<p>It’s that time of the year when rising seniors and their families are preparing for college application suggestions. I thought it might be a good idea to start a thread giving suggestions we all have found helpful in doing the same…I’ll start, and I know that others have ideas that I didn’t use with my family, but were helpful with theirs. </p>
<li><p>Discuss openly your financial limitations if any. It is my humble opinion that these financial decisions should be discussed BEFORE applications are sent, not after acceptances are in hand. That way the student will either apply to schools financially a possibility, or understand that if they don’t receive sufficient financial aid, the school will not be able to be considered.</p></li>
<li><p>Talk about location. If your family has a limitation on distance from home…put it out in the open now.</p></li>
<li><p>Build your list from the bottom up…choosing a safety school (both financial safety and academic safety) that you would love to attend can be harder than picking those reach schools.</p></li>
<li><p>Apply to at least one school that has rolling admissions and do it early.</p></li>
<li><p>Do NOT apply Early DECISION if financial aid is a consideration. ED is a binding acceptance. </p></li>
<li><p>Consider schools that take Early Admission applications or have priority applications that are non-binding. These (like rolling admissions) give the student a decision early in the admittance game.</p></li>
<li><p>DEADLINES DEADLINES DEADLINES…make sure you read each school’s website carefully as deadlines vary wildly from school to school. Do not miss deadlines, not by even a day.</p></li>
<li><p>Make sure you are aware of any forms that must be filled out. Many schools have supplemental information for admissions and/or financial aid. </p></li>
<li><p>CHECK with your colleges to see that materials have been received, and with your guidance office to see that they have been sent.</p></li>
<li><p>Get a copy of your high school transcript and check for inaccuracies. One of my kids had a picture of someone else on their transcript, and the other had a GPA that was wrongly computed. CHECK.</p></li>
<li><p>Here’s something we WISH we had thought of…have your SAT or ACT scores sent to schools to which you think you might apply early in the game. If you change your mind and don’t apply…oh well. If you decide to apply at the 11th hour, the scores will be there. Otherwise (and this happened to us), you’ll get socked with Rush fees from the College Board to send those scores at the last minute. Even if you apply as expected, this will be one thing off your “to do” list.</p></li>
<li><p>Try not to talk to other families about YOUR college application process or financial aid applications. It’s like comparing apples to oranges.</p></li>
<li><p>Start a word document this summer with ideas for your essay. Add to those ideas and then when you are ready, you’ll at least have a skeleton of what you want to write.</p></li>
<li><p>If you go to visit schools, try to find time for an interview in addition to the school tour. But also know that many students do not visit schools until after acceptances, and that works as well. Check to see which schools use interviews as part of their decision making process. This is on the college websites.</p></li>
<li><p>Check your guidance office for THEIR deadlines regarding submission of information.</p></li>
<li><p>Do as much as you can online but make copied or save to disk everything. Most schools now prefer online applications over paper.</p></li>
<li><p>If school hasn’t ended for you yet, ask for teacher recommendations NOW. Most teachers are very happy to have a lot of advance notice. If you ask now, you will be able to likely have your recommendation done by the time school starts. Remember that teachers are asked to write a lot of recommendations in the fall. Don’t be “part of the pack”.</p></li>
<li><p>Get as much as you can get done as early as you can get it done. The sooner you get these applications done, the sooner you will be able to “enjoy” your senior year in high school.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The best thing my son (who's just graduating this June) did was write his college essay last summer, before his senior year stated. There was some tweaking that occured through the Fall, but 95% of it was done.</p>
<p>This was great because then, as he got serious with different schools' different applications and essay requirements, he could focus on those unique things. And his schoolwork. And his sports. And his girlfriend.</p>
<p>In other words, it was one very large item off his plate.</p>
<p>If you are applying for financial aid, be prepared to have your tax return completed on February 1st. Or at least a close estimate. Double check the financial aid deadlines!</p>
<p>Make a list of ECs and honors - review the Common Application for how to format.</p>
<p>I am a strong proponent of finding a "good fit"--my advice leans that way:</p>
<p>Start thinking about general categories and your preferences--</p>
<p>LAC or large university? rural, suburban, urban? is a women's college a possiblity? religious affiliation important to you? How important are particular sports to you? What about social fit--Greek culture-yes or no, access to a city? political activism? cultural diversity? study abroad opportunities? active theater group? musical interests?</p>
<p>Does you high school have a list of where last year's or two years ago's Senior class was accepted? You will often have an edge at colleges that have a tendency to "like" your high school. Also see if you can get e-mail addresses of kids from your hs at colleges that interest you and get some first-hand feedback.</p>
