Lessons learned: As a parent of a senior

Parents Forum
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<p>I don't think anyone mentioned this, but it's something I wish I had focused on more with one of my kids. Sometimes it's hard enough to get them to focus on college applications, without bringing up tough issues. </p>

<p>For the kids who are picking schools based on a particular major, I'd insist that they know all about that schools' alternative majors and give some thought to a backup plan (or two) if they change their mind. Backup plans can vary. They might include transferring if School #1 only has limited options (in which case it's important to check whether freshman and possibly sophomore classes are general ed credits that will more easily transfer), or switching to another major within the school. Whatever the case may be, the number of kids changing majors is so high and the risk of falling behind is so great, that it's worth spending some time thinking about alternatives. That extra semester or year at college is more than many kids receive in scholarships, after all.</p>

<p>While backup plans are likely to change, it's reasonable to encourage them to at least consider options before choosing a school. It goes without saying that this is also critical for undecideds. This advice is also a special warning for premed and engineering kids. Based on the kids who went to school with my kids and the applicants we met on college visits, I'm guessing that's about 75% of all high school kids (LOL). </p>

<p>Many parents view their smart kids as likely candidates for these professions, until the kids start getting Cs and Bs in microbiology, calculus, organic chem, etc. and find they don't have time or energy for activities that would help them stand out as medical school applicants. Competition is tough, especially when courses are graded on a curve and classmates are smart too. As students go into the upper level classes, the competition gets stiffer as kids who are less-successful in these classes drop out of the curve. </p>

<p>It's worth having a conversation or two about backup plans. Once a kid makes friends at a school or discovers that credits may not transfer, leaving School #1 to pursue an alternative major somewhere else gets harder and harder. It isn't impossible and kids do it all the time, but it isn't ideal either.</p>

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Hear, hear! I didn't discourage geek_son from applying to his dream college, but I'm absolutely guilty of trying to shelter him from disappointment by downplaying the process and emphasizing how tough it is to get into that college. I think that at least for a while, he thought I didn't believe in him -- a much worse blow imho than the possibility of building up the hope and then getting rejected.</p>

<p>As long as the safety net is in place, I say let 'em walk the high wire and cheer 'em on. Then a fall may be disappointing and dramatic, but won't be fatal. :)</p>

<p>Edit: polomom, my bad timing -- I didn't see your post before I hit the Submit button. Best wishes to your son with any appeal, and his ultimate decision.</p>

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<p>^^ Thank you Pickwick and geek_mom for expressing that sentiment. I have often found myself playing the role of "anti-cheerleader" in an effort to protect my D from future disappointment. And it is true, sometimes, too many times, it makes my D wonder whether I don't believe in her. And perhaps that might lead her to stop believing in herself.</p>

<p>I am coming around to thinking that parents should not worry too much about protecting their children from disappointment. I think our only role should be to make sure they have a safety or two that they like, but then let them pursue their dreams.</p>

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<p>PoloMom,
There is no rationale way to explain what happened to your kid. I know it must be 100X more difficult for you to see him hurt like this and not be able take away his pain. All any of us really want is for our kids to just simply be healthy and happy. Rejection is never easy and there is not much a parent can do to ease their pain. Just like the pain of a long time boy or girl friend leaving one for another that is not as smart, handsome/pretty or funny as the one dumped, can't be explained, but feels like the end of the world. College rejections too are just another part of the experience of life. Time will heal his wounds. As for you...go on You Tube and listen to John Denver sing "Perhaps Love"... it may make you feel better.</p>

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<p>Pickwick, geekmom, and vicarious parent, I too have been the anti-cheerleader/voice of doom and the only thing I accomplished with that was to make my kids feel that I didn't think much of them. The more I think about it, the more I realize that there are plenty of opportunities out in the world for disappointment and reality and that parents provide the relatively rarer opportunity for cheerleading, support, gushing... </p>

<p>Polomom, with D1, I was sick over her rejection from her dream school, so much so that I couldn't appreciate the wonderful choices she had. I was focused on the unfairness of the decision and on how much more qualified she was than those who had been admitted. I improved the second time around. D2 was accepted at a number of schools but was wait listed and rejected at a few schools, some of which seemed easily within reach for her. I was puzzled by the decisions but focused hard on the acceptances and told her how proud I was that she'd done so well. She asked me tentatively whether I was disappointed in one particular school and I was able to answer with real sincerity that no, I wasn't and that I was thrilled with her excellent choices. So she's walking around very pleased with herself and feeling like a success. </p>

