S will mainly be focusing on the ACT. He took the old SAT in May and did well enough to confirm if he exceeds the cutoff for the PSAT. I am kind of mixed about pushing him to take the new SAT. I think given the changes, he is probably better off taking the ACT. Frankly, he doesn’t like to study for the standardized tests (who does), and I agree that asking him to focus on studying for two different test is too much. I do want him to be done with his testing by the middle of junior year because he will have enough on his plate in spring with APs and SAT IIs. He can always take the June ACT if he needs a final re-do.
Any thoughts and recommendations for hiring college consultants. It appears lot of parents are hiring them lately esp if kids are applying for highly competitive colleges.
I wish we had started a little earlier with tests, but hopefully D will be done by June. She is taking both ACT and SAT just for the heck of it I guess. That, and we’re not sure of a final list of schools, so not sure what’s required. She’s not prepping other than taking practice tests to get used to format, so it’s not a huge amount of time.
CC is our college consultant, I guess. We’ll be spending enough money on apps, I think we’ll have to forego the college consultant. I wonder if they do more than most parents on here?
My thoughts are if the HS your child attends has good counseling, you do not need to hire outside help. If you and your child don’t understand the process, want outside help reviewing essays, etc. then hire. D15 and S17’s school has a very good college counselor who is proactive and guides the kids through the process. The graduating classes are small enough that she can read essays and help develop college lists, so we feel comfortable. We had a friend who did use an outside consultant, but I think they waited too long and the cost of the consultant wasn’t worth the advise they got IMO. And I agree that CC has been a big help. If you are thinking about a consultant, I suggest do it sooner than later so they can get to know your child.
Our S mainly need help with reviewing essays and doing them in timely manner given the # of activities he is involved and IB schedule. He is thinking of applying for some BS/MD programs also, so it will be a long process! Luckily he is done with ACT & 2 SATIIs. He will probably take two more SATIIs in June.
@mtrosemom …you guys are so fortunate! D goes to a large high school (almost 700 in her class) and there is NO way there is any of that going on! We met with an outside consultant for just 1.5 hrs and it was well worth the cost. If we choose to use him more extensively for the application season it will be about 2-3K. In all likelihood she will be going to one of our state schools so that will not be needed but I can see where it would be very handy if she wanted to shoot for a more competitive reach school.
Yes, I agree we are totally fortunate. It was important for D15s college journey because she wanted a small, competitive LAC and we needed to find those with merit aid. S is more interested in tech-type schools so the search will be more along the State school route.
Actually 2-3K is not bad at all for outside help. And since you already have a relationship they will understand your D to help with the applications.
We are also pretty fortunate. Our GCs have about 400 kids each (so about 100 seniors each year), but ours is really good and wants to meet with each kid + parents once a year in Jan-Feb for planning purposes. (Many families probably don’t take her up on that offer, so I doubt she has a huge number of such meetings with non-seniors.)
She usually responds within 24 hours to email, has good advice, and knows how the UC, dual-enrollment, testing, etc systems work. I just stopped by her office earlier this week to chat about registering DS for a spring online math class at a distant CA community college, and she was fine with all the paperwork and pointed out some steps I’d forgotten. She knows and likes DS, but I think she probably knows most of “her kids”. Other parents who have her as the GC are also very pleased with her. The other GCs at the school are not universally good, and I know some people who have gotten really bad advice about subject tests and course selection from other GCs at the school.
I’m pretty confident that she’ll write a great recommendation. I haven’t seen a recent school profile, but I’m not convinced that it’s effective at showing that the school doesn’t have the grade inflation that other schools tend to have.
I don’t expect her to have time to read essays, however. There’s a local counselor we will probably use for feedback on essays. People say she gives good advice. Also, depending on the kid, it can be very useful to have some non-parent imposing deadlines. She is also available for general advice, and I’ve asked her questions once or twice a year. She bills by the hour, and I’ve probably only paid her for 2-3 hours total so far. She’s really busy during essay season, so I may contact her again in Jan/Feb.
I agree that CC is a really useful resource for information, though I’ve heard people like our local UC admissions rep, talking it down. I think mainly because it tends to make a lot of kids feel inadequate or feel that they need to aim for Ivys.
@Ynotgo that’s interesting what you say that about your local UC admissions rep talking down CC. I think when talking to people I will keep my involvement with CC on the down-low. Honestly, though, coming on here has only convinced me more that my D shouldn’t apply to an Ivy.
I’ve been thinking about having my son talk to a college consultant because he really has no idea how to narrow down his interests to choose one major. Maybe an LAC would be a better fit for him? I don’t know but he’s got to get on it and decide on some colleges to visit. I’ve given him the Fiske’s guide and asked him to look at it but he hasn’t. He is sure he wants to be in a city setting so at least that is a place to start.
@jedwards70 – my older son gave me nothing to go on other than an interest in studying business. That interest became Econ in fall of Sr year when he took AP Econ, so he really did not know either. I recall feeling the same way. The only thing I had ruled out was Pre-Med and that was only because I didn’t enjoy being a candy striper.
The flagged Fiske guide sat on my son’s desk for a couple of weeks, until I finally just decided to plan some visits. The process of visiting schools was very useful as it finally made him realize what he did or did not like in a college.
My younger son is entirely different and has already looked up course sequences and professors at the schools he wants to visit. I just need to get on it and plan some visits!
