<p>One thing that I found with my D (and yes, D's are probably different than S's on this!) was that too many sources of information were overwhelming to her. I found that asking her to take a couple of hours to look at Fiske (which we found to be readable and pretty well-rounded) with a pack of post-its to flag some colleges that appealed to her was a good starting point. Asking her "generically" whether she wanted big vs. small, etc. rural vs. urban, etc. wasn't too productive, I don't think she really knew (and she ended up applying to a variety of school types, and could have happily gone to quite varied schools, I think). If your kid has any idea about general area of major (eg, stronger in math/science vs. english/social sciences vs. foreign languages vs. music, etc.), Fiske has some info on strength of majors that was useful to my daughter. She did have a geographic preference for the northern half of the US. So she just flagged everything that sounded good, and then we went through her choices together and compared their admission criteria to her test scores, our cost criteria (toss out GW!), etc., which helped narrow the list down. And out of this review she made some comments on potential areas of study, so I went to CC and looked for threads that might give us a few more schools on the list that were strong in those areas. I did tell her I thought a list of 15 schools was reasonable to start with, with some reach, match, and "likely" schools on it. Then we used CC, College ******* (wow, they *ed that out..., p-r-o-w-l-e-r), and visits to narrow the list down to what she applied to. Apps come on you very quickly fall of senior year, and being ready to apply then can get you some early acceptances (and relief from the pressure!).</p>
<p>You know...many students apply to colleges far away and don't visit until they are accepted. This may be the OP's son's style. If it were me, I would let him HAVE more ownership of his college search. I'm sure there are many instate universities close to home with later deadlines...just in case he misses the ones "back east". If it were me...I'd take him to a large school, a small school, an urban school and a more suburban/rural school. Then he'll have some notion of the type of school. Let him choose.</p>
<p>If you honestly feel that, due to your nature, you've done too much, then why not say so?</p>
<p>e.g.</p>
<p>
[quote]
DS, you know how I am. Sometimes I get carried away and do more than I should. I think I may have done that in my college research. I'm sorry to have gone so far. Now, though, you do at least have the fruits of my efforts. Let's discuss a time frame for getting all of your thoughts into the process, so we can decide where to visit this summer."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I did way more than I should have in terms of college research and supplying of motivation. I feel that it had a very detrimental effect on my daughter's experience of the college application process. In hindsight it was my control and fear. Like your son, she is a procrastinator. What I see now is that I needed to have a good long talk with her during the spring of her junior year about her future and her ownership of her future, what steps she wanted to take towards that goal, etc. I still would have had to supply some nagging, but she would have had to own the process, whatever the outcome. One of the worst parenting mistakes I've made, frankly.</p>
<p>OP - i'm just a couple of months ahead of you with a somewhat reluctant rising senior D. i too was caught between "let her do this at her pace" and the knowledge that the whole college search/application thing is on a fixed timetable, like it or not. we abided by the "Sunday-only" rule for the last few months - talked about colleges only on Sunday. from those conversations I was able to glean enough about her initial preferences to generate a "starter" list of about 20 schools. i handed her the list and a copy of the Fiske guide one Sunday and asked her check them out. once she'd worked the list a little on her own, we did a couple of visits. that seemed to get her more enthused about owning the process.</p>
<p>i also noticed that as senior friends started to talk about the schools they will be attending next year, she became more engaged (to the point of putting one of "my" schools that she had summarily rejected as "being in the middle of nowhere" back on her list, because someone she admires is going there next year:))</p>
<p>You are right to be concerned about him getting a list together by early fall; some acceptances are much more likely with an early app. Fortunately, my daughter's GC has told all the juniors to get their list down to about ten by September. That was much more effective than me saying the same thing.</p>
<p>If you're short on time but want him to see some schools in the east maybe just schedule a visit to Boston? He sounds in range for BU, BC, Northeastern, Clark, Holy Cross...you could see all of those in a few days and then maybe if he likes one of those he can apply to others similar. I think when West Coast kids want to go East they mean Boston?</p>
<p>Whenever my daughter actually goes and researches a school and comes up with real reasons why she wants to go there I get excited because she's done the work on her own and tell her to schedule a visit....then she gets suspicious that I seem to approve. Have to be very careful!</p>
<p>If he was mine- Id tell him that he doesn't seem invested in the process and I am going to back off and while I will require that he apply to at least two colleges fall of senior year & suggest schools with rolling admissions, I don't care which ones and that I will expect him to have a plan in place for after high school graduation, perhaps taking a planned year off before further decisions.
