<p>I’m also planning to create a spreadsheet to all colleges my daughter is interested in. Aside from financiil data (EFC/Net cost/Room and Board), what else do you track? Here’s my initial list:</p>
<p>College Name
Location (State)
Undergrad Population
Total Population</p>
<p>Admission Rate
ACT 25-75 Range
SAT 25-75 Range
SAT II Requirement
EA or ED
EA/ED Deadline
RD Deadline
Application Fee</p>
<p>Total Cost of Attendance
Room
Board
EFC
Grants
Net Cost</p>
<p>My spreadsheet has pretty much the same information, but I also included whether they consider interest and/or interviews, so I could make sure that we were “showing the love” where necessary. ;)</p>
<p>It’s interesting what jazzes kids about schools. S3 wants nothing to do with a supersuite, über nice dorm. He wants old school, hall style, shared bath and all. This doesn’t come from nowhere. His older brother lived his first year in an old classic dorm, no a/c, cinder block walls, hall baths, doors always open, you knew everyone on your hall and always had someone to do something with. For S2 it was the ultimate first year experience and he can’t imagine anything else. Suites would have been isolating and not nearly as good for him. Yes, they’re posh, private, you get your own room, and share a bath sometime with one other person. Personally, I think there are valuable lessons in sharing a room, navigating hall baths, living a bit out of your comfort zone. S2 grew socially in leaps and bounds. For some kids, suites are absolutely fine, preferable. In many cases there’s nothing wrong with sharing some space. S3 now looks on it as a rite of passage and doesn’t want to miss that bonding. I know S2s school is replacing older suite-style dorms due to foundational issues, however the new ones are all hall style, even the honors dorm. The new ones do have a/c. Now I would wish for that! 
Who knows where S3 will end up, but he’ll be the oddball looking for the oldest dorm on campus, lol!</p>
<p>Okay, No laughing…really!</p>
<p>University name
Admissions address
Phone #
Website
Regional rep name/email
Mascot/colors</p>
<h1>of students</h1>
<p>Rank
Common Ap?
Supplement?</p>
<h1>of teacher LOR</h1>
<p>Interview?
Official visit date
Username
Password
ED date
EA date
RD date
Acceptance %
Yield %
Mid 50% GPA
Mid 50% SAT CR
Mid 50% SAT M
Mid 50% SAT W
ACT
SAT2 ?
Last test Date RD
Demonstrated Interest considered?
% top 10% of class
SAT1&2 ETS
ACT
FAFSA
PROFILE
Ratio M/F
Greek %
4yr Grad rate
Student Faculty ratio
% classes < 50
% classes < 20
Tuition
Room
Board
Estimated Merit/Grant
Total COA</p>
<p>@blueiguana
LOL. I can’t resist.</p>
<p>TBH, I might use some of these. Do you have multiple tabs on the spreadsheet? How do you manage it with these so many fields?</p>
<p>If you lock the top row and left column, that’s helpful in managing a big spreadsheet</p>
<p>@blueiguana, is there an app for that?</p>
<p>I actually use 3 different spreadsheet tabs. One for the “preliminary” stuff like cost, likely aid (merit and/or need), size, urban/rural, distance from home. </p>
<p>Once DS chooses schools he wants to apply to, we’ll go to a more detailed spreadsheet that includes things like showing interest, due dates, and so on. </p>
<p>and then a 3rd tab for comparing financial details at every school he is ultimately accepted to.</p>
<p>I just ponied up the $42 for the spreadsheet available at that DIY College Rankings dot com website that has every conceivable data point you can imagine. This way I can run multiple searches/filters, and also have a pivot table. I then just extract that data to a different spreadsheet and supplement with my own. </p>
<p>In addition to the general admission stats, I also include the stats for our school that are available on Naviance. Those fields are:</p>
<h1>Applied Regular</h1>
<h1>Accepted Regular</h1>
<p>Acceptance Rate Regular</p>
<h1>Applied Early</h1>
<h1>Accepted Early</h1>
<p>Acceptance Rate Early</p>
<h1>Applied Total</h1>
<p>Accepted Total
Acceptance Rate Total
Lowest GPA Accepted Regular
Lowest GPA Accepted Early
Average GPA Accepted Regular
Average GPA Accepted Early
Lowest SAT 1600 Accepted Regular
Lowest SAT 1600 Accepted Early