<p>In your case, the decision was wrong. I understand your reaction as well as your son's, believe me, I've been there. I would definitely appeal the decision; it may well have been a mistake. I would also, however, try my very hardest to look past it. College admissions is not a meritocracy. It makes me a little nuts that we all (me included) want to cling to the notion that it is in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. My understanding is that UCLA is every bit as big a deal as Berkeley these days and it is a very fine school. Understand as well that rejection stings, no matter its source. My kid has likely been rejected from a safety/match school. It doesn't make sense, it doesn't even matter since she's already been accepted to schools higher on her wish list, but yup, it still stings. Give yourself a little time, give your son a little time, focus on the positive, and honestly, you will both feel better. My first D is having the time of her life at her (excellent) chosen college and wouldn't trade it for the dream school.</p>

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<p>Update from Songman- Both of our kids would have been better off if they had taken either a GAP year or a year off after high school and worked. Upon entering college both of our kids lacked: maturity, a sense of reality, resistance to peer pressure. This mindset concluded that their friends and peers must know more than their parents or GC’s, etc. A mindset today that they eschew! Ipso facto I guess! </p>

<p>My DTR now sends me “I love you Dad” texts and while she is not happy with her choice of college, she now runs every major decision past us. It seems her friends are now just as bewildered about life as she is. Funny, in middle school and high school the friends were the wisest people she knew! </p>

<p>My son writes for a newspaper (majored in creative writing) and is working, on his own, pays his own expenses. He still thinks UMASS /Amherst was the best choice for him and does not regret at all that he turned down two private schools with much more prestige. See my new thread today in the UMASS threads… What is prestige in the end? Depends on the situation, I was helped by my prestige alma mater 25 years ago over other job candidates. I am not sure that it helps today? All depends on the student I am sure. </p>

<p>So, now our kids love us and all the rebellion is gone. There is hope for all you parents who have rebellious, know it all kids …Now they are dependent on us more than they were 5 years ago, that dependency is getting more expensive from their parents point of view. We are happy though and have learned much about the college process. Whatever you do my advice is "do not listen to every GC or admission official, just the ones that make sense and avoid doing what every other family or student peers are doing- truly listen to that inner voice when it tells you to do the opposite from the crowds. Opportunities exist for contrarians in the college search game.</p>

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<p>Overall, everything worked out quite nicely for my D who was thrilled with her choices and thrilled to be attending the college that she selected. I’m also very happy with the FA!</p>

<p>But to make it even better, here is what I would have done differently:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Absolutely INSIST that my D work on completing essays over the summer and begin to make headway into completing college applications. The last two weeks of December were incredibly stressful for D as well as for the entire family. Was there a Christmas holiday this year? We totally missed it!</p></li>
<li><p>If applying to a school that has EA, make sure that you apply EA. You are not committed and it can make a difference in showing your interest. Particularly if you are legacy, as D was at one school.</p></li>
<li><p>If you are going to do a test prep class for the SAT, try to do it before senior year when there is no time to do anything!</p></li>
<li><p>Take the subject tests as you finish the classes. Also, don’t assume that getting As in AP level classes from a top ranked college prep school will necessarily put you in the range of 750+. Studying may be required. Allow for this.</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>Lessons learned…</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Apply early. DS1 got things in by the deadlines (some barely so), so we learned with DS2 to be done earlier. Much less stressful, and DS2 had the reassurance of an acceptance to a good, solid, affordable school by the first of December.</p></li>
<li><p>Service Academy & ROTC scholarship applications must be in very early - before the end of junior year. The sooner you get in what you are responsible for submitting after the applications open in May/June the better chance you have of getting an LoA. I just watched not doing so most likely cost a friend’s son a slot at his first choice SA.</p></li>
<li><p>Have a plan B. And C. And D,E,F… You may get in where you least expected to, or be turned down by a school that should be a lock. For ROTC or academy hopefuls, medical issues can shoot down plans when you least expect it.</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>S only applied to schools he would be happy to attend. He had his favorites, but all the schools “fit”. As they say around CC “love thy safety” We deliberately looked for schools that would probably offer him merit. Nothing is certain, but S got good merit from many of the schools he applied to. He also applied to a few reaches we knew he would not get merit, but we were also willing to pay full boat if he got in. He applied EA to all (7 out of 11) schools that offered it. He was accepted to 6 out of 7, deferred at one that he had applied EA. It took so much pressure off the whole process to have some acceptances under his belt before the holidays.
The one thing I wish we had done differently was to push him to study more for the SAT 2’s. Although only one school required them, and he got OK scores on them, I think better scores would have helped with his reach schools. In the end, he decided on the school that gave him the most money. I think the decision was an easy one, because as I said, he only applied to schools he liked in the first place.</p>

