<p>
</p>
<p>Thanks for the additional data point. My first child did well on it soph year and was glad to have it out of the way, as he had two more SAT II’s and four AP tests at the end of junior year to deal with. </p>
<p>My second child may not be as comfortable with the IIC math, though, and may want to wait. Of course, she can re-take it junior year if she doesn’t do particularly well the first time around.</p>
<p>to begin with do not project your(the parents’) expectations and desires on your student. Our job is to provide advice and guidance.</p>
<p>First sit down with your child and discuss frankly the financials of college, what you are willing to pay, what various types of colleges costs and, using a fafsa calculator, what your family efc might be. Along the same line, be up front with your student if there are other issues which are non-negotiable such as distance from home, attending church affiliated colleges, etc. I do not necessarily agree with such parental restrictions but appreciate that these are very important for some.</p>
<p>College visits need not be specific but general to give your student and idea of what different colleges are like. Visit your state flagship university, a private research university, a smaller public college and even your local community college. If you student is interested in athletics take in a ball game. If your student is interested in science see if they have a science research competition which you can attend. if the arts is the ticket, take in a student concert or theatrical production. At this point your student needs to see and understand the differences between the widest range of colleges possible, not necessarily begin the selection process.</p>
<p>Begin understanding what your students realistic choices might be. Using data from USNews or a comprehensive college guide found in most public libraries, preliminary determine using psat scores that level of admissions selectivity are solid matches and should be the focus of attention senior year. It may be a reality check for some with a lowering of realistic expectations. For others it may be pleasantly eye opening.</p>
<p>Finally begin reseaching finaid. A (very) few students miss the boat because they miss out on scholarships which are awarded jr year. Rensselaer and Furman(?) are two which come to mind. Other fine colleges may move onto your radar screeen because of merit scholarship issues. This takes a lot of time as our son can attest to but the payoff can be staggering.</p>
<p>Finally encourage you child to avoid the pitfall of believing that there is only one perfect college for him or her. There is no perfect college and for most students there will be many which they should be thrilled attending.</p>
<p>Well I am still tressing out, and most notebly my D, a senior, does not seem to be. So I don’t know how all this is going to turn out, but I’d love to hear from more students , maybe already in college, about what to do and what parents should avoid. So many posts seem to be saying “have your kid do this or that” and my stomach is in knots thinking about “having my kid do” anything. I want to say first and foremost, try not to let this process ruin a previously okay relationship. At our new years eve dinner when I asked my family about what was good and bad about the last year, it was clear to me that something had gone awry. I’m still hoping it will all work out.</p>
<p>What to do:
<ol>
<li><p>Since it can be very hard for students to know what they want in college (This is because they probably haven’t already lived in a variety of settings or visited a variety of settings), it can help to visit with your student different types of colleges: Large public university, small liberal arts college, single sex college, etc. To avoid your student’s falling in love with a college that you wouldn’t allow him/her to attend, only visit colleges that you feel you could afford and would let your kid attend.</p></li>
<li><p>Help your student become aware of their preferences and strengths. The book “Soar with your Strengths” and “Strength Finder” are both wonderful ways of identifying strengths, and can help parents help their kids. Also, if you notice, for instance, that your student develops close relationships with teachers and thrives in small classes, you could point this out to your student, and encourage him/her to consider liberal arts colleges or (if finances are a consideration) public colleges that have living/learning communities or honors programs that your student would qualify for.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Often students don’t realize what makes them special. For instance, a kid who enjoys small classes may have lots of friends who also enjoy small classes, and may not realize that everyone doesn’t share that preference, and there are colleges and programs that can meet their needs. </p>
