<p>I've lurked here for a few months, initially freaked out by the 'should I retake to get a perfect 2400' posts, and then calmed by many informative, and more balanced, parent posts. I've thought about telling my (maybe too?) blissfully unaware daughter about this website, but don't want to stress her out, and am not sure she'd look at it anyway. She's our oldest of 2 girls, a h.s.junior, 4.0 honors student, 760 math2 subject2 tester, slowly maturing (roll eyes and whatevers are getting less frequent!) whose only ideas of which colleges she might be interested in are based on what she's heard from her friends. She does not know what shes interested in studying in college, and rarely looks at the daily college ad-mail, or the Princeton Review of best colleges book I bought. We've visited 3 schools so far in conjunction with family vacations... UPenn, Georgetown and College of Wm and Mary- and have some New England schools on the calendar for spring break...but its all my planning. What are some ideas for getting undecided kids to pick schools to visit and apply to?</p>
<p>The Fiske Guide to Colleges was a good book for our kids. My kids were completely different about it – D1 loved to look through Fiske and read about the different schools. D2 was more reluctant. I told her she had to review it – but if she wanted me to pick out some schools for her to read about, I would do that. We agreed on that, and I marked about 35 schools for her to review. She read about them, then we talked about them and decided which ones to visit. Both my kids had very little interest in the college mail (I read it all 
). Although the U of Chicago postcard series did catch their interest.</p>
<p>Here are a few questions that will help with this process:
- What are your financial constraints, if any? Some of colleges are almost $60,000 a year in total (will be over that by the time your D graduates from college). Is need based financial aid likely and important to you? Is merit aid a requirement? Do you have a limit on what you will pay that you need to communicate to your daughter? This item more than any other will drive the college list for many people.
- Does she have any idea on major? If not, that is okay… there is another thread out here in the Parents Forum that has been active on this topic, but I would wait until next summer to push discussion on this.
- Does she have a preference on size or urban vs. rural settings?<br>
- Are there any extra curriculars that are important to her to continue to participate in college?
- How were her PSATs? You may not have results yet (unless she took it in 10th grade, as some students do). That is another big driver. Good score on her math II test, so her Math SAT I will likely be good. And the GPA implies possibly very good scores across the board. Sounds like she can study for a good score even if it does not come naturally.</p>
<p>Bottom line, though, is that the college application process is super complicated. And so expensive for families that a lot of parents end up driving a lot of the planning and tracking for applications. It is just too expensive to make a mistake – not like the old days when we applied to one college, hand wrote our own applications with no input from our parents, and got in. I think this is okay as long as your D is the one actually making the final decisions on where to apply (within your constraints), writes her own essays, etc.</p>
<p>One more thought on this – I have paid most of my kids college expenses. So one of the things I made VERY clear to them is that with the exception of the house we live in, these are the biggest expenditures I will ever make. And it is CRITICAL that they participate in the process of making an appropriate college choice – it is part of their contribution to the process. Since I am putting up the money, they need to put up effort in a variety of ways (college selection and application process, using the experience wisely to prepare for their future, and getting done in four years – there is no money beyond that point). I feel no qualms about putting some pressure on them regarding this (also know that I would allow a gap year if they brought it up and had a good plan, as I do not want to waste this money, and would be respectful of it if they needed more time/space to figure out what they want to do). Telling them this has worked for me.</p>
<p>You say you don’t want to stress your daughter out… but I expect these facts are the same for your family as for ours. You are doing her no favors by letting her think this is just an extension of high school and she can just chat with her friends to decide on a college.</p>
<p>This evening I was just commenting to my husband that we enjoy visiting colleges more than our D does! We just got back from a college preview day today and D acts nonchalant about it. We will just drag her to a few more and then we will discuss what makes sense for her. </p>
<p>It was the same thing with my S. They really didn’t enjoy the selection process.</p>
<p>I think fall of junior year may be a little early for some kids. I would continue to visit colleges and see if she likes:
small vs. large
urban vs. suburban/rural
state vs. private
part of the country, west coast, east coast, etc.
