@Momof3B - History gives you a great sense of perspective, critical thinking skills, and big picture stuff - I think it is useful in any field.
@Happy4u An alum at his school went there and understudied for someone in “Waitress” on Broadway. She just spoke to the class this week. He’s currently mad for theater. So it’s that connection that he glommed onto.
(Believe me, there’s almost no career path I want less for him than this one 
But I’m not gonna say anything at this point.)
@Chowista - Maybe Fordham Lincoln Center.
New to the forum. S23 is kiddo #2 (of 3) but my first experience with college apps and such.
My oldest S19 is a tech college 3 hours from home (has a dorm). Due to LD’s (and being on an IEP from age 3-junior year when he switched to a 504), a 4 year college wasnt the right choice for him and his interest was more tech school anyways (surgical tech program). He is happy and thriving. He made the right choice for him and its rewarding to see him finally “adulting”.
S23 is technically on a GT plan at school however he’s at the lazy freshman stage and not wanting to put in effort so first semester grades aren’t as high as they could be.
Me, I’m fulltime at a Jesuit and we may have options within TE as well. I’m a bit worried though if child doesn’t step up the grades a bit. He’s thinking maybe engineering, business or law right now. His electives are spanish, band and choir this year. He will have to decide whether to continue with the music track hes on or add in some harder classes. EC’s include football, ski racing, the musical, and track.
I’m slowly trying to read through all the comments as sharing of experiences from others is helpful!
My son struggles with the “academic” versus arts balance as well. In middle school he did both band and choir so he chose to continue on with that his freshman year as well.
He has to make his sophomore selections soon. I’m forcing him to continue with Spanish 2 (he is taking 1 this year) as its a college requirement. He will then have the choice of up to 2 electives. He has interest in many of the courses the school offers but then he has to drop either band or choir and he feels guilty as he enjoys them both (he did the middle school musical every year and in 8th grade was the lead).
So for sophomore year hes looking at:
Acc. English (there is no AP choice)
Chemistry (or acc. chem, again no “AP”)
Pre-Calc (as hes 2 years ahead in math)
US History (he has to decide as this one does have an AP option)
Spanish 2
then his choice of two other electives.
He has to take summer school again this year to allow him the option of band and choir which he did as well last summer. Our school allows kids to do summer school gym and health which is nice to not make them have to work those into their school day.
Have other hs freshman begun to do the college search themselves? My son shocked me by saying he looked at one college online but I know its a super far fetch for him to go there or even get in (Santa Clara).
What colleges have you “recommended” to your freshman if any already?
My kids chose where they go and I’m an pretty hands off parent academically but lets be real, with the opportunities my kids could have (with Jesuit and TE), I would be lying if I said I wasn’t printing out lists of places to look at first. He’s welcome to apply to other schools as well but in the end we will have to look at the packages offered.
Do you or your kids have any “dream schools” already?
@2plustrio No “dream schools” (or really any schools) for S23 yet. He is buried in managing classwork, basketball, jazz band, and robotics. Juggling everything during robotics “build season” has been a bit crazy. He just finished watching the college process with D20 and is in no hurry to start! LOL. I’ll give him the rest of the school year. The only thing he has decided is that he wants the opposite of D20’s list. That means no small LACs, and a school with a computer engineering program. He refuses to look at any colleges under 5k students. Every time we went on a tour for D, he started looking through the school’s computer science courses. At some places, he openly balked at the offerings. H is a software engineer, so DS has a solid grasp of what he should be looking for. Of course, we were looking at a lot of SLACs for D20, so it was a completely different process. He loves my alma mater, but it is an Ivy, so a “high high high reach” for anyone.
D20 was also eligible for TE, but it is extremely competitive for the schools where she wanted to apply (Skidmore, Villanova, Lafayette, American, Dickinson, and a few others). She only had 5 non-TE schools out of her list of 15. Because TE is difficult to get at those places, we let her apply to a non-TE college ED. She was accepted, so I can’t say how she would have done with TE. We are fortunate that we didn’t need TE for her to attend college, and she could apply based on her own interests and fit.
There is a lot of useful info over on the TE thread. You should check it out:
(reminder to use my reading glasses so I don’t have typos) 
I agree that TE options will be slim for him. I’ve been reading through that thread and it has been helpful. I want him to be realistic and open to options.
