<p>Looking back, my parents filled out the FAFSA (FFA back then) and that was it. They didn't help me look at schools, didn't even really know which ones I applied to, etc. I don't know if they were the norm or not back then. How much involvement did your parents have?</p>
<p>You’re addressing this to the adults?
My parents did not attend traditional 4 year colleges - didn’t have the money. My mother went to night school but always wanted to go to college (and indeed, went during the same time I was in college - I was very proud of her). My father attended on the GI bill but didn’t finish.</p>
<p>My mother took me on a college visit tour up and down the east coast, though (we lived in the midwest at the time) - visited Princeton, Penn, Georgetown, UVA, William & Mary and a couple of other places I’m not recalling off the top of my head. They weren’t “involved” in the apps but I know it was a big thrill for them to be able to pay for wherever I wanted to go. it was a different world, though, then. You did your apps handwritten or on a typewriter on a weekend night and that was that. You only took your SAT’s once (taking it twice was the province of people who were too dumb to get a good score the first time - we never thought of “maximizing”). </p>
<p>I suppose in hindsight my parents could have been more expansive in their thinking (Boston schools, west coast schools) but they did the best they could. I absolutely loved the college visit trips I took with my kids all over the country; it was really important to me, psychologically, to do so.</p>
<p>Yes, to the adults on the board. I’m just wondering if parents are a lot more involved in the process these days.</p>
<p>Zero. I did FAFSA myself also. I have a feeling that I understand our tax return papers and the forms better than my parents do.
What kind of help did you expect? From now on, you (just like me) are on your own. Welcome to adult world!</p>
<p>They did the FA stuff. They took me on some school visits, I did the others with friends or on my own. They paid for multiple SATs.</p>
<p>I got some input from them on schools for my list.</p>
<p>I am a LOT more involved with my S than my parents were with me but I doubt I’ll be as involved with my D15, she’s a different type of kid.</p>
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<p>That sounds like about how my parents were when I applied to school. </p>
<p>Only minor exception was my father expressed strong reservations about Oberlin, the LAC I ended up attending because he felt it would be far too hard academically considering my mediocre high school GPA and its great academic reputation in China/Taiwan during the '40s and '50s. Thankfully…I more than proved him…and many HS teachers/classmates wrong on that score. :)</p>
<p>My parents were of the mind that any college was great, seeing as they did not have the opportunities I did.</p>
<p>We did not visit schools. I used the Barron’s guide and applied to “Highly Selective” schools that we within a 3 hour range. Several kids from my HS went to my college each year, and it was the “Safety” for my Ivy-bound friends. I did not step foot on the campus until I was a freshman.</p>
<p>Sounds crazy, but it worked. We were not so obsessed with finding the perfect dream school. Just sorted out a few things like large/small, city/country, and whether the school had your prospective major.</p>
<p>None. My dad refused to fill out the FAFSA. My mom (who emigrated in 1959) based her ideas on what colleges were good based on what the families she’d nannied for thought back in the day & she strongly guilted me into not going away.</p>
<p>My mom did ask me if I really wanted to go to one school I was considering. She wanted to make sure I understood how cold it really was there :). They didn’t give me enough money so I didn’t go there.</p>
<p>My mother took me to see her alma mater. She was quite sure I’d be accepted there (and she was probably right), and I was more than willing to go there. My parents also supported my going to visit older friends at their schools, but I don’t remember their much influencing my application list. I applied to three schools, including her alma mater, but withdrew two applications (including that one) when I was accepted EA at my first choice.</p>
<p>They paid for the board exams and whatnot, but everyone in my school took those. There was no repeat testing, either. You got one bite at the PSAT apple (junior fall) and then took SAT in junior spring. Only people who were really disappointed in their scores took it again in the fall of senior year. It was only offered a couple of times a year and it took months to get the scores. Achievement tests were offered only once a year, I think, and people usually took them sophomore spring if they were taking something they were good at (chemistry or biology) and again junior spring to pick up the other two that were needed.</p>
<p>Visiting a zillion colleges and applying to a zillion colleges and taking standardized tests a zillion times was simply not part of the reality of my high school at that time.</p>
<p>My mom drove me to visit schools and that was about it. :)</p>
<p>My big, dumb mistake was that I visited Princeton - which had been my dream school growing up and which I had seen periodically as I had a relative who lived in the area - and then decided that I didn’t want to apply because it was too “out in the sticks.” Gah. What an idiot. I’d have loved it, for sure. My nephew is there and whenever I go out there, I wander around the campus and drool.</p>
<p>My parents were completely uninvolved with my college. They weren’t involved in the decision whether to attend or not, which college to attend, how I’d get there and support myself, or paying for it in any way. I did it all on my own, which was fine with me and worked out okay.</p>
<p>I must be GladGradDad’s lost sibling:)</p>
<p>No one really helped me with the college application/financial aid applications. I was the first in my family to go to college. My parents also didn’t pay for any of my college costs.</p>
<p>Times have changed, and I was happy to be more involved on the college things with our kids.</p>
<p>My mother and father both asked me to apply to one school each, so I did, but other than that my parents have been completely uninvolved in the college selection and application process. My parents have helped me a lot with the financial aid aspect of everything, but I’ve been on my own for scholarships and whatnot!</p>
<p>My parents were quite involved. My dad was a physician, and my mom was a retired teacher, so both were college-educated. We lived in one of the square states, where almost nobody went to college out of state, but the in-state offerings ranged from laughable to “good enough.” </p>
<p>I sought my parents’ opinions about a lot of the college mail I received in high school. I trusted their opinions about which colleges were worth traveling to, and which ones really weren’t. My dad took me to visit some colleges; mostly those visits were tacked onto other road trips. I sought my parents’ feedback on college essays, after my parents had browbeaten me into writing them “this weekend, dammit!”</p>
<p>I know they approved of the list of colleges I applied to. I can’t recall whether I actually wanted them to approve it, or they wanted to be able to sign off on it.</p>
<p>I was about as involved in my daughter’s college search as my parents were in mine.</p>
<p>My parents had spent plentiful time researching and traveling for my older brother’s search, as he was difficult to fit. When I came up, 2 years younger, they were played out. But all were delighted with my brother’s experience-in-progress, so parents flew me out solo to visit him for an overnight and interview. Brother’s contribution was to fix me up on dates to campus events with gay friends, so I’d return home intact. </p>
<p>I prepared an ED application, on typewriter over one weekend; Mom read my personal essay and just nodded, tucked it into the envelope. Dad did all the FAFSA work without complaint. Both drove me downtown at midnight to post the app by snailmail right before deadline.</p>
<p>They also helped by encouraging my big brother to bring college friends home for vacations, so I already had registered how cute they were.</p>
<p>In our house, the passionate discussion that year was about a brilliant black friend of mine whose GC was firmly steering her to the closest HBC teachers college. My friend balked and applied/was accepted to Radcliffe. In our home, hers was a much more interesting story than my own that year - even to me.</p>
<p>My mom didn’t help me at all except for filling out the financial aid forms. I didn’t apply to any school that required an essay. I ended up turning down two full ride scholarships because I was afraid to leave home and did a last minute application to the local college about a mile away from home.</p>
<p>My parents were both college educated, but the extent of their involvement in my college search was to fill out the financial aid form, tell me I had to stay in-state, and encourage me to apply for scholarships. :)</p>
<p>My father signed the paper for my government loan. It was lovely 9% rate at the time. That was it.</p>