<p>I'm lurking over here, from the 2010 board. Please keep these coming. I've checked your board before but it's really nice to have these thoughts all in one place.</p>
<p>The more lessons learned, the less burned, IMHO.</p>
<p>Not to load up on Senior year. All of her friends only took 5 courses, she took 6 courses. Let my daughter take AP Statistics vs AP Calculus. She did not like math.</p>
<p>I agree with the lighten load for senior year. My DS2 will not take 6 aps as a senior</p>
<p>Momreads, I know a few kids at my D's school who did not apply to U Chicago because of the application (too many essays).
At the same time if a kid really wants to go to MIT that optional essay is mandatory.
I also want to add write the name of the school correctly (Johns Hopkins come to mind).</p>
<p>LESSON LEARNED: don't hesitate to ask for advice on CC, even on travel details. Just because Mapquest says the travel time between school A and school B is 45 minutes, it ain't necessarily so. Had I thought to ask, someone on CC probably could have told me that that particular route on a Friday afternoon could take twice as long, and D might have been on time for her interview :o</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Visited a school (1 of total 2) that S did not apply to.</p></li>
<li><p>Paid to send transcipts to 2 schools that S did not apply to.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I will have to check in again later, when all mistakes are final, and hindsight is 20/20.</p>
<p>-not starting visits early enough. D1 was hard to get engaged in the process due to the late start - March of Junior year. I will start sooner with D2.</p>
<p>-not interviewing when we visited the first time if the school recommends interviews. Didn't think we'd apply to some of them, so didn't interview - but a few months later, D wanted to apply. Wasn't in a position to go back to some of them, so ended up not applying to one or two she would have liked to in the end. I think interviewing at a school you don't think you will attend is a probably good idea...kick the tires, see what interviewing is like. My D ended up having some very strong interviews, she liked doing them and it showed.</p>
<p>-I think we might have underestimated my D's potential. Her counselor was not very helpful, and reinforced a conservative list. CC intimidated me a little, and looking at Naviance with her first SAT scores and her early Junior year GPA was daunting. GPA and SAT score shot up considerably by fall, but the list was pretty much the list by then. D picked one reach late in the game, and it probably isn't really a reach...it's a merit money reach because she is an average candidate in the applicant pool. So far, she is 7 for 7, with very good scholarship results and good choices. She says she doesn't regret not having a true reach.</p>
<p>-At points in the process, my relationship with my D suffered. I am not going to beat myself up for this too much, because I think this is common - but it is not the way I envisioned this special time, these last months of having her home, would be. However, she needed a kick in the pants every now and then. She thought I needed an intervention. (ok, I probably did)
I think she understands now that I was, and still am, intensely committed to helping her find a place where she will be happy and challenged.</p>
<p>-We needed to put more thought into ideal SAT dates. We were very limited because of conflicts.</p>
<p>-not realizing my D really wanted to stay in a 2-3 hour radius of home. She never actually verbalized this - she just kept making excuses for schools outside the radius. I finally figured it out and asked her...she said "Yeah, I guess you're right. I don't want to be very far from home."</p>
<p>-not understanding the impact on D2. She is really deserving of some good quality time!</p>
<p>What I am pleased with: I am happy we did "house arrest" (thank you NorthMinnesota!) during the final week of summer, because the essay was not materializing no matter what we said or did. Having the essay complete allowed her to enjoy her senior year. Applications required very little tweaking, and were mostly data entry excersises with the exception of a few supplements. We are huge fans of early action. She heard from schools every 2 or 3 weeks. Priority apps are great too. She is also happy with having applied to ten schools...it doesn't close out any options.</p>
<p>Ditto the idea about picking good SAT dates early. We were very haphazard about this, needlessly so.</p>
<p>Also, have the more relaxed and competent parent drive child to SAT site. A certain parent who will not be named handled the duties the first time. This parent got lost and also spilled a cup of hot coffee on D's white shorts, so she showed up at the test with coffee in her crotch, tear streaks on her face, and not in a frame of mind to do well.</p>
<p>With our older son, we made the mistake of applying to too many reach schools and not enough match or safeties. He was wait listed at three schools and accepted by three more, a prestigious university, a top ten LAC and the state flagship university. All were great choices, but I wish he had more acceptances to consider. By the end of March, he was very anxious with worry because he did not hear from most schools until then. The second semester of his senior year was stressful instead of enjoyable. Having learned this lesson the hard way, with S2 we applied to a greater range of schools. He already has 9 acceptances, 7 of those with merit offers and will hear from his reaches by April 1. If he does not get accepted by any other schools, he will still be happy to choose from the offers he has. This situation has given him so much confidence! He is one happy senior. (Everything turned out fine for S1, he graduated from the LAC and is now a first year medical student).</p>
