@MSHopeful Our very competitive district doesn’t rank either. It’s good to touch base on occasion with the counselor both kids and you, it just helps them get to know all of you better for when they write recs.
@MSHopeful I got to know my son’s GC because she has a Class of 2016 son who was on a sports team with my son during my son’s freshman year. She’s probably the best GC at the school (though I haven’t interacted with all the others) and a nice person too, but she does have 400 or so students. I suspect that she knows almost all of her students, because she’s that kind of person. I asked her whether she would rather have me email, voicemail, or stop by with questions, and email was definitely her preference. I’ve noticed that she tends to answer email either before school or late afternoons, so I’m sure she is plenty busy during the school day.
At our school (public, ~2000 students), they suggest that families have a scheduled meeting with their GC once per year, usually sometime around Jan-April to plan for the next year. We’ve done that the past two years, but I suspect that most families don’t. (Because how could she possibly handle that many meetings?) Topics we’ve discussed with her included penciling out classes for the remaining years, making a testing plan, and making sure he has ECs (too many, actually). This spring will probably be making sure he has a college list and giving us the schedule for applications, what he needs to get done in Naviance, etc.
We just had a college meeting at our school. It was open to any student and parent who was interested. Our counselor went over how to put a strong application together. One thing she said is that she would rather see a few ECs that the kids are passionate about rather than many ECs that the kids can’t really talk about. If she asks a kid why they are doing a particular EC and she gets no answer, or they can’t articulate why they are doing it, she figures that it is not necessary (or the parent is making them do it!) she put up a proposed testing schedule of Jan. SAT, Feb. ACT, May APs, and June SAT 2 tests. The big take away for S was he should be doing more research on schools he might have interest in so he can make a good list to apply to.
How valuable are college tours? With tight schedules, Attended one join session by MIT/Yale/Brown and I felt I didn’t gain much info other than their usual “holistic approach”. I felt I got more useful information from CC forums 
. Am I wrong? My S is a junior now and have already completed ACT and 2 SAT IIs and prefers to spend summer doing research than visiting college campuses on east coast or midwest (CA resident).
My S has enjoyed the visits and it helps him get a feel for the campus. Even summer tours have been good in the sense that he was able to talk to professors and meet some students. It helped both in finding “yes” schools as well as "no schools. However, every student is different and if your S isn’t interested in visiting a college over the summer then maybe you shouldn’t spend the money. If he goes in with a “bad” attitude, he may form less than stellar impressions about a school that would otherwise be great for him. There is something to be said for visiting a school after you have been accepted if you child can miss school days to do an accepted student visit.
I don’t think the joint session type programs are helpful. We did find the campus visits very helpful. 2 of my son’s initial top 5 choices are totally off his list once he visited them and one moved way down. I would at least try to visit a few of the top choices. My daughter who is a Jr isn’t as interested in visits and has visited a number of places with her older brother but I still am making her check out a few that she is dismissing because he did. Like Harvey Mudd and Caltech both were totally too small for him but he’s got a big personality and she is a quieter person who I think would thrive in a smaller environment. So we are going to visit without him to let her form her own impressions of a totally different type of school than we have previously visited.
Additionally, you will want to visit those schools that look at demonstrated interest, if it is at all possible.
My D was just telling me yesterday how helpful she found the visits to be. We visited 7 in the summer as part of a family vacation, and she went on an organized tour and visited 8 more. She also has stayed at three in-state publics, which are all safeties for her. Her final list of applications includes some from each group (if you’re new, D started in this class but will graduate this spring).
In our case, all but one tour was small and personal, and D got to meet department heads, ask questions and take a prolonged look around. She dropped some initial “must” schools and added others she’d never considered.
That said, touring colleges isn’t an affordable option for everyone, and many of her friends are at colleges they never saw until the day they began classes. I know of only one who came back home.
You can also demonstrate interest by signing up for the schools information, by contacting your admissions rep and asking questions, etc. You don’t need to visit to demonstrate interest. But I have heard that if you live close to a school where it is easy and not unduly expensive to visit and take a tour, they may view it poorly if you do not visit.
Thank you @mtrosemom, @sseamom and @dcplanner for your suggestions. @mtrosemom I don’t mean to say my
S will go with a “bad” attitude or not very interested in touring the colleges. He is trying to figure out how to best use the summer time. It’s not about the cost, but more about time. He is planning to apply for summer research programs and it is very tough to tour during school year given how demanding his school schedule is.