This is not to dissuade you from hiring a consultant but just to suggest that you may not want to wait for your son to decide and just get him on some campuses. Many colleges provide lists of lectures/classes that visitors can attend, so your son may want to try that to see if anything strikes his fancy.
Thanks, @CT1417 ! That makes me feel better to hear about your son. I had a scheduled visit for University Of Texas but the roads were flooded the day we planned to go so we had to cancel. He’s visited Williams and Skidmore on family vacations and did not like either one. He thought Williams was too snobby and Skidmore too boring. I thought Skidmore was great so obviously I shouldn’t be picking for him. We also visited University of Utah while he was there for a summer program and thinks it would be a good safety school so I’m thinking big universities in a city setting with lots of options for his many, varied interests. We plan to go on some college visits in the Northeast in the late winter/early spring. I’m hoping the cold weather will scare him away. He says he wants to go somewhere cold. Again, we’ll see and I’m hesitant to do many visits until he has some SAT/ACT scores and he really knows what is a match, reach, and safety.
@jedwards70 - Our oldest didn’t go on visits until the summer after junior year and even then I picked ones that would give him good merit aid since he really had no idea what he wanted to do… I would have him take the ACT/SAT and then go from there. I wouldn’t be too worried about it right now.
The schools that S is interested in are not in the same states, so we are starting to look in ernest at spring break. We’re kind of morphing the visits into a family vacation. This summer we will go to other states. He is working on school lists and researching these schools in a college planning elective he is taking.
How are Oct ACT scores? I heard writing scores are all over the place again.
I’d be interested to hear people’s thoughts on recommendation letters. My D17’s engineering teacher was talking to her class about college admissions and mentioned that he writes the second most recommendation letters in the school. She was already planning on asking him for a rec. It’s an interesting class (robotics) which just this year they turned into a “flipped classroom” and D has been able to really take off and work at a fast pace.
So then the students asked who wrote the most recs and turns out it is D’s adv. LA teacher who she’s had for two years now and has an excellent relationship with.
It seems that it would be an advantage to have your letters written by those who are the most experienced, so I am seeing this as pretty much a good thing. The only negative I can think of is that these teachers might be overwhelmed by requests.
When do you guys think is a good time to ask for recs which is not too early, but before the big onslaught? Also, for a kid going into engineering, would an LA teacher and an advisor be good picks in addition to the engineering teacher? Or should she ask a math or science teacher instead?
@snoozn, it really depends on the school. S’s school counselor has the kids pick the two teachers they want to ask for LORs in spring, typically in April. Our school has a form that the kids fill out to request these teachers. This gives the teachers time to think about what they want to write. I think that they do not complete the letters until school resumes in Fall when the kids start sending in their applications. Our school uses Naviance, so all of the LORs are submitted through Naviance.
Some engineering type schools require one recommendation from a STEM teacher and one from a humanities teacher. So, language arts and robotics would meet that requirement. You might look at the LoR requirements for colleges on her list. For example, the UC/CSU systems don’t even accept LoRs (with the exception that Berkeley tried to accept them as optional items this year but postponed that to next year). I would suppose that other large public systems might be similar.
I’ve read here on CC that kids who are on top of things ask for a LoR late during junior year. I don’t think our school requires more than a ~4 week notice. Our school has Naviance, so the kids have to do their resume and/or “brag sheet” in Naviance before teachers can write the LoR. I suspect the teachers don’t actually write the recommendations over the summer, unless they are the type of people to do things ahead of the deadline.
I’ve also read that GCs may have advice about which teachers are better LoR writers if you are deciding between 2. It’s a skill that not all teachers have. (I read a story once about an English teacher who wrote, “He writes good” in a LoR.)
DS will probably ask his physics teacher, his APUSH teacher, and his research professor. He is in a 4-year engineering program at the HS, but they had a lot of teacher turnover this past year (separate teachers for engineering physics, machining, CAD/programming, and art).
Personally I think it’s only advantageous if you ask a teacher who writes tons of recs to do yours is if you are definitely exceptional. If colleges are getting multiple recs from the same person either some will be better than others or they will be too cookie cutter to be worthwhile. Say one child had a math teacher tell the class that he was one of the 5 best students she has ever had in 20 years of teaching. If she writes that about him in a rec then any other rec from her the school receives would probably not be on the same level. Probably only an issue for the most competitive schools but if that is your goal finding a teacher who sees you in a special light is better than that nice teacher everyone loves. Our school has 6 people applying to MIT this year. They are all very good students but picked the same teacher to write for them. In his rec he picked 2 he felt were deserving of MIT and the others I’m sure he wrote very nice recs but they don’t realize they didn’t have the paragraph the other 2 did stating that I’m recommending this student and 1 other as exceptional in his 10 years of teaching. We’ll see if that matters but it might.
My D17 is considering using her engineering teacher (who is also the tech club sponsor) but he doesn’t write that many recs for some reason and I feel like some of the schools she likes excluded engineering that it had to be a science or math teacher and a LA/SS. She’s had a string of LA/SS teachers leave or retire which leaves her with few good options for LA/SS. She has a freshman LA teacher who loves her and is the NHS sponsor so has some updated contact or her Jr AP Lang teacher who will only write 30 per year and does a lottery. That’s a big cop out in my opinion because some kids like my D really need her and have no other options. She’s just taking Hon History this year bc she has 5 other APs and there is nothing to do a rec based on the style of that class.
I read an article on the college searching process and thought it might help.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-mulligan/advice-on-what-really-mat_b_8511810.html