<p>@Apollo6, I believe our state cutoff is 220… and she is far from that mark! Her score went up 19 points from freshman year to this year… but she has a long way to go! She did very little studying for this PSAT and so she is NOW actively studying… direct hits, CB blue book etc, reading classic literature etc…</p>
<p>She knows that raising her scores are of paramount importance!</p>
<p>@mom4cw WELCOME! </p>
<p>@29happymom26 We started looking last fall/winter… call me crazy but I felt that keeping the idea of college in her frontal lobe was/is extremely important… there are too many things in her enviroment that can take her off of her path.</p>
<p>Last year we did a college fair, which was nice… it gave her a chance to get in the mix of college admissions… speaking with college reps… </p>
<p>In April we visited/toured Harvard… she loved it… and we were even able to sit in on a lecture…</p>
<p>May we did an Exploring College Options reception at a hotel here in CT… admission reps from DUKE, Harvard, Georgetown, UPENN and Stanford were represented… she fell in love with Stanford… but its on the other side of the continent… so far… </p>
<p>Over the summer, after her Choate program, she flew down to NC to visit my dad and his wife… she went to 6 colleges in about a 10 day period… she loved loved UNC @ Chapel Hill… wasn’t impressed with DUKE…</p>
<p>In November, we went to Weslyan… much to her chagrin… it was a pout fest the whole 30 minute ride…how dare I make her crawl out of bed on her day off? how dare I make her visit a school in CT when she doesnt want to even stay in CT for college??? My answer to her was… shut up and ride! LOL and guess what??? she fell head over heels in LOVE with it oddly enough… 20 minutes into the tour… she bent down and whispered in my ear “Mom, I love this place”… I also told her that she may change her mind as to where she will or wont apply come 2013 and it was good to take a look see at the school…I am glad I dragged her! </p>
<p>We visited Barnard 2 weeks after that and it was great! She felt the same way…</p>
<p>We will continue the tours in the spring…</p>
<p>Would she rather sleep, hang out with friends and watch Harry Potter with her friends…its my duty to make her do things that she doenst want to do! I always tell her, “As a teenager, you are blind, I have the experience to see what you can’t. I will be your eyes til you can see”</p>
<p>S14 finished his last study abroad application last night! He’s completed three study abroad applications and two boarding school applications for next year. I’m sure there is a scholarship in there for him somewhere. This boy is getting out of Dodge (and out of a very mediocre public high school)! I’ll miss him but I’m so glad that he’ll have a great opportunity. Now to hang in there for interviews and notifications in April…</p>
<p>NHCtMom - Sounds like a lot of fun to me! lol 
I’m sure your DD with appreciate the time you have spent with her as well as getting to know what urban/rural, big/small, LAC/research, etc., schools look and feel like. It’s all well and good to look at a website, but there is a lot more to a campus and putting your feet on the ground to that school, or one comparable in size and features can really go a long way towards narrowing a list. I also found it helped to really encourage and excite my older son in the college process. “Wow, this is what college is like! I could go somewhere like this if I work hard enough!” It was a real motivator.</p>
<p>Apollo6 - Congratulations to your DS on the super progress! It sounds like he’ll have some really exciting options to chose from next year. I’m sure he will do well in the interviews this spring! :)</p>
<p>College searches and lists come in all shapes and sizes for all types of students. I did a lot of searching via internet thanks to CC for my older son and would toss out names of schools or send links via email. Most would eventually get kicked back at me with reasons why he wasn’t interested. That’s okay, it kept the conversation open and him thinking about what he liked and wanted in a school. In the end he only applied to three (yes THREE) schools. The third was at my insistence because I wanted a true safety (financial & academic), so we added an OOS with automatic merit and rolling admissions. For him this was fine. I see a much different search, and wider net for S3. Luckily I am armed with more knowledge earlier in the game this time and have lessons learned from the first go-round! </p>
<p>Have a wonderful weekend everyone!</p>
<p>DD can be a little tough to rangle at this age(she used to be such a cute, loving child! Where did she go??)…She can be quite the curmudgeon when she wants to be…but who cares? LOLOL She startd HPREP today @ the Yale School of Medicine and they have some pretty neat things lined up for the students to do… suturing, dissecting, anatomy labs with medical students / cadaver work… learning about health disparities/inequalities, global health, so many to list…it lasts 10 weeks and the students get to earn scholarship monies at the end…</p>