( both my kids took a year off)</p>
<p>If at all possible, try to visit when the schools are in session, students are on campus, and your son can sit on some classes.</p>
<p>We found the Princeton Review website to be very helpful. As a junior, son was not the least bit interested in my list or in a discussion, but he was willing to fill out the Counselor-O-Matic survey on Princeton Review. Once he saw that their recommendations matched up with some of mine, he got more interested in learning about the individual schools. Looking up them up on Princeton Review he enjoyed reading what "Students say" about the student body, campus life, and academics. He eliminated quite a few schools that way, and his responses served as a good springboard for discussion. One other thing: everything got easier after we visited a few schools. Good luck!</p>
<p>cpeltz, if he says he wants to go to school in the East, that is a hypothesis I would definitely check out as soon as you can.</p>
<p>My daughter and I visited Florida over spring break because she said she wanted to go to school some place warm. She also said she wanted a bigger school. We visited a nice LAC in Florida that I liked for its academics, as well as a mega university that has a special program of interest to her.</p>
<p>Just as she said, she preferred the mega campus to the small LAC... so I learned she wasn't just talking through her hat.</p>
<p>Re Heron's advice:</p>
<p>
[quote]
What I see now is that I needed to have a good long talk with her during the spring of her junior year about her future and her ownership of her future, what steps she wanted to take towards that goal, etc.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>If you actually have a child who is willing to participate in such a conversation, great. I do not have such a child, so I have to read between the lines and use nonverbal cues.</p>
<p>I should also add that my daughter claims to be "way ahead of all her friends" with her college search process. Maybe she has absorbed more of my list and criteria than she is saying.</p>
<p>I agree with fendrock about the East. You will imo instantly gain credibility if you take his ideas, however inchoate they may be, seriously and help him follow up. On the other hand, if you reject those ideas out of hand, imo he'll tend to revert back to "whatever".</p>
<p>It wouldn't mean that he's committed to go to the East, or that you're committed to allowing him to go to the East. It just would mean that you intend to take his thoughts seriously--and also thereby mean that he has both the opportunity and the responsibility to follow up.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>Counselor-O-Matic survey on Princeton Review.>></p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>My son completed this and it "narrowed" his college search to about 300 schools. To be honest, it wasn't helpful at all. So...he went back in and changed one criteria (added that he wanted school internet access from anywhere), and that narrowed his list to ZERO. It's a database. I'm sure it works for some, but don't count on it working for everyone.</p>
<p>cpelz - It's hard for us researcher/planner types to deal with a kid who would prefer not to think about college in concrete terms. It's great that you realize you need to back off a little to allow him to feel it really is his choice. But it's also correct that you need to give him some deadlines so as to move the process along.</p>
<p>Planning a trip forces the student to make at least some decisions about where to visit. We did this spring break of junior year, and it turned out to be our only trip before apps were submitted. I gave my S a list of schools we could possibly visit on our trip to the East coast, and asked him to look them over in the Princeton Review's 361 (??) Best Colleges. He made a list that allowed him to see small LAC's, ultra-urban schools without a cohesive campus, and a few Ivies, both urban and rural. The trip really helped him understand what he liked and didn't. It didn't matter so much which colleges we saw, but having a range of schools was essential. The best visits were those where he met up with alums from his high school, to get a true picture of how life was at that college. </p>
<p>Oddly enough, his top choices among his acceptances were places we had not visited. So after April 1, we made a trip to 2 of those, and he loved both of them. Both were schools I had advocated because they gave substantial merit aid; otherwise, I doubt they would have been on his self-generated list. He now thanks me profusely for the guidance, despite his ambivalence at times during the process. The end result makes him very happy.</p>
<p>If you can give your son some ownership of planning the trip, he might get just a little bit excited about his process. Try to offer suggestions that include a range of options, so he truly does see that he has choices to make. I think you'll be fine, time-wise, if you can do some visiting this summer.</p>
<p>We did something a bit similar to FauxNom with our procastinating "I-don't-want-to-think-about-it" daughter. My deal with her was that if she would define some parameters, I would do the grunt research. After initially meeting with much reluctance, I offered a driving trip to Disneyland during junior year winter break, and suggested we sample colleges along the way. She brought a friend and the trip was very fruitful -- she discovered there was a big difference in campus atmosphere, location, etc., and suddenly seemed to acquire an interest in thinking about college. Next step was a college visit trip back east -- I had her pick an area that interested her (Boston) and we drew up an itinerary that included 7 or 8 schools. We had a lot of fun on this trip, and it really started to crystallize things for her. After that the process was fairly easy and we then got serious about making a detailed list, spreadsheet comparisons, etc. Visits were fairly critical for us. There were a number of schools that sounded good on paper and looked good on the website, but didn't appeal to her at all when she actually set foot on campus. My guess is that if you can get your Reluctant Son to actually visit some schools, he might get invested in the process. Good Luck!</p>