<ol>
<li>Take the time to learn about college costs, college finances, and to find out what you can afford. Then, let your student know was early as possible about any financial restrictions. That will help your student avoid falling in love with a college that you couldn’t afford. I also suggest that when checking out colleges, if finances are a consideration, look first at the college’s financial aid and merit scholarship pages, and also see what the overall costs of a college is.</li>
</ol>
<p>Don’t rule out any college because its tuition is sky high. It may be a place like Harvard and Yale that are very expensive, but also are incredibly generous with need-based aid (giving aid to families whose annual income is as high as $200,000).</p>
<ol>
<li>If your student is a senior and – despite your taking them around to look at colleges – seems paralyzed about applying, do NOT do the work for them or hound them into applying. It may be that they are paralyzed because they are too disorganized, too disinterested or to burned out to apply to college their senior year. While you may be able to hound them into applying, it could end up being a disaster if they flunk out due to not being ready (and this can happen with even very smart students. Speaking from experience as that’s what happened with my older S).</li>
</ol>
<p>If this appears to be what’s going on, set some ground rules for a gap year – such as saying that to live at home rent free, the student would need to be a fulltime volunteer; if the student is working, they’d have to pay rent and pay for other costs (car, etc.). This keeps students from being too comfortable. Otherwise, they could spend their meager income on designer clothes, etc., which could lead them to think that’s the life they could live without a college education.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Make sure that you and your student know that in the U.S. what a person does with their education is a far stronger determinant of financial and other forms of material success than where they went to college.</p></li>
<li><p>If your student has no clue what they may wish to do for a career or what they may want to major in, arrange a career assessment for them via the counseling center at a local college or through a counseling psychologist. The cost could range from free (some college counseling centers) to a couple of hundred dollars, but it is well worth it.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I have nothing to add (have a junior myself right now) but I am reading this thread with great interest and appreciation. What a great resource you all are!</p>
<p>Thank you for all your suggestions. My big problem now is that my junior and I have one April week and maybe one August week that we can visit colleges in and I’m trying to get HER to research colleges herself so I’m not dragging her to schools I’m the only one interested in.</p>
<p>Some kids take to researching colleges like ducks to one of them. I was like that, and I guess that’s why now I enjoy hanging out here on CC.
Others feel overwhelmed by the idea of having to make such a big decision, and need parents to help by doing the preliminary research and figuring out things like where to visit on their trips. Your D simply may not have the life experience to know yet what kind of colleges she’d be interested in.</p>
<p>My younger S was like that. It wasn’t until the end of the process, when he actually chose where he wanted to go, that he realized that the kind of college he really liked was a small LAC. </p>
<p>My advice would be to come up with a varied list of colleges for April that you think would be interesting for your D, and that you can afford and she’d be likely to be accepted to. Make sure that the colleges are close enough that you can take her to all without busting the bank or falling out in exhaustion.</p>
<p>My suggestion would be to have 2 in- state public (This particularly is important if finances will be an issue, as these probably will be colleges you know you can afford), a liberal arts school, a female-only college, a mid sized private, and a church-related one (if you are comfortable with that). That will give her a chance to see a variety of colleges to find out how they differ and what seems most appealing to her.</p>
<p>Emphasize to her that there are many places where she’d likely be happy, so she doesn’t have to worry about selecting the perfect college. There is no such thing!</p>
<p>If there’s a college in your city or that’s within an hour’s drive, you may wish to start out by looking at that college (even if she’s sure she doesn’t want to go there). Plan to do this before the spring break trip so she gets some experience with touring, and seeing what questions people ask.</p>
