<p>D decided early on that she wanted an LAC. As a grad of a big state flagship, I had only the vaguest of notions what an LAC even was. She was in IB and I think that’s where she heard about Colorado College, which was the first school to grab her attention. Fiske’s “similar schools” feature led her to a couple of others. Her love of tap led her to Muhlenberg. So the 4 LACs on her list were entirely her doing. My only input was to encourage her to apply to one of the UCs as a safety.</p>
<p>Let’s not forget about peers. My daughter’s friend visited a school and said it would be perfect for her. And it is. </p>
<p>My D came up with the final list of 8 to apply to, but we researched schools offering good merit aid and programs of interest in 10th/11th grade and discussed pros/cons. We visited many colleges within 7 hours driving distance and flew to 3 southern colleges who admitted her before she made her final decision. </p>
<p>My daughter’s search began on CB and she presented me with a list of 40 schools to look over…unfortunately, my criteria knocked 3/4 of those off the list and we then added more appropriate schools. One thing she didn’t consider at all in picking the original list was housing (I want at least two years, prefer four, and want at least 80% students living on campus)…she had only rural schools, only schools with less than 4000 and I thought we should branch out a bit at least in the beginning stages. </p>
<p>After a meeting at a NE LAC when we were told “a white girl with a 4.0 who comes from the NE and wants to go to school in the NE is the kiss of death” and to look outside the northeast we again reformed the list to add a few schools in PA. We got the list to 24, visited 18 I think and the list today is at 17, 7 of which are EAs being sent as we speak. Its funny how the list has transformed…sometimes a school is added because it was close to one we visited and we toured just because we were in the general area (i.e., went to PA to look at Bucknell which didn’t make the last list but Dickinson and UScranton that weren’t even on the radar are top contenders, lol). When we started looking at merit awards, a few more schools were added and toured and a couple remain on the list (Simmons and St. Mikes). If $$ were not an issue, there are three schools on her original list that we would have applied to and left it at that but that is not the case.</p>
<p>There are soooo many variables to look at when financial aid is necessary…including something that I don’t hear much about… credits earned through AP or IB that can cut a semester (or sometimes two) off the total school time and schools that have 4+1 programs…these variables are the ones I concentrated on and it was extremely time-consuming but hopefully in the end, it will pay off.</p>
<p>S16 wouldn’t even think about putting together a list and asked me to do it: “I trust you, Mom”. Uh…NO. I made him sit down and brainstorm what was important and what was not (major, location, diversity, weather, finances, Greek, etc). Then I put together a list of about fifty schools ranging from the local JC to Ivy and divided them into crapshoot, reach, match, easy admit and in-state safety (for the lottery scholarship). Now that he has the list, he’s whittling it down slowly to about three in each category (and has added two or three schools to the original list). The whittling/adding is his job.
D’s process was similar, though she never claimed to trust me.</p>
<p>I would say that in the beginning it was both D and I, but we visited a lot of schools and so got a pretty good idea of what she was looking for. But she has an extremely busy schedule, so I got from her her top four schools and then I suggested a couple that wasn’t even on her radar that I thought would be a good fit, and her counselor suggested a couple, two of which were the same ones that I suggested, and, voila, she had a list. Her top two choices are the one her counselor and I recommended.</p>
<p>My kids and I started by coming up with lists independently. Then we sat down, put the two lists together, talked, edited the list down, and started visiting schools. The list changed as we visited schools and the kids honed in more and more on what they wanted. For example after seeing a few colleges my S was drawn to mid sized colleges and my D fell in love with LACs. So we began to take out schools that didn’t match what they were looking for and add in a couple more that did. In both cases the GCs were helpful and we added in one or two schools after the meeting with them but by working together, being realistic, and editing along the way we had already come up with a pretty good list. </p>
<p>My D goes to a small private school, so the GC knows every kid, so she did have a good feel for what schools would and would not be a good fit for her. They had a parent meeting first to let us know what we should be doing and what they needed from us and then met with us individually, but I was ahead of the game as I had been on CC for a while when my oldest D was applying to music schools. So I already had my youngest D’s resume done as well as her recruiting page set up and NCAA # assigned at the beginning of her freshman year. She has many more options now than she would have if I hadn’t done those things, so confident that she’ll get into a great school that she will love with plenty of academic as well as athletic money. </p>
<p>My older D made her own list of 6 based on major and places she’d lived that she knew she liked. She visited only after acceptance, and got into all of them. Three state colleges/unis and three LAC. Finances weren’t an issue because her paternal grandmother left her money for education. She chose a small state college in a very pretty place in a small town and ended up leaving and going into the culinary business, where she has been very successful.</p>
