Parents: Your College Journey vs. Kids

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Looking at all of the schools visited on @stradmom ’s thread here:

…got me thinking about my own college journey back in ye olden times (aka the late 80s) and how it compared to my own kiddos. What was your path to applying to college like as a compared to your children? I’ll start…

Number of Apps:
The major difference was in the number of schools I applied to. I applied to far fewer schools, I suppose because there was no common app and we had to put actual applications in typewriters to respond to all of the questions. There was no primary essay and supplementals; Schools had whatever questions they had, and you responded to all of them by hand (or typed) if you chose to apply. I went to a private girls’ day school where we were advised to shoot for a max of 6 schools: 2 safety, 2 match, 2 reach at the most. My own kids graduating in 2020 and 2022 applied to 12 each.

Interviews:
Another difference was that interviews mattered a lot more at most privates when I was applying, and not just at competitive schools. It wasn’t a big thing at the large flagships I applied to, but it was unheard of among my peer group to apply to a private college without interviewing. If someplace was too far to travel, you did an alumni interview. On the other hand, only 1 of my kids interviewed at a school where the common data set indicated that it mattered. They both did some zoom interviews at other schools, but they were not required and only factored into demonstrated interest if anything.

Prep/Counselors: SAT prep was definitely a thing, but I didn’t do anything beyond what my high school offered. Nobody I knew used a college counselor. These were the same for my kids.

Visits:
We took our kids on lots of trips to visit schools in person, and I did the same with my mom back in the 80s. However, I did several overnight college visits without an adult.

I typically went with a friend or 2, and we drove hours and hours and stayed with older siblings or friends of friends. We arranged our own interviews and tours and handled it entirely on our own. In fact, I flew without a parent from Boston to Denver in a snowstorm with a friend over my February break to visit the school I ended up at (CU Boulder). We stayed with another friend in her apartment, and since cell phones weren’t a thing, my mom basically just waited to hear about it until I got home. I’ve only told her as an adult about some of the shenanigans we got up to on these visits (looking at you, Hamilton College!).

I guess I would have let my kids do this if they asked, but it never came up. While my kids ended up staying with older friends in the dorms at a few schools they visited, we were involved in the process and went with them on the tours even though we stayed nearby in a hotel.

I was very fortunate in that even though I was raised by a young, single mother, education was everything in our family and my mom took me on several out of state trips to look at schools. Looking back, it must have cost her a fortune and I’m sure she had other ways she would have liked to have spent her free time. Each trip was planned without the benefit of the internet, and I imagine her cross referencing my humongous college guidebook with her Rand McNally road atlas figuring out how to maximize each trip. I really treasure those road trips and remember them well in retrospect. My favorite were a VT/NH/Maine trip where we visited several schools in each state and I was allowed to bring a friend. and another to Ohio to see Kenyon, OSU and Denison.

Post-Acceptance:
There were no accepted student days that I recall. You (hopefully) got your fat envelope sometime in April and had a few weeks to decide where to send your deposit. I took both of my boys back to several schools once accepted to help them make their final decisions. This turned out to be important, as my oldest was heavily leaning towards a school that he ended up eliminating on accepted students day, which was his 3rd visit. He’s so glad he went elsewhere in retrospect.

In the end, my mom let me decide where to land and we have done the same with our boys. I hope they will look back with fondness on the visits and will forget the stressful parts of the process. I know I have forgotten all of that angst for sure.

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I graduated high school in 1977 in Michigan. Applying to multiple colleges wasn’t really a think - not sure about others but I applied to one (my sister in law had went there so it must be ok!), got accepted and attended. It was in state, mid-sized and majors of all kinds. I remember getting college brochures in the mail (probably mostly in state) and looking at them but to be honest, I don’t remember giving it much thought!! I DO remember that my father refused to fill out any financial aid paperwork. I don’t know if it was a matter of pride or a matter of not sharing our personal info or a matter of just not wanting to fill out all those forms.

I loved the college process with my kids. We visited multiple for each child (at least a half a dozen if not more each), they each applied to anywhere from 4 to 6 (?). They all stayed in state at small privates - each a different one.

As parents we (mostly I!) was very involved in the process with them. My parents were pretty hands off. Neither of them had gone to college. Their only real experience with college was an older sister who went to community college and an older brother who went to a state school receiving more of a trade degree.

