<p>I just finished a spreadsheet, and then pulled out certain data points and ranked them last night. Concrete numbers helped in a way that my talking couldn't when pointing out COA, acceptance rates, test scores, FTE & rankings etc. Both DD & DH spent some time pouring over those! It's nice to have everything on one page, just to keep things clear and organized.</p>
<p>I bought a couple of books that go have 1 or 2 pages per college. It gave D some ideas that shee might not have looked at. She applied ED1 to Bates and was accepted. She wasn't even aware of Bates prior to looking at the book. Opened several different type of colleges for her.</p>
<p>At the beginning we convinced her to look at colleges of all sizes to understand what she really wanted. Started looking in April of Junior year including going on tours and information sessions.</p>
<p>Get a good start on the applications during the summer between Junior and Senior year. Have teachers review the essays and make suggestions. She didn't always go with the suggestions but the teachers were helpful.</p>
<p>If the school is one that no one has applied to from your high school connect with the GC early in the process so that they can prepare information to educate the college on your HS. We did this and I'm sure that it helped.</p>
<p>If student is interested in participating in sports in college make sure to set up meetings with the coaches when you visit. </p>
<p>This is our 2nd time through and both kids did ED so I don't have much experience with the waiting game.</p>
<p>This was also our second time through the process. Younger son applied ED this year, and got in to his first choice school. Older son didn't do ED, but ended up getting in to his first choice three years ago. It's great advice to start the essays and applications early, but that just isn't practical advice for many kids. Both of mine are huge procrastinators and do everything at the absolute last minute. No amount of nagging/persuasion changes that. We were gearing up for a very spirited last week of December--like the last week of December older son had three years ago--when the ED acceptance came in!</p>
<p>Listen to your S or D. A lot of times as soon as they walk on campus for a visit, they know that this is the one for them....go with your gut feeling. Our S visited his current school, and not long after we arrived, he said that it was the only school he felt right about and only wanted to apply there. It was a big risk applying to only one school, but it worked. He is thrilled there and after almost completing his soph year, I can't imagine him any where's else.</p>
<p>
[quote]
A lot of times as soon as they walk on campus for a visit, they know that this is the one for them....go with your gut feeling.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Sometimes.</p>
<p>A person's gut feelings take them only so far. Sometimes, reasoning should also come into play.</p>
<p>My daughter absolutely loved Columbia when she visited it. But after giving the situation some thought, she realized that she would not be happy at Columbia because of its core curriculum, which featured two of the things she had disliked the most about the International Baccalaureate program she was enrolled in in high school -- too little choice of classes and too much humanities for her taste. In the end, despite her initial reaction to her campus visit, she didn't even apply to Columbia. And I think this was the right decision for her.</p>
<p>Pixelpink... You are very lucky to have escaped that horrible purgatory a second time!!</p>
<p>Over Thanksgiving break he made a running start on things but clearly his heart wasn't in it. GC had suggested we give him a week before starting to really push on the rest of the applications following rejection. The week of Christmas was a lot of writing. The week before the deadline was an organization hell in uploading and making adjustments to good ideas. We still have yet to hear one way or another on any of his schools!</p>
<p>But.. I remembered something... when you go and visit schools some parents walk with their kids, but I always hung back. What I noticed is when S really liked a school, just like in the classroom, he moves to the front. He doesn't ask a lot of questions, but he missed nothing. At other schools, he'd drift to somewhere in the middle and I could see something was missing. I LOVED Brown. Son.. had no stirring whatsoever.</p>
<p>Most of mine have been already mentioned...</p>
<p>1) Actually prepare for those SAT II's, they are a totally different animal from the SAT I, take some timed practice tests</p>
<p>2) You might have had a "you had me at hello" moment stepping on a campus, but reinforce that with an overnight visit if you can</p>
<p>3) Think twice before applying RD to a school that accepts more than half of their class ED, especially if it is super competitive or has a class size of less than 500</p>
<p>4) SAVE a good writing sample or graded paper from junior year - D submitted one for a school's scholarship program and was offered full tuition</p>
<p>5) If you visit a school during the summer, you are visiting a shell, try to visit in the fall if you can</p>
<p>6) Make sure that schools have a comprehensive profile of your HS, especially how GPA's are calculated/weighted, and how many APs you have taken versus how many are offered</p>
<p>7) Visit some schools where you will be guaranteed merit aid due to your test score or GPA, you might just like it enough to apply.</p>
