Smartest Things You Did During College Process

Parents Forum
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<p>Research the amount of need based or merit aid that is available while you are putting together your college list. The “Common Data Set” for most colleges is available online for most colleges, and can found with a google search. It won’t tell you how much aid you will receive, but it will tell you have many students receive various amounts of need and merit aid.</p>

<p>Help review your son or daughter’s essay for grammar and clarity, but don’t make them edit the personality out of their essay. The essay is not an academic term paper, and you don’t get points for using big words.</p>

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<p>I agree. I’ve learned so much during the few short months I’ve been on CC so I thought I’d start this thread to try to pay it forward. So glad so many have joined in. Let’s keep it going!</p>

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<p>Make sure you focus on the numbers from Naviance or whatever source you have for the schools you’re considering.</p>

<p>This is ESPECIALLY true if you have a slightly unbalanced student whose grades are higher than his scores, or vice versa. You should make sure to apply to schools where the lower of the grades or scores is a good match. I’ve seen too many disappointments because parents look at an 800 and think Stanford here we come, or vice versa, a valedictorian with 680’s for scores and all of the focus is on Yale. Don’t set yourself up for disappointment out of ignorance.</p>

<p>The other make sure of is to apply to a broad enough range of schools. Also focus on whether the safety schools are really acceptable to you from a geographic/logistics standpoint.</p>

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<p>One idea that was very successful was touring schools in reverse order of difficulty in gaining admission. Thus, she was falling in love with safeties first and then we explored reach options. It worked out great. She was able to continue to love her safeties as she found some great reaches.</p>

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<p>Going through the process twice, I’d suggest:

  1. Take the PSAT in 10th grade.
  2. College Visits: Try to really enjoy the time with your child on college visits. The conversation in the car can really be a great bonding experience and a chance to learn more about who they really are and want to be. Remember a visit is helpful whenever it is confirming: either yes I’m interested or no don’t like this school or no I don’t want any school where it’s cold. If possible, don’t force a younger sibling tour all of their older siblings colleges. If they want to come, that’s great, but if not, some younger sibs can be turned off to schools they might like in the future. They can even read in a library instead of sitting through an information session. After acceptances, go to accepted student days and stay overnight to help determine what college is the best match for you.
  3. Finances: We let our children apply to colleges of any price with an understanding that the finances would be part of the final decision process after they saw where they were accepted. Very selective private colleges can have great financial aid, some schools have great merit aid, financial calculators are helpful but the financial aid/ merit award letter is needed for the final decision. We did use the financial calculators to make sure there was one “cost safety.”
  4. Don’t lose track of your child. Remember college isn’t everything in their life. Try to help them to enjoy their senior year. Love them. Let go and remember this is their life. They need to choose the school they believe is best for them as a whole person.</p>
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<p>Learn how to use Naviance. Once you have ACT and/or SAT scores on it use the scattergrams feature to see where your child fits in with peers who previously applied. It shows accepted, wait listed and deferred statuses for past applicants from your child’s school.</p>

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<p>**Not including TWO accepted EA schools in FAFSA and claim schools are unaffordable **</p>

<p>Mom said it was the easiest way to narrow my list down to work in her favor. ;)</p>

<p>Be warned that your kid may be a bit perturbed after a stunt like this.</p>

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<p>Let’s keep this thread to smart tips and not stunts. Thank you!</p>

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<p>Sorry. :)</p>

<p>Have your child write up their ideal college experience.
Think of this as an extended response. Have your child write anything from what they see walking to class, what they do after classes, their dorm environment, what’d they do on the weekends for fun, etc. </p>

<p>This helps narrow down what kind of school they would like (rural, urban, suburban…), what clubs they would enjoy, and the like. </p>

<p>We did this. I t was fun and alleviated application stress. This also allowed my mom to bring up any items I should look into that I may have overlooked.</p>

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<p>Keep in mind the ENTIRE family and financial situation when considering college–including retirement, likelihood/possibility of layoff, whether it will or will NOT be affordable if other kids want to attend same U as older kiddo but with NO merit award,etc. </p>

<p>For us and some others, older kid got good to great merit at good U but younger sib got nothing. For us and our friend, we let younger sib apply and attend, even tho it was a stretch financially. As a practical matter, it’s tough to say NO to 2nd kid, even if it’s more out of pocket for same U.</p>