<p>Don’t be surprised if during the tour(s), she looks uncomfortable while you end up asking most of the questions. It really is a very new experience for students, and many seem to learn what to do by watching their parents. Try, though, to give her some space in case she does end up feeling comfortable asking questions.</p>
<p>Northstarmom that is one of the most reassuring posts I have read. Thanks! Like Muffy I have a D who is not really interested in the process though she does have strong feelings, both positive and negative, about certain campuses. I have another one who is into learning about lots of different schools but neither girl has the time right now with their courseloads and ECs being what they are to do the initial legwork. So I’ve been the one here on CC, doing research and running my findings by them. We generated a list based upon that. I was feeling like a helicoptor by looking at the webpages in more detail and doing so much research for them (and actually enjoying it emensely) but you have just let me off the hook.</p>
<p>What’s funny is that so far on the lists I have helped them to generate you will find 2 in-state publics, 4 Catholic colleges, 1 all female school and 3 LACs. Just like you recommended.</p>
<p>We have a spring break trip planned which includes visits to three campuses. Since they have toured 4 w/ me already I was going to cut them loose for these three. Any thoughts on that? The visits will include tours, classroom visits and possibly an interview on one or two of the campuses.</p>
<p>Some would argue that it’s way too early to start thinking about college/post-high school plans, but my parents started me on it, unintentionally, around 6th grade, when my sister (4 years older) started thinking about it. For me, though, it worked well. I didn’t have any specific colleges in mind, nor did I really start the research process until around summer of sophomore year, but hearing vaguely about what was expected of me worked wonders–common sense says that because I knew more about what was in store for me, I didn’t feel so pressured/stressed when HS came along.</p>
<p>If anything, I’d suggest finding an informal mentor for your S/D. Or not even a mentor, but just a friend who’s gone through it already, and NOT a $$$ college counselor (just 'cause it’s not at all necessary). I have a relatively large family, so I had the benefit of watching 4 or 5 cousins only 2-4 years older than me go through the college application process. In general, talking to them helped me put high school and the admissions process in perspective, as well as provide me with some free therapy/good advice in some tight spots.</p>
<p>And then three general things, I’d try (even though they’ve been said a million times):</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Start early. Previous posters are spot-on; the competition’s fierce. (As a senior just coming out of the process, it’s ridiculous to hear all the stories being swapped like hot spit from the friends I have in other schools.) If your S/D’s got high expectations going into HS or for college, etc., start paying attention to their grades/stats. They NEED to know that, while it isn’t the only way to get into a “good” school (whatever that means to you), AP/IBs, varied ECs, GPAs, SATs/ACTs, other acronymssss are a realistic/practical way to go about the process.
And just on the application bits: I was half-dragged to start my CommonApp last summer, but I finished it early, and boy am I glad I did it. If your S/D has any sense, they’ll see why: gloating rights, for one. Additionally, I finished my apps relatively early on, and spent the rest of the time before the due-date tweaking and revising. Besides, senior year, if it’s anything like mine, starts off as a major pain in the behind (esp. with the added pressure/stress from apps), and (hopefully) will get better when the letters come in/1st semester’s over.</p></li>
<li><p>Be organized/systematic. My mum and I sat down at the end of my junior year/mid-/early-summer and began compiling a list of due-dates and stats about the schools I was considering applying to. In the end, we had an excel sheet of around 8 schools and all their respective stats (location, ave. FA package, size, due dates, ave. SAT score range, other requirements). Then when I finalized that, I put together a list of application requirements. Make photo-copies of everything you send! My sister learned this the hard way…
Being organized doesn’t guarantee you much in the way of admissions, but it sure does reduce the stress/pain, all-in-all.</p></li>
<li><p>Take it easy on your kid. (: My parents, imho, had it pretty frickin’ easy with me, since I wanted to do this and ended up doing a lot of it with minimal nagging. But even then, with full neuroses factored in, it was still an exacting and excruciating process. Be patient, and keep reflecting on the situation/looking at the bigger picture.