We did most of our looking with our kids the summer before their senior years. Neither were as analytical nor as anxious as we were about the process. When asked by her guidance counselor August before her senior year what is she interested in D2 said " Mr. R, how am I supposed to know, I am only 17 years old." I would consider waiting until you know her SAT scores and other information before pressing her to look or to think about it. Good luck!</p>
<p>Crizello- my kids didn’t like the process either.</p>
<p>I cannot emphasize enough that you must get your financial info in order before starting the selection process. Unless you are lucky enough to be full pay at the most expensive colleges, the financial reality of your situation will knock a lot of colleges out of consideration. Then you can start narrowing in on things like area of the country, major, etc. </p>
<p>You’re still early in the process, so I think visiting colleges is a great way to get started. Best of luck!</p>
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<p>It is ok to be undecided – but that can constrain the college list to those which are reasonably strong in all of the possible subjects that the student may major in.</p>
<p>Agree that figuring out the cost constraints and making that clear to the student is one of the most important things to do. When April senior year comes, no one wants to have a bunch of acceptances that are all unaffordable.</p>
<p>With D1, the most organized, methodical of my 3, it quickly became obvious from the total lack of action that the process was daunting. When I decided to look into it, and like you came to CC, I myself almost had a deer in the headlights feeling. As a result, I did the research and gave her a selection within our budget of those I felt were most suited to her. We could only visit some but it helped her understand what she didn’t want. She made the final decision. I did the same process with the other 2. All things being equal, I do believe they will grow where they are planted.</p>
<p>I found the College Board website very helpful. You can hone in on a manageable list of colleges to explore by plugging in your daughter’s preferences with regard to area of study, location, school size etc. When your daughter has SAT scores, GPA and other stats she can plug in… it will even show you where she stands compared to others who have been accepted. This is very helpful in putting together a realistic list that includes safeties and reaches.</p>
<p>Along those lines (College Board site), does your school use Naviance? It is also helpful in the search, but has anonymous data on where students from your high school had been accepted or denied and scores/GPA. I think we got access sometime in junior year to ours. It is helpful once they have some scores. Just keep in mind that the very selective schools are a reach for everyone, because they get so many applications from far more excellent candidates than they can accept.</p>
<p>I agree that fall of junior year can be early. Three of our four kids were only marginally engaged in the college process at that time.</p>
<p>So one idea is to allow natural processes to work over time. You mentioned that she is slowly maturing. Perhaps she just needs a little more time.</p>
<p>I don’t think Jr year is too early. Our kids all visited schools before Jr years. We tied CA vaca in so oldest son could visit USC. Midle D, we tied Iowa State visit into Field of Dreams, and youngest son tied in visit to oldest son into Mizzou and Wash U visits.</p>
<p>None of our kids went to any of these schools, but they had fun, there was less pressure, because decision time was farther away. And getting experienced with visiting allowed them to compare and contrast with the schools they did decide to attend.</p>
<p>Win - win. So try to make it fun, and also ask your D what kind og college she sees herself attending. Do it now, not later. Early bird - worm- and all that.</p>
<p>good luck! :)</p>
<p>I agree that it’s not too early to start looking now. Don’t try to find the perfect fit but just try to get an overview of what’s out there. I found that my D liked the schools she looked at later more. I think that’s partly because all campuses start to look the same after a while, but it also may be that as a kid looks, he/she will develop a sense of what is appealing or not. Visit a couple of large schools, midsize schools, and small schools. Visit rural and urban, etc. Have your kid look through college catalogs to see what programs sound interesting (the classes and programs are so much more interesting than high school, and many high school students have no idea of what the college options are). The Fiske guide is great. My D applied to a couple of schools (and got money from them) that she was made aware of through the Fiske guide.</p>
<p>If your children need merit money, it’s a good idea to start the search for appropriate colleges now. The exception is if your kids are happy with your in-state schools and they are affordable to you.</p>
<p>We started with our kids in school vacation, second half of junior year.</p>
<p>I think it is a good idea to help with the initial list.</p>
<p>When my son continued to seem passive or even resistant, I told him that he did not have to go to college and could work instead (he was a top student at the time, but I meant it, and went to work myself at the same age, which he knows). I told him to let me know if he wanted to do any visits and I would “check my schedule.” I went out and when I came back he had made a color-coded chart for visits!</p>
<p>It is a process, and it’s usually the first time kids are being asked to pick something so big for themselves; they really have to learn to identify what they think is important. It takes time, and what they think they want during the fall of junior year and what they end up choosing by spring of senior year are often totally different things.</p>
