My DD will be entering 9th grade this year. What is the normal timeline / process for deciding on where to apply? For example, when is it best to start college tours? What sort of contact does she need to have with the colleges that she is interested in prior to application?
Any advice is appreciated!
Summers between Sophomore and Junior, Junior and Senior. I wouldnât spend too much time thinking about it right now. Focus on enjoying high school. Apply fall of Senior yr.
I would say summer between sophomore and junior year is good. We waited until junior year with my son and it felt a little rushed. He played football and wrestled, so we pretty much had to wait until spring to visit anywhere. Luckily he wanted to stay close to home so it worked.
Itâs good that you found your way here. You have plenty of time to peruse threads and get an idea what you need to do in the way of figuring out what you can afford, how many places to apply, etc. etc.
I come at this from a different perspective. My oldest is in eighth grade. My youngest is in sixth. Theyâve already been on college tours. Can the collective sighs, please. We do it for two reasons. If we are in a part of the country we may not get back to when they are looking at colleges, at least weâve looked at it. Yes, it will have changed (in some respects a lot), but they will have set foot on campus. More importantly, it gets them to think about college. When they toured their first college, all they knew about college was what their mom and I talked about and âMonsters Universityâ. They enjoyed it and took away different things, some things I didnât even notice. It showed me that they look at things entirely differently, learn differently, and do well in different environments (well, duh). But, it was an eye-opening experience.
It also shows the kids that learning is cool. Having your middle school kids gawk at a true lab is fun. Having them (on their own initiative) ask students about their research and seeing the cogwheels spin is fun. Having them tell you afterwards that they could see themselves there is awesome.
Anyway, just a different point of view.
We started at some point during junior year. The 1st big tour was an epic spring break visit boatloads of schools and drive all over the place. Both kids had a list of schools for that trip figured out a few wees before we left. With D2, we did a New England trip over Columbus Day weekend of her senior year so she finalize her list.
@jennifer26 There is a lot to read here at this forum. I doubt anyone will say youâre too late, your child is already doomed because she hasnât toured any colleges yet, and it is completely her parentsâ fault⊠Most will say youâre right on track. Visit one or two schools that happen to be nearby something else youâll be visiting, to get an idea as to what the difference between a small school vs. a huge university, etc.
Whatâs far more important than college visits before freshman year will be the courses she takes, and how she does at them.
But even more important that that is to begin to have the money talk. Start with a few hints here and there so you âll know that sheâs paying attention, that you donât have unlimited resources. How much youâll expect her to do, vs. what youâre able to help with. When you realize the process is very different that when her parentsâ generation went to college, it will help.
Add in a dose of humor about thank heavens that sheâs smart enough to figure out so many of the electronic interwebs things that were done differently in our day - we had to submit PAPER applications, etc., can help her realize that you both will learn a lot about this process.
agree with the talk about finances - before visiting schools take a look at what you can realistically afford. It is sad to see so many posts where kids are accepted to their dream school only to discover they canât afford it.
If you have schools that are close, see if you can visit a large and a small campus to get an idea of what your daughter prefers. We started our out of state tours the summer after sophomore year visiting a region, then did another big trip to another region the following summer. For my son, he fell in love with the second school we toured so he measured the rest based on that school. We were surprised with a couple of the schools he crossed off his list after visiting as well.
My son scheduled a face-to-face with his regional AO at most schools when we flew out to tour and followed-up with a thank you. With his top choice, he stayed in contact with the Regional AO - stopped in to say âhiâ when he was visiting the school and read all emails (clicked on the links) sent to him throughout his junior and senior year. He did email the RAO when he had a question about whether to send Subject Test scores since they were not required - again, staying in contact without sending unnecessary emails. The RAO knew his school was my sonâs top choice and Iâm sure remembered him when he received his application.
My son had a small notebook that he took with him on college visits so he could jot down things he liked and disliked at each school - this also helps when they are writing their âWhy X Collegeâ essays. The visits all seem the same after the first few, it helps to have some notes to look back on - and to use to compare schools.
