<p>Having a S starting his sophmore year in HS, we started checking out colleges this summer to make the experience as casual and non threatening as possible. We didn't even know where to begin so we started by checking out "types" of schools.... Private, Public, different sizes and geographic locations. We live in North Central Illinois so we have many states within driving distance to pull from. How is everyone else doing in their searches? Any gems? Any duds? Any helpful hints for us "first timers" that will make this as easy as possible?</p>
<p>A few thoughts:</p>
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<li><p>A student just entering his sophomore year in high school probably does not have a clear idea of what he wants to study in college or of the selectivity level of the colleges that would be likely to admit him. So if you and he visit any colleges (or even their websites), it may help to think of it as preliminary research – just to give him a picture of what colleges are like – rather than a serious effort to select colleges to apply to.</p></li>
<li><p>Despite the above, it wouldn’t hurt to ask him what he thinks he would like in a college – even though both of you realize that there’s plenty of time for him to change his mind. You may be surprised by the answers. </p></li>
<li><p>The most important task to be done right now is yours, not his. You need to figure out what your family can contribute financially to your son’s college expenses and start thinking about what’s affordable and what isn’t. Does your family have enough money to pay for the cost of any college, even a private one? Or does your budget run only to in-state colleges in your state system (assuming that your son does not get any financial aid)? Or are even state colleges out of reach without financial aid? Will your son be eligible for need-based financial aid, or is your family’s income too high? Will he need to seek merit scholarships or work-study programs in order to go to college? Will you (or he) need to borrow money? Is the financial situation such that he might need to do his first two years at a community college while living at home and then transfer to a four-year school?</p></li>
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<p>Some of the most bitterly unhappy young people on these boards are the ones whose parents said, “You can go to any college that will admit you” and then found out later that they could not afford to let the student attend a college that admitted him/her because the situation didn’t work out financially. Kids do better if they know the financial realities up front.</p>
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<li>This is not glamorous, but now would be a good time to make sure that your son is doing the things that will qualify him for college. Is he taking a rigorous academic program, including all the courses that colleges like to see (such as foreign language)? (A meeting with the guidance counselor may be in order.) Is he struggling with any aspect of academics? Is he participating in at least one or two extracurricular activities? What standardized tests should he take and when? Some students should take SAT Subject Tests as early as their sophomore year. Your son may be able to avoid this because you’re in an ACT-dominated part of the country, but it doesn’t hurt to be well informed. Check out a few threads on this subject.</li>
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<p>Thanks Marian for your thoughts. My S is doing well on his front of the college responsibility (4.0 GPA, Class President, Athlete, Foreign Language) Getting ready for the ACT is our next step. We are starting this early for several reasons. First… what kinda school feels right. We aren’t looking for necessarily “the school” but what type fits. Second, we want the college visits to be non-stressful with plenty of time for this to sink in. I don’t know how many Seniors I’ve seen on these visits panic because they now have to hurry up and make a decision. Third, It give him a reason for doing what he’s doing in highschool. Kind of dangling the carrot. Finally, I see what his summers will look like the next two years with Varsity sports and he will have very little time to visit. We are only allowed 3 visits during the school year and coaches aren’t real fans of him missing too much practice either. There just isn’t time to go visit 30+ schools. </p>
<p>The one thing I have found is, at least in the state of Illinois, after financial help, a big chunck of the private schools are as cheap if not cheaper then our state schools. Illinois is broke and after FAFSA, they aren’t aiding much. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, we just want him to take his time in deciding what’s right for him with as little rush and stress as possible. When he is ready t decide we have a solid, well thought out list.</p>
<p>I think you’re handling this well. We are in northern Missouri. We are also only allowed 3 college visits per year, otherwise it is considered an unexcused absence & can’t make up assignments. That makes it tough. Can’t always take a lot of days off work all at once either.</p>
<p>It’s a good idea to research ‘types’ of schools. Once you know if you are more interested in private vs. state vs. BIG, then you can concentrate on a few specific ones during senior year. It makes a difference when TIME is a factor - almost have to spread it out :).</p>
<p>We tried to visit a few over summer break, and could almost never find one that gave a tour. We were welcome to come & wander on our own, but nothing informational available. Weekend visits were out too. </p>
<p>My S took the ACT 3 times. The first time in the spring as a sophomore. Only because we had the time, and it doesn’t hurt. His best score was the first one. They claim that each time you take it, you’ll score higher… The ACT website, has nice tutorial/study guides. One of the teachers at school also had practice tests. We did not take the SAT, not needed at any of the schools we applied.</p>
<p>By starting now, you also have time to see if specific schools require specific things. What test they require, extra classes they require, if they accept dual credit, etc.</p>
<p>Senior year is SO busy. My S is an athlete also, so I understand your point about the coaches ! Eat/breathe/sleep THEIR sport. 
