Back then UMass Boston was a couple of buildings in Park Square and only offered liberal arts.
I was an Art major so I had several studio classes in Park Sq.—I loved those days. Most of my classes were in Dorchester. I did not want to transfer from CU, but it was a financial decision for my mom. I went reluctantly but ended up loving it in the end.
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Fascinating thread!
I graduated HS in 1976 at age 16. Went to a very academic large urban high school where virtually everyone went to 4-year colleges…maybe 1or 2 joined the military. Dozens each year went to Ivies and other top 20s. The school bragged about this and pushed prestige.
This was pre-AP arms race and no one took APs until senior year. The absolute top kids took 5 (one in each core subject), the next level kids 2 or 3. Though not one of the very top students I was part of the “smart kids” group. I took 3 APs in my best subjects (English, French, Biology), took the SAT twice and scored around 1200 I think. I did score high 700s on the subject tests. I don’t recall any SAT prep other than some in-class vocabulary drills.
The 10 minutes each year we spent with the guidance counselor were pretty useless, in terms of choosing a college or a career. At home I lived with a single parent who hadn’t gone to college so she couldn’t help.
There was no rhyme or reason to the colleges I applied to, other than a wide range of selectivity. Didn’t know enough to consider size, location, any other aspect of fit, and my list had everything from large urban universities to small rural LACs. They were all within a few hours of home. As best I recall I applied to 5, got 1 rejection, 1 waitlist (which even then I understood to be a polite rejection), and 3 acceptances.
I chose a small LAC only because it was supposed to be good in the major my 16-year old self thought it wanted, though I had little idea what studying that major would entail, what it would take to become a professional in that field, and what working as that professional would be like. I was pretty much like the kids who come on here and say “I want to be a doctor because I like helping people.” Halfway through first semester I decided I didn’t like that major, again not realizing that one introductory course was not necessarily a good reflection of the subject as a whole.
I hated that school and minus the sole reason I had chosen it had no reason to stay. I dropped out after a year and spent several years working various jobs, moving away from home, and basically trying to figure out what I wanted from life. I eventually went back to school and majored in a subject that led to a STEM type career (which also turned out to be a bad fit, LOL; so much for my ability to figure out what I wanted from life). I started at community college and transferred as a junior. At that point my only realistic options were state schools reasonably close to where I lived. I applied to 3, was accepted to all, and went to the closest one which also happened to be the most selective and prestigious, so I guess I hadn’t completely shaken the high school mindset.
Not unhappy with my life, but would make very different choices if I could do it over. So many decisions I made with no or inadequate information! But the accumulated knowledge benefitted the next generation, who had much better info and outcomes.
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My Journey: Early 80’s. Large public HS with good academics. Zero counseling that I can recall. No input or interest from parents. Several older siblings, so nothing left in the coffers by the time I was applying. Never a doubt that state flagship was my best & only option. Only applied to that one university. It was a Scan-tron application, so the hardest part was making sure I was using a #2 pencil and filling in the correct bubbles. I had respectable class rank and test scores but nothing spectacular. Accepted, as fully expected, into an engineering major that today has a single-digit acceptance rate. Sooooo much easier getting into colleges back then. Took out a “Guaranteed Student Loan” (FFELP) that covered most of my expenses. So much more affordable. Dutifully paid the loans (and graduate school loans) monthly until paid off years after graduation.
Kids’ Journeys: None of our kids went STEM so we encouraged (but didn’t insist on) the LAC experience over our Big U experiences. Lots of parental interest/input/advice (they might say too much). Several college visits. Shockingly high cost of attendance. Soooo much harder, with even better stats, to get into selective colleges today.
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HS grad’90. Applied to two schools. Older brother went to the state flagship and I had been to visit him and maybe drink my first beer(s). Junior year of HS English teacher loaded 6 of us up in a minivan and we drove 900 miles over a fall break to visit a school. It wasn’t really a formal visit with a normal tour or presentation. We just showed up and went to the football game. That type of trip would never happen these days. It wasn’t sponsored by the school or anything. But it was a great trip and makes a story when I see one of those guys.
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Early 70s, all-girls Catholic HS, no guidance to speak of, first generation college attendee. Oldest of 4 and dad worked 2 jobs; I was at my specific HS d/t full scholarship, so when I looked at the catalogs and saw tuition and fees, I tossed many good schools out of consideration. Had no clue that there were scholarships for poor smart girls like me.
I applied to 4: 2 private commutable, 1 CUNY commutable, and the closest SUNY.