As of right now he doesn’t have an idea of what he truly wants either. He wants a bigger school, would prefer someplace warm (we live in the Midwest), and prefers a school with a football team. He’s telling me he refuses to go to the college I work at and is saying no to Jesuits right now because no football. Thus I like hearing other people’s thoughts and experiences with college.
@2plustrio No dream school for D23 yet. She will likely opt for a SLAC. She’s interested in creative writing, Japanese and Korean languages, East Asian studies, art…
We’ve started a very long list which includes Vassar, Wesleyan, Dickinson, Skidmore, Denison, Pomona, Amherst, Bates, Haverford, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Tufts, Grinnell, Oberlin, Sarah Lawrence, Wooster, Whitman, Gettysburg, Carleton, Occidental, Kenyon, Macalester, Mount Holyoke, Franklin and Marshall, Lafayette, Emory…and a few more. She has Brown in her head as a possibility as she is a legacy there, but we know it’s a lottery school, and we are not focusing on any one school at this point…just trying to make her aware that there are a LOT of schools that could be great options for her. S21 is going through the process now of visiting schools, so we’re more focused on that. I think D23 is going to be easier than S21 since his range of fit is probably more narrow and his ceiling in terms of selectivity not as high. As a result there isn’t much overlap in their school lists.
Oxy might end up on my sons list as well as hes mentioned a Cali school would be nice (for him, not for me but I have a feeling this kid will fly far from home).
I too am “recommending” a very long list. If he decides to play football then all is up in the air if hes recruited to a D2 or D3 school.
Some of these schools are way, way long shots but hey, if dreaming big helps my son put in some effort I would be happy!
SLU, U of Indy, Syracuse, Western State Colo, Seton Hill, Valpraiso, CWR, Fl Inst of Tech, Pacific U, Santa Clara, USC, Hawaii Pacific, CSP, Carroll College, Gonzaga, and then 3 local schools (my home institution and 2 of the state schools)
@2plustrio no dream schools for my S23 twins either yet. Since I have a S21 also, they’re watching and coming along on his college tours and gleaning information there. Both the twins are higher stat then their brother…one of them (my science nerd) is going to “shoot his shot” for Rice, but he knows it’s an absolute super reachy reachy reach, so it’s not like he’s obsessing over it…he just really liked the campus when we visited (we all did!) and said he likes the Hogwarts style “House” system lol…so there you go.
For the other twin, he’s taking after his Pilot dad and talking about aerospace engineering, (and starting to pursue his one private pilots license) depending how his stats play out and if he could snag good merit aid, then along with our instate options he may consider Purdue, Embry Riddle or Ohio State.
But neither is stressing about actual college selections yet, they’re just trying to keep a top 10% rank and play Xbox at the same time lol
My S19 considered 3 in state tech schools and he only briefly saw 2 of them. He ended up deciding on the school 3 hours from home with a dorm mostly sight unseen. They accept 100% of applicants so there were no worries there. So kid #2 S23 is my first real college visit and helping to review offers with experience.
No stress here yet either. As I teach at a college, its fun for me to see the decision making process first hand! Theres so many options!
@2plustrio No dream schools for S23 yet. He toured several schools during D19’s college search but he was indifferent to all of them. I am quietly making my own list for him. D19’s college would be a good fit for him, but it’s a reach for everyone so I don’t want to push too hard lest he falls in love. We’re visiting D19 in a few weeks and S23 will stay over in her dorm and meet some of her friends who share his interests. I’ll see how he feels afterwards.
I’m not in too anxious to start the college search with him though. He’s my third and last kiddo. I’m doing my best to just enjoy the journey; these years are fleeting.
Hello! Nice to meet everyone. I’ve been lurking on CC for a few months, mostly to gain insights for D20. (Wish I knew last year what I know now!)
My S23 is a totally different child in every way – while D20 is a great student and studies hard for her high GPA, she struggled with SATs and math in general. But she’s planning on a STEM major, an extrovert, and has tons of EC and volunteer work.
Son is awesome at math (is in the highest math track at our HS), good test taker, but a little on the shy/quiet side. Also has a really awful work ethic (e.g., he’s a lazy teenager), who zealously guards his “me” time for his gaming. He loved band in middle school but had no interest in continuing it into hs. I’m giving him freshman year to settle in, figure out his niche, etc., but will be slowly turning up the heat in the coming months as he gets ready for sophomore year.
