New to CC and college search world

College Search & Selection
41

@novicemom23kids
@8bagels “No. 1: FOCUS ON THE SAT/ACT. … Don’t worry about finding college fits right now. They’re not going anywhere.”

@gluttonforstress “I second @8bagels comments. There seems to be a bias against test prep on CC with many claiming it’s either worthless or only for the wealthy. Depending on the kid, it can make a real difference. And try the ACT too.”

The reason that I recommended beginning by doing a rough school assessment in my earlier post is that, unlike the typical ccer, many people want to find an in-state school within a couple hours of their home and they already have the test scores to get into that school.

I am a big believer in test prep, but it is helpful to first figure out whether a score improvement will help you, and if so, what score you are shooting for by prepping.

42

Sounds to me like your family is in a terrific place, @novicemom23kids . I think I showed up here when S’12 was a senior, or maybe that summer before. Lucky D’15 had me here the whole time :wink:

I second the idea to visit as many schools as possible as you can - over break (I see you’re on this already), over the summer (though less than ideal because kids aren’t there, if it fits into family travel plans or is all you really have, do it). My kids and I really enjoyed doing tours and they got a LOT out of seeing different campuses.

I also suggest trying the ACT. My kid did marginally better on it than the SAT and with all that’s going on with the new SAT, the ACT is tried and true and easy to prep for. It’s less tricky but does have greater time constraints. D never took a class or had a tutor but she did do practice tests and we did go over strategy (when to guess or not, what trick answers might look like, how to skim readings and come back with the specific questions to save time - standard in-the-books stuff). She raised her score by 6 points over a year doing no more than that and just getting older/doing school work.

In PA, with a budget of 35-40K (including the loans for the 40), you can look south to large public flagships or smaller LACs. Or look west to Ohio where there are SO MANY terrific LACs that give merit only because they are located in the midwest - College of Wooster, Denison, Ohio Wesleyan. Or look SW…Rhodes, Centre, etc.

Also…if Pitt is affordable for you as PA residents, I think she’d get in, scores as-is. http://www.ir.pitt.edu/cds/documents/CDS_2014-2015Pittsburgh.pdf - seems she’s right in the 50%-ish area, or maybe higher?

Glad you joined us!

43

Honestly, from what you say about the PSAT, sounds as though without the shifting of those 9 answers, she would have done extremely well. It’s a shame that happened. Anyhow, I wouldn’t necessarily rule out the new SAT (even if she found it unpleasant to take) if she ends up doing not as well as she would like on the old format.

44

Two quick bits:
First, there’s a trick/technique for the reading section problems that ask about specific line numbers in a passage. Quickly flip past the passage to the questions and note any line number references. Then quickly mark them in the passage. THEN read the passage. When you hit a marked line number, flip back to the question that referenced it and try to answer it. As an aside, there are a couple of excellent SAT strategy guides right here on CC (check out the one by silverturtle – I think that’s where we got that trick). Might have limited applicability to the new format, though – not sure about that. Anyway, those PSAT results sound very encouraging, transcription errors notwithstanding.

Second, regarding visits – it pays to strategize carefully when a visit involves significant travel and try to see more than one school when you’re in a particular area. Also, we found that visits while school is in session to be vastly more valuable than those when the school was empty. You can get a much better feel for the vibe of the place, the type of students that go there, your daughter can attend a class if she wants, you can seek out faculty or students who are involved in particular areas of interest, you can eat in the cafeteria, etc. Since junior year spring break is such a fine time to visit colleges, it’s worth taking a look at academic calendars at target schools to try to avoid visiting those that are on break the same time as your kid, because they’ll be deserted.

45

Poor OP, you have been besieged by good advice.:slight_smile: I want to second what Much2learn said. Does she actually need to spend the extra time doing test prep if she is happy with local colleges in which her scores will be good?

You said you are buying tickets to fly to see UA? Please do try to see more than just one college, or that is a very expensive visit. If you are both just beginning, you may find she wants to see 20 colleges, and it can get very expensive.