<p>@apollo6 your DS is incredible! Five apps done? wow… I am so impressed! where will he be going? My DD wants Spain and her apps are on the dining room table being shuffled around, looked at, then reshuffled…her schedule is so full that she is avoiding the apps like the plague… I hope she gets them done in the next few days!</p>
<p>@ Blueiguana-- all of her choices will be financial safeties… LOLOL thats another reason why I push for excellence… as this will hopefully garner her some full rides somewhere? We can only pray for the best!~</p>
<p>We live out west, so this past summer when I spent the time and money to take DD’12 to visit colleges in the east, I brought DS’14. It helped DD to have him along and it did wonders to motivate DS to work hard and pay attention to deadlines in school. He had a strong semester and did pretty well on his practice PSAT (that he took in October, but the school just released the scores yesterday.) I think making the college trip had an impact.</p>
<p>I was wondering how many of your discuss potential careers with your kids as you narrow the college search. The price of four years of college coupled with high unemployment makes me feel like it’s important to narrow in on somewhat of a path. I know a lot kids don’t know what they want to do, but I’m wondering what all of you are doing to get that ball rolling? My daughter seems all over the map with her interests (law, science, medicine, acting…) I don’t feel like her school does a great job of really explaining what all this education is for…besides getting into a good school. I’ve been working on setting up “informational interviews” with friends in different job positions so that she can get an idea of what 9-5 looks like. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>DS has known for years that he wanted to be an artist of some sort. IMHO he’s very talented so we’ve encouraged it. We’re fortunate that his hs is a combination college-prep & career/vocational school. He’s “majoring” in graphic design - in other words most of his electives are taken up with design classes. If he completes all the required courses (along with the regular required academics) he will receive a certificate along with his diploma at graduation. Right now he wants to major in either graphic design or illustration at either an art school or LAC. Makes the search process a bit easier.</p>
<p>DD is not quite sure what she’d like to major in. I know that many parents feel the economic pressure to encourage kids to zone in on a marketable major early on, but I am a big believer in a classic liberal arts undergrad education and want dd to be exposed to lots of different subjects. If that means grad school is where she focuses on a profession then so be it, and hopefully we can pay (or help pay) for that too. That said, it does help to have some idea of interests to narrow down college choices so we are looking to see if the colleges she is interested in have majors in a few general areas such as: communications, theater, history, education, psychology. I hope to avoid a transfer for her down the road in case she decides on a major not offered at her college, but I guess you just can’t rule out that possibility either.</p>
<p>I think it’s a great idea to expose the kids to various careers, though. In fact, she has signed up for an upcoming career day in her school where she gets to shadow someone at their job for the day.</p>
<p>pdxsuzanne – very good question – does anyone make the link between college and careers for these kids? I think they get swept up in the whole college “machine” and they think getting in is the goal. They can’t see beyond that.</p>
<p>I heard of someone the other day who works as a court reporter, making $200K+ per year. No college degree. He went to a technical school to be trained in this work. I was surprised at the income level and wanted to learn more about non-college options. I feel like I have drunk the Kool-Aid – a 4 year degree is the only thing I know. </p>
<p>S’14 has been to visit zero schools, but I might squeeze in some SUNYs this spring. I realized too late with D’11 how long it takes to get all the visits in.</p>
<p>S was the only kid in kindergarten who wanted to be an architect. However in the last year he has found his interests changing and is now considering a career in some sort of international studies/politics. Who knows what he will end up doing.</p>
<p>We toured several colleges with our older child so he knows the drill. We’ll be going back to one of those schools.As someone else pointed out, it varies with the child. Our plans are to start visiting schools this summer.</p>
<p>Hi All</p>
<p>Have been gone awhile and just checking in. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Mine too–it just doesn’t seem to be on the radar at all.