You might want to purchase one of the big college books at the end of her freshman year - go through it with your daughter when you have an idea of test scores, what type of school, major and other items of interest to her. Youâll need to see what their admission requirements are (subject tests, four years of foreign language, etc) so she can plan her schedule accordingly.
My daughter is currently a freshman in HS and has no interest in discussing colleges at this point. Sheâs aware of what she needs to do academically, but isnât interested in looking into schools as of yet - follow your daughterâs lead. If she has interest now, then do some preliminary work, but if not, youâre fine waiting for another year!
I encouraged mine to apply during the summer when they had more time and were far less stressed.
Tips:
We started during junior year, hitting one over Christmas break, and did a a few more in visits March/April. Then, because DD was looking to play a fall sport, we took a 4-5 day weekend in Sept of senior year to do a couple overnights with the teams at her top two schools. In total she probably saw nine schools and chose one of the overnight hosts.
College web sites have net price calculators to get early estimates on financial aid, although some situations (divorced parents, income from self employment, small business, or rentals, etc.) may make some of them less reliable than for the married parents with mostly W-2 income and small amounts of investment income.
The student timeline includes:
9th-12th grade: choose rigorous courses and do well in them. See http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/2055289-faq-high-school-college-prep-base-curriculum.html .
fall 11th grade: PSAT is for National Merit qualification.
11th grade: SAT and ACT to get a reasonable idea of estimating admissibility to various colleges
spring 11th grade: if any possible colleges need SAT subject tests, take them at this time
I like to use my mentorâs timeline for my clients; itâs relaxed, but thorough. You might find it helpful:
It depends on your child, but I think this is fairly typical for firstborn children and matches my own experience with my son:
I would recommend starting to talk about colleges during sophomore year, maybe leave some guidebooks around for your child to read up on colleges a little, and then take them on visits starting during school vacations during junior year or the summer between sophomore and junior years. Earlier than that may put too much pressure on a child who still needs to explore high school and who may not yet be ready to take such a concrete step toward living away from home as actually visiting colleges. You also may not know yet at which colleges your child will be likely to have a chance of admission, since your child will not yet have completed even half of her high school classes. You need to know what you can afford and what your child will have a realistic shot at before starting the process, so she will not start dreaming about a college she definitely will not be able to attend.
By February of junior year, have your child compose a list of colleges to visit. Look up which of these colleges may favor on-campus interviews as a sign of demonstrated interest. Plan most of your visits around interview timelines. First visit colleges that do not give interviews or give them in the spring of junior year. Save until later colleges that provide on-campus interviews but will not allow them until June or later (i.e., for seniors only).
You need to schedule tours and especially interviews in advance. Set up tours, info sessions, interviews, and then hotels, about three months in advance of your visit, to make sure you can get the dates and times you want on weeklong trips of multiple colleges.
Personally, if you are willing to read a collegeâs website in depth to learn about it, I recommend skipping the boring info sessions and just doing tours and interviews. I know others on this site disagree, but that worked better for my family who always enjoyed tours but hated the info sessions that never seemed to teach my son anything he did not know from having read a lot about the college before the visit.
Whenever you visit a college, be sure to sign in with the admissions office so they know you were there.
If you have a low income and cannot afford to visit colleges, then early junior year, start researching programs at specific colleges that fly kids out to colleges and programs such as Posse and Questbridge.
(Many kids apply to college without visiting, or begin the process later, so if this plan sounds like too much or too soon for your family, no worries.)
The month of May of junior year is time to meet with your high school guidance counselor, prepare any brag sheets you high school requires, and ask teachers for recommendations for the following fall.
The actual application work begins at the start of August of senior year, when the Common App opens.
Good luck! It is a crazy stressful process, but it also is a fun time vacationing and exploring together as a family, and it is fun watching your child mature and discover what are her interests and priorities. Enjoy!
@Peruna1998 - It sounds like your youngest got more out of college tours than my youngest who is now in 8th grade. In 6th grade she was with us visiting my nephew at Brown and did an official tour with us while waiting for her cousin to finish up (my sister in law wanted to get there early). She loved Brown because she saw a statue of a horse. It was her favorite school until this year when we went by a school that had a barn right down the street from the main entrance.
