My son is a freshman. He is a true tinkerer and simply loves learning about all things technology. He has taught himself numerous computer languages and even published a game to Apple’s app store in 8th grade. When I read about MIT (which sounds like my version of hell), I have no doubt that he would love every single minute of that type of focused and intense learning. His school does do many competitions, and he doesn’t even know that that is a thing. I am wondering if it would be wise to get him a private college counselor with specific experience with these crazy engineering programs. Just don’t want to regret not helping him when college eventually is on his radar. Thanks for your suggestions!
I’m sorry, what would the counselor do for your son?
You will find plenty of that experience out here, lots of parents of STEM kids who have been through this process and gotten kids accepted at schools up and down the spectrum of tech schools. Guess what I’m saying is, don’t pay a counselor, just talk to us. 
For right now, the things he should be doing include:
- Taking the highest level of classes offered at his school. Honors and APs if offered, especially in math & science.
- Engaging in his interests in extra curricular (EC) activities. It sounds like he would like STEM stuff – maybe First Robotics, math or science competitions or Olympiads, etc. I’d encourage him to try out the stuff his school offers for sure. But he can definitely do other stuff if he likes it (sports, speech, debate, boy scouts, whatever). Inside or outside of school is fine. But he should try to be active in some ECs.
- To get into a top school, he will need excellent grades all around (not just in STEM subjects). BUT, there are a lot of schools that an engineering/tinkerer kid would love that are easier to get into than MIT, too! But the better his grades are, the more choices he will have.
Things you should be doing:
- Don’t get set on one school (MIT, for example) in your mind, and don’t let him as well. What you ultimately want is a list of schools with a range of selectivity that would be affordable and he’d like to attend. You can start worrying about that list around spring of sophomore year so you can plan some visits for junior year.
- Be sure when he starts looking at schools he doesn’t start with reaches like MIT. Start finding safeties he likes and you KNOW you can afford and matches. Reaches are easy to find and love. The schools a kid is more likely to end up at are a lot harder. Once you start looking at schools, maybe get a copy of the Fiske Guide to Colleges as a good starting point.
- Consider what he is doing in the summer months. If you can find opportunities for him to do things he enjoys (like engineering camps or projects of some kind, volunteering to teach programming, hackathons, etc), that is a time when he can build up some experiences and knowledge that will help him make a better college choice for himself.
- Start thinking about your finances so you are ready to set parameters for him. When you start looking at schools (again, spring of soph year is plenty early enough), run the net price calculators on each college website to see what your family might be expected to pay. (Sit down while you are doing it… and engage your partner/spouse if you have one so they get the numbers stuff and are on the same page you are).
- Don’t do anything about standardized testing yet – most of that should take place junior year. Some top colleges do require or recommend some SAT Subject tests, so leave open testing date for those. Also, have him study before he takes the PSAT in 11th grade – a high score can be a path to a National Merit Finalist award, which some students find quite helpful depending on the types of schools they are looking at. If he takes the PSAT in 10th grade, treat it like a non-event (because it is – completely meaningless in every way, just a chance to sit down and try the test out).
- Don’t let friends and family wind you up about the search process. Stay in your lane – what is the best fit for your kid and what can you afford? You will hear a lot of well meaning but ultimately misinformed comments from other parents and kids.
So… you can hire a counselor if you want to. Or you can join the hive mind out here. Welcome!
To be contrary…there ARE things that professionals know that we do not know. Even when we think we know! And a professional can get to know the student very personally, thus the advice can be more personal, along with incorporating private financial information. The professionals might not be for everybody, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t very useful for some people.
Since he is in 9th grade, you have time to learn a lot of the basic stuff about college planning, so that you have a better idea whether you have questions or needs that professional assistance would be helpful for.
The first thing you need to do as the parent is make the financial plan. Figure out how much you can save for his college costs (and those of any other kids) and how much you can pay out of current income while he is in college (same for any other kids). On colleges’ web sites, there will be net price calculators that you can use to get financial aid estimates. Use them on a selection of colleges, such as your state’s public flagship university, a nearby state public university, and other colleges of interest, so that you can get an idea of whether your financial plan is realistic, or if he will need to target colleges lower in selectivity to get merit scholarships. But note that if your income is unusual (e.g. small business, real estate) or the parents are divorced, there are various complicating issues that can make college financial aid harder to get.
The basic tasks for the student are:
- Make rigorous (e.g. honors/advanced/AP/etc. as appropriate for subjects of strength and interest) college-prep course selections with a well-rounded base curriculum in high school.
- Do well in all high school course work.
- In 11th grade fall, take the PSAT to try for National Merit.
- In 11th grade, take the SAT and ACT to get baseline test scores for college search.
- At the end of 11th grade, if any colleges of interest require or recommend SAT subject tests, take ones that are appropriate in relation to college requirements or recommendations and high school courses being completed.
- Participate in extracurricular activities of interest. High achievement in them may help at some colleges.
Getting a college counselor in 9th makes no sense. It is way too early to think about specific colleges (especially the hyper-competitive ones like MIT). Your S don’t even have one full year’s GPA and has no standardized testing.
You also need to recognize that HS should be an experience in and of itself – a time of learning and growth and not just a 4 year college application prep experience. What your S may be interested in three years from now may be very different from what you think he wants now.
It is good to take school seriously and know that college will be on your S’s horizon, but it is too early to start planning for specific colleges. I would highly recommend that you get off of CC until your junior year.
For now your S should focus on:
–Working hard, learning, and doing as well as he can in the most challenging curriculum he can manage.