<p>Younger D goes to a grade 6-12 small school with college planning built into the curriculum. They start with “what do you want to be when you grow up?” continue with learning how to navigate college websites, understanding the real cost of college, practicing filling out the Common APP and eventually having a list of choices. D grabbed onto that and has had the same list since 6th grade when she found out about HBCU’s in 6th grade. We’ve been to college fairs and a “southern” tour. She is like “soosievt”'s child who went to college at 16 and wants to go early. She chose an in-state directional as her safety because it will cover everything but room and board based on her grades alone as of right now and she loves the campus. But her top three HBCU’s have not changed and she’ll be applying to them nect fall, with another 1 or 2 depending on what happens with the first three. Most have rolling admissions.</p>
<p>I have helped research small details not obvious on the websites but they have taught the kids how to dig out this stuff. I’ve become very familiar with the schools on her list but it’s her list. The counselor at school is very familiar with the kids and helps them craft good lists. Lots of full rides and all get accepted at at least one school fitting all their needs.</p>
<p>D was totally overwhelmed by the process. We did the college fairs, info nights and the junior year college scouting trip all over our home state. It was all just too much for her. Too many colleges. She was sure she could never get in (even with high stats.) Deathly afraid of making a mistake (which of course, could NEVER be undone and would ruin her life forever lol.) Her school counselor was really great at suggesting high-priced colleges with lousy financial aid (that were also ridiculously easy to get into because she hated to see the kids upset when they were rejected.) Her activity friends were largely from wealth and often had private coaches or private school counselors to work them through. This made her feel inadequate and wonder how she could compete with that. Her classmates were largely on their own and focusing on state schools which she hadn’t liked on top of making her feel like state school would just be more high school (which of course, wasn’t true but try convincing a 16-year-old that.) So, I took up the research and sent D links to a diverse range of schools that we could afford and who offered something of particular interest to her. We required she apply to our two local, public universities. She chose the others from the info I’d sent her or on what she liked from the info nights and our college tour.</p>
<p>The school she is attending is one I don’t think she ever would have found on her own. I chanced upon it. Seemed like an ideal fit of program and finances. Her counselor had never heard of it. It ranks high but is still rather unknown in our part of the country. They weren’t at any of the college fairs and had no info nights in our state. It was attractive to D and ended up high on her list. She’s absolutely loving her experience so far.</p>
<p>Mine had a couple they were interested in and I added around 15 to the list to research. They made the final cut list.</p>
<p>As with everything, it varied by kid. Oldest picked 2 cities where she would like to go to college and we explored those together. Son only had one school on his list, where he went to an open house in spring of sophomore year. He refused to visit anywhere else, but I persuaded him to apply to a rolling admission safety that had his major and one more just in case. He was admitted to his preferred school ED. Youngest had a long list of hard to get into schools. She found them herself with a little help from me. I had not told her about the Claremont schools because they are so far away, but one of them found her and that’s where she is.</p>
<p>^i like that… “…one of them found her.”</p>
<p>Absolutely me for my first, S. First of all, he never before, at the time or since has researched or planned anything. (That is another story or thread!). He is smart (98 percentile math and physics) but totally unmotivated. So, yes, I suggested schools.</p>
<p>After that, D1 and D2 had a list of the schools they liked from the schools we had visited with S and each added a few additional ones.</p>
<p>My mom and stepdad haven’t been involved in my choice of schools at all. When I originally decided to go to university they were involved just enough to agree with the idea, but when I decided to go to a CC and then transfer to university later they were very much opposed (to put a long story short, family drama not connected to the schools themselves). Now they don’t get involved in my education much at all. They want the best for me, of course, and they got over me going to CC a while ago, we just aren’t really talkative with each other in general.</p>
<p>My dad is more involved in that he frequently asks questions about how I’m doing school and where I’m transferring to, and I talk to him a lot more often than to my mom, but he doesn’t really try to influence where I do and do not apply to for transfer.</p>
<p>I did have some macro input at the very beginning of the process. The summer after her sophomore year, we were visiting the city where both my undergrad (huge public flagship) and graduate (small Jesuit college) are located. D and I visited both, not because she was interested in either one, but so that she could get the feel of those two very different campus environments. By the time we left the flagship, she had a look of shock on her face and was muttering “Nononononono.” So it was a very fruitful afternoon in that it narrowed her college search focus considerably.</p>
<p>I suggested all of them but since I hadn’t gone to a 4 yr college and for my oldest it was before CC, I had limited info.