<p>Wow, you sound just like me, and my son sounds just like yours! Including the wanting to go to school back East (which he IS going to do this fall).</p>
<p>What I did was similar to what you are doing with the spreadsheet (my son hated the spreadsheet - I think it only actually helped me see the big picture). Anyway, on the whole college front, I prodded and nudged, and he pushed back at first - and sometimes along the way - but eventually relented enough to do a little research, get his applications done, get his acceptances, and make his decision. If I had handed the entire project over to him right from the start, I honestly don't think he would have gotten anything done because he simply wasn't motivated to do so, at the time. His GC at school is not very helpful and I don't think she wouldn't have stayed on top of his application process, either. </p>
<p>My advice is to set some mini goals: what you would like him to do in specific time periods. If you want him to come up with his list of schools that he might like to visit, have him get the list to you by a certain date. Every now and then, ask how he is coming along on his list. If he's like my son, he'll procrastinate but eventually come through. Don't worry, it's a work in progress. Some kids can't/won't take ownership until they have to; others are more mature and self-motivated to do it on their own. For us, we hit some rough patches but things seem to be on track now and moving full steam ahead toward fall. It happens so fast!</p>
<p>Hi, cpeltz,</p>
<p>Just to comment on 2 of the schools you're considering - my D looked at Loyola and DePaul and will be a freshman at DePaul this fall. We (the parents) like both schools: Loyola is a tad smaller and has more of "campus" feel, while DePaul is larger and much more urban. (D wanted an urban school with a vibrant local music scene. Not your typical CC requirements, but she's kind of quirky that way...)</p>
<p>PM me if you want more details. By the way, DePaul has rolling admissions - D applied in Mid September and had her acceptance (and merit money) by mid-October. Nothing like that first acceptance to make senior year much less stressful!</p>
<p>Cpeltz, last year at this time, my son was hard put to name 10 colleges quickly. He could come up with 20 college names with difficulty, most of them through sports. We started by looking at a variety of local schools. To my surprise, he liked the Catholic schools, particularly one. That gave us a good start. We then looked at like schools, more the LACs and I looked for good merit aid. We then added state schools to the mix and some far away schools that fit certain specs. He did not like heavily Greek schools, liked to be in a town, like outdoor activities, wanted a campus, wanted most of the kids to live on campus, wanted professors who interacted with the students, small classes, motivated and interested kids, a good mix of prep, jock, artsy, quirky, brainy. Did not like schools that were overly female or male. Did not like tech schools. Did not like large schools. Wanted a good intramural/club set up. Well, before the end of last year, he had a good idea where he wanted to go. One day there and he was sold. So it did come together. I was sure we would be drawing the school name out of a hat.</p>
<p>Truly appreciate all your comments. ADad, I think I'll memorize your opening statement, and DS and I did have a VERY short discussion today, so it's a start. He was suprised I was willing to look at a school he thinks he's interested in, and we discussed that BOTH of us have to keep our minds open.</p>
<p>After some of your statements and his today, I think he is a little overwhelmed, and probably somewhat nervous about the whole prospect of making such a big decision.</p>
<p>In a few weeks we'll be visiting some schools, and I hope that helps focus his thoughts. I like the idea of having him pick a few schools to visit in the east (Clark is tops on my list, particularly after he reiterated he was interested in psych - that and pre-law which could go together in my opinion). His other school is Bryant in RI that he found when we attended a college fair. As far as I can tell, it's a business school, and I don't think it would be a good fit for him, but I think I'll let HIM discover that.</p>
<p>Cpt: Glad to hear that about Clark - I've seen some positives and some negatives because of the location, but I have a feeling it would be a great for him. Any feedback you can give me about it? Other schools you also liked?</p>
<p>Scout: Any tips on making Chicago a fun visit for DS? We don't have much time there, unfortunately.</p>
<p>Cpeltz, I really liked Clark as did my son.</p>
<p>Similar disinterest at our house two years ago. I told S I'd be his admin. assistant and do the grunt work of researching schools, but he needed to give me parameters to work with. </p>
<p>We started the summer college tour with a list of schools within driving distance that seemed to fit him, and modified it by his reaction to each one. He did not like the places that had spent millions of dollars building huge state- of- the- art science buildings, for example. So, it was easy to cross some schools off the list before we started to fly to places.</p>
<p>If I was doing it again, I'd start by using some of the more practical limiting criteria, i.e. "must be easily accessible to an international airport" would have helped cut the list down early in the game. We knew this would be important, but didn't use it at the beginning.</p>
<p>The whole process was very overwhelming for him, there were too many choices, and he had no idea what was important to him at the start. </p>
<p>Oh, some of the college guides have an entry: 'if you like this college, check out these other choices'. That might help you if he is showing an interest in one.</p>