He’s accompanied us on some low-key self-guided college tours for D20 but showed minimal interest in any. (With the exception of Stanford, of all places!)
As I said above, I feel like I’ve gained a LOT of knowledge and insights from CC and going through the process with D20. We’re in no hurry over here, but I already feel better equipped for when things start moving for my son.
Not a clue for my kiddo. He’s mentioned Stanford and Michigan but he really doesn’t know anything at this point, so I’m not particularly vested in exploring it at all, and I know how unlikely it really is.
I know we’ll be looking at several of the same low-cost schools as we did with D19, because cost is #1 on the list. He’s starting to understand that, and usually his second question after “what do you think about x” is “can we afford it?” - so that’s great.
He may end up with a much better GPA if he keeps going the way he’s going (and he’s already showing a LOT more interest in such matters than D19 did at this stage, so that’s a distinct possibility). And that GPA may open higher-tier doors for him.
We live in PA, where the COA is ridiculous at even the lousiest directionals, and there’s little to no merit aid, so he will likely end up OOS, like his sister.
The only school my daughter has mentioned is Syracuse. She did an athletic camp over the summer at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and found that too small. And we went to a Clemson football game recently with family who are alums-that was too big! Right now she is interested in design and marketing and entrepeneurship. I have a suspicion she will decide to be a special ed teacher but right now she swears that will never happen. She had a very challenging quarter with algebra 1-math is her weakest subject. She seems to have made great strides right at the end of the marking period-she had a breakthrough in how to study that seemed to really help. Her biggest strength is her organizational skills. She doesn’t miss assignments and is pretty organized for fourteen. I really appreciate that and I think it will serve her in good stead as the work become more difficult. College still seems a long way off for her, I try not to bring it up too much. But I have told her that bad grades this year will pull her down the next four years-and good grades will give her a solid base! And then I get an eye roll.
@Lennon Don’t confuse a Clemson football game with the size of the University. I’d consider it more of a mid-size public. As they say Clemson becomes the 3rd largest ‘City’ in SC on football game days. That stadium is huge and if you had seats like I’ve had there in the upper deck it felt like you might fall forward with how ‘upright’ they are.
D23 has some thoughts about college since she’s toured some because we have an S21. In middle school she initially latched on to the idea of Virginia Tech but heard the chatter at school about how they were so overadmitted this year and is concerned about it being so big. Now her dream school is William & Mary – she liked watching videos of their scramble band (she’s in marching band and would like to play in college but not with the big commitment of a full marching band) and it would be a great fit for her interest in science and desire to get a PhD, assuming she still feels the way in a couple years.
As of right now, my son is considering engineering, business and law.
For his sophomore year he will take accelerated English (there is no AP). He will take pre-calc (he’s 2 years ahead in math).
He wants to do regular chemistry versus accelerated (again, no AP option at this level). And he refuses to do AP history (as he’s heard the teacher at our school is horrid so I’m having issues selling this to him).
He said he’d rather do the accelerated English and take an engineering elective (along with band and Spanish 2).
He’s open to AP classes the last year’s as there’s more options that he says fit his interests.
Fingers crossed it doesn’t ruin some of his college chances!
S23 registered for next year. He got shot down on taking English 2 this summer because it’s a preAP class, not DC. Oh well. Anyway his classes next year are:
English 2 - PreAP
Chemistry - PreAP (have to take this before he is allowed to take AP)
Pre-Calculus - PreAP (my S19 took DC PreCalc but they don’t offer at S23’s HS)
World History - Reg (he refuses to do WHAP)
Principles of Engineering
Computer Science - PreAP
Basketball
It won’t.
Now, I’ll admit to having no idea if it would affect his chances to get into, say, MIT or Stanford, but let’s be honest, nobody really knows what actually affects one’s chances at schools like that. (In fact, I’d suggest that the adcoms at those schools don’t really know themselves!)
But his chances at college? Look beyond the schools so many on CC drool over, and you’ll discover that most of the US higher-education landscape manages to somehow not penalize fun and experimentation, not to mention academic sanity. (In fact, that’s the case for many of the so-called “elite” colleges, too, no matter what the chance-me threads might assert.)