Average SAT 1600 Accepted Regular
Average SAT 1600 Accepted Early
Lowest SAT 2400 Accepted Regular
Lowest SAT 2400 Accepted Early
Average SAT 2400 Accepted Regular
Average SAT 2400 Accepted Early</p>
<p>No app, I made it on google docs so S3 & DH could access it as well (S3s request, pretty smart). No tabs, I just slide it over. Each school is highlighted in a different color so it’s easy to keep track of who you’re looking at as you go across. Also, I abbreviate like crazy to condense the fields as much as possible while still being readable.</p>
<p>Your system sounds really good mathmomvt.</p>
<p>If it makes it any better, I never had a spreadsheet for S2. He only applied to three schools so we had folders. Pretty simple.</p>
<p>@2014novamom, the spreadsheet at DIY College Rankings dot com website looks interesting. I can see the benefit of not having to input all the information for $42. Are all the data in their spreadsheets upto date? Are there updates availiable?</p>
<p>I also purchased the spreadsheet and have found the info to be very helpful. Created my own spreadsheet from that information. Adding deadlines, interviews and comments.</p>
<p>Man, I am WAY out of my league. What a spreadsheet! </p>
<p>The only thing I’d never include is rank. It’s too meaningless. Do you know what I learned recently. Ok, I always assumed (a$$ of u and me, I guess), that a college with a regional ranking served students in a region. For example, my employer has a regional ranking. Most of the students served come from within X miles and 4 states. A region, right? NO!</p>
<p>And you are probably laughing your heads off by now because most of you already knew this, but. . . . A USNWR “regional” college is simply a college that gives more than 50% of it’s degrees in areas other than the liberal arts, for instance business, education, nursing, sports-anything, and social work. Now, by what convoluted logical process does granting a whole lot of business degrees make a college “regional” while awarding a bunch of degrees in philosophy makes a school “national”. </p>
<p>That’s it. I’m done with rankings. Thinking about coming up with my own based on some arbitrary system, like how many times a week fish is offered at lunch time by the food service.</p>
<p>The data was extracted from IPEDS and was current as of Oct. 26, 2012. There may have been some updates to the data since then but I don’t think they would be material. Tuition will of course be different when our guys are entering in Fall 2014, and there may be some slight changes in stats, but probably not much. It’s more than good enough to use as a screening tool for me.</p>
<p>I feel like the process is moving along without me.</p>
<p>I told S he should respond to emails from the admissions counselors who had emailed him; he seemed uninterested.</p>
<p>He’s scheduled for March 9 SATs; he seems uninterested.</p>
<p>Tonight, he was going to a birthday party for the older sister of one of his friends. He wanted to bring flowers. I went to the local place and called him: they have white roses; pink roses; and white roses with a little pink. What do you want?</p>
<p>I should have kept it to “baked ziti or roasted chicken.” He couldn’t decide. We finally went with white roses with a little pink.</p>
<p>BTW, has anyone noticed that the OP (PaperChaserPop) has not posted on this thread in a long long long long time?</p>
<p>I guess we’re really behind the times… my older two boys just had sheets of paper for their schools with two lists, Pros and Cons. Once we added financial packages to them and crossed out the “not happening” schools they picked.</p>
<p>We’re doing the same with our youngest, but I don’t think he’s writing anything down (unless it’s a science project, writing down data is not his thing).</p>
<p>Yesterday was a happy evening here. Youngest came back from the regional Chess Tournament as the Top Open class winner - undefeated! It was his first major win and he beat foes he’d lost to before. The only sad thing is a combo of budget cuts and the rest of the team not being terribly good this year means he doesn’t get to go to States. His season is done. Two years ago he was on the State Championship team and last year middle son won States (the Individual part). The team got 5th or 6th, I forgot, but they won regionals easily again. Then three top team members had the nerve to graduate. ;)</p>