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<p>mamom - Are there 7 open EA schools you can apply EA to at once?</p>

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<p>You can apply to all the EA (early action) schools you want at once. You can only apply to one ED (Early Decision) school, and if you get accepted to the ED school you are suppose to withdraw any other applications you have already sent out.</p>

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<p>I am unsure that the changes that I would make would be positive changes. </p>

<p>I would insist on a 4.0 which my child was very capable of making and I would have insisted on a concentrated effort from 9th grade forward to study and make the best possible scores on the ACT and SAT. We probably would have used tutors multiple times and many self study courses. I probably would have introduced my child to many more EC’s and expanded our college search early on. </p>

<p>I am afraid that I would have been introducing unnecessary stress into our family. I may have been excessive. </p>

<p>In the end, my child had the GPA, ACT, EC’s, etc. to apply to a top 50 school at the very last minute and be accepted. However, he did not max out in any of the above categories. After many long conversations with my child over the last 6 months, I feel that my child is ready to find out for himself what he is capable of achieving.</p>

<p>Sooo… sometimes I am glad that I was in the world of “ignorance is bliss”. </p>

<p>CC woke me up only mid way through my child’s senior year. However, that brief amount of time gave us the road map needed to land a fantastic school. Thanks CC.</p>

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<p>I feel that we did everything right. But it is not what people want to hear. I will share thouth, if you care to read. It was not stressful. I have developed list (huge spredsheet, that took over a year without any regard for ranking), that I have shown to my D. She liked it, put all schools in her order or preference and applied. Then she got few interviews, had fun at them. D. got into several programs, all with Merit Scholarships (financial side was part of my research and was showing on my spreadsheet). She did not get into her #1 program, although she was accepted to the college with the largest Merit award. So, it was easy for her to choose her #2, no emotions at this point, everything was decided on spreadsheet before hand. She ended up with full tution Merit scholarship. </p>

<p>OK, 4 years forward, graduated Summa Cum Laude from UG (apparently was perfect place for her with many more opportunities far beyond our expectations). The list of UG worked so nicely that D. has asked me to compile list of Med. Schools based on her criteria, which was much easier to do than list of UG schools. At this point we did not care much about price, since D’s UG was free. D. applied to several Med. Schools, got accepted at 50% on her list, had great choices, had hard time choosing. Guess what, going to Med. School at her #1 college on her original HS list for UG. We hope that it will work out also.
One thing I have never done, I never pushed my D. academically. They tend to resist any direction that you pull them.</p>

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<p>I must say, many of you have very compliant children in which you can “insist” on good grades, studying for the SAT, and doing essays ahead of time. My kids would push back and thus create more stress for something that was already stressful for them. Good thing my kids are grown as obviously I didn’t do a good job.</p>

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<p>Both my kids got into their #1 dream schools, need-blinds meets all FA, so they got great FA. So, all’s well that ends well.</p>

<p>But.</p>

<p>Things could have been very different.</p>

<p>To do it again I would refuse to refinance my house to give my H money to save his business. With the recession it wasn’t worth the money and limited my kids’ choices. They were rejected at schools that were not need-blind. My guess is that they didn’t want to pay for non-ethnic suburban kids down on their luck when there were so many other kids who deserved their money because they had to fight harder from more disadvantaged backgrounds.</p>

<p>I would not allow my kids to turn down applications to reasonable colleges and I would apply to more high matches (or low reaches) since that is where they both attended. For example, S didn’t send in an application to Bowdoin since we had Williams and Amherst and Wesleyan and Vassar. Instead we sent one into Bates. Guess what? Accepted at Williams and Amherst and Wesleyan and Vassar and rejected at Bates. So, after we had two acceptances in place (EA) I would have focussed on only the schools that he really wanted, not more matches/safeties. That would have included Bowdoin and Middlebury, which he refused to apply to for ridiculous reasons he now regrets. It doesn’t matter now, since he would have chosen his Williams acceptance over it, but it was silly and poor strategy then.</p>