@srk2017 Looks like you are fairly new here. Welcome!
We are hoping to tour during spring break, I guess. I also don’t see other times that work, given S’s schedule. Would spring break work for your family? It’s likely that my S will also be busy doing research and possibly taking a class most of the summer. We are also in CA, and would probably just be touring NorCal and/or SoCal.
You wrote:
Does that mean you have toured within CA? DS has said that schools outside CA would have to be significantly better than his options within CA for him to want to travel that far. He wants to major in physics with some CS on the side, and there are a lot of good choices for that in CA. He will probably also apply outside CA, since we obviously can’t know where in CA he’ll be accepted, but save touring those places for a possible quick trip after acceptances.
I think most of the summer research programs that one applies to are about 6 weeks. Our high school’s summer is 10 weeks, so there may be time before or after whatever research program your S does. I like @mtrosemom’s comment that during summer tours you can still “talk to professors and meet some students.” We may try making summer appointments through the various physics departments.
We attended a local MIT/Yale joint session, but the guy from MIT was about an hour late, and the alumni who tried to cover for him didn’t do a good job. I thought the Yale person made a good impression, but it wasn’t really about academics, more about campus life. He did talk to the Yale rep briefly about his current research, and they offered to put him in touch with physics and materials professors at Yale.
The extent of our touring so far is: S has been on the campuses of UNLV and CMU for various overnight things, I believe he’ll be going to NYU and Caltech for events this November, and we hung out at MIT for a day when S was in 8th grade (tagging along to Boston with DH on a business/marathon trip).
I’m glad to hear it @srk2017. It is hard to juggle all of the thing the kids want to do and even should do. My S has an extremely long summer break (3-1/2 months), so we usually do a vacation right when school ends in mid May where we will visit a school or too in conjunction with fun. This summer he will probably be interning and doing an independent study project at a robotics lab on the local university campus (flexible hours) and taking a summer class at the U (not flexible hours). Plus he will be working on college essays with his HS counselor so he isn’t overwhelmed when senior year starts. Wow is all I can say. It is going fast.
Good luck to all of our kids taking the PSAT tomorrow! Gotta love our kids being the first ones to try out the revamped test.
I have no idea how that will go at our house. D is in the range of possibly being able to pull off good scores, but we are all naive newbies at our house. She totally overbooked her summer with work, travel and a fine arts camp that left very little time for prep and she admits she could’ve been more motivated. Oh well…what will happen will happen!
Best luck to the big test takers tomorrow. DD went to bed early to get a good night sleep for the PSAT in the morning. She did a study aboard this summer so didn’t spend time prepping for any standardized tests either. During the past couple weeks, she did all the practice tests from CB. I am hoping that the test tomorrow will be similar to the CB PSAT practice test as DD did well with it.
@Ynotgo, yes I am new to this group. Thanks for welcoming me No we haven’t toured any colleges in CA either. We did visit MIT & Harvard, when he was a freshman, but more like a casual visitor. True, most summer programs are between 3-6 weeks and that leaves us couple of weeks to explore colleges. We need to allocate some time for essay prep, but with what I am hearing from you all, we should make some time to visit some colleges. Hard part is my son is planning to apply for few BS/MD programs also in additions to top tier schools, so deciding which ones will be the hard part.
my son is taking the official PSAT practice test right now! He planned to take it during the weekend but he was sick. He did take ACT in September and did exceptionally well, so hopefully that prep helps with PSAT since revised test seems to similar to ACT.
Wishing all in class of 17 best of luck with the new PSAT today!
@rk2017 please tell us what he thinks
@VANURSEPRAC - He got only one question wrong in the practice test. Let’s see how different the actual test will be.
As I said earlier, he didn’t practice much for PSAT.
Good luck to all of the PSAT test takers today!!
@srk2017, has your S done any internships or volunteer work at local hospitals? My D15 has a friend who was accepted into a BS/MD program and I believe part of what made her stand out was the two years she spent as an intern and volunteer doing different rotations at our local hospital. She did this through a summer program at the hospital and then continued through an internship program at her HS. The BS/MS program is very intense, but she is liking it a lot.