I got into all 4 but the cost with R&B at SUNY was less than the commuting privates with merit. Mom convinced me to go away to school so I wouldn’t regret not trying. She convinced me if I hated it, I could come home and commute. So I went to SUNY. First visit on accepted student day; met my roommate then. My state regents scholarship had me pay $4 tuition per semester my first year! Too big a school for me but I met my DH there.
I was saavy when my kids applied; and we could afford more than our parents could. All 3 went to mid sized privates applying to 9, 1 (successful ED), and 6. They visited almost all, and did accepted student visits to some.
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I was kind of a military brat and went to a different school every year for most of my life. Had an indifferent high school career that consisted of me getting high for half of it, then realizing I would be stuck if I didn’t snap out of it, then acing the last two years at a big public school in Fla. It was 1981.
But I was raised by wolves. My parents provided no input, no support, and no money either. I had no real plans to go to college but I did take the SAT once and got an 1190 (I also stopped understanding math in 10th grade).
And then I went to a college fair at my high school and ended up at the table of a no-name LAC several states away. I told them my SAT score and they said I qualified for a full-tuition scholarship. It was a religious college (I am not) and my only question to them was, “Can I smoke on campus?” They said “sure” and I said “sign me up!”
So that’s where I went. Sight-unseen, no clue at all.
I kind of hated the school, but I survived and even graduated early with honors.
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Interesting thread. I attended a small private school in a provincial southern city in the 80s. Had a big fish in a small pond syndrome as a top student in a class only one tenth the size of my child’s northeastern public high school experience. My parents were very supportive of education, so had tours of all the places I was considering in the northeast and the south. Applied, via handwritten applications to 6 schools, 3 of them Ivies (and 2 of those were not really favorites of mine, but applied because of parents’ wishes), and one LAC. My “safety” was a southern state school that currently accepts less than 25% of applicants. Admitted to all but the 2 that I didn’t like, probably because I had handwritten them sloppily due to my lack of interest. Apps included photos too. I don’t think I had even heard of early decision, if it existed at any my schools back then. Parents (and grandparents) were also supportive on the cost front, although I don’t think that the level of tuition then was life-altering for them. None of my schools were lower cost options. Mom says that I did the whole college process myself - picked the schools, wrote to them for application packets, filled in the forms - without their involvement. I guess they must have written checks for the fees though.
Today the process is vastly more stressful for my kid. There is a whole world of difference in what is necessary to stand out today, and I realize that it is much more difficult for a “generic” NE public high schooler than a “geographic diversity” candidate like myself was back then.
Kid is applying to 15 (14 down, one to do before new year’s), with 3 EA acceptances to date. 10 of them are LACs. There was an ED as well, with a deferral, so left in limbo there. Decided not to ED2 anywhere. We have toured all of the 15 except for 2 in a city that we would hit on a spring trip if the top choices don’t come through. Tours really were valuable in exposing kid to what college was about and understanding individual differences between schools, especially those that were scratched off the list. The entire strategy of ED/ED2/EA required another level of thought. Kid is making own decisions, but we are fairly involved with discussions as parents. Trying to be financially supportive as well, but amount of aid certainly is a bigger factor. Current tuition levels are life-altering without a hefty discount.
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Me. I just applied to my state U. It never occurred to me to go elsewhere. My 2 kids had such different majors that their was almost no overlap. Indeed there were only a few schools that they both could have attended for all 4 years in their planned majors. And only 2 both could AND/OR would have considered from this list. Can you guess the majors? UIUC, Yale, Harvard, MIT, Penn, Harvey Mudd, Michigan, UPitt, Minnesota, Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore. The two acceptable for both were Michigan and Penn.
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I answered upthread that I only applied to one college and got in and that’s where I went. It was the same school that my brother had gone to and my dad.
We were firmly middle class, had the 3 bedroom brick ranch to go with it too. My dad was a salesman and my mom worked for the public schools (helped teachers and staff with their insurance in the administrative building). But it was just expected that you would go to college. My mom went off to college at 16. Everybody I knew in my family went to college. My grandparents went to college. My mom’s family were farmers and my dad’s dad was a small town pharmacist and had a drug store and they all went to college. They didn’t go to Ivies or anything, but they all went to college. I didn’t feel like I had a choice about it, but I think at least half of my peers in my middle class town went to college, too. And funnily enough I never felt like there was any great pressure from my parents to do well in school. I was pretty much an A/B student, with maybe 1 C thrown in (Trig, ugh). I did feel like I could not really live up to my brother’s and sister’s academic performance, though.
I graduated in the early 80s. I ran with the smart kids, although I was not in the same league as some of them, but I did manage to score a 1160, I think it was, on the PSAT which made me NM Commended (didn’t get NMSF like my bro & sis), but then I guessed well on the SAT and got a 1320 and rested on that. I did know kids who took it twice, though. I did not do any prep at all.