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<p>Gather all your credit card statements for the last two years, and with your checkbook at hand, make a simple chart which shows how much you are paying for your daily living. I know SO MANY PEOPLE who have been unable to save a meaningful amount for college for their kids, but think that an extra 3K a month out of pocket or 2K a month in loan payments once the kid graduates is achievable.</p>

<p>People- your muffler doesn’t stop falling off and your heating system doesn’t stop going on the blink just because little Timmy is at college. If you’ve been unable to save because “stuff happens” then trust me, you can’t afford to load yourself up with loan payments under the false illusion that you’ll become a better money manager once your kid is out of the house.</p>

<p>You won’t be paying for the direct expenses of having that teenager under your roof. But that’s likely not a couple of thousand dollars a month. And if you were disciplined enough to be salting away every tax refund, every overtime or bonus check, etc. you’d already have built up a nest egg.</p>

<p>So take off the rose colored glasses and get an accurate and granular picture of your finances.</p>

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<p>Just remembered another one:</p>

<p>Before agreeing to attend, put in phone calls to BOTH admissions and Financial aid (even if you are not receiving aid) and see if there is any additional aid. I don’t know for sure that my phone call did it. but after I called and said that we were undecided and looking at a state school, my son received a letter from financial aid with a $10,000/ year grant. since we were leaning towards the private school anyway, I must say that it feels like that was a 40K call.</p>

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<p>@Disneydad
Sweet:)</p>

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<p>Start saving early with 529 Plans. These were fully funded prior to college for both kids. Per Blossom’s post, not everyone will be able to do this, but we were fortunate to be able to do so.</p>

<p>Listen to the kids and guide the kids. My two kids are very different. What’s good for one may not be good for the other. ShawSon is exceedingly bright, intellectually oriented, seriously dyslexic and has a very powerful drive to succeed (probably an understatement). His sister is quite bright as well, but not intellectually oriented. No dyslexia but competition made/makes her very anxious. </p>

<p>My son said, “I’m applying to schools with a 10% probability of success. I don’t want to visit and fall in love with a school with a 10% probability of success, as I’ll just be disappointed if I don’t get in to my first choice. So, I will do a fabulous job on my applications and will apply to 3 or 4 extra schools to compensate for the time not spent visiting.” So, he visited only one or two schools prior to being admitted. [Then we had to do triage to select schools]. In contrast, ShawD needed to visit several schools to get comfortable with the idea that she would get in (she had a good GPA from a very competitive private NE HS and pretty good ACT scores but would not have wanted an Ivy/Little Ivy anyway, but she needed reassurance.) My kids are dual US/Canadian citizens and when I told her that the Canadian schools would for the most part admit her solely on grades and SAT/ACT scores and no holistic stuff, she decided to only apply to Canadian schools. Then, we visited 7 Canadian schools. All but one told her she would be admitted and the other has a bit of a holistic spin. So, she only applied to two and was admitted to both.</p>

<p>Because I listened to the kids, they listened to me. I suggested to ShawSon that he add to the list a couple of the most prestigious LACs as I thought small classes would benefit him – professors would quickly see how bright he was. He attended one of them rather than an Ivy. A fabulous experience for him. </p>

<p>Don’t be guided by guidance counselors. We had one from a public HS, one from a private HS, and one we hired to supplement the public HS GC. None knew as much as I did – I am a researcher – and none were at all strategic.</p>

<p>Don’t be guided by conventional wisdom. GC types will tell you unequivocally that it would be much better for the the kid to apply to college during the senior year even if the kid is going to take a gap year. Well, ShawSon had sleep apnea and needed surgery. The plan was to do that during the gap year. But, because of the sleep apnea, he had enough energy to perform well in HS, but didn’t have the energy to do the apps and take SATs/ACTs. So, I decided that he would be better off just focusing on the SATs and apps during the fall of his gap year. He had the surgery (and got a lot more energy), studied for standardized tests and nailed all of them, did 16 apps (see above), and campaigned for Obama’s first campaign, worked on a novel, did some research, etc.</p>

<p>Suggest taking a gap year. It was great for ShawSon and I think would have benefited ShawD. She got so excited by her first choice school (which changed after her visits) that she decided against a gap year. I think a year’s maturity would have been good for her.</p>

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<p>Half of what I have to share is general and half is for athletic recruits, so take from whichever parts look helpful:</p>