Both our girls ended up at their first choice schools, so Iâm feeling cocky about my method! Second semester of sophomore year, we told them that we were going to give them the gift of a fun college tour trip. They could pick their schools, but they would have to research and âsell itâto me. We reduced their chores and replaced them with a dedicated 2hour slot of research time per week on Sunday afternoons. They were the boss ⊠I was the secretary, but they had to do it. We did the epic trip (6 for one, 9for the other) between sophomore and junior year, with the full expectation that by the end, they would be more discriminating consumers. Itâs fun to watch them get more decisive and savvy! We also kept a notebook where they would tell me the strengths and weaknesses immediately before I gave my opinion. By doing it early, by Junior year they were more motivated to achieve, and it was easier to schedule additional school tours based on what they had learned. By The summer before Junior year, they had d3cided where they were going to apply, and could begin working on common app essays, relaxing a bit, etc. both girls made a plan to do primarily early action, in the hopes that it would work. One got deferred, which meant she turned in a few more after the holidays before getting accepted to her dream school. The other is DONE and relaxing her last semester except for a little work applying for community scholarships.
And PLEASE remember, itâs not about the prize of getting into the âbestâ school⊠itâs about discovering the best fit. Donât live and die on rankings⊠they are manipulated.
We went to look at some nearby colleges in the fall of junior year, just to get a general sense of what type/size of college my D thought she might like to learn and live in. Iâm very glad we didnât begin earlier. By fall of senior year, one year later, she was really tired of thinking about, talking about and hearing about college. She began to look at websites and guides around that time, and we took a more formal and directed tour of colleges that were of interest to her during spring break of junior year. By that time we had a decent snapshot of her grades and test scores as well as a clear picture of our finances, so she could really target some realistic choices to go look at.
The type of contact depends on the specific school. You can look at the common data set for each school and see if âlevel of applicants interestâ is important to them or not. If it is, touring is a great way to show interest. If thatâs not possible, there are other ways, starting with having your student sign up on their website for information.
We didnât start touring for my DS (oldest) until his spring break week Junior Year when we did a tour of 5 schools. We hit up 2 other schools on one-off visits before the end of his junior year. He is not picky and he applied to all but one of the schools we visited along with a few other safety schools I made him apply to that we did not visit. He ended up going to the only school that he actually expressed a strong preference about.
DD is two years younger than DS and accompanied us on DSâs spring break college tour so we did not revisit those schools for her although she applied to a few of them. We did a day trip in the fall of her junior year on Election Day when school was closed and then did another week long tour during her Spring Break week when we hit another 5 schools.
I honestly donât think touring earlier than junior year would have been beneficial for my kids. However, I would have tried to take better advantage of the individual days they had off in their their junior year (Election Day, Columbus Day, Presidentâs Day, etc.) to schedule day trips to schools that are within driving distance.
Neither of our kids wanted to spend large parts of their lives reading about, visiting, or applying to colleges. As a college professor I was their main âinformantâ and advisor about the process. #1 never did a college tour, but he had been on several college campuses in connection with being a debater (including attending debate camp two summer) and he had visited my alma mater (Reed) in summer after his sophomore year. After his admissions arrived in his senior year, he agreed to make one trip to visit a couple of colleges on the âadmittedâ list. The college that he chose to attend (UChicago) he had never visited until âadmitted studentsâ dayâ in his senior year. After an overnight, he declared âthis will do.â He never visited a couple of the other colleges heâd been admitted to.
This was a low-key process, in part because #1 was too busy to take a tour during the school year, or even summers. He had enough to do with debate, and debate camps, and he took a ton of tests and did very well on them.
It was also low key for #2, who decided at the last minute (June after her junior year) that she wanted to look at some art colleges. In a 10 day driving trip we took her and a classmate on a long drive to visit 11 colleges. She applied to 5 colleges and was admitted to all. She chose RISD, and that was that. She never actually visited 3 of the 5 colleges she was admitted to. At the last minute â after admission â it wasnât convenient for us to make any more trips.