All the kids I hung around at my public high school went to college. I think most went to state schools. We did have a kid a few years ahead who went to Harvard. It’s just a pretty normal high school in a regular (not particularly affluent) town, but it produced a few high fliers over the years.
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Very interesting thread. I graduated from an extremely low socioeconomic hs in the early 90s where the majority of students dropped out. Less than 10% went to a 4 year university and essentially all of them went to a UC. I hadn’t a clue - and even in those days with much more generous acceptance rates applied to 10 reach schools. I guess the 3 instate might have been considered matches at the time - but it’s hard to see UCB, UCLA and Cal Poly as matches in hindsight. MIT, Cornell, Columbia, USC, Stanford, Harvey Mudd - it’s really eye opening how very poor my “college counseling” was that no one told me this was a crazy list - even in the 90s. I was one and done the SAT and prep wasn’t even something discussed and certainly no one was advertising classes at our high school. All my “research” was based on the “Big Book of Colleges” borrowed from the library and the colleges who sent my brochures.
I did learn that private colleges gave way more financial aid than publics, something never suggested to anyone to my fellow poor classmates - everyone assumed UCs would be cheapest, but even then they were the most expensive option. USC would have been my cheapest option as they offered some special research grant, but Columbia, Stanford, Cornell and MIT were all cheaper than the UCs and even Cal Poly.
I chose MIT site unseen - college visits pre or post admission weren’t even on my radar as a possibility as honestly they weren’t.
My kids had way more knowledge going in than a first generation kid, and fit - something beyond strong in my intended major that didn’t even occur to me - was a huge deal. But they also dealt with a competitive environment all through high school that was utterly foreign to me.
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I can’t. Do tell!
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Nursing (direct entry) and Engineering. The nurse was the more limited of the two by program. The engineer was more limited by the fact that she a snob. Lol. ( Minnesota was not acceptable to her)
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I was talking with my brother and sister in law this weekend.
Brother was a pretty special student, Val, extremely high test scores, notable academic awards and featured in Michigan “top student” publications (didn’t Parade magazine the insert in the Sunday paper used to publish something like this- top students across the country?). I think he’s still a little bitter about how little direction he got from high school counselors. Basically NO guidance or encouragement. They saw their job as basically keeping a pencil/paper checklist of whose going to college and who’s not - but no effort in guiding the college choice experience. He’s a noted journalist now so between skill and a couple of “right place at the right time” he’s landed well. But still a little bitter! 
His wife went to an east coast competitive high school where there was more guidance. At that time - mid-ish 80’s??? - she was one of the many who encouraged application at U of Michigan. That was considered a decent win at the time.
I guess maybe we need to strike a nice medium between the non-helpful, non-invested high school counselors and the intense, “apply, apply, test, test!!” counselors of today.
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I didn’t get a lick of help from my counselor while in HS and I don’t think my wife did either. So when it came to my two daughters I just planned on not getting any help from theirs. Really that is how we treated school the whole time. We were not going to rely on help guidance from others.
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I went to the top HS in the state (public). Elder sister only applied to state flagship, and attended there. I took PSAT because my english teacher said to. Had never met my GC, nor did I know what NMF was until they called me into the office to tell me I was a semifinalist (I thought I was in trouble).
Even though my NMF gave me an automatic full ride plus stipend at the state flagship, GC encouraged me to ED to a more selective college regardless of cost. I was having a mental health crisis due to parental pressure, so I picked an expensive religious LAC in a big city far away. I planned to major in philosophy to think my way out of my crisis.
My sister was rightfully jealous because I was receiving $ and attention from my parents that she had never gotten. She graduated as the top student in her class from the psych major at the huge state flagship and no one even attended her graduation.
My aid offer at the LAC was decent but not amazing. When I later expressed concerns about college, my mother screamed at me about wasting their money. I had an acute mental health crisis shortly after HS graduation.
I declined to attend college and worked full-time for years. I decided to attend college as an adult. I was married to a grad student by that point. I applied to and attended the same state flagship that had offered the full ride years earlier. But now I had to pay tuition.
Spouse was a valedictorian and went to the school that offered the most $ regardless of fit. They didn’t apply many places, all close to home. Since they were in California, the UC aid wasn’t great, so they ended up at a small LAC. And we’re still paying both our loans.
We both loved our college experiences but wonder how things might have been different had we been better informed as applicants. Spouse was pressured to go into medicine and majored in chem, accordingly. They became a chem prof, almost as a path of least resitance. They now feel engineering would have been the much better and more obvious fit, but no one provided proper guidance.