–When the time comes study for standardized tests.
–Get involved in activities he cares about and work towards making meaningful contributions to those activities.
–Enjoying spending time with his family and friends.
When the time comes asses his academic stats (including GPA, standardized tests, course rigor) as well as your financial needs and apply to a wide range of reach, match, and safety schools that appear affordable (you will have to run a net price calculator for each school you consider) and that he would be happy to attend. You need to expand your horizons and recognize that there are many wonderful schools out there where your S can have a great 4 year experience and get where he wants to go in life.
“Getting a college counselor in 9th makes no sense.”
It depends where you live and who you want to work with. Many busy consultants take a certain number of students in each class, and some will fill up if you don’t book in 9th grade.
For the vast majority of already focused, accomplished kids (which sounds like your kid), especially kids that are interested in engineering, a college counselor should not be necessary. @Hanna is in the college counseling industry though so has a professional perspective on this .
Agree with @Hanna (and I’m also in the business). But beyond that, and Hanna can attest to this, younger clients/students meet with me/a private consultant to discuss course choices for each semester/year, questions about dropping/changing schedules or educational environments, to discuss summer plans and programs, to edit essays for summer programs, to help with certain documents (activities resume, homeschool parent documents and transcripts, etc.), research (for various activities or academics) and so forth.
Yes, people can come to College Confidential, but not everyone has time or inclination to do so. And frankly, some people are private and don’t want to ask questions on a public forum. Thy would prefer building a one on one relationship with a consultant during the high school years.
@jlhhlhlrh – I may be the outlier here but I would have your S take the PSAT and ACT in 10th grade to familiarize him with both tests. Then take the regular PSAT in 11th grade to qualify for NMSF. That can open up all sorts of scholarships at colleges across the country. Also take the regular SAT and ACT (again) in 11th grade. That way he has time to take them again in 12th grade if he needs higher scores.
I think what @intparent wrote is comprehensive and sane. He will need stem experiences (math-sci) and “real kid” rounding and other interactions with peers. Tinkering is a good trait, but he should engage in collaborative activities, not exclusively loner.
I do agree you can find much of your running start from stem-savvy posters here. I’m not sure how a parent, if not familiar with stem fields and opportunities, would even begin to vet a counselor (specifically for stem) who knows his or her stuff.
See how much his school offers, as a start.
If you are looking at schools like MIT, the time to get a counselor is now, not when your kid is a junior or senior, because by then your kid’s stats is what it is. For those top tier schools, admission is a lot more holistic, which means ECs,summer activities, competitions are going to be a lot more important.
Yes, you could get a lot of valuable information on CC, but it depends on how much time you have to read through hundreds of posts and sometimes the information is not always complete.
I agree why at IF your student is interested in schools like MIT, then a counselor now could help chart the path.
But please…your kiddo is a ninth grader. Hopefully he will have some say in the colleges to,which he applies…and eventually attends. MIT might be one…and then again…it might not be.
So pick a college counselor who can help with the process…not one who specifically deals with MIT, or the like.
Yes, the counselor should have good knowledge of the admission processes at these elite schools, and what it takes to be considered for admission. @oldfort is correct in that admissions are holistic…and encompass many aspects of a student.
The landscape has changed considerably in the past six years. Back when my eldest son was applying to colleges, and specifically MIT, we hadn’t given a tremendous amount of thought to either the application process or the list of schools. However, were were connected to a local (presumably expensive) consultant through a mutual friend, and she was kind enough to work with my son pro bono because of our modest income. What I learned from both the consultant and the application process was both helpful and profound, though she mostly helped with essay editing and understanding how to communicate with colleges.
My son eventually graduated from MIT (and was admitted to all of his schools including Princeton, Penn, Caltech, Mudd, Vandy and WUSTL), but we didn’t really approach the admissions process differently because he was a STEM applicant, since it was clear from his background that he was heavily immersed in math and physics.
OTOH, I’ve worked with some STEM applicants that are more atypical and I would say it was helpful for the student to have a consultant to help tailor the application towards STEM while still emphasizing strengths elsewhere.
@oldfort and @sbjdorlo ,Could you pm me any contacts for the private college counselors you have connected. Thanks in advance.
If he likes to tinker with physical things, check out Case Western Reserve University and their “think[box]”
Case Western Reserve University’s center for innovation and entrepreneurship provides a space for anyone - students, faculty, and alumni and members of the community - to tinker and creatively invent. Located in a 7-story, 50,000 square foot facility, with 4 floors occupied and more under renovation, this project is the largest open-access innovation center at any university in the world. By numbers, think[box] receives over 5000 visits each month, making it the third most popular facility on campus, on par with the athletics center and the library. Popularity grows within on-campus researchers as well - in 2017 think[box] was the most cited core facility on campus.
@sbjdorlo can you please pm me? Thanks
@intparent, terrific input as per usual. In particular, I appreciate your sense of balance.
@ucbalumnus, why do you recommend applicants take both the ACT and SAT?
Re those recommending professional consultants, how could we know they know any more/better than folks on cc? As each university obviously runs admissions their own (often mysterious) way, and as things change so quickly, color me skeptical…
Some students do significantly better on one compared to the other. Whether that is true (and which test is the better one) for a specific student may not be obvious until the student tries both.
My kids took both. But they didn’t really prep for both. Both did SAT prep at home (no classes, but I helped them by timing, scoring, and making sure they understood what they’d missed on practice tests). They took the ACT with no more than a quick practice for format. Both ended up using their SATs, although one got a 35 in the ACT (but SAT was still higher).