Give your S/D a chance to figure out what they want, but don’t completely withdraw from their lives to let them “find” whatever it is. I’d say what’s worked best for my family was for parents to be firm about insisting that their kids start thinking/researching about colleges/their futures, yet without taking them by the hand and dragging.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>And as an end-bit to my long/draggy post, I’ll say that CC’s a great place to start. I wish I’d known about it sooner (I found out about it AFTER I got my acceptance letter), and your kids, whoever they are, are lucky to have such concerned parents. (:</p>
<p>One site juniors might want to check out is <a href=“http://collegeweeklive.com/[/url]”>http://collegeweeklive.com/</a> an online virtual college fair. The first one was held last fall and had some pretty terrific speakers. Kids have a chance to chat online with students at a variety of colleges as well as with admission people. Particulars won’t be available till March.</p>
<p>“We have a spring break trip planned which includes visits to three campuses. Since they have toured 4 w/ me already I was going to cut them loose for these three. Any thoughts on that? The visits will include tours, classroom visits and possibly an interview on one or two of the campuses.”</p>
<p>My thoughts are to take the tours and info sessions with your kids, but stay in the background so that your kids can ask the questions, etc. Being with them on the tour will mean that you all can share perspectives when you compare notes later.</p>
<p>Let your kids do the interviews alone, including walking in by themselves. Don’t fuss over them beforehand. They’ll probably be nervous enough as it is. Unless they are wearing something very inappropriate like an obscene T-shirt, the interviewer will be more interested in what is in their heads than what they are wearing.</p>
<p>Parents: Do not go with your S/D to sit in on classes or chats with professors. After a couple of times, DS1 found the tours boring and headed off to investigate the campus on his own. Chatted up people, read the walls in the departments he was interested in, sat in on classes, found profs. We parents did the tours.</p>
<p>Another thing we found helpful after the visits: DS wrote up notes about who he talked to, impressions, etc. and saved them for later use in essays or follow-up. Helped him to distinguish between one visit and another, esp. on the big spring break marathon tour.</p>
<p>My advice (in no particular order):</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Start visiting schools early but no later than February break of junior year. </p></li>
<li><p>Don’t assume you know what type school your son or daughter will want to attend; visit big, small, urban, rural, prestigious & not so prestigious schools – you may be surprised that your son or daughter likes a rural school when you were confident that they would want an urban school (or vice versa).</p></li>
<li><p>Be realistic in the schools your son/ daughter has a chance to be admitted at. I know one family that toured all of the Ivies when in fact their son had absolutely no chance to be admitted.</p></li>
<li><p>When you visit a school try to eat in the student cafateria; in my opinion that eating experience will show you how the students interact with one another. In most insatances you will be pleased with the quality of the food served.</p></li>
<li><p>When you visit a school try to pick up the student newspaper which in many instances will reflect the personality of the school.</p></li>
<li><p>When you visit a college always take the “dog & pony” tour offered by the college’s admissions office.</p></li>
<li><p>If your son or daughter has distinguished themself in a high school activity ( i.e. college newspaper or yearbook), or club (i.e. club sport) then you should consider contacting the faculty advisor or president of the college club or activity. The faculty member or club president may have some limited pull in admissions albeit not as much pull as a varsity coach the faculty advisor or club president may nevertheless still be able help a “bubble” applicant get off of the bubble.</p></li>
<li><p>I am sure that you believe that your son or daughter is “extra special” but remember that all of the students applying for admission to elite schools have grades within the admissions range. At a Q & A session I attended an Ivy Admissions Director stated that approximatey 90% of its applicants were within its acceptance range for admission; a parent expressed surprise that such a high percentage of applicants were within the acceptance range and the Admissions Director indicated that that fact is true at all elites because kids that are markedly out of the range just don’t apply. I am told, although I don’t know whether it is true, that for the Frosh class entering at Harvard in 2006 there were approximately 2000 applicants hat had perfect SAT scores. I am likewise told that for the entering class in 2005 at Brown there were something like 300 valvatorians that were rejected. What I am attempting to say is that just because a kid has good marks they are not a shoe - in for admission; it is a big world and there are many- many other kids with like good grades and SAT scores.</p></li>
<li><p>Make sure that your son or daughter picks at least one “safety school”. Approximately one year ago a parent posted a tearful note on this Website wherein her son with near perfect grades only applied to 5 elites with no safety; he did not get accepted at any and because his rejections came after most schools had cut off receiving applications the student was forced to sit out for a year.</p></li>