I would try to hold off on plane tickets until you can come up with an itinerary that might span several days taking in several colleges. MANY people say 2 colleges a day is the rule. We broke that rule all the time. We usually saw three colleges a day, when possible. One tour first thing in the morning, one midday, one afternoon. Of course, this plan works best if you are in an area where a lot of colleges are clustered together. And you are not restricted to just seeing colleges during tours. We saw several colleges on our own. We signed in, and she asked to speak with a rep or someone in admissions to ask questions. The times when we self-toured, we always made sure to eat in the cafeteria, stop by the library, and mill around or just have a rest where we saw students hanging out. After all, without the students, its just a bunch of buildings. I also think you can mostly skip information sessions, though some are very informative.

To get back to tests, sounds like she is already a good student. I recommend a couple of good study guides and a timer. A tutor for an already-motivated student with excellent grades is not necessary, but it can’t hurt I guess. My D just had study guides and did great on her SAT and AP tests. Anyway, if your D would like the help, start creating a college long list, based on her interests and preferences. Get the Fiske or Princeton college guides, and start narrowing the list down. I think getting plane tickets right this minute might be putting the cart before the horse, but you can just have a nice vacation too I suppose. Good luck!

46

I would urge you to spend spring break studying for the April sat/act, rather than visiting a school that week.

Use the time and money and hire a tutor, and do at least 5 fuill length, timed practice tests using actual old tests, over the break.

47

Gotta disagree with @8bagels on this one. Opportunities to visit while schools are in session are very limited. Spring break is among the best. Have her bring her test prep stuff along if you want. There’s often a lot of boring travel time involved.

48

Gotta agree with @8bagels again. The fact that Alabama is an option means the test scores matter a ton. Not sure what D has for SAT CR M so far but a 1400 with her GPA gets her a free ride and most likely honors program. That’s hard to beat.

49

Yes, I also disagree with that advice. You do need to focus more on visiting. Lots of people say, “Well, we will wait until our kid gets in, then visit”. Problems with this are that (1) many decisions come out in late March, and you have essentially one month (busy time in spring of senior year) for visits if you do that; Often colleges that would be a great fit get dropped from the list then due to logistical challenges with too many visits; (2) your kid may waste application time and fees on colleges that they don’t even like – there is nothing like boots on the ground to know for sure. Of course you want some research ahead of time to try to identify schools that are a good fit. But it is possible to end up with admissions to schools that aren’t really a good fit, and few admissions to colleges that are. (3) The cost of plane tickets just goes up if you can’t even book them until you have acceptances; (4) The pressure is much higher in April if your kid has a list of colleges they have never visited.

I also agree with those that say grouping some colleges in one visit is a good idea. We generally tried to hit a college a day on our trips (our kids sat in on classes and ate in the cafeterias in addition to taking the tours – we did some info sessions, but they aren’t always a big value add because so many questions are asked that are easily found on the website or not of interest for us). One thing to watch for over spring break is that the colleges may also be on spring break – you can still visit (better than no visit at all), but check the schedules to see.

You want to complete both standardized testing and as much visiting as possible by the end of the school year. Fall will be a lot less stressful if she knows her test scores and she has visited a good number of her possible colleges. If you don’t have a choice, do some visits in the summer, but the vibe of campus is hard to pick up and attending classes often isn’t possible.

I think I might have mentioned it earlier in the thread, but late Sunday afternoons were a good test prep time for our kids – it seemed like the only time our busy teenagers had free.

50

I am taking in all of the advice - and it is much appreciated. We are limited on days off from school and dd’s schudule with AP and seminar courses makes missing school a huge problem. We are committed to flying to Atlanta on our spring break. The colleges/universities are in session and she will be able to see the campus with students around. We already set up a tour with UA and also Auburn (seems like she would get in and their merit for OOS is not as good as UA but is significant - making both of these school less expensive than our in-state flagship). She will also see Georgia Tech and possibly Emory (a HUGE reach - both $ and stats). She would like to get a feel for this area and see if she could see herself fitting in so far from home. This is our only longer break while the college students are still there and the flight prices were extremely cheap ($119 round trip pp).

