<p>NSM, LOL dying to know what school you all hated!</p>
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<p>I know where you’re coming from, Muffy. I dragged my daughter to Tufts and then found out afterward that she had decided before the visit that she would not apply. We could have spent that day doing tourist stuff in Boston.</p>
<p>To all: When you visit a campus, don’t forget to take a look at the surrounding community, especially if it’s a college where upperclassmen tend to live off-campus. Is the school located in a nice neighborhood or a bad one? Are there stores and restaurants nearby? Do the places where kids live off-campus look as though they’re going to fall down? Also, you might want to see what you can find out about public transportation within the college community (can a carless student get to that mall four miles away from campus?) and about transportation between the campus and home.</p>
<p>“NSM, LOL dying to know what school you all hated!”</p>
<p>U Ga., it just looked too Confederate for all of us.</p>
<p>Too Confederate?!?! Them is fightin’ words, ma’am. ;-)</p>
<ol>
<li>If you are aiming for top colleges that require SAT IIs, take them as soon as you are done with the corresponding class. Make sure to look through a sample test to see that your course covered the material (and study for the test if it did not. If you don’t want to study for SAT IIs, the tests you should take are Math (Math 2 has much more generous curve, so if you’re good at math, it’s easier to get a good score on Math 2 than Math1) and Literature. </li>
<li>Take SAT 1 and ACT in Feb/March of junior year. Try to be done with all tests before senior year - it will be stressful enough without standardized tests.</li>
<li>Don’t join clubs/activities/honor societies because you think that’s what colleges want. Find one or two activities you like and are good at, and concentrate on those.</li>
<li>Take challenging classes. They will be more fun, and you’ll be with other smart kids.</li>
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<p>****Have your child get a job and learn the value of everything.</p>
<p>LOL, scrolled through the virtual tour, I see what you mean.</p>
<p>I have a son in this group, who just announced that he is taking the SAT, followed by the PSAT, followed by the SATII in that order this fall. He did not solicit my views, just asked for the ccard, and then proceeded to tell me about his registrations. Go figure. With DS1, I could make suggestions that often were not heeded; this DS beats me to the discussion by making the decision himself. In a way, it is easier so far - he has made a decision before the process arises on my radar to think about - but I guess, I feel rather removed from the whole ‘experience’ this time around. Different kids - I bet this one will have sent in his deposit, and tell me where he’ll attend long before I even process to what schools he was actually admitted…</p>
<p>Oh, and for this DS2, I will be looking for safety schools (or maybe he’s chosen them already) with good foreign language programs (Chinese, French, and Russian in that order…) that are likely small(ish) in suburban areas…I will wait to see what safety will mean for him after this round of testing - given that, as of PSAT 1 as a sophmore he had a 199, and a pretty high GPA - that his counselor thought could be - obviously depending on this year - top 10 in a class of 300… we’ll see…and, having learned from DS1, we will make sure that we set the bar a tad lower than the GC thinks is appropriate…</p>