Is it good idea to attend college fairs at your BS while kid is still a junior? Just curious as no idea how daughter should approach it as she has no idea even which college to target for. I told her no pint to visit. What do other parents think?
The fair is probably targeted toward juniors. She should do whatever is recommended by the college counseling office, in this and most things, and should only veer from their advice with excellent reason. You can learn about colleges and help her learn by going through the Fiske Guide. Get a used one that’s a year or two old if you want to save a few bucks.
Is it right now in the fall? What’s the college fair schedule at the school throughout the year? What does the college counseling office recommend?
Junior year is typically the big focus year. I don’t think she needs to be anywhere near having a well established list yet. If you haven’t already, pick up a Fiske Guide to Colleges and you and she can skim through it and develop a “long list”. Thanksgiving break might be a good time to start a initial, more broad-based look.
haha. cross posted with @twinsmama who shared the same advice. 
No such list exist for my daughter, we have not met so far anyone from college counseling office. I ran a NPC on many colleges, that is all. I thought since we have no list, therefore ask her to avoid colleges as junior till we know where we would be headed.
Yes we have a safety school now in mind though, NY State University where she will apply. I will cost us $20Kwith NPC calculation.
Attend every local college fair you can. Does the school not have a list of participating colleges or you/D not have a list of schools of interest? That is an easy cheap resource and how you start building your list.
We picked up valuable info from the discussion panels at a college fair as well.
Fairs can be perfect for a kid who is at the beginning of the process (i.e., junior). It’s a very low key way to get exposed to lots of schools, chat with reps, pick up materials, etc. without the investment of travel time. I know quite a few kids who stumbled across a more distant school in this setting and ended up with it on the list.
If your daughter doesn’t know if she should go or not and doesn’t know who will be there in terms of colleges, she should be popping over to the college counseling office and asking. Good to get to know them anyway.
Additionally, based on your other posts, your daughter sounds like an excellent student. Don’t forget to look for schools that provide merit aid if cost is a concern.
@infinityprep: We answered these same questions ^^^ for you in the BS Class of 2019 thread in early September. Are you not getting good advice from the CC office? Have you contacted them yet? We recommended you do so in that thread. Do you have an aversion to getting information directly from them? Your daughter’s GC and the school’s CC office should be your first stop for these questions.
Daughter’s only like CS schools, therefore it is confusing to her as well us. Many top CS schools are public OOS that we can not afford financially without merit aid. Merit aid is hard in public universities. Anyways she is going to explore some universities in the college fair. CMU, MIT and Standford are reaches, I have not met with college counselling office so far but have recahed out to them and we will be meeting them sometime this month.
Plenty of schools offer computer science. it’s pretty ubiquitous these days. I know several CS majors at small, liberal arts schools for example who had a great education and who have gone on to successful careers at the same firms as CMU, MIT, and Stanford grads.
Most schools here that have college fairs (especially in January) are aimed at 11th graders.
@infinityprep1234 - you know that MIT and Stanford have no merit money and CMU has very, very little (from what I can tell for kids who are barely above the needs based threshold).
@doschicos we are aware about it and looking for some of those schools
@MA2012 we can afford 13 to 14 k but after that will be a stretch
@doschicos In past few meeting school academic Advisor, not college college counselling office, has hinted a poosibilty of a very top merit scholarship for daughter.
School has nominated one kid each year and placed one student at this university. This includes, tuition, books, room and board and a stipend. Academic advisor told daughter that she needs to maintain same academic rigor, ECs, and achievements to be nominated just like 9th and 10th grade. We are keeping our fingers crossed. Let us see what happens.
Those scholarships, UNC and the like, are great for students who are nominated and subsequently chosen to get them. Great programs. However, you still need to move forward on coming up with a list away from those. If you haven’t already, explore the college portion of CC and ask questions over there.
Have you pinpointed whether you’ll qualify for need based aid vs looking for merit based aid?
By NPC and and based on financial data that we submitted to boarding school, we only have to pay 15 k for ultra selective colleges, rest is need based aid if she get in
@ChoatieMom, I am asking my question separately because there are few dramatic changes in daughter’s life in last few weeks. I can not mention in public forum but let us say someone has become very interested in her summer CS research work and expressed deep interest in meeting her. All this exposures are changing things on many many fronts.
That really has no bearing on the advice you’ll receive regarding attendance at college fairs or developing a working list of colleges. Good for your daughter for her achievements but all students - top of the class and bottom - go through the same process in attending college fairs, working with the college counseling office, and developing a range of reach, match, and safety schools.
The same advice you got on your last post on the subject is still relevant and applicable now.