<p>I’m really, really hoping our district doesn’t axe Chess with the budget cuts needed this year. It’s not an expensive team to have… but it’s also not a “major headline grabbing” team. Even when they won States the school barely blinked. We have signs out in front of the school noting other sports States wins, but nothing at all for the Chess Team. I don’t think they even display the trophy (at least I haven’t seen it displayed).</p>
<p>Anyway, all that to say I’m hopeful that youngest can continue his chance at being top dog and, perhaps next year, have a chance at a States win. Time will tell.</p>
<p>Creekland - congratulations on the win! That is pretty cool. He will always have that.</p>
<p>Morning all</p>
<p>Classof2015…</p>
<p>add my k2 to the “not so interested”…
while the SAT prep book etal is here-- very very little prep has gone into the SATs…and K2 is scheduled for March 9…</p>
<p>sigh</p>
<p>for K2 those scores will help balance some initial grade issues…</p>
<p>double sigh</p>
<p>Airline tickets purchased, tours and interviews booked etc…</p>
<p>I think K2 thinks this will all fall together…and I think also K2 is feeling a bit overwhelmed…when I hand the spread sheet (much much simpler–I am not nearly as on top of it as you all) to K2-- it Should be glaringly obvious that this is not a cake walk…and some effort needs to be put forth…</p>
<p>K2 met with the GC who couldn’t show any of the scattergrams for the schools on the list–because few if none of past students applied to those schools (all are out of our region/geography )
and so GC offerred names of HUGE stateflagships…without the EC K2 is passionate about and the schools are waaaay bigger than anything K2 has liked…</p>
<p>triple sigh… because the GC was like “you can get in here…”<br>
where’s the FIT???</p>
<p>grrrr…</p>
<p>Last year we saw a great state flagship that has K2s intended major and EC…which would be a better fit than the one she suggested
and K2 hated the large spread out feel…</p>
<p>otoh it has rolling admissions and it may go on the list.
also–K2 - who had vehemently said that none of the state flagships in our state were going on the list…now says…“I didn’t say I wasn’t interested in them…”</p>
<p>Our private hs has a good record of getting kids into the flagship…even a better record over kids at the very prestigious public …</p>
<p>Congratulations Creeklandson! It’s frustrating when your kids EC gets overlooked by sports, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I have a great respect for the athletes and hard work they put in. It’s not their fault the schools don’t celebrate activities equally that win regional and state awards. All kids/groups that excel should be recognized and that’s up to the administration. </p>
<p>Hi fog!</p>
<p>Good to hear from you. You are exceptionally detail oriented and organized. I am beyond confident that any list/spreadsheet has just the information needed…no extra (like colors or mascot, lol! obviously a bit of time on my hands that day ). </p>
<p>On one hand…omgosh, it’s already March!! On the other hand, it’s only March. There’s an ACT in April, and SAT in both May and June. Plenty of chances. It’s not the end of the world of they need to test next fall.</p>
<p>I get the frustration with the GC. Rely on her for what you know she can provide. You know your research for K2 is going to be more thorough on the target schools given his specialized EC. I hope K2 gives you some more feedback after your trip. I always enjoy those!</p>
<p>Every time you post, I think of your mom. My thoughts are with you, and her.</p>
<p>Creekland, congratulations to your Top Open class winner! I agree that schools don’t give equal treatment to sports vs. ECs that are more academic in nature such as chess, math & science, etc…In DC’s school, the parents have been needing to raise major funding in order to send the teams to Science Olympiad competitions.</p>