Her college advisor had suggested more schools ( like Carleton & Macalester), but since she wasn’t a big fan of winter, we didn’t investigate.
Since she came out in high school, I suggested a few of the women’s colleges ( also since I knew they had good aid) but not interested in that either.</p>
<p>Youngest felt it didn’t matter where she attended since her first choice was probably not feasible, and while she had taken a gap year, she didn’t want to spend additional time researching schools, she just wanted to get started.</p>
<p>My D got zero help from the high school counselor. They barely could get their act together to send school reports and transcripts, so overwhelmed. Then I hired a private college counselor who was suggesting schools that I felt were just not appropriate - very easy to get into.</p>
<p>She had one and only one school she wanted to go to. And she had a very specific major focus. I knew that we had better get some more colleges on the list. I did all the research and made a list of suggested schools. She absolutely did not want the local state college because it was in her back yard, but I made her apply for safety school. We did not do a good job of touring colleges, she did not really like any of the ones we toured. </p>
<p>She was deferred and then rejected from dream school and if Mom had not forced a list on her she would have been out of luck! She eventually selected a college that was never on her radar that I discovered at the last minute.</p>
<p>D#1: 9th grade, we were supposed to go to a health day at her high school, mandatory; we showed up and looked at the list of programs and said, no way, and drove to my alma mater, 2 hours away, so she could see what it was she was supposed to be working toward. She liked it, three years later applied early, got in, never looked back.
D#2: Looooong list; we visited twelve schools on the east coast (at one point she said she didn’t want any school farther than an hour from the ocean) and a couple on the west; she dithered between west and east coast and decided on east, to our surprise, because it was closer to her friends (not us!). Applied ED, got in, happy (she’s 3 hours from the ocean).
S: whole nother story. He thought he’d like small LAC, because that’s what his sisters chose, but upon visiting Hamilton, decided no, he wants medium size in or near big city. Not big, mind you, but not small. Well, small would be ok, but not in a small town. His list now consists of two UK schools (first choices), U Chicago, Brown, Dartmouth, and a couple others, but I’m pulling my hair out trying to find safeties he’d like. His GC thinks one of his UK schools, UStAndrews, will be effectually a safety with his stats, but he’s never been to Scotland! (It’s not a safety if you don’t want to go there. And by the way, St Andrews is a small town!) So, as far as who came up with the starting list: last year he came up with a list to which I added a few schools, and we’ve started all over this year with four of the twenty with which we began.
The moral is, kids differ, and kids even differ from year to year. No one wants to be the parent who takes over the process, but while there are kids who own it from day one, I think most kids need at least some guidance, not least because most kids don’t really know what college is or can be like; the whole thing is a learning process in which they try to figure out who they are and where they belong. Sometimes the parents know better, sometimes they don’t.</p>
<p>I put the list together for my D. She desperately wanted to go to college, but her head can be in the clouds about some things. We talked about each school, I told her why I thought it was a good fit, and she took a couple off the list but didn’t add any to it. </p>
<p>She fell in love with one program early on, it stayed her number one throughout the entire application process and she is extremely happy there as a freshman. </p>
<p>Most people say that the student should do everything but for my D, my guidance was crucial. And nope, she isn’t attached to me at the hip. She is almost 600 miles away from home and I’m having a wonderful time with my H while she’s gone!</p>