<p>8) I learned that your first choice at the beginning of the process might be different than the first choice at the end</p>
<p>9) DO NOT apply to a safety unless you see yourself being happy and productive there</p>
<p>10) Buying "Colleges That Change Lives" was the best investment we ever made, more than any test preparation or essay writing book. The school where you are destined to me might be that school you had never heard of...</p>
<p>I wanted to add a great piece of advice we received during the first go-round. Remember how stressful this is for the kids, and try not to pressure them too much or talk about it 24/7. Even if you're chomping at the bit with stress, try to be calm. Everyone will want good memories of senior year, not just memories of crazed parents ratcheting up the stress level (our large, very competitive public Md. high school does a great job of creating stress without parental help anyway). And in the end, they'll probably be fine at whatever school they end up attending.</p>
<p>It is great to read all the useful info. I am a new comer and D is only a sophomore. But she has taken 2 APs last year and 3 more this May and SAT II this June. I told her to work hard this summer for SAT for this Oct.</p>
<p>Agree with previous posts - apply as early as possible and ask for teacher recommendations early. We didn't do either and were probably hurt by that.</p>
<p>pixelpink #48: Thank you for passing on that piece of advice. I am going to try and remember that as my D goes through the process next year.</p>
<p>Okay, I'm only a parent of a junior but think I have two advance planning thoughts to add.</p>
<p>1) Go through the transcript NOW and work with the GC NOW to take out any incorrect or unnecessary information. This way, it will be pretty clear when second semester junior grades get added on . This will be the transcript most ED/EA applicants use. </p>
<p>And, as I found out, some competitive summer programs will also want a transcript. So, if I hadn't worked already with the GC, we'd have had a less pristine transcript to submit to UCLA for their summer engineering progra..</p>
<p>2) If your S or D is applying for a summer program that requires a reference letter from a teacher, select carefully. If you can select the teacher who you'll also approach for that college LOR, then the teacher will also have some of their work done now and can just add additional info and personalize it to the college come the fall. Believe me, the teacher will appreciate it.</p>
<p>Bill Cosby once said "we should freeze our kids at 12 and defrost them at 25"...in our case we did most of the things parents should do yet our kids had their own ideas or notions of the college process. Worse yet my D in freshman and sophomore year of HS had her own strategy which was dictated soley by her friends. Heaven forbid her parents know anything and worse yet the CC boards could not be helpful at all from her point of view.....so we hired a college coach who basically conveyed in a professional manner pretty much what we had said for years. The coach was the best decision we made in more ways than I can enumerate. While it was a bit of a financial hardship to hire a coach there is no doubt that if we handled the process on our own anxiety would have ruled the day.</p>
<p>For years I have been envious of the parents who seem to have kids that "get it". Kids that seem to be mature way beyond their years. If you have kids that "get it" be grateful. While both of my kids are very creative: artists,muscians, theater, etc...they have a mind of their own which does not include their parnets opinions or way of life......maybe when I defrost them at 25 they will see that their parents always loved them and were always in their best interest. :)</p>
<p>We found that we could not rely on the GC for any useful information relative to schools outside of the state or really anything a bit unusual. This is a public HS in an OH suburb with 4 GC's for more than 1400 students. I learned with DS (a college senior now) that I would have to run the process since neither the school nor the GC could. So I acted as the guidance counselor for my daughter providing lists of schools she might be interested in (it was up to her to figure out whether she was or not) and we bypassed the GC for recommendations and went to teachers who knew DD well.</p>
<p>We were driving the process with scholarship requests that they had never heard of, use of the common application which they had never done before, and lists of schools that no one at the HS had ever applied to or attended. CC was a great resource because it allowed me to do the job which wasn't being done by anyone else.</p>
<p>So bottom line, figure out what your GC will bring to the table and use them for that. If they can't bring enough, supplement.</p>
<p>Songman -- I loved your post. </p>
<p>My D is just the opposite. Very analytical. There is black and white in her world and no gray but she still doesn't listen to her parents very often. My S was the same but he got over it. This stage does end and S is only 21.</p>
<p>SAT IIs: Try to schedule your SAT II Subject Exams in May when you take your AP exams of the same subject - the material is fresh in your mind</p>
