<p>Just found out that DD17 got a rejection letter from a selective program at a public high school. Apparently, the score of her 7th grade state assessment (that she didn’t take seriously) must have kept her out of running. So disappointed. I am getting a taste of how college admission rejection letter would feel like.</p>
<p>Ordinarylives – the columns are dependent on your situation, of course, but some possibilities are clubs or hobbies that are very important to your D (figure skating? chess?), cultural/religious organizations that are important (Hillel?), gay friendly, gender balance, size, %full time, Greek life, urban vs. rural, majors offered, stats… but only those that are important to her. And financial stuff such as cost, your EFC, merit policies, which also depend on your circumstances.</p>
<p>4beardolls, sorry about your D17’s high school letter. Perhaps there will be a good side: a lesson learned, or a better fit outside the program.</p>
<p>OL</p>
<p>Like all have stated–the spread sheets get pretty complicated and student specific.</p>
<p>Mine has</p>
<p>School Name, coaches names, email and phone
Visited (y or n)
Varsity or Club (K2’s sport)
Mid SAT CR
Proj K2 SAT CR (will go from projected to actual when we have the scores)
Mid SAT Math
Proj K2 SAT MAth
Mid SAT Wr
Proj K2 SAT Wr
GPA
Proj K2 GPA (will adjust again end of Jr yr)
ACT range
Proj ACT score of J2
Coach Contacted date
Online Recruting Questionaire Date
Fax of Jr stats Date</p>
<p>Only schools w the intended major and the sport in either a Varsity or Club make the list. K2 also wants to be east of the Mississippi…(so far)
Size has been all over…though that seems to be narrowing a bit.</p>
<p>22 schools on the spreadsheet…
I have customized the widths and abbreviated the columns so all of the areas of interest fit across a horizontal print (with narrow margins)</p>
<p>K2 only applied to 3, though had apps ready to go for 6 more if the #1 choice didn’t come through…
I suspect K2s apps won’t be anymore than what K1s were.</p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>When I did one for K1–I also started the ranking…so ask some move up in K1s list etc…that chart reflected it. </p>
<p>I also color coded mine …when scores are in etc…and its a match or strongly better it was green…if it was a match on the low side it was yellow.
Anything not in those categories was removed.</p>
<p>I may create another page for this sheet for the financial stuff–
Since we have to do FAFSA for K1 and the Profile for K1—once we have those #s etc…dong it for K2 won’t be difficult.</p>
<p>Congrats to all the great scores on the SAT … and hugs to those who have to face it again! </p>
<p>my3gr8boyz - thank you for the recommendation of Duke! I’ve always been impressed with Duke - even before the Duke TIP experience! I don’t know that he is specifically looking for liberal arts … we’re still in the research stages to see which is the best way to go for him. I don’t see law school (or med school) being in the future for him, but who knows! Where’s that crystal ball!!!</p>
<p>NewHaven - any word on the college visits that were scheduled? I hope they’re still able to go! </p>
<p>AKMom - I need to register DS for April’s ACT. I did it last year, and like you, I was able to fill out the basic info - but geez, there were a lot of subjective questions!!</p>
<p>fogfog - regarding lookback period for FAFSA … do they ask for 2012 taxes AND 2013 taxes? I am really going to have to get on the ball for tax filing. I have a little business and I usually extend. I need to change my ways! lol</p>
<p>5boys - What is your DS12 up to now? I enjoyed following his blog from his hike last summer. </p>
<p>pacnw - my parents are spending the winter on the Alabama coast and mom is a former travel agent. Since they are retired with nothing else to do, they drove over to see the Carnival ship as it got towed into the Mobile area. :)</p>
<p>DukeHopeful2014 - good luck to you on this weekend’s SAT!!!</p>
<p>fog & 5boys - I have a twice exceptional in 4th grade. It will be interesting to see what his future holds! He is one of the youngest in the class and I constantly wondered if I shouldn’t have held him back due to lack of maturity. But then I thought he would be so bored academically! Such a tough decision … </p>
