This will be too long for many people to soldier through. I’ll probably have to continue in the comments to include everything that I think is pertinent. I’m writing it as a way to sort through my thoughts of the last couple of years and to serve as a help for whomever else might feel that they are starting from scratch in this process. To set the scene, in addition to DS being our oldest child and the first to enter the world of college admissions, he has had his eye on the prize of an elite college experience, hopefully Ivy League. We live in a Midwestern small-town, which is bordered on three sides by farmland, our public school system is 70% free/reduced lunch and our area is underrepresented in the Ivys. We don’t know anyone else who has been through the experience of applying for these schools and had to find our way ourselves, with lots of visits to CC for reassurance.
DS’s grades and standardized testing have always been very good. He has had great affirmation and encouragement from his excellent and dedicated teachers along the way. They reinforced our belief in him and we felt willing to support his efforts to break into this world. He has a LOT of interests and that led to A LOT of extracurriculars. Early in his high school years, I asked him if he shouldn’t be doing student council, or writing for the newspaper or something that seemed like it would look good on a resume. But those things didn’t interest him and his schedule was filled instead with his genuine passions, even if they didn’t offer opportunities to rise up in the ranks. (There’s no point guard of the chess team and no captain of the swing choir, you know?)
From middle school on, he’s checked out every book in the library about preparing for the SAT/ACT, writing a great college essay, and how to be a desirable college applicant. I know of no SAT tutors in this area, so it was up to him to educate himself. Over and over he read that colleges would rather you focus on one or two activities and accomplish extraordinary things in that field, rather than dabble in lots of different activities. He never could find an activity in his busy schedule that he could bear to part with, so he plugged along with his passions and hoped for the best.
DS had an adviser who advised him during this junior year to “cast a broad net” when it came to his college applications. “Don’t just apply to Harvard, Yale, Notre Dame and a safety.” He started rattling off a whole list of schools that he thought DS should apply to. Most of the Ivys, several second tier elite schools, large state universities, the local liberal arts college and, just because my husband and I went there, our church-affiliated liberal arts alma mater. It seemed like a lot of money to spend on just the application process. We spoke to his school guidance counselor and she reassured us that she could request a fee waiver from the schools he was applying to. This eased the strain quite a bit for our family.
Between his junior and senior years, we planned a trip that would double as family trip and college visitation. We went to the northeast and visited two Ivy League schools. By that time, we had visited several schools in our state and were familiar with the drill. What we didn’t know about was that part of the country and how Ivy schools might “feel” different from the others. It was surprising how familiar and similar they all seemed to each other. Yale set themselves apart with their hilarious introductory video, which was a breath of fresh air. Also at Yale, an admissions officer cheered and encouraged us by saying that making your EC’s stand out MIGHT mean focusing and achieving highly in one or two areas, but it also MIGHT mean participating in a wide variety of EC’s, like my son did.
Between the end of his junior year and the early part of his senior year, DS took the SAT twice and the ACT twice. I think I will go ahead and post scores, (SAT - 2300 and ACT 35) though I’ve gone back and forth about whether that would be beneficial. The level of public education varies from state to state and the scores will reflect that. We are really proud of what he accomplished on those tests, but I’ve seen a comment on CC that said outright that there was nothing all that special about a 2300 SAT. (I think that comment came from California.) Look, I think the specialness of a great score is altered when it comes from a prep school in MA or public school in Appalachia. I think the admissions officers know that? I hope so? Our state is somewhere in between.
Congrats to your son!