<p>The only thing D would have done differently was to better prepare for the SATIIs, maybe take some sample tests under the same time constraint. She did not do as well as expected, and ended up not applying to the one school she was looking at that required them, but it pretty much kept her from applying to any Ivies, were she to have had the interest.</p>
<p>-Make sure you know about the forms for the Common App. There are forms for mid-year grades, recommendations, etc...</p>
<p>-Make sure you don't wait until the last second. MAKE A CALENDAR with dates.</p>
<p>-And know which schools use the Common App or not. Someone at my school assumed "School 1" was using Common App and it got down to the last day and he had to RUSH to get the application in.</p>
<p>-Don't kill yourself senior year with super hard classes. (Physics yuck)</p>
<p>would anybody recommend those summer essay writing 'camps'? hire a private counselor??</p>
<p>Mistake: We weren't thinking about SATIIs in 10th grade. S could have taken two SATII at the end of 10th, which would have reduced the pressure in 11th grade. By the time we realized this, it required too much review to go back.</p>
<p>Almost Mistake: S assumed that if his name, address and birthdate were on all of his AP exams, but one AP exam did not have his social security number, it would find its way into his consolidated test record anyway. Wrong! College Board apparently has no logic built into their system that would cause them to see if perhaps, just maybe, two people with the same name, birthdate and address might also be the same person. We discovered this by accident: He would not have been eligible for one of the honors associated with taking multiple AP exams with high levels of achievement. Unclear if all of his AP results would actually been reported to his school since they were sitting on two independent records.</p>
<p>Very Good Move: S had strong first choice among the schools he saw, but we didn't want to reduce his leverage in obtaining financial aid by locking in. We called the school's financial aid folks who assured us that they provided the same level of aid to ED and non-ED kids, so that should not prevent him from applying ED, and boosting his chances of admission. So we lost a little leverage by not being able to compare financial packages and negotiate-but we also had an ED in hand by mid-December, eliminating the need to fill out another 6 applications and endure all the stress.</p>
<p>I wish I had read this book sooner- buy it, read it now, then read it again at the beginning of senior year!
Amazon.com:</a> The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price: Lynn O'Shaughnessy: Books</p>
<p>Not understood all financial lingos. I thought I would scan all documents to send to IDOC via the internet. After logging in IDOC the first time tonight I know I have to send via snail mail. I thought anything begins with I or E means electronic.</p>
<p>As a 2010 parent I am extremely grateful for all your insights. Keep them coming! And to keep you guys from being too harsh on yourselves, maybe the idea here should not be "mistakes" but "wish I knew then what I know now."</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>would anybody recommend those summer essay writing 'camps'? <<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Heck, hire cindysphinx and her H!</p>
<ol>
<li> I would not have sent the SAT scores or ACT scores to schools without reviewing them first. My son did a ton better on the ACT and I wish that had been the only score sent.</li>
<li> I would have visited a few local schools my son was not interested in before visiting schools he was interested in. At the first school we visited we really didn't have anyway to measure what we were seeing and I think the school got shortchanged as a result.</li>
<li> I would have had my son do interviews at schools he was not interested in to get comfortable with the process before interviewing at schools he was interested in.</li>
</ol>
<p>Good advise from Inquisitive Mom. We saved a lot of money by checking out a local public university, private university and LAC. After that, S knew he wanted a LAC, so we saved time by not looking at other public and private universities.</p>
<p>And yes, it's a good idea for your kid to interview with the schools he/she cares most about after getting some practice on those they care less about.</p>
<p>Finally, interview at the school with an admissions officer if you can in cases where the interviews are used in the decision-making (ie, not just fyi interviews). Alums interviewers are well-intentioned but often less skilled at putting students at ease. On the other hand, if you have friends who are alum interviewers, ask them to do a 'practice' with your S or D. S learned a lot from his 'practice' interview-it boosted his confidence and pointed out an area or two where he could present himself better.</p>
<p>I can echo a few of these: take SATII after the relevant course, start visits early.</p>
<p>Here's another: think about what kind of program your child is looking for before you do a lot of visits. My son is interested in majoring in music, and it wasn't until we had already done a number of visits that we understood that he didn't want a conservatory/B.M setting. This eliminated several of the schools we had visited, as well as the main safety school he intended to use. Don't assume that even a very large university has the major your child wants.</p>