<p>to narrow down the BIG list of colleges to a manageable list? My son is a rising junior. He is a B student and I don't expect much of a change there. Even if he gets straight A's from now on, he will be a B+ student :) He has taken the SAT already and got VERY average scores, mid to high 500s across the board. I'll allow the possibility for a miracle there, but am aiming for above 600 on each section when he restests in the spring. He's interested in creative writing and film so the college search is focusing on those areas. I have a big list of colleges that are possible. I'm finding that going through all the data...scores, financial aid, grad rates, retention rates, class size, etc... is a lot of work. Then when I start going through course listings to see what kinds of classes the school offers and how deeply into his interests he'd be able to study - well you get the picture.
But once you know what level of shools to focus on, how long did it take to come up with a reasonable and realistic list? If the goal is to have the majority of applications done by Dec 1st of senior year, what is a realistic timeline that won't leave me or him (mainly me)feeling stressed out during junior year?
Thanks a bunch.</p>
<p>First question: what can you afford to pay?</p>
<p>Second question: what kind of school is your son interested in?</p>
<p>With your son’s stats, your state’s flagship is most likely out. So are the top liberal arts colleges and the major research universities.</p>
<p>So it probably will come down to a choice between good-not-great liberal arts colleges and non-flagship schools in your state (here in the Midwest, “directional” schools like Northwest Missouri or Northern Illinois; in Pennsylvania, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock, etc.).</p>
<p>If money is tight, the non-flagship state schools are probably your main target. I’d look at your state’s options for those that offer the programs your S is interested in.</p>
<p>If money is less of an issue, then you might also want to look at liberal arts colleges. That’s more of a job, because there are so man of them (dozens, perhaps hundreds that would love to have a student with your son’s stats).</p>
<p>If your son is like many students across the country, his plate will be full junior year. If he starts getting stressed, one way you can help is by listening to him and helping him prioritize his workload. You can be the calming force (yes, I hear the hahahahahaha in the background). </p>
<p>He’s still growing and will be up through senior year and beyond. That means, amongst other things, he may change his mind more than once. I like that one, and then the next week, no, I don’t like that one. He may make last minute discoveries. Be prepared to go with the flow. It will take however long it takes. Hopefully it will not take until 11:59 pm and rely on the system not going down. I imagine that’s happens more frequently than we’d like to know.</p>
<p>We came up with a long list junior year, as grades, test scores, awards (a lot of awards are given junior/senior year), ECs(leadership role), start to come in, we continued to refine the list. We went from 20+ to top 5, and 1 ED. We were able to finalize the list by having D2 finish with all her testing and college visits by end of Junior year. </p>
<p>D2 is done with her first draft of common application, first week of Aug she will start working on her essays for her ED/EA schools. Her senior fall semester, she won´t be taking tests or travel, so all she will working on will be her RD essays.</p>
<p>With D1, she only worked on her ED application, when she was deferred she had to write 20+ essays for 10+ RD schools over the winter holiday, and that was stress.</p>
<p>The easiest way to narrow the list is to find reasons to cross things off - even if they seem somewhat arbitrary. For my younger son the rules were:</p>
<ol>
<li>No rural schools, prefer suburban or urban in a residential area</li>
<li>Must have a well defined campus or central quad area</li>
<li>Must be bigger than my high school</li>
<li>I’d rather not have to get on a plane. If I must short direct flights have to be available.</li>
</ol>
<p>Also when he got into a reach early he looked again at his list and crossed out every school he knew he wouldn’t choose over that school.</p>
<p>On the plus side we looked at schools that were strong in the major he was seriously considering. (International Relations).</p>
<p>given your criteria and his stats, assuming his interests remain the same, narrow it down to plan visits to one large (urban or not), one medium and one small LAC to see where his “fit” is…</p>
<p>then the narrowing will get easier…especially with his interests…</p>
<p>Here is how we are attacking it…we also have a rising junior S…</p>
<p>1) calculate your EFC.
2) if you can’t meet your EFC with ‘cash’, are you willing to take out loans?
3) note that most schools do not meet need. You may find a great fit that costs $40000 per year with an EFC of $20000. In a perfect world, you would get $20000 in grants from the school and you would be responsible for the rest. Probably won’t happen.
