@STEM2017 I totally agree. My learnings from S18 & D21 have been incredible, and I couldn’t imagine not sharing that with others. I helped 3 people from my office and started working with my nephew to create a list for himself.
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@Muad_dib Not even a little bit! Ha! This go around was brutal. I am still invested in everyone else’s kids and will ride with you all to the end. I love my girls like crazy, but this is like a seventeen year prayer answered each time 
@STEM2017 I have learned more from all of you than I ever could have from reading books. I told my girls I would take a year off to recover after this, but I already am speaking to a group of 8th AVID students in May. I feel so strongly about helping others with what I have learned, but the other day the Mr Meddy heard me offering my 2 cents to a coworker after hours on which high school level class his kid should take and after I hung up said, “No free advice. We are charging by the hour.” 
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I love paying ít forward. I’ll probably drop in on Class of 2022 next year but I’m already on the Class of 2024 since I have D24. Hers will be so much easier. She already has templates from S21 and I know the planning process better, as well as some of the key scholarship dates that we missed because we didn’t know. She has her stuff together and her big hurdle will be standardized testing. Who knows what UC will come up with by then but she seems to be an ACT kid like my son. He gave her an old ACT test and had her take it for fun. Sick, I know, but shelter in place so what is there to do but listen to big brother?!
I couldn’t have survived Common App without this group. However, I am definitely so over this 2021 college app season. Looking forward to end of March when I will hopefully know what school hoodies I will be buying for everyone 
I went on Reddit under Applying to College. That’s pretty funny. The kids are definitely funny.
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I first got onto CC about 5 years ago when my oldest was starting to think about college applications and I have been paying it forward ever since. I am continually amazed at how little parents know about college admissions today, including people who are well off financially and well educated. All of the other topics that @STEM2017 mentioned seem obvious to me now but certainly weren’t back then! Once my kids are launched I might volunteer at one of my community’s public high schools if they’ll have me.
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@mamaedefamilia I think some people are just not detail oriented and all of a sudden are in the middle of college applications where everything is detail oriented! I assume most of us that hang out here in CC like details, information, being informed, understanding the process, etc. But I agree with you, sometimes people express shock with some part of the process that is very common and has been the case for years and I think This is why doing a little bit of investigation really helps! I’m almost done with my 3rd, so I need to do a brain dump of knowledge to my friends with younger kids 
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I really appreciate people sharing their knowledge on this thread. We live overseas (dual US/overseas citizens) and this has been a great way to understand the US college application process. It has changed a lot since I applied 30+ years ago!
I am the main person helping my daughter since she knows very few people going thru the process to American colleges. My husband leaves it to me except for the school visits we had last January since he went to school in this country, and I went to school in the US.
I wish I had found this site sooner b/c it’s been a huge eye-opener about what it’s really like doing an engineering degree. Our D21 isn’t doing engineering, but one of our older children is at an American university doing engineering. I’ve been passing many words of wisdom from CC about engineering onto him over the past several months - only wished I’d found CC sooner when he started his degree!
So thank you to all for your words of wisdom
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I signed up at UStrive to help students with few resources. The background check is free for Amex cardholders.
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That’s great, but most of us with college students remember well when hundreds of colleges were quick to announce they were opening in the fall, and then gradually throughout the summer and some just before school started in August said “nope, not opening” and went fully remote. While they may have good intentions, the fact that CA is a complete sh*t show right now, this would not reassure me one iota right now and doesn’t.
In 3 months after there is more of an idea of what the vaccine administration is doing and if it’s making any dent in cases, etc. then maybe parents can make a more informed decision, but announcing now in January, seems way premature!
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Doesn’t the UC have 9 campuses? Where is the 10th one?
You are probably missing UCSF, which is grad only.
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Personally, and I can’t speak for everyone potentially sending their kids to a UC, but I feel assured.
We now have two vaccines, with other vaccines coming soon, which we didn’t have last year. And the start of the fall semester is 8-9 months away.
Also, I’m a positive thinker. 
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The University of Oregon. 
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I think UCSD (I random monitored them) had a pretty good process with kids who were back on campus. Similarly, UCDavis close to me. I’m hopeful the Biden admin will have a clue. It can’t be worse.
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Thanks for the suggestion, @MIP750 . I just visited UStrive’s website but couldn’t find information on how to volunteer. Would you mind letting me know how to get in touch with them?
Although I am still one year away from being done (I have a D22), I am keen to use my learnings (thanks CC!) to help others who do not have any/much support.
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University of California – Boulder
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My D21 plays on a travel softball team and I have held a couple of informational programs for the parents to share what I learned on CC from D18 process. With all these travel sports all these kids/parents focusing on athletic scholarships. Which is pretty unrealistic because with woman’s softball D1 teams have 24-26 kids on the team and 11 or 12 scholarship. Only the best of the best get a full ride. Most are getting partial scholarships. DII same but only about 8 scholarships.
I stressed to them is there is a lot more academic merit money out there than athletic money. Also if you can qualify for merit money at a school the softball coach may be more interested in recruiting you because then they can save athletic money.
The other exercise I did with them was showing them by running a NPC (assuming certain reasonable criteria) small liberal arts colleges can be similar in price or even cheaper than the state flagship despite the the LAC have the advertised higher price tag.
I hope to be able to similar programs with the other younger teams in our organization going forward.
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It will be interesting to see if any pattern emerges between colleges COVID responses (currently in-person vs not; did they stick with their plans or waffle) and Class of 2021 yield.
I know for mine it’s a significant consideration factor as her sibling attends UNC, which sent students home less than 2 weeks into Fall 2020 and has now delayed Spring 2021 return by 3 weeks. It’s starting to feel like UNC is Lucy and the students are Charlie Brown.
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What about ASU? 
It’s become increasingly popular for kids who get shut out of the UC system and if an applicant has reasonable stats, it’s often cheaper too.
One of the biggest takeaways, I’ve learned here is that you don’t have to be a tippy top student to get merit aid if you know where to look and are willing to consider somewhat less selective (but still great!) schools. I remember the information shared by @econpop among others on this topic. The annual 3.0-3.4 threads are also super helpful.
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No, I am totally done with this. All those tasks you mentioned have kept me from other things, and often put me in conflict with S21, whose ideas on deadlines differ from mine. And we didn’t get the fun part, the college visits.
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