<p>I would have insisted D apply to Bryn Mawr and Wellesley along with Smith, Mt. Holyoke and Barnard. She was accepted at Barnard and Mt. Holyoke and wait listed at Smith. (It was a bit strange. I think the woman who interviewed her just did not like her.) She was also wait listed at Sarah Lawrence when the interviewer told her she was a shoo-in and he was the director of admissions. I think she was too expensive. So I should have said she had to apply to the two others as back-ups. Again, not an expensive mistake because Barnard was her number one choice, but we had a lot of agita as the wait list responses were coming in until she got her acceptance. And it could have gone the other way.</p>

<p>I might have made S consider Brown more seriously because it’s not as rigorous a school as Williams in terms of academic policy and Williams has been challenging with his ADD. He’s adored it, but there were glitches. He got a D in the second half of Ancient Greek. At Brown he could have dropped it. At Williams he was forced to keep it even though professors gave him wrong info about it, etc. He wasn’t even allowed to take it again for grade averaging. He’s stuck with the grade.</p>

<p>So I would have made him sit in classes and looked at posted grades, just so he would know what he was getting into.</p>

<p>I was lucky, because that one bad grade was a wake-up call, he went into counseling at school (for a host of reasons, but low self-esteem was one) and has a 4.0 this semester. He grew up a lot, which I guess is the best outcome, but he might have gone the other direction instead. I told him the academics were very rigorous and to consider Bard and Vassar, but I don’t think he knew what that meant after having an almost 4.0 at a very rigorous suburban hs. It just wasn’t the same. And I knew that, but he didn’t.</p>

<p>We had dumb luck because neither kid did overnights, sat in classes or much else but step on campus and read the catalogue (only at my insistence.) They were convinced these were the schools for them, and I guess they were, but such a “psychic” process is not the most secure or mature.</p>

<p>Some things I would do the same is encourage (not force) each kid to have EC’s that were unique to them and to work hard at them. This was not only for college admissions but to become people who self-actualize. Friends thought I was ridiculous to put so much attention there and that it was crass to focus on college admissions like that, but I didn’t see it that way. For me, strongly encouraging S to try to compose music and getting him into a program where he did gave him a form of self-expression few have and that has meant a lot to him. He wouldn’t have done this on his own. I know this helped his admissions results, but it was actually the right thing for him. I did similar things with D.</p>

<p>Another thing I did that was right was not to insist D continue to get A’s in science and math. She hated tutors. I told her she wouldn’t get into Columbia or Brown, her previously first place schools. She said that was okay with her. If it was okay with her, it was okay with me. She got B+'s in her AP math and science classes. And she ended up liking her courses at Barnard more than most she took at Columbia and the school better. I am so glad I didn’t make her miserable by harping on A’s in the subjects that just weren’t her.</p>

<p>GTatum: My kids push back quite a bit, and from what I know of your kids you did an awesome job.</p>

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<p>mamom - what are the schools that have open EA instead of resticted?</p>

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<p>I wouldn’t call my D “very compliant”. I insist on very little with my kids as they are self-driven hard-working kids. However, on the few occasions where I have insisted, they tend to listen to me. Frankly, I’m surprised that people think that insisting on something with one’s child and them doing as insisted means that the child is “very compliant”.</p>

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<p>On tours skip the admin presentation(all the same) and go straight to the tour. Found the culture of the school became clear through the tour.</p>

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<p>I don’t think it’s people, probably just me. I insist on many things, but not optional things such as getting a 4.0, doing college essays early (neither did), and even studying for SATs (both made casual attempts and one managed a 2370 the other a 2100). If I did insist on such things, I honestly don’t think things would have turned out better and may have made things worse and would have created a lot of family stress. </p>

<p>They got a budget as to how much we could pay for college, and they were left to their own devices about where they could get in with enough financial support to make it doable. Of course I assisted in the research process as to viable options. I do think I should have insisted D apply to HYP to compare financial aid awards as we were “lucky” to get good financial aid at one of her choice LACs.</p>

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<p>Only found CC late in my S’s junior year but still helped a lot. Early essays is a given (must be done by end of August). Visit lots of schools junior year (spring break on the road). One thing I would do differently. Convince S to pick a top choice for ED. He couldn’t and I’m pretty sure it cost him a spot when the ED’s from his prep school reached “quota” at a selective school. ED’s are getting more and more popular. Try to pick one if you can.</p>