It became clear to DS this cycle that top colleges are really not interested in smart kids but many safeties love them!! Such great scholarships from the safeties but not much interest from the tippy-top. In a do-over I would have liked him to spend more time researching his targets and safeties, so that he applied to the safety he loved the most.
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The number one thing I would have done differently would have been to set up a dedicated email account just for admissions. So much email. SO much.
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Replying for my DS23. He wouldnāt have done anything differently. He was lucky to be advised by the school counselor to apply early to all colleges that offered this option. Though we thought that was not necessary, later we found this was the most valuable advice we have ever received. DS23 was accepted to his top choice with a merit scholarship. What we did not anticipate was the generous amount.
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This is the best advice!
Doing this with #2 and those come to me as well just so I can alert if something important came in.
Even my extremely on it #1 missed an occasional important email, especially if it came during some crunch week at school.
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With my second kid (currently in 7th grade), I want us to visit more schools early in the game, like junior year. I thought it made financial sense to wait and focus our visits on where my D23 was accepted (aside from visits we did because we happened to be in the area or she was doing an in-person audition). But with late March / April 1 acceptances*, that meant an exhausting, complicated scramble to visit a bunch of schools quicklyāand some we just couldnāt get to and, as a result, didnāt really consider seriously, though they might have been good options. Next time, early visits! Then we can always go back if it comes down to a short list of real options.
([*] I have SUCH A RANT in my head about schools that wait this long to release decisions. It is so stressful and inequitable to leave so little time between the decision and May 1. )
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We visited about 10 in a giant NE road trip august before Sr year - it was still somewhat closed down so we couldnāt do any earlier. And made to the fall open house of 2 of 3 possible ED schools.
We also did a lot of virtual stuff. That was enough to identify schools that she could be happy with but were lower in her list. Those we decided to visit in person if needed.
A good idea sometime during Jr year is to go to a place like Boston where there are MANY types of schools/campuses. That way you can narrow down preferences - big/small/big sports/urban campus. With that in hand, combined with the virtual stuff you can target your visits.
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My takeaway is to start doing visits and creating a list of schools (or criteria) sooner. If youāre a high-stats kid applying to reaches, you probably need to apply to 10+ schools and that needs to include a mix of likely/match/reach and you need to be excited about every school on your list (because you might get into very few of them) and you need to demonstrate interest to all of them that track interest. That means you need to start early and make sure each of those schools is carefully and thoughtfully chosen because you canāt afford to āwasteā a slot.
With DS23, we didnāt do any visits until spring of junior year and he didnāt create his list until fall of senior year. The list ended up being almost entirely schools he had NOT visited. He ended up with a great outcome, but I feel like a lot of luck was involved. 
I would like to start doing visits and thinking about a list sooner with my younger one, but the dilemma is how to do that without creating a sense of pressure.
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I agree. It is hard to find the balance between āletās go visit these schoolsā and putting a lot of pressure on the kid to actually get accepted to those schools you are visiting, especially when those schools have such drastically low acceptance rates.
My biggest concern now is making sure my two younger kids donāt feel like they have to compete with or compare to my oldest kid. They are all wonderful in their own different ways so I want to make sure they are comfortable in their own skins and taking their own paths to a happy and successful life.
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Personally, I would have applied to more schools that I could see myself at. I wish I had researched more small liberal arts schools that meet full demonstrated financial aid. I applied to a few and I got in, but I didnāt see myself being happy at all but one of them. I wish I had found small liberal arts colleges that had the vibes I wanted which is why I wish I either visited or watched day in the life videos to figure out. In the end, Iām happy with where Iām going and itās a school that I found pretty late in the game through some last minute research, so future classes, start your research early and if your like me from a state or school that doesnāt really educate you on schools other than those in state and in your area, you have to do all the research yourself and just make sure you are looking at all possibilities. There are some really great schools if you look hard enough!