This should also give her a lot of incentive to work on studying for SAT/ACT - that full scholarship is amazing and even at the step down at 1/3 tuition is outstanding and in her reach. She did a practice test test today and scored better than her actual sitting - a 2010 and will be reviewing all missed problems. She will do another full practice test next weekend. She is also trying to keep up with her grades and coursework and it is musical season so she has rehearsal every night this week until 6:30. She is happy that she opted out of the upcoming model UN seminar, her next is not unitl later in the spring. This afternoon, she pulled up the ACT testing sessions and assured us she will figure out 3 different ACT testing dates for the Spring/summer/early fall. She also looked into the SAT 2 tests - I don’t really know much about those but she is interested in taking the biology, a math. She went online and ordered some ACT book (the red book?) with her Christmas $ and it should be arriving shortly. It seems like an awful lot of testing to me but she seems motivated. We may be looking into a tutor or program for ACT practice – we feel it is just too late for the SATs. We are NOT the hire the tutor types but it seems that there is significant $ available for a small increase in scores - albeit to a very lofty level that my be out of her reach. We will wait until after the Jan 23 SATs for her to take a baseline ACT practice and then she can see if a tutor seems reasonable.

Thank you everyone for the advice. It surely is one of the most overwhelming things we have encountered as parents thus far.

51

When you go to Emory definitely also look at Oxford. It’s very different, very cool, less of a reach admissions-wise.

52

@novicemom23kids I think you are working through this perfectly. Great to visit UA and see what you think when students are there. If she ends up loving it, and she need a 32 ACT (or equivalent) for a scholarship, then she can focus on that. She has the whole summer to prep for it, if it is needed. There doesn’t need to be a big rush on that. I think it is a lot easier to get motivated to study, once you have a specific goal in mind.

I am also glad to learn that you don’t really have 23 kids. :smiley: In that case I don’t think you can be a novice.

53

Our kids were super busy, too, but they missed some school for visits. If school had a long weekend off, sometimes we would try to have them take an extra 2 days for visits. Schools a couple hours away could be visited on a Saturday (still okay if school is in session, I figured they could get back to sit in a class of it was close to home and they liked the initial visit). We just thought that in the long term, making the right choice for college was more important than a few days of high school. It is expensive to make a mistake and have to transfer – lost merit aid, maybe lost credits, missed freshman social connections.

Not sure she needs 3 ACT dates if she is effectively studying. Two should give her about as good a score as she can expect.

54

Agree with INTparent. Two test dates is fine. schedule at least one for after AP tests are done. Taking the test too many times has been shown to result in lower results. One test, if scored well, can be enough. My kid just did one. Ideally, leave plenty of time befroe AP tests if doing ACT in spring.

Yes, bring study materials on your trip. Lots of boring travel time. My D studied/did work for about 15 hours of drive time.

Also bear in mind that once acceptances have come in, she will want to revisit the most viable contenders for accepted students days/weekends. Ideally,she will have visited prior and know she really likes the school. Speaking from experience, my D has applied to 12 colleges, three of which she was unable to visit. This was after a lot of thorough, detailed research. But guess what? Those three colleges are now sitting at the bottom of the list. She isn’t “into” them because she doesn’t know what they are really like, though she knows they have the qualities she is looking for. Her top choices are all colleges she visited at least once, or more than once. The ones she visited twice made the list because the first time we visited, it was summer. Summer=no students. It really is best to visit when students are in session.

Later on, you will want to be sure she schedules interviews for her chosen colleges, if that is an option. That is a great way to show interest, and also ask “what ARE the students like at _____?”, especially if visitng hasn’t been possible.

55

Sounds like she has visited 3 schools thus far. My suggestion has been to visit the northern schools in the dead of winter and the southern schools in the heat of spring/early fall (summer visits can be less productive if there aren’t many students around) so you get a feel for what it’s really like to be there in those weather conditions. Being form PA you have a good feel for cold weather, but is your student ok with dashing to class in the snow, or in hot/humid/rainstorm weather? Does it matter? It might.

If she isn’t sure if she wants big/small/urban/rural then visiting schools closer to home can help get a feel for this, especially if she hasn’t yet targeted schools she wants to see. That said, yes, visiting over spring break of junior year is a good plan, though you will also likely be looking at some in fall of senior year. And her opinions may change. That is normal.