<p>spreadsheet - I started a spreadsheet this past summer after following the 2013 thread. I have gathered my data from two main sources - common data set and US News ranking magazine. I’ve included rankings (overall, engineering, mechanical engineering from US News, Times Higher Education world rankings, Edmunds Auto rankings, Forbes); enrollment (undergrad/grad); acceptance rate, freshmen retention rate, SAT/ACT info, dates for early action/early decision/regular, app fee, tuition/fees, room/board, books, other, % degrees in engineering, % live on campus. (I’d be happy to share my spreadsheet if anyone wants to PM me with your e-mail address)</p>
<p>I do not have it fully filled out. I do have a large list of colleges with ranks, but have only filled out a dozen or so of the other info. A work in progress! </p>
<p>Novamom - how sad that there weren’t enough seats for the parents to be able to attend the international culture fair! Glad they are moving for your ds’ senior year!!</p>
<p>4beardolls - (((HUGS))) so sorry about the rejection! It is going to be hard next year.</p>
<p>Thanks, beadymom. But good news – the school will livestream it both nights because of the demand! Now the grandparents can watch too!</p>
<p>Sent from my SCH-I510 using CC</p>
<p>That’s great, nova! Yeah for technology!! :)</p>
<p>[College</a> Board markets midweek SAT testing to schools](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/08/college-board-markets-midweek-sat-testing-to-schools/]College”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/08/college-board-markets-midweek-sat-testing-to-schools/)</p>
<p>Interesting read for those of you who are new to the whole mid week SAT testing dates.</p>
<p>@beady the director of the after school program in which dd attends/which is sponsoring the trip has decided to cut the trip short by one day. They won’t be visiting Brown U, which was one of the schools that she really wanted to visit. She also took the time to email a few of her teachers. Not to blatantly ask if they were going to be absent next week, but more along the lines of… Should I decide to attend the college tour next week, what will I be missing from your class? Well, 2 of her teachers got back to her and laid out in detail what will be covered. So they will be there. </p>
<p>So she has decided NOT to go on the tour for fear that she will miss out on some important learning opp’s. Monday is Pres Day so I will take her to Brown U to visit as I hate for her not to see any schools this week! </p>
<p>This time is flying by and I feel like college visits are so important at this stage of the game… I am also considering Connecticut College next weekend. I hope the snow isn’t too bad… say a little prayer for a nice warm weekend to help with the melting/evaporation processes!</p>
<p>@beady… my DS12 finished his hike and then went to Wyoming to do a 1 month Wilderness EMT class( he wants to be a wilderness ER doctor). He is now working at a outdoor outfitter store and just got a position on the weekends at Joshua Tree National Park( a famous rock climbing park here in CA) as a EMT and SAR team( search and rescue). He’s over the moon about that because it is pretty hard to get and somewhat prestigious. He also just turned in an application to work at a Swiss Organic Farm for a month. Don’t ask me how he is going to do all of this, not to mention he is leaving in August for something called COLLEGE:).</p>
<p>DS14 is also the youngest in his class and still to this day wish I would have held him back, but had the same worries about him being bored academically. </p>
<p>With DS14 I just booked a college visit trip to OH to see Kenyon, Oberlin and Wooster. DS is a thespian but hasn’t quite decided if he wants to do the BFA or BA with a top theater program. I am thinking the latter just because he has SO many other interests and I don’t see him giving them all up for an intensive BFA program. But who knows.</p>
<p>My spreadsheet column are:
School name
City, State
my COA (just direct costs)
max merit non-NMF
max merit NMF
realistic merit
merit notes
3 more columns for my COA minus each of the above merit figures. Those columns have conditional shading so that the priciest ones are colored red and the cheapest green with various shades in between
free app?
meets need? (if so, filled with FAFSA only, FAFSA/CSS, how much self-help (loans/ws) they include, and sometimes my notes from trying the NPC)
honors college?
honors core classes?
honors housing?
