<p>wish we had known sooner about the expectation that top students apply to 8 to 10 schools or more and that the list should contain safeties, reaches, and matches. we had no idea about that aspect. d did manage to apply to around 15 schools as it turned out but it would have been helpful to have known sooner. </p>
<p>we also would have started the whole visiting process sooner had we known that some schools expect the student to visit.</p>
<p>Would have had S visit a few schools before sophmore year so he would have been more academically motivated for the As. Once he visited colleges the summer going into jr. year and he heard in the Info Sessions that they want A’s he then turned it on. Sophomore yr grades knocked him out of top tier schools & merit money.</p>
<p>Best advice I was told by a flustered senior mother, “Get all your college research & essays done with before Senior Year starts”. We attempted this & were very pro-active in all research & getting recommendations, etc, Yet we were still visiting & re-visiting colleges in Nov, & Jan & Feb. Consequently, we had good results ( 2 rejections, 5 acceptances, 3 waitlists)</p>
<p>From Dad II’s post:</p>
<h1>4, the shock of my life - it is actually those “small” or “unimportant” things that your child does in every day that get your kid into the most selective colleges.</h1>
<p>I somewhat agree with this statement. Oftentimes, the student doesn’t even realize how impressive the “everyday stuff” can be in college admissions if presented right.</p>
<h1>5 - What they say in public is very PC, but often there is another truth.</h1>
<p>At our D2’s recent 9th grade college night, someone asked about hooks - what are considered to be good hooks? In front of those parents, the GC didn’t talk about athletes, URM, first generation, national awards, girls applying engineering…But if I got them in private, they would be a lot more open with me.</p>
<p>My sister asked at a general info session of her alma mater about legacy admit, whether it helped to apply ED. The answer was, “No, applicant should apply ED only if it’s his first choice.” Most people know at that school it is “use it or lose it” when it comes to legacy. They also do not talk about FA for ED. </p>
<p>A student from our HS asked another ivy rep, “I have a few Bs and a C, what’s my of getting into ___.” The rep said, “Oh, it shouldn’t stop you from applying, we do not just look at grades.” Our school record shows no one with a few Bs and Cs has ever gotten into that school.</p>
<p>I wish I would have had my S take the SAT again, or take the ACT.</p>
<p>I wish I would have come to these boards BEFORE we started applying, instead of after~</p>
<p>wish i had known that my suspicions were in fact truth - my daughter would have no idea what to do with herself after graduating with an expensive (great school!) and ultimately unmarketable degree in english. now wants to go to circus school.</p>
<p>This is from a related thread on the cafe, but it is worth looking at
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/679065-cc-chestnuts.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/679065-cc-chestnuts.html</a></p>
<p>I wish I would have known that it is very common for kids to have a difficult time the first semester. When son was so unhappy everyone I talked to said, “yes I remember when _____ first went away.” Hello? why didn’t anyone prepare us? He’s happy now but come on. That was brutal.</p>
<p>I wish we had considered tuition increases over the 4 years when deciding between a fixed four year merit scholarship (provided grades remained high enough) or a grant renegotiated each year. At the time, the sure thing seemed a safer way to go, but it doesn’t change while tuition costs continue to climb yearly.</p>
<p>Something several families suffered were acute tuition increases at schools that were true bargains at the time their child first enrolled. Some of them were OOS publics, but I think URichmond, Rhodes, Wake Forest, and some catholic schools also are on that list. If a college attracts you because it is substantially lower than peer schools, do ask what can be done to keep the costs within range during the time your student is there. Tuition nearly always goes up, but I am talking about some big hikes here that are out of ordinary.</p>
<p>Wish I had known that so many of the top kids have the same ec’s, ie, class officer, NHS, band (first chair, all-county, all-state, etc). drama, newspaper editor. </p>
<p>When your own kids were doing it , it sounded impressive. When you realized that a majority of kids applying to your kids college choices were also “so involved”, not so much.</p>
<p>We would have
– applied to a few more “second tier” schools where D’s stats were in the top 25% (as per CC advice)
– not expected merit or financial aid from top schools (even though her stats were STILL in the top 25%)
– not believed the admissions officers/presentations who urged us to apply because they would make it possible for our child to attend with financial help. They didn’t.
– looked harder for a few schools closer to home (she changed her mind)
– visited earlier</p>
<p>I wish my D had applied to more top 50 and fewer top 20 schools.</p>
<p>The stock market crash has radically changed college admissions, whether the various institutions admit it or not.</p>
<p>Big G: exactly.</p>
<p>Je<em>ne</em>sais_quoi ~ My first one was like your daughter: perfect grades, missed only one question on the SAT (managed that feat twice, in fact), perfect SAT IIs, 14 APs (and National AP Scholar in 11th grade so we used it in his apps), awards, a patent, and partridge in a pear tree. And he was still rejected at 6 out 12 schools.</p>
<p>My comment was not intended to convey that perfect grades (and other items) would be sufficient to carry a kid to a top college, but rather that less than perfect grades are going to generally be insufficient, unless something truly amazing comes with the package.</p>
<p>So, in my view, perfect or near-perfect grades are the necessary but not sufficient starting step for admission to a top college. With those, you might make it, but without those, it is time to move down a step in your expectations. Which might not be a bad thing, IMHO. Our focus on CC on the top 20 or so colleges is odd, to say the least.</p>
<p>For the majority of kids, who are hard put to brilliantly distinguish themselves from their national peers, the best return on investment has to be in the core business of high school: getting good grades from tough classes.</p>
<p>reasonabledad-
To further confound things, and just to add another data point, our son did not have perfect grades or perfect scores, and he was accepted to a couple “top 10” schools.</p>
<p>OVERALL RANKINGS ARE NOT WHAT IS IMPORTANT FOR YOUR SPECIFIC CASE</p>
<p>Instead of “wish I would have known”, here is a “wish others would know”</p>
<ul>
<li>that in some specific interest, all rumors and statistics can be off </li>
</ul>
<p>D1 applied and got into UMich early - had no other school interest - I felt she would cheat herself out of the lower ivies in which she had a decent chance, but she insisted
<p>But here is what we didn’t know and we were just lucky to get:</p>
<ul>
<li>got small departmental scholarship, so with instate tuition is a true bargain</li>
<li>she is in a program (pure honors math) with < 15 peers graduating each year</li>
<li>knows all professors in that program personally - not just by name</li>
<li>got easily into summer research program early on</li>
<li>got paid for trips to women in math conference and international math competitions</li>
<li>program is considered among top 5 (see Brown vs. UMICH pure math thread elsewhere)</li>
</ul>
<p>All of these are things I had expected from smaller schools but not a huge state school.</p>
<p>I wish I’d known that it would all work out. That my children would have a good time at college, graduate with pretty good GPA’s, get good jobs in a tough environment and basically view the whole process as a positive experience.</p>
<p>And yes I fully appreciate that I’m truly blessed, but most of what I worried about never happened.</p>
<p>singers: That is the wisest post in this thread. We also are blessed. After all the work and stress and tears and gray hairs (mine, not D’s), she is going to her dream school. I’m still pinching myself.</p>