<li><p>If your son or daughter does not get into the school that they want tell them not to pout. I know more than one kid that was rejected at their top choices and forced to attend a safety only to fall in love with the safety. Tell your kid that if the safety does not work out they can transfer. A little known fact is that many schools are easier (not easy but rather easier) to gain admission as a transfer than as an incoming frosh.</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, if your son or daughter is a recruited athlete do NOT trust everything that the coach tells your son or daughter. The fact is that more than one coach at a competitive sports schools “stacks” potential recruits by telling more than he can recruit that he will support them or provide money only to back away from some of the stacked recruits when his favored recruits commit. Don’t stop talking to all coaches until & unless you get the acceptance letter in hand. I have 2 children who were both recruited for D1 sports and although both ended up at great schools they were both “jerked around” by at least one coach.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Sorry to ramble; good luck.</p>
<p>CountingDown’s son notes were pretty incredible. We got his point of view on Carnegie Mellon and found it very helpful. He was a lot better about talking to people than my son was. I certainly didn’t sit in on classes with my son - while he was sitting in on computer classes I went to see what the architecture students were up to. (Making presentations in the halls as it turned out so pretty interesting.) My son didn’t much like tours - they tend to make all places sound the same (except Caltech), and he felt if you’ve seen one dorm room you’ve seen them all. He also had stayed in several dorm rooms through CTY.</p>
<p>“Unless they are wearing something very inappropriate like an obscene T-shirt, the interviewer will be more interested in what is in their heads than what they are wearing.” </p>
<p>LOL…if you only knew my DDs. Jeans, soccer Ts and sweatshirts will probably be the uniform of the day. I occaisionally will see a “cute shirt” (womans’s cut T) hiding under the hooded sweat shirt though it is a rare occurance. No makeup, wash and wear hair…Somewhere they got the idea that to be authentic and themselves they could not accentuate their physical beauty. No worries about the obscene T shirt.</p>
<p>Great advice everyone! I also find that organization is the key. Purchased a plastic file bin for our daughter. She has a file for each school she has an interest in. Great place to keep everything from visit notes, letters and info from the school, admissions apps etc. Saves a lot of stress.</p>
<p>Mathmom,
Thanks! He got the idea from several of his friends (seniors last year) at the math program he had attended. They had similar interests and were looking at similar pools of schools, and had blogged/compared notes and experiences. Several shared their notes with him, and he started doing it, too. We had suggested he take notes just because he and DH were heading on a five schools in five days Spring Break trip and we didn’t want everything to turn into soup. (They also knew I’d be asking lots of questions when they got home!) I didn’t expect he’d throw himself so completely into the task. Then again, when you’re sitting in the car for 2200 miles, there’s not much else to do. ;)</p>
<p>Oh, and if you get all the way to a college, and your kid takes a quick look and says something like, “I hate this place. Let’s skip the tour,” let them.</p>
<p>I remember doing that myself. One of my friend’s daughters also did that after they went to a far away college (fortunately one that also was near others that they wanted to visit).</p>
<p>The college that I did that with was Syracuse. It’s a fine place, but I wouldn’t have been happy there, and I could tell the moment I saw the campus. I did encourage older S to apply there because he would have loved a campus like that that is so into sports. He applied, was accepted, but chose another college that gave more aid.</p>
<p>One of my friend’s daughters did the same with Washington and Lee, a college that the girl had selected for a visit. Once they got on campus, the girl refused to get out of the car: She hated it on site. Ended up that the D, (who is a bookworm and creative writer who seemed to be a perfect fit for a LAC) chose to her family’s surprise our flagship state university – where she’s very happy!</p>
<p>If parents spend the time and money to take their child to visit a school then in my opinion the kid is more than a little disrespectful to the parents if they do not take the tour. </p>
<p>The son or daughter should thank the parent(s) for taking the time and interest to take them to the school. NEWSFLASH: not every kid is fortunate enough to have parent to take them to visit an expensive school.</p>
<p>I don’t see it that way. Going on college tours isn’t like going on blind dates. With blind dates, out of politeness, one needs to go through the date even if one dislikes the person on sight. Fortunately, that’s not the case with college tours. Bowing out early can mean that one can spend more time at places that the student does like on sight.</p>
<p>In the the case of my friend whose D refused to get out of the car to tour an expensive LAC, that worked to my friend’s advantage. It ended up that the D chose an in-state public, which meant that the parents could easily pay for her education instead of taking out loans as they had to do for their other kids.</p>
<p>These experiences also are good reasons not to break the bank to take the kid to see one school. Plan your trip so that the student can see several schools. That way, if they don’t like a school and pass on that tour, they can use the extra time visiting others.</p>
<p>My own experience as a student who hated one school on sight gives me empathy for students who have that experience now. There also was one school that H, S and I were going to tour that we all hated on sight so much that a few steps onto the campus, we decided to skip the tour and continue our trip back home.</p>