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I graduated from a NOVA high school in 1990. Going on college tours to find the right fit was definitely a thing at my school. (I may have written my own note excusing myself for a week of school to go on “college visits :blush:) but we didn’t do it. I only saw my alma mater because I visited my sister who went there. I only applied there and got in.

My kids are the only ones in my family to do college visits. My sister’s kids just went to our alma mater. But our number pales in comparison to many here. Older S applied to 9 and I thought that was a TON! Younger S applied to 4.

But I absolutely loved the college tours. That was the only part of the process I liked. So much energy and excitement on campuses.

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I applied to two schools in 1979 - but I knew I was in at one in early December (was rejected from the second so my decision was easy). My D22 applied to five. Had she not gotten accepted to her ED school she would have added a sixth (her second choice which didn’t have an EA option). She might have applied to even fewer but, although she didn’t have a safety as defined by CC she was pretty sure she’d easily get into three and NPC suggested they’d be affordable, and her other two were target schools and also likely to be affordable. Her ED was a reach, but not a particularly crazy reach. But she focused on fit - prestige was only very tangentially part of her equation.

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Love reading these. Interesting how many only applied to 1 or 2 schools, or targeted a family alma mater.

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Back in the mid 80s (before the internet,PCs etc) I applied to 6 schools - 1 safety, 1 reach and 4 matches. I got into all but 2. We did visit all the schools in person - they were all in New England so we could drive. I also looked at one school in person (Bowdoin) that I didn’t apply to because I didn’t like the campus, LOL. I took the SAT once, did well, and didn’t re-take - no prep beyond sharpening my #2 pencils. I remember hand writing each application - no common app back then (or at least the schools I applied to were not on it). Most of my friends applied to the same number of schools - or fewer. S22 applied to 7 schools and we did tour them all - however, a couple weren’t seen until after he was accepted. We looked at few schools in CA as well but he decided it was too far so didn’t apply . . . Oh, and he went TO after taking the SAT once and getting a mediocre score - it didn’t seem to matter as he was accepted at 5 out of 7.

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To be honest, I can’t even remember if I visited my college before attending. :thinking: Not sure! I do know that we really relied on their brochures to give us a visual and informational picture of the school.

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It’s really amazing that we did all of this without computer technology!

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Brochures were huge! Other than big college guidebooks, they were really the main source of info about a school that could potentially help you to write a “Why X College?” essay. And you had to call to get on mailing lists for brochures if I’m remembering correctly, which meant toll calls if requesting OOS.

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I went to CC for 3 years and transferred to the college closest to me. So only one app.

I lived at home and commuted. It was a different time and place. Almost everyone I knew went to CC,and if they went away to college, that was… I don’t know, almost snooty? Like they were too good for the rest of us, so they had to get away. I now realize that wasn’t the case, but it was the perception of the people I knew at the time.

My kids have had a totally different, and IMO better college experience. Living on campus has broadened their horizons, their connections to other people, and has made them independent. They know how to take care of themselves, at least with practical matters.

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I went to CC for 2 years then transferred to a 4 year school. I only applied to 3 colleges and got into all of them. I picked the one that was closest to home (100 miles away). Over 42 years after coming to school here in San Diego I am still living here!

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I know. It was a painstaking process (remember white out). No way could I have done more than 6 apps.

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Only applied to 1. Got in. Thought about applying to another one just to see if I could get in, but I didn’t want to go there so I saved my money. (I think it was like $70!)

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This. I hated correction tape. It was so stressful!

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And I don’t think fee waivers were given as readily back in the day, either, so this was definitely a factor.

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1977 HS grad from NY state. The SUNY application was on large, orange card stock. You just filled in the SUNYs that you wanted to apply to. I applied to Binghamton, Albany, U Buffalo, and Oneonta. I also applied to Maryland, Boston U, Syracuse, and Cornell. Got into Cornell and never looked back.

Edited to add: The only ones I visited were Binghamton and BU. For Binghamton, I went for a weekend and stayed with a friend. No official tour. For BU, I went with my mom. When we asked a student for directions to the School of Communications, that student said derisively, “Everyone wants to be a journalist since Watergate.”

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We had to type and use white out of I recall.

I visited two schools from San Diego - USC (not a hard admit in 1986). I hated that it was gated. And Arizona State.