Re: testing; yes if she can get them out of the way junior year, that’s great. One less stress. Agree that she shouldn’t take it any more than three times at most. Is she’s prepping for the SAT or ACT? The new SAT is more of an unknown, though the PSAT gave a flavor of it. The new SAT will be more like the ACT than in the past, but it’s currently a little harder to prep for, with less information available to study and to know what the practice test scores will mean. So many are leaning towards the ACT at present. But if your student is a better SAT person, that’s ok.

If you are visiting schools, it’s often helpful to sit in open a class, and that commonly requires advanced planning. Be sure the students aren’t on break when you visit. Have fun!

56

I skimmed the posts, sorry if I am not taking into account important additional information.

On the merit search – my current senior was able to get essentially half tuition merit awards at his Early Action schools, mostly CTCL schools in the midwest, so that our cost of attendance is around $30-35,000 – your range. So here is what we found: schools like College of Wooster, Denison, Kalamazoo College, Knox College, Lawrence University in WI, Beloit, Earlham are vibrant, energetic schools on the move. Granted, these schools are not 2-6 hours from southeast PA, though some of the Ohio schools could be at the outer limit of that. A real treat was that the list price at most of these is close to $10 k less than east coast schools, with tuition around $42 and room and board around $10 (Denison is the outlier there, its list price is about $48 and $12, for a total of $60).

In PA, Dickinson does give generous merit aid, at the roughly $15 and 20k ranges, thought its “list price” right now is $62k, so the typical merit award still only gets it around $40. Dickinson has a wonderful new science facility, and its two leading “themes” on campus are sustainability and international connections/study. Other well-regarded PA LACs, though they won’t elicit gasps of “what a great school” from friends and neighbors, include Muhlenberg, Gettysburg, and Alleghany. Still in PA, I believe – but cannot recall for sure – that Bucknell, Lehigh and Lafayette do not give merit awards. As my kid is not STEM-y, and we needed merit, those never got on our list. Also, the NESCAC schools (Trinity College, CT, Conn Coll, Bowdoin, Middlebury and now Hamilton) do not give merit awards, which meant all those schools came off my kid’s list. For a kid willing to look south, Rhodes is a fabulous school, Centre can be worth a look too. Centre’s tuition is under $40k, and they have good merit awards.

Women’s colleges are a possible – Bryn Mawr, with the BiCo community and access to classes and programs at Haverford, could be worth a look. Perhaps it’s too close to home if you are in SE PA? Other women’s colleges, Mt Holyoke is my favorite, could give merit. I do know that Barnard does not give merit, only financial aid. Smith and Wellesley are distinct flavors of schools, most students either love them or shrug. Personally, I think Bryn Mawr and Holyoke have less distinct personalities so can be more attractive to a wider range of students, but that is just my opinion.

Sounds like you and your student have done everything right – you have both enjoyed the journey without obsessing about the destination, and that will make her attractive to a lot of schools. At the end of the day, I think the fact that my kid is a genuine teenage boy, mattered. He hadn’t crafted himself into the perfect candidate, he was just a good student, who loved some classes and hated others, and worked hard at the ECs he enjoyed. Sounds like your daughter will do well! Good luck.

57

Just wanted to say welcome! I loved your post and found many similarities as far as income, lack of intense push and prep for fr/soph years and then suddenly logging on and realizing there is a whole world of kids and parents out there who have been intensively “on” this for years…which is awesome, I’m not bagging on that at all.

It’s weird to start running the EFCs at schools and realize they think you can pay almost $40K. We have only in the last few years hit the current income level and even then it’s been up and down with layoffs, illnesses, grad school (so one income was out completely for two years) but nevertheless, the current numbers are what is entered into the formula. I wanted to say “wait…BUT!!!..” Apparently there is no “wait, but” line on the FASFA and net price calculators.

So anyway, we laid it all out on a spreadsheet. Sat D down, told her what we think we can pay (20-30K/year) with the high end being a bigger reach that involved loans for her…which we all want to avoid. We also emphasized that while it did limit some options, it is STILL a fantastic and reasonable amount to obtain an education.

That led us to a few state schools here in Texas. She is auto admit at those and they are stats and financial safeties for her. GREAT! We are making her apply to those in August. Then we started looking out of state. Like you guys, U of Alabama is now on our radar. Great merit aid. We will be visiting for sure.

