<p>We are very new to this college admission process.
In fact, we have NO experience and we don’t even know anybody with experience in college admission.</p>
<p>I thought that it will be nice to have a thread where parents of high achieving kids can ask questions without facing negative reactions from some people.</p>
<p>I wanted to find some support group before I start a new thread.</p>
<p>This whole forum is here to answer your questions. Ask away! And welcome.</p>
<p>I think even a little bit of vitriol (and it’s there, but I don’t want to point out posts), is unwarranted.</p>
<p>Welcome back, NoIdeaDad–there are loads of people on this site who’ll offer helpful answers to your questions. Starting threads about specific topics will be a good way to get good answers.</p>
<p>Welcome back. I must confess that something in your past posts confused me - you said that your S attends one of the best hs in the country but that there is no AP and you don’t feel supported by your guidance counselor? Can you help me understand? I do think that in past threads, you did get a lot of good advice from many seasoned posters and you may want to review those.</p>
<p>NoIdeaDad, as a parent of a B student with average scores (but strong ECs), I can tell you that some of his much more academic peers (4.0+ GPA) did not get accepted at colleges that they “should have” given their outstanding resumes. </p>
<p>I think collaborating and bouncing ideas off of parents with similar high stats kids, particularly those whose kids have graduated recently, might give you some valuable information. Parents like me can stick to the 3.0-3.33 thread, but we all have a place here.</p>
<p>Welcome NoIdeaDad, my D is a 2370/4.0UW headed to college this fall. I had no idea what we were doing as to college admissions. She applied mostly to LACs. PM me if you have questions about those. I don’t know about Ivys as she didn’t apply.</p>
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<p>I think if you ask real questions, about real issues/concerns, then you will get a lot of good advice, information, and recommendations. And - you might be surprised that some of that good advice could come from parents who DON’T have 2250/34 3.9+ kids!!!</p>
<p>To be honest, the only real “negative” comments I have seen generally involve one poster who is convinced that only students with 2250/34 3.9+ succeed in life and the rest might as well go flip burgers.</p>
<p>As long as you don’t have that attitude - there will be lots of people willing to help you!</p>
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<p>I didn’t have much experience regarding college selection before the internets.
I hadn’t graduated from high school and neither H nor I had attended a 4 yr college- yet we managed to help both daughters ( eight years apart) find colleges that they did/ are doing well at + plus they were accepted to all the schools they applied.</p>
<p>( Older D is an alumna of Reed College, younger is attending WWU)</p>
<p>We didn’t have to hire a college counselor, didn’t have to wangle financial records to qualify for aid and didn’t have to pay for SAT courses or academic summer camps.</p>
<p>Numbers are just one piece of the puzzle- criteria and intuition fill in the blanks.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl: My child is attending one of the best high schools and it does not offer any AP classes. I do not want to be too specific but you might be able to guess. (AVERAGE ACT/SAT score is above 97th percentile) The college counselor is great and wonderful but he/she is just too busy to handle all the questions from parents and students. The school has only one counselor for college admissions. (Classic example of overworked underpaid counselor) I don’t think the school has a naviance system. There might be college profiles of previous students but we were not offered to see one. I do not know how other high schools are but parents in my kid’s high school rarely talk about college admissions. It is little bit frustrating.</p>
<p>I was not a high performing student myself so there is no way I look down on other kids or their parents. </p>
<p>I never said college admission is only about numbers. I also know my child will get a lot of rejection letters in the end. </p>
<p>We are thirst for information and we want to share some stories with parents in a similar situation like other parents do in 3.0-3.3 or 3.6 students applying top 20 colleges threads.</p>
<p>Glad you checked back! Keep reading here at CC. Browse the bookstore – there are some books on applying to Ivy League/highly selective schools. Please take stuff with a huge grain of salt. Sometimes I read strong opinions here and have to go take a dog for a walk to clear my head. </p>
<p>What I can assure you:</p>
<p>1) Everything is important – grades, SAT and SAT II scores, letters of recommendation, Extracurricular activities – it all counts</p>
<p>2) Your kid will have one area or another that is weaker than the others. You can work to shore that area up a bit – but please don’t obsess. You can make your kid crazy. </p>
<p>3) Nothing is written in stone – you will learn of kid’s with greater stats that are rejected and lesser stats that are accepted. </p>