<p>There is a lot of useful advice here that I really second. I will add something that may sound odd, but truely was extremely stressful. I wish I had not discouraged my d from applying to 1 or 2 absolutely silly reach schools, and I wish I had been more encouraging in general. Instead I focused on "reality," although we did include quite a number of schools the GCs assured (and the numbers certainly bore out) were real reaches for her -- but I constantly pointed out to her these were reaches and she probably wouldn't get in "so don't get your heart set." So, instead of being a cheerleader, I was the voice of doom, all because I was so worried she'd have her heart broken. Well I've now seen a lot of broken hearts and I can say they are young and they mend. I should have been more supportive and less afraid for her . And guess what, in the end she defied every scattergram and got in everywhere she applied, except for one weightlist. Frankly, the weightlist, which was at her "reachist" school was a blessing because I was having a total heart attack thinking I sold her way short, and was a dose of needed reality. When my s comes to this process in a few years, I'm going to be the voice of reason again, but I'm not going to be the voice of doom. I'm going to let go, and let him get rejected without fear, so long as there are reasonable schools on the list.</p>
<p>My S is a 4.74, top 4% of his class, 2320 on the SAT, 800/800 on SAT math, and an accomplished athlete (water polo). He's had his sights on UC Berkeley for 3 years and was rejected last week. We are absolutely devestated and in shock. How does this happen and WHO are they admitting if not someone like him??? I can only take him out for yogurt so many times before I feel better about what's happened to him. He's so down and it looks like he's given up on finishing out the year with the amount of effort he's had over the last 3 and a half years. Does anybody know if an appeal/protest ever works in situations like this? We know of other kids who were accepted who are not even in his academic league and it's killing him!!!! I've lost 3 lbs. over the last week, unable to eat when I look at his face. He was accepted to UCLA and UCSD but considers these second-rate schools. Help!</p>
<p>What a shock Water polo mom. But UCLA is NOT a second class school. Also, here is some information that the UCs just posted somewhere (was sent to me) that may be helpful. And yes, it is possible to get in on a appeal (but the odds are long) and I know at least one person who has:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The UC's "comprehensive review" process will always cause some students to wonder, "Why did that student get in and I didn't; my grades and test scores are so much better than his/hers." Since grades and test scores are only a part of the comprehensive review process, and since every UC campuses admits some students across the full range of eligibility, this will always be the case.</p></li>
<li><p>The UC is "very, very, very nervous" about students' enrollment decisions, as it is no longer possible to estimate yield (# of students who accept their offers of admission) as accurately as in the past, and as each campus has been directed not to over-enrollor under-enrollby more than .5-1%. Students who met UC eligibility but were denied at campuses to which they applied will be offered referrals to Merced and Riverside; these offers will be sent starting the last week in March. The newest UC campus, Merced will invite UC applicants who were not admitted to other campuses to consider its gorgeous, state-of-the-art campus.</p></li>
<li><p>Historically, the UC has admitted very few students on appeal, and the same will probably be true this year, unless a specific campus has seriously under-enrolled and needs to fill some spots.... Only UC Irvine currently uses a wait list instead of appeals to fill spaces if under-enrolled. The UC will consider the option of using wait lists in future years, but has some concerns about how it would affect the UC's "closed system"...</p></li>
</ul>
<p>All campuses except UCLA and UCSC have set an April 15 deadline for appeals; UCLA's deadline is April 17 and UC Santa Cruz's deadline is March 31. These are hard and fast deadlines.</p>
<ul>
<li> The UCs do not share information while they make their admission decisions. But this year, for the first time ever, they will share information about appeals. Students may appeal to more than one campus, but they will not be admitted on appeal to more than one campus because of this never-before-used communication. The UC campuses will continue NOT to share information during their regular admission process. The sharing this year is in relation to appeals only.</li>
</ul>
<p>I'm so sorry to hear about your son, polomom. Pickwick's info sounds quite helpful about the appeal process. I really hope everything works out for your son - either through an appeal or at one of the other UCs. </p>
<p>Right now, it's very hard to find the rationality/fairness in some of the admissions decisions (ik, it's times like these that one is supposed to remember that life isn't fair). At my d's rigorous hs, a number of great kids with exceptional stats (and ecs) are also wrestling with stunning disappointment. </p>
<p>Going back to the title of this thread - one lesson we have learned is that it may help (at least slightly) to apply ED if one is ready to do so by November. Since an ED application may not pan out, however, it's best if the student can still try to keep an open mind (about possible RD options) and avoid totally falling in love with the ED school (probably easier said than done). For many students, the potential benefits of waiting and applying RD in order to maximize choice may be outweighed by the advantages of ED.</p>