Then again it wasn’t until my older students GC during soph yr mentioned maybe starting to think about the college years, that we got started…</p>
<p>With our older student–we started looking at colleges soph yr spring break. Just to get the idea of what a college is and what it can feel like (urban, suburban, huge, small etc)
I planned that trip around that students academic leanings and sports…and we started in one city for a week. </p>
<p>With this student…'14… Kiddo has no real leanings for one particular field of academics and enjoys many things…and also dislikes many things
…and frankly the pressures of thinking about this seems to overwhelm kiddo.</p>
<p>So I may pick 2-3 schools in 2 areas/regions and do something over spring break–and have it be a little more relaxed…I would like the trip to inspire, not overwhelm…and yet if it is too early for this student I don’t want to push something and ruin the experience.</p>
<p>This college selection journey will be as different as my kids are…</p>
<p>I’m trying to do my best to make my D understand that the college decision shouldn’t be made in a vacuum. In the “good old days” you could take time to explore. I’m just not sure that in this current economic client that’s the best idea. She’s signed up to look at two medical-oriented careers (nursing and research) through a local organization that offers students the ability to shadow professionals. I think it will help make or break a decision to go into nursing (as an example). I’m also encouraging her to look into internship opportunities this summer, even creating her own. This isn’t to say that she can’t change her mind once she goes to college, but I do feel that it’s good to have some direction. I’m seeing far too many friends with their college graduates coming home, still unsure as to what they want to do and not able to find a job so they can move out. Maybe it’s mercenary, but I think it’s an essential part of the entire college conversation.</p>
<p>We haven’t gone on many tours yet but have gone to a couple of college fairs and college nights. I think it was a real eye opener for D and it made her feel like she was ultimately in control of her destiny. She heard from the admission folks over and over again, take rigorous classes, do well. She’s been on it. At a college night with Princeton, Northwestern, Darmouth, Northwestern, Cal and Vanderbilt – she was most impressed with Vanderbilt and Northwestern. Their admissions officers really painted a great picture of what life would be like there. ironically, the Princeton gal described it as “suburbia” which was a real turn-off. Seems like she went out of her way not to boast about the amazing opportunities. I’m not sure how many “reach” schools I want her to tour; I don’t want her to fall in love with sometihng that most likely won’t happen. I may just have her apply and if she gets accepted, visit at that time. I suppose the only exception would be if an interview is required and could ultimately change an admissions decision.</p>
<p>^it’s tough to know where to visit, because we visited some schools before we got SAT scores back for D’11, so we saw some schools where she didn’t have a shot.</p>
<p>We did the “apply and we’ll visit if you get accepted” routine for two out of three of DS11’s reaches. (We did visit MIT because we were visiting several other schools in that area anyhow.) He ended up attending a one that he visited for the first time after being accepted. However, he did find it harder to write the “why do you want to attend this school” essay on the supplement, having not visited. Something to consider…</p>
<p>mathmomvt–that’s a very good point regarding the “Why this U?” essay. My guess is that the majority of students can’t visit every campus prior to applying. It’s a conundrum. We’re on the west coast and would have to rent an RV and criss-cross the U.S. to see every school! We are fortunate that reps from over 100 colleges visit our school annually so there is an opportunity to get in front of an admissions representative and ask questions.</p>
<p>My son has chatted with me about taking a road trip or two to see a few schools this summer. Since he prefers big-state schools with big athletics in the south, I’ll try to honor his wishes. I do want him, however, to visit a small, private school where his older brother receive a full tuition offer, because I believe in variety. Meanwhile, he should receive word early next week that he is exempt from his finals. A nice vacation for him!</p>
<p>we’ll be making some decisions about visits for our 2012 ds. thinking we may be taking one school off the visit list for a february visit and instead make plans to visit some other schools once he finds out he is admitted to those. it seems to me when the student lives at least several states away, is admitted and a scholarship recipient, that they should make an effort to give some trip assistance. noticed that one school does offer that and i think that is a good thing for them to be doing. wish others would follow suit.</p>
<p>condor30: Trip assistance would be nice, but my oldest son, who has a full tuition scholarship and honors housing scholarship (along with lots of other goodies) would say that his university has taken care of him quite well. Sure, he has friends who have fellowships and additional scholarships from that university (BTW, some are not doing as well as he has academically), but he figures that he should be grateful that he will graduate debt-free. His kid brother, the 2014 HS grad, can only hope that such offers will come his way.</p>