<p>SBmom-
You forgot to add "... and take care of me now that you are gainfully employed (turnabout is fair play), and help with the rent, food and the utilities with your earnings". That ought to get her running :)</p>
<p>Yeah, lay it on nice & thick!</p>
<p>This is the list from a couple of weeks ago.</p>
<p>Union College
Bard College
Penn State
Cornell CALS
SUNy Stony Brook, Albany, Binghampton
CUNY Hunter College
CUNY Brooklyn College
Wesleyan reach
Williams reach
University of rochester
U Penn ( attending diversity weekend) reach</p>
<p>paulchem, I believe the recent suggestions were not in terms of changing your target schools but just in terms of easy visits to get a feel for TYPES of schools, to get her more focused on the process.</p>
<p>Yes, getting her to see virtually any college will help her truly visualize herself on a campus and this will get her more involved in the process. Seeing any college will give her a better idea of her likes and dislikes. Been there with my S, who was not eager to go visit colleges, but once there, really got into it. :)</p>
<p>Ditto to NSM's experience - my S was not eager to visit colleges, but really formed a definite view of where he wanted to go, once we were actually visiting. And, altho, visiting when school is in session might be better, logistically it might be more difficult. We did several of our visits in mid-June, of necessity, and found few of them "dead" (although we did not sit in on classes at that time).</p>
<p>sbmom, nsmom and jmmom are all correct. These school suggestions were just to experience a college visit. It really is a very helpful endeavor, as those above me have mentioned. Our HS college counselor strongly recommends this. Visit a large U., small LAC, tech school, traditionally minority school and a commuter school. All would not be necessary unless your child had absolutely no idea what they did/didn't want in a school.</p>
<p>All of you are a whole lot nicer than I am. Democracy does not rule in our house.</p>
<p>D was advised that (since we live at the southern end of the earth) we WOULD be visiting colleges in June and she WAS expected to prepare a list of 8-10 schools. She was given a deadline with the understanding that if she failed to provide a reasonably researched list, she would forfeit the opportunity to visit schools and her college applications would be limited to our wonderful state schools.</p>
<p>We had a workable list in less than 2 days.</p>
<p>way to go w&h</p>
<p>The MOST valuable lesson that my DD learned this week (8 colleges in 8 days) is that there are MANY colleges she would be perfectly happy to attend. She has one favorite dream school, but, and I quote, said "I'm not going to be crushed if I don't get in there because I know I'd also fit in at" and named 3 other schools. Hooray!</p>
<p>quiltguru, This is how my son feels too. He knows that there are quite a few schools that would be a good fit. He does have a couple that he prefers, but could be happy at the others. There were only 2 schools that we saw that we absolutely did not like (son and his parents), and there was one that we liked, but we knew would not be a good fit.</p>
<p>Paulchem,</p>
<p>Are your daughter's friends starting to think about college? Visiting colleges? Is the school she attends focused on college-prep activities? Sometimes kids get more motivated when their peer group starts getting excited about the process. I worry about too much parental pressure backfiring, so we used the light touch with S2, letting him have time to hear what friends were doing, offering trips but not insisting, and he eventually came around to thinking about schools. Not very many schools, I have to admit, but probably the ones that will suit him.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The MOST valuable lesson that my DD learned this week (8 colleges in 8 days) is that there are MANY colleges she would be perfectly happy to attend.
[/quote]
quiltguru - Excellent point! My S also felt that there were several schools he would be quite, quite happy to attend, from safety to reach. This was so valuable. I cringe when I see kids on this forum (luckily I've never known one in real life) who feel life will end if they don't get into The One Dream School. I really believe they talk themselves into this very destructive belief or, in some especially sad cases, are directed into this belief by their prestige-mad parents.</p>
<p>My D's friends are not looking into colleges. They are all hanging out, watching t.v., or working. They are waiting until September until their guidance counselor tells them what school to go to.</p>
<p>My D felt the same way about having several schools that really appealed to her. She identified 3 reach, 5 match & 3 safeties she'd truly enjoy. It was special getting into a reach, but it would have been fine no matter what.</p>
<p>quiltguru, your most important job now is finding another 4 schools that mimic what she likes about these four at somewhat easier admission odds. If one can be an EA safety you D likes, life will be MUCH easier in the fall.</p>
<p>Is ED a possibility for your D?</p>
<p>Yes, SBMom, she's able to apply EA/ED and plans to do so. She actually has developed a pretty good list now: 3 reaches, 3 matches, and 2 safeties. I don't think she'll apply to all of them...it depends on how the EA/ED goes of course. I'm very proud of her...2 months ago she didn't want to hear about colleges, read anything about them, talk about them or anything else. She's come a long way and the college visit trip really made the difference. Don't give up, paulchem, the light goes on for every kid at some point.</p>
<p>Paulchem,</p>
<p>I guess the question now becomes, how good is the guidance counselor? (I sorta dread asking that one since I am a school counselor and there are so many negative experiences among CCers with their counselors, but it is an important question.) Can you trust him/her to have any info beyond the most banal? </p>
<p>I do suspect that if all of your daughters peers are putting the thing off, it will be harder, but not impossible, to get her going. Anyway, September is not too far away! Where is the time going??</p>
<p>momofthree,</p>
<p>I pity the GCs. How can a GC accurately reflect the wishes of every child and parent? The CC parents may be miffed when their kids' GCs don't urge enough kids towards higher tier schools, yet I can imagine parents who'd be very annoyed with GC directing their child out of state, etc...</p>
<p>The GC cannot be expected to be all things to all people and to correctly guess the parent's ambition level for the child. </p>
<p>PaulChem, You know it's time to fish or cut bait.</p>
<p>Plan a weekend family trip to somewhere reasonably fun (like the beach?), bring your D's most enthusiastc, motivated, smartest friend along, and hit a few campuses as you go. It'll get the ball rolling and get the conversation started.</p>
<p>
[quote]
My daughter finished school last week. She has juist been watching television hanging around the house. She starts with chemistry research job at NYU next week. How can I make her start looking into colleges?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't think you can make anyone do much of anything. Maybe she doesn't care, isn't interested, etc.</p>
<p>
[quote]
My D's friends are not looking into colleges. They are all hanging out, watching t.v., or working. They are waiting until September until their guidance counselor tells them what school to go to.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You also know that your daughter's high school sends a large number
of their students locally to the CUNY schools. So her sitting back waiting on her friends is not going to help her cause because in the end those same friends are going to pay their on the CUNY app, select 6 schools and let the chips fall where they may. If that is what she wants to do then have at it.</p>
<p>Otherwise, your daughter has to make up her mind as far as she wants to do or live with the consequences. She should be visiting scheduling interviews (if necessary ) and doing other things to demonstrate interest which is a big factor especially with the smaller schools Union, Wesleyan, Williams as it it one thing to have a concept of a school in your head or want to attend because it is a "good" school beut it is a whole other thing to visit, spend the night and sit in on a class.</p>
<p>I know that you are a little concerned but at the end of the day you can't want more for her than she wants for herself and she is ultimately the one that is going to have to attend the school. If she does not want to be an active participant in the process, then maybe she should be planning a gap year.</p>