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<p>Hey, CC is my favorite EC!</p>
<p>I like the parents here.</p>
<p>I mainly stick around in case a bright kid with LD’s comes on and is despairing or trying to figure out what to do next or how to go about things. I would have liked some advice on how to negotiate that terrain with my very non type A dyslexic.</p>
<p>For a while I got caught up in the politics forum, but then :eek: couldn’t do that anymore. Some kids I get an interest in. I like to hear different perspectives. I have a younger one who is ambitious so I listen out for things that will refer to her in the future.</p>
<p>Those are the reasons for me. Oh, and I always get a few laughs.</p>
<p>While there are extremes among both the students and the parents, the parents postings are probably going to be what you’re looking for. I had a very similar experience to you ( came here because husband said she should prep for the SAT…WHAT???). We were just thinking California UC’s…And my kids are VERY different. Will my oldest be commended? Will my youngest graduate high school?.. And if he does, can he play his sport?..Will they accommodate his ADHD? Even if he never needed accommodations in his tiny Christian school? And then there’s URM/affirmative action…and URM/high EFC …where else but College Con?</p>
<p>starbright and LasMa. thank you…you articulated what I was experiencing much clearer than I did. My d has absolutely no interest in going to a top school ,so I really joined CC to get information on other LACs that she might be interested in applying to. I find the reviews and comments about schools very helpful and I will ignore the posts dealing with recitations of EC’s and near perfect SAT scores and really high gpa’s or I am going to lose perspective! Thanks.</p>
<p>holliesue, please enable your PMs. Thanks.</p>
<p>I think this forum is useful for all parents. I’ve received great advice on CC regarding my type A D1, my LD D2, my unknown D3 and my unmotivated S. It seems to be a place where you can pick the minds of smart people and learn from the experiences of others in order to help my children grow. Every once in a while, I hope I help someone else as well.</p>
<p>I can honestly say that CC helped me change the life of my LD daughter - through the suggestions of camps and other strategies that have helped me help her. She’s currently a straight A high school senior going to college next year. When I first joined CC she was in a very different place. I’ve learned so much from so many posters about many different things - only a small amount has related to my type A.</p>
<p>I came for financial aid ideas.</p>
<p>I stayed because I do have expertise in areas that others don’t, and it is fun to share the info. Especially because Happykid (who sounds a lot like yours) is so level-headed that she doesn’t need my advice.</p>
<p>Every time I log on I learn something new.</p>
<p>hollisue- I understand your perspective wholeheartedly. While I value the info here, and adore the humor and wit on the parents’ threads, I’m thankful I did not stumble on CC until a few months after DD’s EA acceptance. </p>
<p>I was already a basket-case and did not need to witness the throngs of strategizing and better-informed parents and students to increase my stress, or add to DD’s.</p>
<p>A little ignorance can be bliss.</p>
<p>Hey, I’m on CC, and my S is a HS sophomore, not very motivated, no ECs of note, very average grades (GPA <3.0), ADHD. But I’m here despite the constant depression I battle reading the posts of parents who have superachiever kids, because every day I learn something that, down the road, will be useful when it comes time for S to apply (assuming, like shrinkrap’s kid, he graduates HS). Maybe I should change my username to hanginginthere??</p>
<p>Bflogal:</p>
<p>There are threads about good colleges for the “B students.” CC is not just about super-achievers. It only sometimes feels that way!</p>
<p>I’m on CC because I’m type A. It’s better to nag/vent here than at my S who is so not type A…</p>
<p>The bottom line is a kid with mainly A’s and two time consuming EC’s is as qualified as anybody else for any school and will be looked at this way by admissions officers. No school wants to see students piling on ec after ec to impress people. In the “real world”, nobody cares how well you do a million things. What matters most is doing one thing really well.</p>
<p>I have two sons. The first one is a college freshman. I discovered parent forum too late to help my S1. However, he ended up at a place right for him after all. We were all lucky - that was a beginner’s luck.</p>
<p>My S2 is NOT AT ALL a straight A, 2300+ overachieving Type A kid aiming for top 10 schools. Even so, CC has proven to be an enormous resource for me so far. Advice from wise parents on CC helps you help whatever-flavor-kid-of-yours end up at a best place for him/her. That’s the key: maximizing the odds for any kid within his/her target range. The idea is NOT to force the kids to aspire to a level that is not really doable, but help them get into the best FIT school they can reasonably aspire to. My S2 will be picking schools within top 40-80 range. </p>
<p>I am convinced that S2 (HS junior) will end up in a place that is the best fit for him because of all that I am learning from other wise parents - who, COLLECTIVELY, are better than any paid or HS guidance counselor I can think of. </p>
<p>Any question I have, I post here, and sure enough, there are parents who have gone through what I am going through and jump through the hoop to share their insight with me. That is priceless. </p>
<p>I am so grateful of them. In return, I try to share what meager knowledge I have as much as possible. What goes around, comes around.</p>