honors comments
experiential learning (for co-op or other project-based learning opportunities)
Hours drive from home
engineering rank USNWR
notes
special visit events
<column specific="" to="" the="" availability="" of="" my="" s’s="" ec=""></column></p>
<p>A school only gets on the chart at all if it has an ABET-accredited mechanical engineering program, since that’s what my DS is interested in. </p>
<p>I don’t leave width for the comments, I just let them get covered up by the subsequent columns, and click on them when we need to review them. </p>
<p>As you can see, for us the money is primary at this point.</p>
<p>ETA – definitely not fully filled out at this point, just a framework and a definite work in progress</p>
<p>After a visit we’ll write up a quick visit summary to send to friends interested in the same schools, and to help us remember stuff. That will include perceptions of the people we met, anything interesting mentioned about the programs, impressions of housing, and what DS thought about it overall.</p>
<p>"A school only gets on the chart at all if it has an ABET-accredited mechanical engineering program, since that’s what my DS is interested in. " Good idea, mathmom. I need to go back and check the ones on my schedule. :)</p>
<p>5boys - so envious of your ds12’s adventures! His college is lucky to have him! I hope it’s near the great outdoors and he’s able to keep doing what he loves!</p>
<p>NewHaven - sorry the planned tour did not work out, but glad you’ll get to take her on Monday.</p>
<p>Hi all …</p>
<p>Jeesh! This thread is picking up steam … I’ve been trying to read and keep up when I can w/ the app.</p>
<p>Couple of really neat things in my DD14s world … she’s mock trial captain and her team went undefeated at regionals and she’ll be headed to state in a couple of weeks. It’s a pretty big deal as we’re in one of the most competitive regions in the country. We are a hop skip and a jump away from the team who has been state champions forever and a day and who typically place top 10 nationally. (I believe they’ve been national champs 3 times in the last 10 years.) We beat that team last week.</p>
<p>And DD14 has been really under the weather - low grade fever on and off for the last month, basically been feeling rather poorly. She developed a killer sore throat over the last day or so and off we went to the doctor. No strep. No mono. But she got a jumbo dose of prednisone - hope she’ll be feeling better in the am. BUT her doc, out of the blue, asked her if she wanted to shadow him this summer. He offered to write her a great recommendation and tutor her on how to ace college interviews. Even said he might let her use a stethoscope! ;)</p>
<p>I’m excited because I’ve wanted her to do something similar, volunteer, candy stripe, something - but if it was my idea, it would’ve been a no-go for sure. So for whatever reason, fate shined down on me and said, KaMaMom, I got this!</p>
<p>lololololol!</p>
<p>Hope everyone is getting ready for a good weekend!</p>
<p>KaMaMom, very cool news about the shadow opportunity and the mock trial win! Hope your DD is feeling better soon!</p>
<p>DS writes the ACT tomorrow. He’s <em>really</em> hoping for “one and done” on this one. It’s possible, if he has a good day and the test gods smile down on him (test fits his strengths). Fingers crossed!</p>
<p>WOW, KaMaMom! Maybe there was a reason she’s been under the weather so she could have that visit with the doc. How exciting and fun for her! And great job on the debate team! Good luck to her and her team!! Hope the prednisone kicks in and she starts to feeling better soon.</p>
<p>Good luck to mathmom’s DS! I’m hoping one and done for you guys, too! (We could have been one and done if ds would have done the writing portion with his first test!)</p>
<p>What a great story, KaMaMom! S has had a sore throat too – maybe it’s an omen of good things to come! </p>
<p>Good luck mathmomvt – S took a practice ACT and struggled with the science part. I think he needs to practice his test-taking skills since ACT is different from SAT. He’ll take it for real April 13.</p>
<p>re: spreadsheets – I made so many for D’11. I started with S, but I realize the biggest thing for him doesn’t fit in an excel box – it’s “do I know someone like me who goes there and likes it?” I guess I could do a ! for each person he knows at each school.</p>
<p>I am impressed by many of your spreadsheet examples. You are motivating me to get going on it.</p>
<p>All d’s schools would be academic safeties, so I might skip a lot of the data about acceptance, etc. I probably need something more qualitative.</p>
<p>Hey 'rents!</p>
<p>I’m part of the high school class of 2013! I regularly post on the parent’s forum for the class, but I decided to wander on over here. A few months ago I stumbled across this blog: <a href=“http://admissionsproblems.■■■■■■■■■■/[/url]”>http://admissionsproblems.■■■■■■■■■■/</a> It’s ran by anonymous college admissions counselors. It’s really interesting to read, and I think that it would be beneficial to read it. We all want to get into the heads of admissions counselors, and here, we have the ability to. Good luck next year to you and your kids!</p>
<p>That’s cute, swizzle, thanks for sharing!!</p>
<p>Loved it, swizzle!</p>