Our kid is getting MUCH better support with his search than we ever had. The support is not coming from the GC, but from us. We have actually reflected a lot on this and it has provided us with lots of interesting insights into ourselves and our families.
We’re happy our kid knows he has lots of options and is receiving help to aid him in discovering what HE wants.
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I graduated from HS in 1977 from a public school in Memphis. Both of my parents were college grads, so there was always the expectation that I would go to college. I was in the top of my class and hung around with the “smart kids,” all of whom were college bound and many of whom ended up at out-of-state liberal arts colleges. My parents wanted me to apply to their alma mater, a small Mennonite college in Indiana, where they had met, but there was no way I was doing that. On the other hand, my dad was also pushing me to apply to Ivy League schools and I decided that wasn’t for me either. So, after hearing about Oberlin from a friend of mine whose brother went there and majored in math (which I was interested in also), I decided to apply there early decision. My only back-up school was Centre College in Kentucky, which my mother suggested to me because she had an old friend who taught there. Looking back, I really had no idea what I was doing, but fortunately I did get into Oberlin, which turned out to be a wonderful experience. And I was really glad to spread my wings and get out of Memphis–there was no way I was staying there if I could help it.
Fast forward to my kids’ journeys–they were born and raised in Southern California, and neither of them wanted to leave the state. They both applied to several of the UC’s. My son (who graduated HS in 2012 near the top of his class) also applied to Stanford and Pomona, as well as Reed in Oregon. He got into all the schools he applied to, including Stanford, which is where he ended up. Besides four of the UC’s my daughter (who graduated HS in 2016) also applied to Cal Poly SLO, Harvey Mudd and a couple of other Cal States as backup schools. She got in everywhere except for Cal Poly SLO and ended up at UCLA (where my husband and I met in grad school). She ended up not far from home at all! And my son now lives in the Bay area. So my kids haven’t ventured as far from home as I did all those years ago.
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I finished HS in the late 70’s and at that time you could only apply to one UC, but accept rates were pretty high unlike today. The only college I applied to was UCLA, never visited it or any others. Didn’t even consider privates since my parents had told me they could give me $1,000 per year for college and I figured private colleges cost a lot more than that. No HS counseling at all.
It’s been too many years but as I roughly remember it you were guaranteed admission to UC with certain gpa and SAT combos. Only question was if it would be your campus choice or if they redirected you (usually to UC Riverside) so picking your campus was a big deal. I got a postcard in January letting me know I was not redirected. Yay! UC’s were pretty cheap back in the day, I still remember it was $234 a quarter plus books when I started. By working summers and with a little help from my parents I graduated with modest debt, something that has sadly disappeared for many students.
In the dorms someone had a friend at UCSB so a few of us went on a roadtrip weekend. RA on friend’s floor let us sleep in the lounge, I doubt that would happen today. I almost instantly realized I had picked the wrong school, UCSB was where I belonged, and ended up graduating from UCSB.
Unlike @sbinaz, I went to the beach one fine Sept day and felt the sun wash over me, read a page, relaxed some more, perused another page. Realized at that rate I would flunk out of my STEM major so it was the last time I went to the beach to study. 
It’s funny how many people met their spouses at UCSB. The school asked for stories on Facebook a few years back and you can read some replies at Gaucho Love Stories (with images) · UCSB · Storify
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I will definitely check out that Facebook post! That’s cool.
When DH & I met, he was attending Santa Barbara City College.
UCSB has always had a pretty big party reputation. My sister went to UCLA and thought that UCLA was better because it did NOT have a party reputation. But I liked giving her a hard time about how Stephen Hawking was doing research at UCSB’s institute of theoretical physics, not at UCLA…and at the time in the 90s when we were debating whose college was better, UCSB had more Nobel Laureates than UCLA did.
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I don’t remember if I applied to more than one. Might have been two. I just know that I talked to a rep at the HS college fair who just really sold me on a small instate private. I was NMF but didn’t really know much about that other than the school was offering me good merit. Mom said list price COA was $12,000 and that my freshman year cost $3000 and sophomore year $6000, in the mid-1990s. Loved it there but also transferred out to get married and attend night school which I enjoyed as well.
DD’s journeys were pretty lowkey too and driven by budget. DD’17 applied to three I think- my alma mater, another private that wanted her to run track, and a cc, and chose to do a graphic design program at cc. She was more about just getting a usable degree in an efficient and debt free manner vs. the traditional college experience but she did get to live on campus.
DD’19 also applied to 3- one affiliated with our church, the small public 90 miles away, and a small public 5 hours away very similar. She was more about the college experience and more irritated by her budget constraints but ended up very happy at the closer public.
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