Yes, he has really decided what type of school he wants, the trouble is that he has chosen the most competitive and ones our HS has limited experience with. We are struggling with finding matches and safeties, are really figuring out what that is for him.
My 2 cents, if heâs not that into it yet, donât push. My D21 was adamantly opposed to talking about it b/c she was super stressed and anxious and wanted to focus on getting good grades and her junior year. She came around in the springtime after she started doing well on the ACT which then gave her more confidence in how she might do in the process. Again, I was fine with that, except for the fact that the pandemic hit and we had to cancel all our trips/tours scheduled for the spring.
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The biggest thing we did (before opening any guides or websites) was to have a series of conversations with each child about what they saw their college experience being like. These werenât âserious, sit down and look me in the eyeâ conversations - these were conversations on the way to practice, or a family outing, or while grocery shopping. Basically, if you could describe your ideal college - what would it be like? No names of schools - just describe the campus, the size, the weather, what you think you want to study (or if you donât know and thatâs more than fine), what the surroundings would be like, what is important to you? What isnât important to you? Do you want to continue your sport? Or your activity? Do you want to study abroad? Do you want to be in a city, or in a college town far away from anything else?
I also think these conversation can be very helpful in learning what your child wants to get out of college. Are they super excited and invested about learning something specific with their eye on further education past a bachelors? Do they dream primarily about going to the big game with their Greek brothers and sisters and cheering their school to victory? Do they just want that piece of paper to open doors otherwise closed? To be clear, I think all of those are valid reasons why people choose to go to college - and there can be overlap. But the schools you choose might be incredibly different if your child wants to study an arcane language versus wanting to get a degree in hospitality versus wanting to build high speed trains wanting to teach gym in their home state.
If one is only going to use one college search tool* (not recommended) - I would choose Fiske over everything else.
It doesnât attempt to create an arbitrary ranking of schools that pits schools against one another or create artificial tiers of schools.
Instead, it goes through >300 schools and gives insight into the strengths and weaknesses of each school through statistics, written anecdotes from students and others, as well as quick âvibesâ ratings on quality of life, academic rigor, and (importantly) the guideâs idea of what schools overlap one another as similar.
Each of my children have had very different criteria for what they are looking for in a college/university. All three found the Fiske guide to be very helpful in learning more about what schools they wanted to research further and were surprised by some of the overlap school suggestionsâŠschools went on their list they had never heard of because the Fiske guide gave them enough info to want to find out more.
Reading a guide that doesnât attempt to numerically rank the schools was also helpful in having my children not buy into worrying whether the schools that caught their eye was #33, or #14 or #125 (number rank based on what? Oh, a complicated, constantly tweaked algorithm that may or may not be measuring what is important to you personally and who knows the quality of the information provided to said algorithm? Yeah, exactly).
*Other college search tools I would recommend (with the caveat that garbage in/garbage out applies to college searches as it does with any other research)
Big Futures/College Board - nice way to search for schools based on a range of factors (location, size, majors, etc) that can give an initial list for a student who is sure about at least one of their criteria. I find it is less helpful if your student doesnât have any idea about what criteria they have for a school. I worry the site is then used to narrow down by name recognition/prestige which isnât always the best way to find a good college list for any particular student. But, if your student knows they want to be in a particular state, or study something fairly specific, it can give you a pretty good start.
Common Data Sets (search for specific school and âcommon data setâ to find) Great way to find out information like demographics (some schools play find the info there) as well as the clearest idea of how generous a school is via merit, need or a mix of both. Under used and less understood by many - but a true gem for those who can read/interpret data sets.
Colleges that Change Lives by Loren Pope - Basically a book about schools that are often underrated. Sometimes referred to as A+ schools for B+ students. These arenât highly rejective and often arenât well known, but provide excellent educations. If actually learning is one of your childâs main reasons for going to college - these colleges can be great matches.
US News and World Report - I have such mixed feelings about this resource. I know it is the best known, I know it has some valuable information (less imo than most otherâs) but I think it is way too easy to get caught up looking at the overall rankings and not use the best parts of the information contained within.
Niche - I use it for the âvibesâ check. Wouldnât be the first place to go but if you find a school that hits the spot everywhere else, it can a good, 'yup that checks out" or âoh hereâs another side of the storyâ resource.
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Thanks its a good reminder to be patient and hopefully he will get more interested once we get gets closer and friends start looking at it also.
Thatâs great that he knows what type of school he wants. Is your school counsellor able to help with matches and safeties? In our school these appointments used to be only for seniors but this year they are giving one appointment for juniors also where we can meet the counsellor with the parents and get some help here. I think the best data they could offer is what our chances are for a given school based on the profile of each student compared to their peers in the school. Asked S24 to take an appointment but he wants to wait until spring.
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Thanks a lot for the very detailed post. I found it very useful this being our first go with the college search process. Will look into the book suggestions you have given.
Yes, agreed, Scoir is very helpful in figuring out our school vs general numbers. Juniors meet with counselors historically in the spring. We have one college counselor for 300 kids and the general counselors are very busy so it is very regimented. Great idea though!
Hello. I havenât been following too closely but wanted to mention that the Fiske guide is a must. Really a great place to get the culture vibe along with the basics. Fiske stopped including test score information but you can look that up on the Common Data set (though that is a year behind). Also you can see if you can locate a 2019 Fiske with scores to try to better estimate chances of admission.
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Oh great! I think thatâs the one we have (passed down from a 2020 grad family).
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Just got back on Saturday evening from a week at WDW. We all needed the break and it was nice to unplug from the world. Didnât bring up college stuff w/D24 at ALL during the trip! 
Fall break is now done and itâs back to the grind for us.
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Yeah I agree. As soon as he finished the test he said he was going to take it again because he messed up on the timing of one section.
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We have a 2018 Fiske. I had been thinking I might need a new one, but maybe not? I may be the only person who opened it.
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Feels weird that the PSAT is already here, tomorrow.
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Our school is doing it on the 25th. For some reason I feel nervous about the date, but it is listed as the alternate date on College Board so Iâm probably just generally nervous.
Our school is on saturday, I so wish they did a school day!
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Our school is doing PSAT tomorrow.
Same with my kid (of course heâs going with no preparation)
Mine has not looked at anything since he took the sat in august, i am not sure why he is bothering since the NMF cutoff for our state is basically a perfect score and he is planning on looking at it on Friday, oh well.
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That sounds like my son. Either study on Friday or âgo turkey to see where he is atâ.
Sighhh.
So frustrating! I was debating cancelling but sometimes they just pull it out of thin air!
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