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Replying for Dā23. Got into one reach that she is attending and she was thrilled if not a bit surprised after the targets were waitlisting her. Super happy that it was fairly early in the process and after that whatever happened, happened. It did. She ended up waitlisted at 7 of the 19 she applied to - 2 of those she is still on waitlist, but not expecting anything of it. Got into most of her safeties and one target. Most of the WLās were hard targets. Denied at 5 reaches (of the 7 reaches total - other two she is still on WL). Super competitive this year. She is feeling grateful. She visited only one reach (a waitlist). Said she didnāt want to fall in love with a bunch of schools that rejected or waitlisted her. Virtual and interest was shown as much as possible. Stats are high 35 ACT/4.71 weighted/4.0 unweighted, but not exactly strong ECās in her major - she is a robotics captain, and crisis director on MUN, but studying IR/Russian. Joined robotics in soph year, loved it, but not the math to be an engineer. So where she ended up she feels is right, but also a bit of luck. Would definitely do enough visiting to make kid excited, but we are glad we visited the college she is attending after she got in and could fall in love with it. Would do the almost the same, but 19 was too many - too many safeties - we could have cut 2-3 off and the result would have been fine.
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Completely agree. impressive data source.
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D23ās results were a little bit less consistent at the selective end. She was rejected at every school that College Vine predicted below 14 percent, waitlisted at a school predicted at 14 percent, accepted to one school that predicted at 15 percent, waitlisted at every school predicted at 20-29 percent. Accepted at the rest of the schools (39 percent, 67 percent, 73 percent and 90-97 percents).
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CollegeVine was not as good as the school counseling advice. She got into all 3 likelies-per-counselor (75%+)which ranged from 50-67% on CV, including the instate flagship that was a true safety from her school, plus into 3 of 5 matches, which CV had between 23&55%, and into 2 of 8 reaches which were all between 15& 26% per CollegeVine. So the trends were sort of there, but the data-led school counselor predictions were most accurate.
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Be grateful you had this level of counseling. If only all schools would offer!
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Replying as a parent and for DS -
In counseling my son I would have encouraged him to take a couple more AP classes his Junior year. I wasnāt aware how much āstrength of scheduleā comes up in the evaluation process and he had only 1 AP on his transcript as of EA submissions. The fact that he was in 4 for Senior year but w/o grades I think hurt him.
We would have wanted to better understand just how competitive the Architecture programs are. We had some sense but there were schools that CV said - and by all quantitative measures are - safeties where he was admitted but not to the Architecture program. This would have re-shaped the list of schools applied to. Ultimately he got into one of his reaches, which is where heāll be going, but of the 12 applications 3 were acceptances (Architecture), 2 were acceptances (non-Architecture), 3 waitlist, 4 declines.
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I feel the same. We would have hired an independent admission advisor for all colleges. The college counselor at my kidās HS didnāt really care and did the minimal amount of work. It was amazing that the HS college counselor couldnāt give decent advice about in-state public universities.
I hate that we feel this way (our HS counselor took forever to get a miscalculated GPA corrected and almost missed deadlines) and feel for families who truly canāt afford private help. It would have been a financial burden, but we could have done it. Thereās no way some could.
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I donāt know if itās not caring vs. too many students. None of my 5 kids were given a single college suggestion, and some given poor advice on class selection in high school, just signed the forms if required. It can really be apples and oranges at high schools.
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Exactly. I wonder if the some of the students who got very good outcomes had some type of help from an independent college counselor.
The college expense is significant so paying for independent counselor could be helpful. Itās expensive but there are ways to save to pay for it such as skipping vacation for one year or somethingā¦
My kid went through a lot of heartache. At the end, everything worked out and my kid and us are so happy about the college options. So I guess we would never know about what would have been with paid help.
Responded to the poll for S23. We wouldnāt have done anything differently. Most importantly, our strategy of starting early paid off in terms of having a clear and effective plan. This cut down on some stress.
Our college research started the summer before junior year, so we could have a list of universities to visit that met DSās needs and preferences. This meant we could visit a lot of colleges during junior year, and leave just a couple for September of senior year. By April of junior year he had an SAT score to submit to even his reach schools, and by May he had clear EDI and EDII choices. His list of likelies, targets, and reaches (16 total) was set by August, and his CA essay was done by the start of senior year. This allowed him to apply to one of his likelies (rolling) in October, and he could work on supplements for his EDI and EA colleges in early fall. He submitted an ED and several EA apps by November and heard back from his rolling likely with merit, so he could relax a bit. Although he was admitted to his ED (reach) university in December, he had his EDII app ready to hit āsendā and several other supplements for RD schools completed. Starting early allowed him to have a more relaxed fall than many of his friends. He was so happy that he was accepted to his ED choice that he didnāt even mind that he had completed many other supplements that he never needed to use.
So along with the advice everyone gets about a balanced list, starting early was key for us.
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