We did not use a private counselor. Our school counselor is very nice, but we send very few students to schools that my kid was interested in. I’ve been spending a lot of time online figuring things out.
The only tutoring that I did pay for was some SAT tutoring. I had not planned on it (and probably wouldn’t have in a normal year), but our school district was fully asynchronous remote for most of my kid’s junior year, and I could see that it was just too much independent learning. Independent SAT prepping was just not going to happen. So it was additional money, but my kid ended up feeling good about the process and outcome, so I’m glad I did it.
Thanks. I wish he would see Alabama like that. They clearly want those NMF kids and have so many great opportunities! I hope he sees it soon! The scholarship is incredible. Circumstances prevented him from finishing the Randolf Scholars app in time, but did get into Blount Scholars and seems excited by that. He’s been watching the E-week a bit as well this week. I’m hopeful he comes to that decision soon!
UCSB(instate) CS vs UIUC CS. Even UCSB which is below in CS ranking, seems to have a very good CS curriculum. We are wondering if stay in state, regents scholarship, great weather and close to home vs UIUC CS for its superior CS curriculum, ranking and prestige for CS(weather and location is the tradeoff). CS seems to be meritocratic so not sure if school choice matter as much as clearing the interview. Are you in-state for any of the school choices you have?
One other thing I will mention. S22 has started planning his academic career at Alabama. This fall he will start taking two Computer Science classes. He is very excited about that. Since he is in Honors and in STEM/MBA, several classes are capped (I think) at 35 students. Given what I have seen at other universities, it can be rare (at least in engineering) to have actual classes in your major in your first semester. I know at A&M you have the whole ETAM process. He is very excited about this. Plus…there is the suite-style housing. When we did the private tour, he was measuring it for his VR-gaming. The tour guide asked what he was doing. Once I explained, she quipped that this was a new one on her. As I have explained to him, such housing is rare (and with the NMF scholarship, guaranteed for FOUR years).
What’s the perception of UW from instate? We are in CA and just don’t know much about it other than it’s USNWR ranking and some articles. We know a couple kids there who love it.
Here in our part of NJ, a few families do use private counsellors but I wouldn’t say it’s all that common, although it’s been trending upwards. Far more common though, to use essay coaches or a “limited engagement” counsellor who simply helps build a list of schools to apply to.
On the other hand, a Bay Area based friend of mine says using private counsellors is the norm there (at least for those that can afford their 5-figures or sometimes even 6-figure fees). Maybe someone on this thread who lives in that region can confirm or clarify how accurate this is.
He said a lot of families use “full package” services where the counsellor helps with everything from college selection to essay writing to connecting the kid with a research opportunity.
Congrats once again !! Both are great options.
I agree, ranking wise, UIUC CS edges it. You cannot go wrong with UCSB either.
We are instate for UIUC (with some scholarship). But really tired of the weather.
While you don’t have to be wealthy, you do have to be at a certain socioeconomic status to allow you to have the time to do the research and be at the computer all day. Many of the poor kids either work or have parents that are working all day with no support at all.
@saathvik choosing between the two will be interesting! Our S16 recently graduated with degrees in CS, and we’ve learned quite a bit during his time in school. It goes without saying that cost might be a big factor in your decision, but in the end this is something where only you will know what’s best. Here are some non-money things that we learned that you may want consider.
CS is not a singular thing. There are many areas within CS that students are attracted to. Does your kid have a particular area of interest?
This leads to another thing to consider - depth and breadth of offerings. How do the two schools compare with their class offerings, how often are classes offered, and how deep do they go.
Opportunities for undergrad research. The ability for undergrads to participate in research, for some, is very important. Our S loved working with grad students and profs on advanced projects. Such work expands personal networks, builds experience, and helps build a strong CS resume.
Internships. Probably very little difference between the two schools when it comes to internships. Start looking early.
I don’t know much about UCSB, but UIUC was on S16 list (was accepted but did not attend). UIUC has a long history in CS and has some great resources,
Yes it is true for bay area. I would’t say its the norm for the entire bay area as whole, but definitely true for the wealthier zip codes, in fact some college counselling companies have packages that start as early as 7th grade, and it isn’t cheap!!
Me and my husband are immigrants who didn’t go to college here so we actually did think about hiring a private counselor but my kid refused. And I have to say, between him and me, we were able to figure out ourselves. We researched and realized there’s a lot of info out there, thanks to forums like these.
That being said, I do see even among my kids peers, kids with parents willing to shell out money having all kinds of advantages, ranging from internships to starting non-profits believe it or not. College resume padding starts in 9th grade here, and it is just sad to see kids under so much pressure so early on.
Good news is that I am seeing kids without these kinds advantages still succeeding, they also get into good colleges while still enjoying their high school years.
We had a similar issue with pre calc. Teacher let go in January due to Covid issues, and new teacher was a disaster! Looked into private tutoring because previous A student was tanking and many of her classmates went to private instruction. Then we found out the price tag…$150+/hr and figured we were already paying private school tuition this was way too pricey for our family. I dusted off my gray cells and tried to fill in the holes but pretty rapidly a parental outcry caused them to reinstate the former teacher virtually ( school was in person but this teacher had medical issues). D ended up OK but this is only time we considered a tutor. Not the norm to have supplemental tutoring in our area unless there is an academic need, though kids do test prep when scores were being used.
@Katiekatie12345 I like the Paying for College 101 FB group and the website associated with it road2college. Their webinars have been helpful. Between those and the forums here I feel I have pretty good grip on the process.
out-of-state fees is not as much of a concern. D has no clue what CS speciality as yet. She loved AP CS at school last year. She wanted to just code all the time. Beyond that, we did not get a chance to explore further. She did some AI/ML course over summer but not really interested in data mangling part of it (though she was interested in the math part of it).
We compared the courses in detail. UIUC has lot more options and it goes in depth in some areas (using technical elective focus area) while UCSB courses only gives the cursory view of many topics. UIUC was also giving more GE credit for AP courses. UIUC wins here.
She is looking into go into industry so are looking for internship rather than research (but it will be good to find some research positions if internship is not possible first year). UIUC has a slight edge over finding internship but looks like UCSB students with little bit of efforts are finding that same opportunities.
D is in stalemate now since she likes both equally one being better for CS courses and another better for weather/location. Hopefully visiting both school and seeing the fit for our D will help.
As an anecdotal counterpoint, we’re in the Bay Area and didn’t use a private counselor, but are in a private HS with a solid college advising program. Part of the advising team’s value was in helping us set expectations and recognize things like “your kid is great, but Stanford’s far enough of a reach that you should probably leave it off your list” and “even the UCs that had been ‘safeties’ in the past aren’t guarantees these days, so what other schools would you like to consider?” They were also helpful in giving light feedback on D22’s essays, especially after D22 fired her mom and me from that role.
We don’t know of other families who used counselors, but we also don’t feel like we know many other families in our HS, as COVID shut down the avenues we would have normally leaned on to connect with other students and their families. So maybe there were private consultants working with families, but we didn’t see it.
By research I mean during school not in place of internships. The research my son was involved in was aligned to the area he was interested in giving him even more depth (reflected in his resume - many companies look for this). He was listed as a contributor in 3 research papers and this actually helped when it came to applying to internships.
Internships the first year are a little more difficult to land but by starting early she should be successful. Some of the large CS employers have specific outreach programs for women in tech so look for those.
Building interview skills and skills handling code-test based interviews will help. Many online and book resources for this.
To add to this -
If you want a freshman summer internship, it wouldn’t hurt to do some leetcode the summer after the high school senior year. Provided you have the appropriate background in terms of Algos and Datastructures.