<p>If there are colleges near your home easy to get to , even if you don't want to attend them, visit and tour them so that you get an idea of what you like and don't like .This will make you a better visitor at colleges that you actually apply to.</p>
<p>When you vist a college--hang out for a while in public spaces--cafeteria, library snack bar, eavesdrop and also approach small groups or individuals and ask them what they like or don't like about the place.</p>
<p>Make sure to pick at least one safety that will make you happy if you have to go there. It's a lot easier picking the reach schools. Spend more time than you think is necessary looking at the safeties--or at least safeties/matches. For the next few years it's going to be a bumpy ride getting into the more selective colleges.</p>
<p>If you haven't already done so, find out when your guidance counselor would like to meet with you one-on-one to talk about college plans. Also, find out whether there is any paperwork that you should fill out in advance of this meeting.</p>
<p>One of the purposes of the student/counselor meeting is to make sure that the counselor is sufficiently familiar with the student's interests and activities to write a well-informed recommendation. If the student's activities have been primarily outside of school or if the student and counselor simply don't know one another well, this meeting and the paperwork that goes with it may be the only way for the counselor to get the needed information. Some schools have a form (informally called a "brag sheet") that students fill out before this meeting, listing their activities, interests, and awards. Creating a resume and giving it to the counselor can also be helpful.</p>
<p>Another important point is to find out your high school's deadlines -- not just the colleges' deadlines. Some high schools, for example, require transcript/GC recommendation requests to be submitted a month or more before the college's deadline. (At my daughter's high school, all transcript/recommendation requests for schools with January 1 deadlines had to be submitted before Thanksgiving.) Some high schools require a completed college application to be submitted with each of the transcript requests. (One of my kids attended a high school that had this requirement; the other attended a high school that allowed kids to apply to college online and did not require applications to go through the guidance office.) Some individual teachers who are writing recommendations also require substantial lead time -- a month or more in some cases.</p>
<p>from one of the post on the thread that believersmom is referring to:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Don't let money be the determining factor. Financial aid is available and schools' FA offices are usually there to help.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>this goes back to post #1 of this thread. Keep in mind that :</p>
<p>Very few schools meet 100% of your demonstrated need</p>
<p>Those that meet 100% of your demonstrated need with large amounts of institutional aid are amongst the most competitive as far as admissions.</p>
<p>loans in your financial aid package is considered meeting your need.</p>
<p>Become familiar with the FAFSA and the CSS profile as they are 2 different methodologies in determining your need. A "0" FAFSA efc does not necessarily translate to a "0" EFC on the profile.</p>
<p>There are a number of financial aid calculators available. Run your numbers using both the federal and insitutional methodologies.</p>
<p>Communicate now with your ex-spouses and/or non-custodial parents so that you know upfront to what extent are they willing to pay for your child's education. Remember the most selective schools and schools that give out the largest amount of need based institutional aid will ask for the income and assets of both parents. Many of these schools also consider the income and assets of stepparents as well.</p>
<p>The college determines how much they think you can afford to pay. This can be a big disconnect, especially if the amount is more than you want or feel that you can afford to pay.</p>
<p>My advice: Parents should stock up on duct tape for the inevitable times when their child will move at a different pace than the parents would like or decides to do things differently than the parents would if they were applying to college. Unless your child is in danger of missing an important deadline within the next few hours, keep the duct tape firmly in place over your mouth until the need to nag passes. You will have a much happier and less stress free home that way. Now, please excuse me. I'm off to Home Depot to stock up on my own box of duct tape as my son rises to senior year. :)</p>
<p>Going along with Carolyn's thoughts....when you go on college tours, do NOT discuss YOUR feelings about the college especially if you like the place. We found that the more we liked a place, the less likely the kids were to do the same. So after kid number one, we learned to keep quiet.</p>
<p>Please suggest that your rising seniors do the following during the long summer break. It will make their last year of high school less stressful, and definitely more enjoyable.</p>
<p>1) Write all the college essays you need during the summer. You can always change them later.
2) If you are attaching a resume to the common app, think about it and get it done during the summer. You can add more things later.
3) If you are a full IB diploma candidate, finish your Extended Essay before the first day of school, specially if you feel that your first draft needs more work.
4) If you are involved in extra-curricular activities that require a lot of planning, make all the plans during the summer. For example, if you are responsible for the holiday dance or prom, think of the location, theme, decoration, etc. In other words, make the business plan during the summer.
