<p>@picklechicken37 My stats are high enough to get into a lot of top 30 schools. However if I don’t get into any top 30 schools there are a few schools that are mediocre as a whole but outstanding in my major(business), such as Indiana bloomington. My parents’ reasoning is that they want me to be challenged in college. High school taught me that I’m the type of person who slacks off when I’m not being challenged</p>
<p>My Parents gave me a few guidelines:</p>
<p>-I can only apply to 15 colleges at most, 10 early 5 RD</p>
<p>-I’m paying for the 7th app fee/ test scores and beyond for college</p>
<p>-I have to write a paragraph on why I selected each college</p>
<ul>
<li><p>I can’t go to college in CA, (Father is iffy about FL too), however I am allowed to apply to AZ state</p></li>
<li><p>My Parents have to afford to pay for the college (NO LOANS ALLOWED)</p></li>
</ul>
<p>-I have to visit each college I selected</p>
<p>-No Party Schools with exception of OU</p>
<p>-No Small Schools (X<8000)</p>
<p>besides that I have the freedom to the college I want!</p>
<p>For D2, there was one school we visited that I felt would not prepare her well for life after college. She tends a bit toward flakiness, and I felt that this particular school would exacerbate this trait. I told her if it was very, very important to her she could apply, but I would prefer that she not. I also told her if she thought she would end up on an analyst’s couch in 10 years talking about her mom had not let her apply to her top choice school, then she could also apply. And if it was that important to her and she got in, she could attend. She laughed and said while she liked it, it was not THAT important to her, and she dropped it from her list. And is now a very happy rising sophomore (showing definite signs of maturity) at a different (less flakey!) college.</p>
<p>I know a parent who would not allow his kid to consider California schools as he considered the whole state too liberal. Quite ironic, as his kid ended up at a Midwestern school that is considered very liberal.</p>
<p>We started with CTCL’s and the mantra " your dream school is a school you can afford." </p>
<p>Merit aid was definitely a factor going in, unless the student chose one of our state schools. We paid as much as we could and encouraged our kids to keep the total debt below $25,000. They did.</p>
<p>The other criteria, which kids agreed to, was that the school offer options for changing majors. This ruled out specialty schools and a couple of schools that require a student to apply to change majors and/or enter a different program . </p>
<p>No one seemed to mind the “rules.” </p>
<p>S1 graduated from a very small school never mentioned on CC. Parents are grateful that he graduated within four years, has a job that he likes, and pays his loans.</p>
<p>For S2, this meant that he attends a less prestigious school than his original first choice. However, he loves his school and the grad school is tuition free. He knows a good deal, when he sees it.
S2 attends a CTCL and will attend grad school in the fall.</p>
<p>In addition to sticking to the financial budget, they could not apply to more than 10 colleges and they had to be willing to attend any college where they applied. </p>
<p>HS senior here.</p>
<p>My parents gave me NO financial limitations. However, their 50k EFC meant no aid so I tried to keep it reasonable (one of my schools ended up being 32k and my other 24k).</p>
<p>I can not major in anything with “Studies” at the end unless I double major.</p>
<p>If I misbehave (since I’m going to UW Madison I assume that means party) they will NOT pay anything.</p>
<p>They didn’t give me any geographic limitations but I knew it would be hard to be thousands of miles away.</p>
<p>Overall, I consider myself EXTREMELY fortunate. I received enough in scholarships and have enough potential to graduate 1-2 semesters early (AP credit) to do what they consider “my” part–so they are covering the expenses of my education.</p>
<p>We wouldn’t pay private school price for a state school. If kid wanted to apply to our in state flagship that was fine. However, we wouldn’t pay 50K for an out of state public. </p>
<p>I should’ve added one more criteria to my list. No Wisconsin schools… cheese-heads…Ugh! >:) But that was assumed by my kiddos anyway, so no worries.</p>
<p>@intparent I think that is actually a very clever way to go about things. It avoids confrontation and makes them ask themselves if they really want to go there. I think I might have to steal that for my future children.</p>
<p>@katliamom out of curiosity, what was the state flagship? how did that end up working for your daughter? </p>
<p>@shawnspencer – well, you do have to be willing to back it up. If I wasn’t ready to allow her to apply and attend if it really was most important to her, I wouldn’t have done it that way. Fortunately we have a very good relationship and I thought she would probably respect my opinion. Worked out okay in this case. Doesn’t hurt that she is so happy at the school she did choose. Ironically, she is at “mom’s choice” on her college list, the one school I asked her to leave on her list and go to accepted student days at if she got in – with no more to be said if she didn’t like it after that. I guess that is another kind of ‘restriction’ to ask her to apply to one school that she felt she could take or leave at application time, but that I thought she would like to have as an option in the spring if accepted. Again… worked for us because our relationship is good, and she valued my opinion. I didn’t force it (wouldn’t have forced her to apply, just asked). Led the horse to water… and she drank. :)</p>