<p>Holliesue, your daughter sounds like a very bright, sincere kid with a good sense of who she is and well-rounded priorities. She will continue to be that even if she does not get into Harvard or Haverford. Lots of the folks above gave you excellent advice, from ignoring the kid forums to enabling PMs so that the hypermoms do not comment on all your posts.</p>
<p>I suggest that your priorities and your daughter’s may be closer than you think: you want her to get a good education, a happy 4 years and merit money. She does, too, but defines happy as not having to match Type A CC’ers. The match is that her best chance for major merit money is at the tier below the ones populated by the superachievers and those schools is where she is likely to find the most kids like her, the most self-esteem and the most chance to both do well and do nothing some hours a week.</p>
<p>CC will help you by offering many informed perspectives on schools which might fit your goals. The B+ students thread and the 3.0-3.3 thread have many helpful parents who can suggest schools which will offer the sort of environemnt and aid you seek; post a Parents thread asking for suggestions, too. If you find some amusing or helpful Parent Cafe threads, that is a bonus. Ignore everything else, from the parents for whom CC is just another audience to boast about their prodigies; to the kids who think they know for certain who will get into which schools; to the internationals asking people to write their essays for them and find them a full ride to Yale.</p>
<p>Then, all you have to worry about is some kid figuring out your identity and telling your daughter :)</p>
<p>I really appreciate all the feedback! thanks everyone!</p>
<p>I felt confident that D would have no trouble getting into the college of her choice until I read the posts on CC. We knew her SAT scores were dismal but thought that her being class president, taking AICE classes and getting mainly A’s and having solid EC’s would be enough. Now I am not so sure. So I have learned not to read the ‘chance me’ thread, and I have picked up some great advice in other threads. We have found 3 back-ups through CC that we might not have come up with otherwise. I am happy that D does not read these forums though, because they may do a number on her self confidence.</p>
<p>I am also glad that D does not read these threads! HOwever, she has a really good perspective on things. Very realistic about where she should apply if she wants merit money (not the top most competitive schools) and understands that if she doesn’t get enough merit money she will be going to one of the SUNY colleges. She is okay with that and already has whittled down the SUNY colleges to those she would be fine with attending. I am really lucky she has such a great perspective on things. HOnestly, it is me who wants her to attend a LAC (or at least have the option) because I didn’t have that opportunity myself and would like her to at least have a choice. We had a great conversation about it yesterday. She acknowledged that she knows that if she doesn’t do the work (studying for the SAT’s, keeping her grades up) that she will only have herself to blame if her options are limited.</p>
<p>the thing I learned on CC is how much is impacted by what I did NOT know: who and what the adcoms are really looking for, what are total marketing BS from the colleges/adcoms vs. the reality of what’s REALLY happening.</p>
<p>We were so clueless that schools lower in the USNWR chart by a few spots were safeties. It worked out for S1, but it could have have easily gone the other way with very unpleasant results.</p>
<p>"We were so clueless that schools lower in the USNWR chart by a few spots were safeties. "</p>
<p>What do you mean with that?</p>
<p>Meaning, we completely did not understand the meaning of “safety schools” at the top end. For instance, some people say, if the student has stats that put him over the 75% range, etc, that school is a match/safety. This may be the case if the student is “hooked” (URM, legacy, athlete, first generation college applicant, etc), or if the school’s overall applicant pool’s qualifications are not already extremely high. However, within top 10 or 20 school range, most of the viable students have extremely high stats and amazing ECs. (“viable” as in not “what the heck” lottery buyers, but serious candidates with reasonable qualifications). As such, no school in this category should be considered anybody’s safety.</p>
<p>For instance, in a school where the 75% marker for SAT CR or M is already 770-780 or beyond, even if the student gets perfect 2400, that’s not really a differentiator. Same with 4.0 GPA. There is no safety scenario in schools like this, and USNWR top 10ish schools are more or less all like this.</p>
<p>We thought Cornell, Northwestern, Brown and UC Berkeley as OOS are S1’s safety schools. Looking back, I just can’t believe how incredibly stupid and naive we were. Because he got an EA acceptance, he did not even bother to apply to Cornell, NU etc, and yes, he got accepted into Berkeley (the RD deadline for Berkeley was before the EA decisions came out).</p>
<p>In the end it all worked out fine. However, he could have been easily deferred then rejected by his EA school, and also rejected by his so-called “safety” schools as well as the HYP (the RD schools he applied and was rejected by). If that had happened, he would have been a poster kid of a highly qualified student who got rejected by every college he applied to.</p>
<p>I shudder to think what a disaster that would have been. We were very lucky. </p>
<p>That’s why I am very cautious with S2: this family won’t have the same beginner’s luck twice. That’s why I advise people to be very careful about not being “over swayed” with their own kid’s qualifications. We are all so justifiably proud of our wonderful kids, but they may look just like all other “wonderful” kids applying to top schools from the perspective of jaded admission officers.</p>