<p>In what way was it a surprise, Axelrod?</p>
<p>Congrats, muf! Very excited for your family!</p>
<p>@SevenDad,</p>
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<p>There is a new kind of “like” and “unlike” feature added to CC. Under the poster’s name there is a fuzzy-looking scales icon, next to the CC icon.</p>
<p>One caveat I will add about Naviance is that it does not take difficulty of class into account when comparing your child’s grades with those of others. Depending on the school, there can be classes of varying degrees of difficulty dealing with the same subject. My child’s school has three levels of geometry, for example.</p>
<p>@muf, yes, absolutely congrats!</p>
<p>And Axelrod, I am curious about your comment re “surprises” - can you elaborate?</p>
<p>I have faith in my Senior, the school and College Counselor although sometimes I could just scream or melt, I don’t know which. I bite my tongue throughout the whole process. I really try not to dwell on it too much. He called yesterday, he’s okay, so I’m okay. I have to admit, I get quietly annoyed when I hear of kids getting in on the athletic ticket so it kind of wraps it up for my town for some colleges. They are good kids here and there is no doubt to their academic capabilities, extremely competitive since day one. I should probably be over in the college forms but I don’t want to look.</p>
<p>Yikes, ops, this doesn’t sound like a fun time for a parent. We aren’t banking on any athletic hook for college, either, so I can feel your pain. Any suggestions on how to manage the process, from a parent sanity point of view?</p>
<p>Be reserved with any criticism regardless how constructive you may think it may be. Be completely supportive, they have enough pressure. I know it will all work out. No need to talk about the kids back home who got recruited for lax or crew into the ivies. The school is very good in relaying to the students that fact that not everyone receives good news early and to be cognizant of that aspect when talking to other students. Most importantly, to keep buggering on.</p>
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<p>Good advice for many parenting issues, it seems, not just the college admissions process. I’ve made enough parent bloopers to bear that out! Keep us posted.</p>
<p>We found that keeping things low key really helped minimize stress throughout the process. We made an intentional decision not to talk about it except between our child and ourselves as parents. That meant no sharing of the list with extended family members. Child and her boarding school friends made a pact not to discuss it amongst themselves in detail, other than the usual commiseration over taking SATs and filling out applications. Scores were not discussed, list of schools under consideration were not discussed. It seemed to work out well. </p>
<p>Friends and family have good intentions, but we found that unless they’ve been through the process in the past few years, they don’t know the competitiveness of the process. Many schools’ reputations have changed and many folks only know ivies and schools that are household names due to sports teams not academic merit.</p>
<p>When grandma confuses Penn State and UPenn, for example, or has never even heard of the small, top notch LACs your child is interested in, it’s better to keep things in VERY vague terms. :)</p>
<p>Sounds wise, creative. I am so glad we didn’t share details of the boarding school process with family and neighbors, as it would have resulted in equally quizzical looks. Sounds the same with colleges these days. If so, a lot of boarding school parents will be pretty well practiced in the drill :)</p>
<p>So true creative1, my parents really only know the ivies and can be little frustrating with them talking about colleges today, much less boarding schools. They are, understandably so, very inquisitive about their grand children it gets border line intrusive.</p>
<p>Just checked in after a long time away to see how the parents of seniors are doing! My daughter, a freshman in college, got a surprise visit this week from her boarding school college counselor. Needless to say, she had a great relationship with counselor, not just in applying but as support through the stress of senior year.</p>
<p>we are happy with the process of outsourcing as much as possible to the BS College Counselor, partly because of the differing experience levels, but probably even more because one of the things you can outsource is the “nag” function. </p>
<p>We told the counselor that we are in the mode of “40 colleges that change lives” (close to a “must read”, IMHO - you don’t have to agree with it, or with every college mentioned in it, but it creates the right atmosphere) and got back a pretty sensible list. </p>
<p>We told D13 that she would get one visit paid for by us, so make it a good one. She chose to visit, on her own, one town that had two potential first choices in it (Northfield MN, St. Olaf and Carleton), loved them both, but came away convinced that St. Olaf’s was exactly the right place for her. Applied ED, and just got the good news. </p>
<p>To a certain extent, that means we have had an untypical experience - over almost before it started, though of course there was a lot of preliminary fussing about last spring. </p>
<p>What I think helped alot was asking for FIT. Fit fixes a lot - she has lopsided scores - very strong verbal, but middle-of-the-road-at-best math - but she has done a lot of thinking about what she wants out of her education, and was able to articulate it, and when she found the match, the match agreed.</p>
<p>^great story, and a great school in a great college town.</p>
<p>ssacdfamily - my DD’s best friend is home on break from her first semester at St. Olaf’s, and LOVES it and is thriving. PM me if your daughter would like to get in touch with her.</p>
<p>Something to consider that worked for my older daughter (not a highly selective school candidate)</p>
<p>Took courses over the summer between junior and senior year at her first choice college. Loved it even more, applied and was accepted in November on rolling admissions. This was a state U, and summer tuition was very discounted (as in basically free) for “honors” state resident high school students; she basically had to pay only a little for room and board. The credits are also transferrable.</p>
<p>Increasingly it seems mid-level and public colleges are offering summer programs to entice applicants. The Ivy summer programs are not known to increase admission chances, but it appears these mid-level, less selective schools may use the program to entice “likely” kids to attend. </p>
<p>So she was all set in November, has 6 credits already, and is familiar with the dorms and school she will be attending.</p>
<p>Great story, 2prepmom!</p>
<p>I’m curious if any other CC’er is looking at college from an athletic standpoint? We are actually getting more information from our daughter’s coaches as she is only a freshman at this point, however coaches can start making offers 9/1 of her junior year, so even though she’s a freshman we have to determine her athletic schedule over the next 18 months, register her with the NCAA, get her to college showcases, etc… so I’m wondering if her BS counselor could even help?</p>
<p>Mauiluver- athletic recruiting out of boarding schools is very common, one of the college counselors will usually specialize in the kids who are being recruited. And you’re right, many of them were committed or wrapped up junior year.</p>