<p>@calmom - Our logic was a lot more simple than your intricate breakdown. More specifically, we looked at things from the viewpoint of adcoms in the initial review of applications - no more beyond that. The 50% mark used was the CDS mid-range score. </p>
<p>Basically, GPA and tests are used as gatekeepers. When applications are initially screened, they are screened for two things, which are given heavy weight: GPA and SAT scores, usually in that order. These are used: 1) to determine how student worked in high school and 2) to indicate whether the student can handle the work at the particular college. Once a student passes those two thresholds, then a more full review takes place. </p>
<p>It does not take much to deduce if a student is at 50% or higher in GPA and scores that the review more easily moves on to other things, as these thresholds are automatically passed - meaning that no students with higher scores are required to be accepted to compensate for lower than 50% averages.</p>
<p>Our approach was confirmed by an adcom at my first DS’s school. I mentioned I had a younger son, and adcom immediately asked what were his test scores and GPA. I told the numbers, and the person said, “Hope he applies, would like to see the rest of his application.” Clearly our approach was meaningful to adcoms re getting to the next level of review.</p>
<p>Thus, by clearing this hurdle, tests were essentially taken off the table, as deciding factors, and it came down to the rest of the application: ECs, LORs, fit etc.</p>
<p>Since DSs made this a moot point for every school in the country, never had to entertain any what-ifs. Would gave crossed that bridge if we got there.</p>
<p>As a rising high school senior, I have been talking my parents’ ears off with college “stuff”, and so far they have the decided upon the most common restrictions.
-I can’t apply to a ton of schools because I need to consider app fees
-I CANNOT attend UofA because my family is full of AU fans
-Finances are a major issue on deciding on a university
-My mom has to visit the college (this sort of puts a cap on distance seeing how I doubt anyone would want to buy a plane ticket for a college tour, but we will see)
I’m sure other rules will be set into place as my family continues through the college process, but I hope my parents don’t become too uptight. </p>
<p>As a parent, I asked for affordability (obviously). I did make sure to ask DS to look closely at the Career Center information at each school. He wanted an LAC so as a family we wanted to make sure that the graduates are employed at the end of 4 years. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How restrictive on majors do you actually intend to be?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Does that leave you with any possible safeties that you are certain to get admitted to?</p>
<p>Note that IU is more selective for the business major than in general.</p>
<p>Our only restriction was DH’s “no colleges in Ohio” rule. According to him, “there are no good colleges in Ohio.” Not sure where this came from and I’m sure our kids could have persuaded him to the contrary with a good argument. But so far between ug and grad school kids have avoided Ohio (NY, Pa, Mo, Ill, Ct and Mass.)</p>
<p>I am interested in the restrictions on the number of applications. </p>
<p>Sometimes, this makes sense. However, in cases where you are applying to very competitive schools, it can make sense to apply to a higher number. It also seems that applicants tend to pick a safety and then a number of reaches, but forget to apply to enough match schools.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Be careful here. Many schools have different admission buckets of different levels of selectivity, so that the CDS ranges and averages for the whole schools may be misleading. Examples of different admission buckets:</p>
<ul>
<li>In-state versus out-of-state for state universities.</li>
<li>Automatic admission versus non-automatic admission (Texas public universities are well known examples).</li>
<li>By division or major. At some schools, popular majors explicitly have higher selectivity thresholds for admission.</li>
<li>Recruited athletes and other “special” categories.</li>
</ul>
<p>^^ All the above was understood and known, and those distinctions were made where applied to my DSs. It is up to others to know what stats apply to their kids. </p>
<p>For example, for CMU, we used the stats for the SCS, not the general school or the other schools within CMU.</p>
<p>Was going for private schools, so public schools stats’ and admit requirements were of no concern.</p>
<p>No recruited athletes, so no concern there either. Etc.</p>
<p>@awcntb - – Thank you for taking the time to explain your rationale. I’m still baffled by how you would calculate the cutoff number. You wrote:
</p>
<p>I’m confused because the CDS gives a score range from 25th-75th % level - with no 50% mark reported. </p>
<p>For example, Yale has a median score range of 710-800 for CR. </p>
<p>Obviously if the kid has 800 CR, that is top of range.</p>
<p>And obviously 710 is the 25th% mark. </p>
<p>But how do you get to 50% mark? Do you simply make the assumption that it’s the midpoint of the midrange (755?) Or do you factor in the upper 25% and extrapolate a higher figure (770)? </p>
<p>I really am not trying to give you a hard time… I just still don’t understand how you were figuring out the cutoff. I realize that your kids apparently had scores so high that it wasn’t an issue… but I’m still puzzled about how the “rule” would make much sense for students who don’t have top of the range scores - or how a parent would go about applying it. </p>
<p>(I don’t think your rationale accurately reflects the college admissions process either, but I don’t think this is the appropriate place to debate that. At this point I’m just trying to figure out your math.)</p>