<p>I used to teach SAT prep a long, long time ago, know that the test can be largely a function of familiarity and practice, and had my son do prep 2x, summers between freshman and sophomore years AND sophomore and junior years. He also had an app on his phone with a question a day which he did starting freshman year. It made a huge difference in his case, about a 250 point improvement from PSAT to superscored SAT.</p>

<p>We used the adult email address for the PSAT and SAT so all the application spam and athletic recruiting emails came to me and didn’t flood his school account. He used his own email for the applications.</p>

<p>He was an athletic recruit so we did a quick snapshot “resume” (literally, we printed out a resume of his athletic and academic stats on a piece of paper and then took a cell photo). When a coach at a camp asked him for his stats, son was able to email it to them immediately. We did the same with his unofficial transcript. Bonus was that son at the same time connected with all the coaches who met him with their personal cell phone numbers, making it easier to stay in touch over the fall.</p>

<p>I had a master blank book where we kept track of all important numbers - user names and passwords, scores, different pages for each school with notes and communication dates. We started with about 20 colleges last spring and narrowed it down to 3 good fits by October.</p>

<p>We let ourselves become more realistic over time. The top schools we started with were NOT the top schools we ended up with. We would have been foolish to have kept those original schools as top choices merely out of being stubborn or just in denial.</p>

<p>Last, we as parents used the resources here at CC and paid attention to the answers, even when they were not answers we wanted to get or thought we would get.</p>

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<p>Our kids used different strategies. Both were smart.</p>

<p>With DD, now graduated, the strategy was a pretty conventional approach of applying to a safety, matches, and a reach. DD had strong grades and test scores and was a NMSF. She got into six out of seven, threw one out because of terrible financial aid (NYU), dropped the safety, and ended up with three as her top choices. The financial cost for these was around the same (and not out of line with the discarded safety) so then she visited them and picked one, largely based on how it felt. It also cost the least, while being a great place to go to school. It’s a top LAC and she graduated with very little debt. </p>

<p>DS had a clear top choice and wanted to apply early. We ran the NPC and found that it would be affordable. His stats were even better than DD and he is also a NMSF. So he applied early to two schools with excellent financial aid that are nonbinding plus his top choice, which is binding. He heard from one of the nonbinding ones right away, so he knew that he would have an option he could accept. And he planned on applying to some others if his top choice said no. But it didn’t say no, and the financial aid is spot on what the NPC said it would be, so he’s going there.</p>

<p>As I said, these were different strategies, but they both worked well.</p>

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<p>I wish we would have known how much better it is if students take the SAT subject tests as soon as possible after they finish the related class. Also, try to have one be a math or science, if there is any possibility a student will suddenly get interested in engineering programs.</p>

<p>We took a fairly hands off approach, but definitely did all we could to make it easier for our son to pursue the ECs he was passionate about. He had many choices for essay topics because of that and his personality really showed in them. When he scored very high on the ACT, the counselor said “I can guess two things about you. One is that you read a lot, including newspapers, and two is that you eat dinner as a family several nights a week.” both are apparently good predictors for high test scores, and in my son’s case, both were true.</p>

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<p>Initially, we took a number-crunching approach. When my son started receiving ‘academic spam’ after writing the PSAT & PLAN, I started living & breathing the Common Data Sets, determining where he was likely to be admitted and where he would be within the student body. (Our target was to have him between the school’s 66th and 80th percentiles (based on test scores)). We focused almost exclusively on LACs.</p>

<p>After we had a target list came the visits, to whittle down the list. After the visits came the applications to every school offering Early Acceptance, with the overarching principle, “Only apply to schools at which you can see yourself happily pursuing an education.”</p>

<p>So far, so good – of the 6 EA applications, 2 acceptances and 2 rejections, with 2 TBD (which I anticipate will break similarly). Having the EA data has been exceptionally helpful. </p>

<p>Probably another 2-4 RD applications to come, informed by the EA results.

It probably won’t surprise folks to learn that, in my day job, I’m a data geek.</p>

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<p>D2 watched D1 agonize over way too many RD applications. So D2 sent one EA app to her second choice school (no ED there) as was accepted. Then she had only one RD app to write to her first choice school (no EA there, didn’t want ED). She was quite relaxed about the whole thing.</p>

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<p>I’m a student…and I thought what helped me most is:</p>

<ol>
<li>REFLECT ABOUT YOURSELF, THINK ABOUT YOURSELF and YOUR PERSONALITIES SO DEEPLY that you can write your essays with true depth.</li>
</ol>