4) I’ve used this data to establish our financial baseline…the amount we are capable of paying despite what our EFC says. Our baseline is substantially less than our EFC.</p>
<p>Once you have this financial baseline, you can start identifying schools that fit your academic profile taking into account the finances.</p>
<p>ree: have you been eavesdropping in my house 
? I had a very similar chat with my D last night. After we both did the initial school research her list is at 36; we’ll have “real” test scores in October, but right now everything on the list looks like it could be in play, at least as much as those schools are for everyone. We have things like average high and low January temps on there (but she’s not ready to cut schools for that yet.) </p>
<p>I know junior year is going to be full, so I asked her to start looking at the online tours & the department websites for the schools, along with guidebooks and college p r owler. She asked me “how many should I cut?” and I told her I didn’t think there was a hard number yet, but that she should probably be down to about 20 by January and then 10-15 by next May.</p>
<p>S didn’t even make a list until the summer before SR year. It had a lot of reaches and a few matches. He got in to most of the matches and one of the reaches. Fortunately, he had a safety he was pretty content to attend and that we could afford, which is key–LOVE THY FINANCIAL & ACADEMIC SAFETY.</p>
<p>It’s good to build the college list from the bottom up, keeping in mind finances that will need to be in place for the entire time your child will be attending school. SO SAD to see kids who have to transfer/leave because debt is getting too high or graduate with crushing debt.</p>
<p>Take a 2-3 day road trip this fall or next spring to a cluster of schools (4-5) that offer diversity of size, urban v rural, private v public to get your son thinking about what he wants in a school. Since you’re in PA, some of the logical trips are DC/MD/VA or Philly/DL/So NJ or NY State. After he comes away with some basic ideas of what he wants, use the collegeboard screening tool to come up with names and dive deeper into those. He should also see what his GC might recommend, as a B+ average at a school might be viewed more favorably by AdComs that know the school well.</p>
<p>PS - realize that the schools your son loves early in Jr year may not even appear on the radar screen the fall of Sr year.</p>
<p>OP-
You might want to read this thread <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/767486-where-did-your-3-3-3-6-gpa-child-get-9.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/767486-where-did-your-3-3-3-6-gpa-child-get-9.html</a> It has a ton of good info</p>
<p>Also, the annual US News and World Report college ranking magazine- was in bookstores in past years- was a good comprehensive list of all colleges in the US. Knowing about schools in your region and various categories and rankings helps organize things. They also have had several good articles about how to search. Definitely check out the public U’s/colleges in your state as well.</p>
<p>Wow. I’m a lazy parent. We parents didn’t get involved at all other than to set some basic parameters for both boys:</p>
<ol>
<li> They HAD to apply to at least one instate public.</li>
<li> They had to do their applications as early as was humanly possible. One started working on his essays the summer before senior year, one started in September.</li>
<li> They had to let us look over the applications before they hit the “submit” button. We checked only for major problems, and edited for spelling, grammar and punctuation only.</li>
<li> They had to hit the “submit” button at least several days before the apps were “due”, in case of major computer failure, etc.</li>
<li> We also had some serious talk about college costs and “value”, etc., and had them try to visualize life at a school far, far, away vs. pretty close to home in terms of how often they’d be able to come home, etc.</li>
</ol>
<p>How early did they start? The oldest visited a couple of colleges during spring of his junior year, a couple during the summer, and a couple during the fall of his senior year. He narrowed down his own list to 7 schools, but in the end only applied to 5, all of which were schools he would have been pretty happy to attend, and all of which accepted him.</p>
<p>Son #2 did a spring break tour of 4 schools his junior year, and visited another couple early in the fall of his senior year. His list was huge. We told him he had to cut it to 10, he ended up applying to 11. He did his own cutting. He was rejected by 3 of the usual suspects 
waitlisted by 1, and accepted by 7, all of which he would have been thrilled to attend.</p>
<p>Both boys did a lot of talking to friends, teachers, and us about colleges while they were working on “the list”, and once the SAT results came in during the winter of their junior year they spent a lot of time on the college board site. They did a pretty good job of figuring it out on their own. </p>
<p>(I did help more in the app process in terms of helping them keep track of what was due when, but not in terms of actually DOING the applications.)</p>