<p>We talked about coleges, specifically. My kids pretty much were not in touch with what colleges were out there other than sports affiliations and some local schools,plus a handful of other well known colleges. So we’d try to broaden the circle of knowledge for them. The local and state school systems are important for the kids to understand as they are often the most cost effective and affordable choices. It’s nice to know exactly what is available in state and if your state has any tuition reciprocity agreements with other state schools. This is something I had to learn myself. There are nuances and differences among the state schools and it’s good to learn what they are.</p>
<p>Then you branch out. You’ll find that your kids through talk will get to know the truel name recognition schools more quickly. Where everyone has to do some work is looking for lesser known options.</p>
<p>With my son, I can say that I did all of the research. He gave me broad strokes in size, location, possible major (not explicit but based on his interests/passions and discussions). I also tried to get a sense of campus culture and personality to determine if the school would be a fit that way. I came up with a big list of schools…over 30. Then we narrowed it down from there. I had to sit him down and look at websites and brochures together and would send him links to youtube videos. We managed to whittle down the list to about 20. I then did some fine tuning by looking at other things like affordability based on running the net price calculator, ease of traveling there, campus clubs that would be of interest, strength of major, opportunities to explore other areas of interest academically, etc. I gave him final say if a school came off the list or stayed though. The financial/academic safety was not negotiable however. Oftentimes he couldn’t really say why he did or didn’t like a school but since all the schools had been put there by me, I knew they were ok and didn’t squabble much about it.</p>
<p>I would also agree to get your finances in order to see what you can afford. I would also suggest that you DON’T rule out any school because of the price tag until you have a good estimate of your expected family contribution and have run the Net Price Calculator for each possible school. Once you have your EFC, figure out what SIZE school she wants to attend. You looked an assortment of schools, what did she like/dislike about those schools? Make a list of those if you need to. Keep in mind that she may not be able to express exactly what she did not like or liked about a campus so you might have to help some there.</p>
<p>If she says she didn’t like how far the buildings were from each other, then the campus was too big, etc. You might have to point out things that she may be unaware of on college campuses. One thing I always look at is how many fliers are on the boards around campus–that tells me that kids stay on campus over the weekends and that the school has a lot for them to do, which is important to our kids.</p>
<p>I also make sure we eat at or at least visit the dining halls around a meal time. I look at how the kids are interacting there. Some schools the kids prop up a book and study during meals, others the kids are relaxed and enjoying each other–what kind of school does she like?</p>
<p>Majors are important to a point, but since most kids end up switching at least once, not as important as people think. You should have a good idea if she is more of a STEM kid vs a humanities kid. I would suggest she take some career interest surveys online if they don’t do them in school to help explore some options. Like colleges, most kids really don’t know what careers there are in the world outside of what their parents and their parent’s friends do.</p>
<p>Once you have size and location narrowed down, the search becomes a LOT easier. Also, on the college boards site, you can search by activities so if she wants to participate in orchestra, for example, you can search by schools with a program like that.</p>
<p>Also, once she gets a SAT/ACT score in hand, it helps the search process tremendously. Keep in mind the acceptance rates for schools too. I think someone here said that William and Mary has a 6% acceptance rate for out of state females, so chances of getting in, now matter how perfect her scores are, are pretty much none.</p>
<p>I agree that it is not too early to begin looking. We had a family wedding in Boston during summer when older d was a rising junior and toured Brandeis, visited the Tufts campus, did drive-by of Harvard, MIT and BU, not that she was going to apply to all those schools but to give her an idea of different schools. We also had a mini-vacation in Washington that summer and went to see Georgetown and GW. In our high school there are several college planning nights second semester junior year, the family meeting with the guidance counselor. One of the college planning nights is a joint event in the spring with several other high schools and many colleges are represented. There are panel sessions and opportunities to visit individual colleges as the reps are in classrooms and you can visit for a 25 minute presentation or just pick up literature. Younger d benefited by some of those college visits also. With older d we then did an upstate NY trip right before senior year and visited U of R, Cornell and SUNY Binghamton. She had done a summer program at Skidmore so she had that experience. We have always summered in NH and so she was familiar with Dartmouth but did a tour during that summer visit as well. She did visit Vassar on a Columbus Day Open House during her senior year. When we went to visit her at Parents Weekend ( she ultimately chose Brandeis) we toured BU with younger daughter, did a drive-by of Boston Conservatory and so it went… we tried not to overdo by looking at a zillion colleges and also not over-scheduling. Only college that I regretted not touring in advance was Carnegie Mellon. We never got there with older d but this was only school that she was accepted without any merit money… so it did fall off the list. Did tour with younger d who was accepted as well without any merit money either. Both had applied to double programs there… in order to get merit money, had to get merit money from both programs…actually younger d accepted at one program and wait-listed as another.</p>