpful and is helping us think more clearly. Thanks again.

1 Like
13

People here are offering great advice! I’ll just chime in with my own experience.

Of the 10 schools I applied to in the US, I only got into 4. I got rejected from multiple options i considered safeties, yet got into an Ivy League. It all felt very random, and I could see no rhyme or reason to my decisions. Very brutal. Luckily, I applied to universities in other countries too, as I couldn’t afford any of the American schools I did get into.

Bottom line: try to be flexible and limit your expectations. It’s easier on the emotions. Also, apply to some CLEAR safeties - schools that basically let everyone in - as last-ditch contingencies.

Good luck :slight_smile: it’s tough, but rewarding.

2 Likes
15

This is pretty far off topic from the original post. I flagged it in the hopes that it’ll be moved to the engineering forum as an original post. You’ll get more input there, and the OP won’t get pinged every time a new reply unrelated to their question pops up. :+1:t3:

16

@eyemgh , @beebee3 @Twoin18 @nucities @cosmo5311 @collegemom3717 - just wanted to THANK YOU for your input last summer. Your input helped D22 as she was trying to figure the college lists out. Your advice and point of view helped her figure out a strategy and stick with it while applying ( safeties/matches/reaches/ level set expectations) and took the stress out of application process. Looking forward to update you end March once all the decisions are in. But for now just wanted to say THANK YOU! Have a great weekend !!

4 Likes