<p>reeinaz</p>
<p>My niece narrowed her list mid-way through junior year based upon major and proximity to home (had to be in driving distance). For your son, I’d suggest less focus on the course offerings for creative writing and more on the profs. May want to Google the profs, read some of the profs writing and get an idea of styles. </p>
<p>There are plenty of PA LACs that would offer merit to a solid B student. </p>
<p>At my kids’ school, the juniors seem to focus and narrow down starting spring break.</p>
<p>Sophomore year we talked mainly about the big/small, urban/rural took a day trip to see UofM (huge sprawly bus to class) and a small private. Ceased talking about college until mid-year junior year. Each kid had/has one college away from the state that they really like. We went and visited those junior year. Finalized the list and finished the visits before senior fall. The kids’ high school required/requires that all apps be completed before end of October, if that isn’t possible then they want a list of what is submitted, what is left to submit and what the deadlines for the college are on any apps not submitted. So not a whole lot for me to monitor.</p>
<p>Lots of colleges admit B students. The common data set is your friend. That will show you what the GPAs and standardized tests scores were for the previous year’s freshman. The two issues that could potentially narrow your list significantly is if you need merit money to afford the college and if your student is adamant bout the film component. If he can give that up you will have far more possibilities. If you are staying regional your high school GC will have a pretty good idea of where he might be admitted. Once you leave the region all bets are off with GCs…</p>
<p>We used a lot of the school breaks to visit schools junior year, as it is best to go while kids are on campus if you can. Winter and Thanksgiving break are not good (no kids), so we used long weekends and spring break. We did a few visits in the summer, but by fall of senior year, D1 knew where she was going to apply, and could focus on the applications and a few extra scholarship applications. Many of her friends were scrambling to make visits, take subject tests, etc. in fall of her senior year. D2 is on track for the same.</p>
<p>If you haven’t done it yet, I suggest making a spreadsheet to compare the colleges you are considering.</p>
<p>He’s just so not picky. I feel like he would do best at a smaller LAC or a university that has residential colleges. He isn’t adamant about film which actually makes it harder when it comes to the list because I could at least rule out schools that didn’t have a film concentration. But his goal is to be a screenwriter so I think he should at least take a few film classes. He’s expressed a preference for a defined campus and no preference for geography. The ruralness of Kenyon didn’t bother him in the least although he was only there 2 weeks. He prefers cold to heat and snow to rain. But he has said over and over that any of his preferences take a back seat to the availability of a creative writing (fiction) program.</p>
<p>Financially, we are very much in the need based FA category. I have already looked at Penn State-Erie and Kutztown as his safeties and am ok with those options. And alternatively, he can attend one of the surrounding county community colleges and then transfer although I’d much rather he stay put for 4 years. But merit for a B student would be great as long as it can be stacked with any need based aid. We will have the post 9/11 GI Bill available to him but that seems to add another variable that may just be better off considering later on down the line. In state publics will be paid for. OOS publics and all privates are capped at $17500/year in tuition benefits. There’s also a separate housing allowance and some schools even have a matching program. I have no idea how these monies will be treated as far as reducing need. Will it be treated like an outside scholarship and simply reduce the aid he is given? If so, I’d rather save it for grad school. He has up until age 26 to use it.</p>
<p>I like the idea of Googling the professors. Unfortunately, my son is more interested in genre fiction (horror and fantasy) and I keep telling him that most schools don’t really support that. They emphasize literary fiction. That’s one of the reasons that I look at the classes, since some schools do have courses that cover those types of stories/writings. But knowing the specialty of the faculty is a good idea. So far, I’ve just paid atention to whether the program and faculty seemed to emphasize poetry vs fiction.</p>
<p>And yes, I do need to get a spreadsheet started to keep things straight. My notebook is getting confusing. I keep adding colleges that I already looked at only to realize why they were not on the current list. So I guess I need to keep track of all the schools just so I don’t keep repeating work.</p>
<p>Ree: If you haven’t started the spreadsheet yet, I’d suggest using Google Docs. That way you can share it with your son, you can both edit it and you can access it remotely. That way you’re all on the same page. No emailing files to one another.</p>