An ASU prof told me if I got into Syracuse, I needed to go there. So I did - sight unseen. Funny, years later, a U of A student told me to go to UT Austin for grad school since I got in…ultimately went to ASU since they paid me to go.

I wish it was like today - I would have applied to all 20 Common app spots, taken video and in person tours.

But I had a single parent and he knew nothing about any of this.

Kids are much more attuned today.

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Ok, first of all, this is a cool thread and I love reading about everybody else’s experiences.

I graduated HS in 1991. Parents both were college grads, but they didn’t really provide any guidance on how to pick a college other than to say “you’re going to a 4-yr college, not community college first.” I scoured through a couple of big books…the kind that had pages and pages of stats and info about all sorts of schools. We lived in CA. I decided that I wanted to stay in state. Went on a tour of Humboldt State and hated it immediately. Did not apply there.

Also toured UCSD. That was a top contender after that tour, but it felt a bit large campus-wise and I didn’t care for all of the different “colleges,” each with their own different set of general ed requirements. still applied anyway.

Toured UCD. It was just “meh.” Mostly because it was only a 3 hr drive from home and I didn’t want to be close enough that my parents could do a day trip to just show up and visit me. LOL. Applied anyway.

Applied to SJSU as a backup. Almost every college-bound kid from my HS applied there. At the time, it was seen as the college that you went to if you couldn’t get in anywhere else.

Also toured UCSB & fell in love w/that school. Got accepted & also got a Regent’s Scholarship, but due to my parents’ income, I only qualified for $500/year (which helped pay for textbooks). Attended there for 4 yr. Had an amazing time. Studied on the beach on a regular basis. Many weekends spent walking to & from Isla Vista to party. Met DH while I was in SB and married him 2 wk after my college graduation.

None of my apps were online. That wasn’t even a thing yet in 1990-1991. All done w/paper applications where the app had to be postmarked by a certain date. did not submit anything through a common app. Only had to write an essay for the UCSB Regents Scholarship application. the rest was just based on GPA and test scores.

My parents knew nothing about test prep. Took the SAT cold and got a 1030. Was not happy w/that. My mom agreed to pay for a 1-day test taking seminar. Went to that and took it again. Got a 1040. Bleh. Whole lot of good that did. I didn’t even know that the ACT existed. Didn’t know about Kaplan or Princeton Review and nobody suggested anything.

The HS counselor was useless. Basically met her once a year at end of school year when she reviewed my schedule of classes for the next year. At end of 11th grade, she asked if I was applying to college. I said yes. She said, “Ok, good.” And that was it. No questions. No advice. No suggestions or tips or anything like that. The counselor’s office had a big filing cabinet of brochures from colleges that you could look through if you wanted to.

I went on later after college to get an MBA, which was paid for by my employer at the time through their tuition reimbursement program. Did it part time while working full time and ended up with no grad school student loan debt to speak of. I didn’t take any econ classes in college, so I had to take those at a local community college first before I applied to the MBA program.

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I did none of the things listed in the OP. Instead, I dropped out of beauty school to attend the University of Michigan in ‘77 because my BF from HS needed a roommate second semester freshman year. She filled out most everything but the essays on the 8x11" tri-fold app and sent it to me with a pathetic note pleading for me to fill in the blanks and send it in. I didn’t have access to a typewriter, so I hand-wrote as small as I could into the two essay boxes on the form, filled out the stuff she didn’t know, and found myself in college that January. Easy peasy.

I only intended to stay that one semester then return to beauty school because I had depleted my meager savings, but my future husband lived a few doors down the hall and was frantic about me leaving. He found a full scholarship for me to apply for which I got and never paid another dime to the U. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa, we went to work for the same tech company, married the following year, and I ended up at Harvard Business School about ten years later.

I think it was easier back then. :wink:

ETA: Kid’s journey was entirely different. His HS required 10 apps: three reaches, three matches, three likelies, and his state U. He only cared about Army and Navy and put all his effort into that very long process with zero help from us as we weren’t onboard with those choices.

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I applied to the two state universities in 1969. My brother was already going to one and we lived in the town of the other. I have no memory of the application process but do remember that the home town one really wanted me (National Merit finalists were quite desirable) and invited me to a overnight. I did it just for fun (along with a couple of classmates) but knew I was going to the other because I wanted to get at least an hour away from home - and it was a better school.

There was no question of being accepted to both, and no one every discussed with me other options.

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