<p>You are ahead of the game (good for you!) You recognize that your GC is not up to the task and that you need to fill the void. Far better to be at that place than be the parent who is stunned to figure that out in April of the kid’s senior year. </p>
<p>One of the best counselors you may have available to you may be the parents of last year’s seniors (or this year’s seniors) at your school. Buy them a coffee and pick their brains about what was a good thing to do and what they wish they had done differently. </p>
<p>Right now, I hope your D is signed up for SAT II subject tests this weekend or in June. It is hard to fit them all in. If she is finishing Alg. II she might want to test in the Math Subject test. </p>
<p>If if were me, I’d go to a selective school site (personal favorite: Dartmouth) and read over their admittance requirements and start to think over what D is missing or needs to schedule. </p>
<p>Good luck. Most important of all: Tell D she is a great kid and that you are proud of her no matter what unfolds over the next couple of years. Verbalizing that can help her weather some of the unsettled days ahead.</p>
<p>Conclusion: Bad idea!</p>
<p>Thanks for your kind advices.</p>
<p>In reading your comments most of your areas of concern are not limited to just high SAT/high GPA kids:
<p>Just ask your substantive questions and people will help you.</p>
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<p>Exactly. You asked a question, you got straight answers. Almost the entire CC forum is applicable to a student with high stats and his/her parents, hence the idea of a specific thread doesn’t make sense to me. The couple of threads for parents of ‘normal stats’ kids are perhaps an exception- those may not apply to your child. Part of the reason for this is that CC has lots of very high stats kids and the other reason is that there aren’t a lot of special factors that come into play for high-stats kids (except of course that they don’t need to worry about stats any more and that they need to realize that they are still not a ‘shoe-in’ anywhere).</p>
<p>Re: the specific question about a top school without AP’s, yes there are several well-known schools. Their students generally don’t suffer negative consequences because the top colleges know these schools well. It is true that counselors even in the best high schools cannot give your child the attention they need for this task, which is why parents can help. So you have made the right move by coming here.</p>
<p>My advice: Come to CC frequently. Read a lot of the existing threads. Get comfortable with the “Advanced Search” function. Start your own threads with specific questions. Don’t get discouraged if your queries generate some negative responses, or even no responses. Read books about the process. Communicate with your child and get to know your child-strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes. Give advice to your child in small doses and don’t get discouraged if your advice is met with negative responses or even no responses. Don’t get too obsessed about the whole process. There are a lot of great colleges and most good students will end up in some really good colleges. And try really hard not to transfer your anxieties and stress on to your child.</p>
<p>No vitriol intended.</p>
<p>^^I agree.</p>
<p>You sound like you are in a similar spot to where I was about two years ago. To repeat some of the things that have been said, I’d advise browsing around for a few days and getting a feel for how it works. We’ve received a lot of very helpful information here. It’s impossible to know what would have happened without CC but it’s possible that my son would not have even applied to the school he’ll be attending in the fall.</p>
<p>To answer OP’s original question: it is a GOOD idea. The title is a CC attention grabber, for sure! 
Look how many replies you already got. Just kidding.</p>
<p>Good luck to your kid, college admissions can be a crapshoot!</p>
<p>I think the thread could be useful for one simple reason: YES, these kids are statistically qualified for any school, but NO, they are unlikely to get into the schools that they’re statistical “matches” for. So what to do then? How to strategize? For instance, I know that some posters have speculated (in various threads, often off-topic of the OP’s intent) about “targeting” applications to certain top schools based on demographic needs. E.g. Dartmouth and Cornell tend (in my limited anecdotal experience) to be kinder to unhooked high-stat kids than are the other Ivies. Of the Ivies, Dartmouth is most lacking (comparatively) for Asian students due to rural location. Cornell possibly practices merit-within-need FA (again, anecdotal evidence). Where else would this kind of tidbit information fit?</p>
<p>Having been on CC long enough to judge, I don’t actually think that this forum is “defaulted” to high-stat kids. To prestige-seeking students, yes, but a surprising number of those stats are just a smidge below “high” (high enough to be in contention, but low enough to be a relative weakness–e.g. GPA not commensurate with test scores).</p>
<p>In fact, I like the idea enough that I’m going to start it right now, after I post this, using the suggested “kinder” title. So what if I’m not a parent. :rolleyes:</p>