Good idea to have it narrowed down to serious places by senior year.</p>
<p>Three a day football started today so I am getting meals ready ahead of time for him to fly in and out between practices. Since we have a small school district the only offer the ACT and only once a year. Do you know CheckersMidwest if you can take more often? Also, could we sign him up to take it at a different location other then his school? </p>
<p>I am not sure where you are looking for schools but last week was the Iowa Private College Week. You can go online, with a map, and set up a schedule to see many schools. We got shirts from each tour (my son loved). We were able to see 5 of them it is really a great idea and I hope other states catch on. I suggest anyone in my situation to jump on that.</p>
<p>My S will be a freshman at Mizzou this fall. He leaves Tuesday.</p>
<p>Ugh ! 3-a-days in this heat ! Too bad they can’t go at 3:00 am (only chance of it being cool). Gotta love football ! My S was All Conference last year :)</p>
<p>YES, you can take the ACT anywhere. Our school is a host school and we have kids from all over come. Go to the ACT website and see the list of test dates. It’s October, April, & maybe June (don’t quote me on that) , but the deadline to sign up is much earlier. It will tell you where the test sites are too. You can take it as many times as you want. </p>
<p>My S loved getting t-shirts when he went on college visits. </p>
<p>Also, forgot to point out, if you wait to visit schools your senior year, then you may miss out on important program dates. For instance the University Missouri/Kansas City 6-year Medical school has to be applied for by October 1st the previous year. So, if we’d waited until senior year, we probably wouldn’t have known that in time. (Ok - he hated the campus & didn’t end up applying anyway…)</p>
<p>My nephew went to Graceland (private - Iowa) for one semester & hated it. A lot of foreigners (very wealthy foreigners). He transferred to Iowa State & graduated a year ago. He did very well there. I think Iowa has some nice schools to offer, other people just don’t think of that in the midwest.</p>
<p>My D is class of 2012, so a rising junior. We didn’t do any college visits during her sophomore year because I couldn’t get her interested enough to think about what she might want. Right now she thinks she would like a Big Ten school. One of the few good things about being in Illinois is that the OOS tuitions at the other state flagships don’t look so terribly bad in comparison, especially if you have a business/science child who will have to pay a premium at UIUC. Since she has no real idea what she wants, we’re planning to visit Minnesota (urban) and Indiana (college town) this fall. She’s been to a small LAC with a friend’s family and didn’t particularly like it, but we’ll probably visit another just to be sure. Until we have a real ACT score (we’re working on a projected score from PLAN right now) and she has a better idea of what she wants in a school and what she might want to major in, that’s probably all the visits we’ll do. I’m hoping that she’ll be there by spring, because I want to get the bulk of our visits done before senior year. There are a LOT of schools with early merit aid/special program deadlines, so we want her to have her applications finished in the early fall of senior year.</p>
<p>Just a reminder to all you Mid-Westerns – You may want to look into the PSATs. Each state has a different “cut-off” score for PSATs taken in the 11th grade year (only given in October) for National Merit which can qualify the student for merit money (Iowa cut-off last year was 209; Ill was 211).</p>
<p>Im not in the mid-west, but we also started touring colleges. As JohnEH is doing, just laid back visits. Getting an idea of locations and size and testing requirements. I’m also compiling a list of FAFSA only or CSS Profile. As of now, my son is willing to travel anywhere except the Mid-West and NY. He hates the cold. Somehow New England is still ok. I’m not questioning anything at this stage. Like JohnEH, this danggeling of a carrot is a bit of an academic motivator and I’ll take whatever I can get.</p>
<p>Kid long past those college visits. Teenage years can be hard times to get kids to go anywhere with family, but a good time to look ahead and see things. This makes the actual college visits for searching out the school to attend less overwhelming. Easier to notice details when one is comfortable with the concept of a college campus.</p>
<p>Now is a good time to do casual college campus visits when the family can travel for a weekend or summers- make the college visit a stop during other plans. Get him familiar with what campuses are like. For example, visit UIUC some Saturday- take time to wander around your excellent flagship. Make a trip to Madison on the way to the Dells. See Northwestern and U of Chicago during Chicago weekends. Check out the arch in St Louis and include Washington U. Do the same for other surrounding states. Check what’s going on around the campus beforehand- you don’t want to get stuck in game day traffic. You can also do the same for smaller public and private schools around you. Do not worry about any formal stuff or if he may want to attend that school, keep the sightseeing casual (that is what you are doing). The idea is to become familiar/comfortable with the similarities and differences of college campuses. That will make it easier for him to do online searches later. He will also have an easier time when it comes to checking out schools he is interested in. Plan on using spring break of junior year for a formal father/son (two is easy, more people harder to deal with) trip to colleges he may consider, especially any east or west coast ones.</p>