I would encourage your D to prep for the ACT. Our D had similar SAT stats as your daughter (she was a very reluctant participant in a prep class she hated so I would call that minimal prep!) and she made a 30 on her ACT with no prep (we also realize that was probably a mistake but…) She actually liked the test MUCH better and feels it is better suited for her.

She really wants to visit U of Pitt because they have a program she is very interested in. Also, they do have some stat based merit aid she maybe could obtain that would bring the numbers down for her financially. The beauty of this is we flat out told her we aren’t going to nag or push…if she wants better ACT numbers to get the merit aid she is going to have to work her tail off to prep.

Anyway…welcome. You aren’t late to the game. You’ve had an enjoyable ride and have skipped a lot of angst that in the end may not really matter. Our kids are going to end up at a place that works for them.

58

Welcome @novicemom23kids! I would echo nearly all sentiments you’ve received previously. You and your D appear to be broadening your college search geographically (visiting UA). Take a look at these LACs in the south to see if any are of interest. You may find they are relatively less expensive for your D (in the range of 20 - 25K/year out of pocket) compared to colleges in the northeast and many are excellent. Many of the colleges have GPA and test score criteria for merit aid on their websites.

TX: Southwestern and Trinity
AR: Hendrix
AL: Birmingham-Southern
TN: Rhodes and Sewanee
KY: Centre
GA: Agnes Scott
FL: Eckerd, Rollins, and New College of FL
SC: Furman and Wofford
NC: Guilford, Elon (generally worse merit aid), Davidson (top stats kids)

59

@novicemom23kids: I would like to embellish a few comments already made.

(1) Do sign up for a good test preparation course, preferably with a live human being. You may want to ask your daughter’s guidance counselors for recommendations, or perhaps other parents; but a good test preparation counselor is worth the money spent. As other posters have noted, many students do better on either the SAT or the ACT; I recommend that your daughter take both (maybe re-take the SAT after the test prep course) and then whichever test she did better on, re-take it to try and get a higher score.

(2) If you are flying into Atlanta for your Spring Break, in addition to seeing Emory and Georgia Tech, consider driving northeast up I-85 and looking at Furman University (Greeneville, SC) and Wofford College (Spartanburg, SC), and maybe Davidson College (Davidson, NC). Both Furman and Wofford are well-regarded LACs in the Southeast, and both can be quite generous with merit aid. Depending on your time constraints, a drive north to Sewanee – The University of the South might be worthwhile also; Sewanee can give some good merit aid, and for the past several years the school has “frozen” tuition to the amount you pay for the academic year in which you matriculate. (There are other good schools that @dadof1 has mentioned above; I just mention these as some schools within driving distance that I know something about.)

(3) Should your daughter be able to get her test scores up, here are some websites that have information about competitive and automatic scholarships (if you haven’t already seen them):

http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/

(4) I do agree with the posters who recommend visiting schools while they are in session; it gives your child the opportunity to see what the student body is like, and whether your child can picture herself as part of that school.

60

Hello - I have not read all of the responses but want to say: Please don’t base your choice on list prices. For her senior year she should apply to the schools she is interested in, making sure there are some you can afford, but then compare the actual costs from offers. Factor in fees etc (high at state schools), factor out unsubsidized loans (might be popular at private schools). Some schools look at FAFSA only (based on income) and some factor in home value and retirement etc. There are many excellent LACs out there who would LOVE to get $20K a year in tuition even if their list price is $50k. There are excellent LACs who give very good merit aid as well. Your daughter will also change dramatically from now until she graduates high school, so she should keep an open mind, but start the thinking, especially about what environment she wants to be in. The right environment can make a big difference in her outcome. I have two daughters going to Earlham which is not super competitive to get in, but they are both getting an excellent education and having a wonderful experience. They didn’t have perfect scores when applying to college and they were not pushed by their parents starting at kindergarten and they will graduate as confident accomplished adults ready for graduate school or the work world. More importantly they will be pursuing their own dreams and not mine. There are lots of kids going through life pursuing someone else’s dream, or scared to take chances for fear of getting a “B”. Good luck with it. You are in good shape to have a successful child.