<p>Our experience. Many trips to Madison to visit grandpa included seeing the campus. Plus a sports camp there. Local, area small campuses for kid stuff. West coast trip to San Fransico included Berkeley and Stanford (liked the first, disliked the latter campus). Seattle trip meant dropping off his mom’s brownies and seeing cousin at the other UW. Junior year saw H and S on the Boston et al trip (they skipped “must see” schools son had no interest in- we parents took our own trip later).</p>
<p>Do not have him obsess over the ACT, ie too many practice sessions et al. Let him do the official practice tests, if he does well he can take the test spring of junior year sometime. He probably should take the PSAT fall of junior year to see if he could be National Merit Scholar caliber. If he does well on that he would also want to plan on the SAT and SAT II tests. Note to many- ACT is the test around most of the midwest. Juniors may take the PSAT but “no one” takes it as a sophomore to prepare for it or the SAT like I have learned on CC.</p>
<p>Students at my kids’ high school routinely take the PSAT as sophomores. I believe they take it as ‘prep’ for taking it as juniors.</p>
<p>Yours is the exception. Most in our state don’t. I was aware of it from my taking it once on the road to being a NMS, as did son- NMF. Madison is the ivory tower place in the state (miss it).</p>
<p>If I only knew then what I know now I would have had my boys put a few hours of studying into the PSAT. It would have been worth the effort just to get those few extra points to make the jump from commended to semi finalist.</p>
<p>As for taking the ACT in a different location - yup we did that last year. Son’s baseball team was in an out of state tourney and about 6 of them took the ACT while traveling.</p>
<p>JohnEH - come over to this thread:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/754591-parents-hs-class-2013-college-class-2017-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/754591-parents-hs-class-2013-college-class-2017-a.html</a></p>
<p>Has anyone had the followng issue… great school but heard it is in a rough part of town. Any thoughts? Is this a concern or not?</p>
<p>^^ S is going to be a freshman at one of those great schools in a not so great part of town. Just think if you ruled out all of the schools nationally that fit in this category? I think you’d be doing yourself and your child a great disservice. Many Ivy league schools would be included. Typically these schools create a bubble effect on campus that does a great job of protecting the students. However I make a practice of going onto the school’s crime log to see what’s been going on and have talked to S about safe practices. (It’s very rare that any of the students in this school of more than 6,000 are ever harmed beyond some incidences of theft.) This is the way the real world is and I think in a way it will be a growth experience for him to learn to navigate it. We come from a safe, small town and I’d love for him to be confident enough to live in a big city some day.</p>
<p>^^ OP: One more thing on this issue. About a month ago I expressed some concerns to a friend about sending my son into an “unsafe urban environment.” My friend is actually a professor at our “safe” small town college who is sending all three of her triplets into large urban environments this year. She said she knows the behind the scenes stories about the things that go on at a small town college. In her opinion there are often just as many issues at the small schools but they are just much better about keeping them out of the press.</p>
<p>Thanks cbug… I’m sure the fear on this subject is all mine. I don’t want him to fear living in the real world so it is important that I don’t project that onto him.</p>
<p>Our high school only allows 3 college visit days during the school year. We have dozens to visit. How is everyone getting around this issue?</p>
<p>Have you checked the college websites for their special preview days? I know several on my son’s list have preview days on Saturdays during the school year. They seem to be large group events so I would think they would have less individual attention but at least you could get an overview. Of course this might only work for you if the school is within driving distance.</p>
<p>Also, most colleges seem to be on a different academic schedule then our high school so school breaks may be at different times allowing for visits.</p>
<p>Unless you want to drive your kid crazy, learn about the various colleges without visiting. One of my sons dubbed it, “the most useless thing ever.” An info session and tour is just a peek at the exterior trappings of a school; you’ll need to dig a lot deeper.</p>
<p>You can find out a great deal about a school via the websites, common data set, a visit with a good college counselor, and discussion with current students or alumni. Get a good long list going, then edit, edit, edit. Instead of dozens of visits, think along the lines of 10 or 12 finalists you’d like to visit. Get in contact with friends or older siblings of your son who are away at school. It’s easy (and cheap) for a kid to do an overnight without parental supervision. I was far too much of a supervisor with my oldest, and learned to take a back seat and let my sharp kids find their own ways.</p>
<p>As an Illinoisian, your son will have to take the ACT in spring of summer year. He can take practice tests on his own if he is unfamiliar with timed test formats. The key to the ACT is speed, so take that into consideration. He should take the PSAT in September of junior year for National Merit consideration, but if he doesn’t make the cut, he need not take the SAT if he prefers the ACT. A retake in of either test early senior year of HS tends to show a good return, although some kids’ scores never move much. It may depend on the test, the type of student, or his level of stress from classes and EC’s. Do make a schedule of testing dates and work out conflicts with EC’s well in advance. This would include figuring in the fatigue factor - they never do as well during sports season because they are so exhausted on Saturday mornings.</p>