5) And ask the teachers to start thinking of your recommendation letter. If there is a work sheet that you need to give them, complete it during the summer, and give the sheet and the forms during the first week of school.</p>
<p>It is going to be a busy summer, but the payoff will be huge. Best of luck!</p>
<p>Do lots of delving into the websites and catalogs of colleges and go on forums to talk to current students to research how well each one meets the needs of S or D before drawing up the list of colleges to visit. One mistake I think we made with S1 was that he and his dad put together a visit list basically as a fun road trip --- what can we see and which colleges from point A to point B that meet the categories to visit: large vs. small, urban vs. rural, LAC vs. research university --- instead of having a really well-thought-out list. In other words, don't think of the visit trip as a way to do research on the college. Do lots of research on the college beforehand and use the visit to confirm, refute, or delve even deeper into what you already know. </p>
<p>Also, I second Marian's advice, particularly if your child is in a high school where the GCs are not calling them into the office regularly for one-on-one guidance (iow big publics). Find out from the counseling office if they send any forms home for the parents to fill out about the students. And then FOLLOW UP with your student. Ask about that form. I speak from experience in that the only way I knew about a "brag sheet" type form from the counseling office was that I walked into my son's room and saw it lying on his desk. (What's this? Oh, I didn't want to bother you with that.) It was the form he was supposed to fill out about his school EC and non-school ECs --- some he left off because he thought them insignificant --- and a space for parents to comment on their S's or D's character and good qualities. I'm pretty sure if I hadn't seen that form and been able to fill it out, his GC would not have been able to write a recommendation with some depth of knowledge about him as a person. He just didn't get how important that form (or brag sheet) was, particularly for GCs in large schools. My advice is to not only ask about this form or brag sheet from the counseling office, but if you are told there is no such thing, then write up your own and send it to the GC assigned to your student.</p>
<p>All good advice from carolyn, thumper and jazzymom.
Now --right now! -- I'm going to focus and write a thoughtful letter to the GC about how wonderful my rising senior is. Maybe GC can cutnpaste for the recommendation.
I'll use the duct tape later. Should've used it several times already.</p>
<p>If you can afford spending time and money for college visits, do this by all means. After visiting several colleges, which originally seemed to fit perfectly, D has eliminated them outright. This has allowed her to concentrate on applications to those colleges she really liked. However, before visiting colleges, find out as much as possible about them - many options can be eliminated upon CAREFUL examination of college web sites or other sources. This advice seems obvious, but you wont believe how many people fail to follow it.</p>
<p>Follow through with all colleges upon submitting applications and supplements. This is especially important for rolling admission schools. Once weve discovered that some supplements have not been filed and had to resubmit them. Another time weve found out that although the admissions acknowledged receiving all parts of Ds application, they failed to update her file as being completed and therefore her application was not considered luckily we have discovered this before the deadline.</p>
<p>Someone recommending setting up an e-mail account just for college stuff, and it was a great idea. It's a simple tip, but it was so helpful. You'd be amazed at how often you need to use it: for colleges, FAFSA, CSS Profile, Princeton Review, College Board, scholarships, summer job applications, financial aid, etc. We used Yahoo. Choose an easy-to-remember password, because YOU will probably be the one checking it most often. I made it clear to my daughter that this isn't private account, that we would both be monitoring it. Also, choose a name that sounds professional, because so many of the kids nowadays have wacky-sounding e-mail addresses. For instance, something like <a href="mailto:lesleyclassof2012@yahoo.com">lesleyclassof2012@yahoo.com</a> would be good.</p>
<p>Check the account every day, and just forward stuff as needed. This way your kid won't be missing deadlines by skipping over e-mails that get buried in regular accounts, and you'll be on top of things as well.</p>
<p>Oh, by the way: Of course you have to rein in "helicopter" tendencies if you're prone to those. For instance, we had a rule that during decision season, I would NOT be opening any e-mails that seem to contain acceptance/denial info.</p>
<p>If the student is planning to apply online, it might be a good idea to access each of the applications as soon as the colleges make them available, even if the student only fills in some basic demographic information (name, address, etc.), leaving everything else to another time.</p>
<p>Occasionally, when you do this, you will find that it doesn't work. One of the applications that my daughter wanted to fill out crashed the computer every time. But it worked OK on another computer (which had Mozilla Firefox rather than Internet Explorer). </p>
<p>It's good to find out about glitches like this with lots of time to spare.</p>
<p>Another point: The student should obtain a dignified, unambiguous e-mail address. Addresses like <a href="mailto:sexydude@whatever.com">sexydude@whatever.com</a> or <a href="mailto:jacksparrow@whatever.com">jacksparrow@whatever.com</a> just aren't suitable for the college admissions process (well, the second one might be OK if your name really is Jack Sparrow). Neither are addresses that include ambiguous characters (the letter l vs the number 1, the letter o vs the number 0) unless the character is absolutely clear from the context. The address <a href="mailto:oliversmith@whatever.com">oliversmith@whatever.com</a> is OK because nobody's going to think that the o and l at the beginning are numbers, but <a href="mailto:230lfj@whatever.com">230lfj@whatever.com</a> is not OK, even though it's perfectly clear to the owner of this address that it's a combination of his house number and his initials, and that therefore the third character is a number and the fourth is a letter. How would anyone else know this?</p>
<p>Edited to add: Oops, LurkNessMonster and I posted the same idea at the same time.</p>
[quote]
3) If you are a full IB diploma candidate, finish your Extended Essay before the first day of school, specially if you feel that your first draft needs more work.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>For IB diploma candidates, spending some time on CAS over the summer is also a good idea. My daughter, who was full IB, had no difficulty getting enough Action hours because she was heavily involved in instrumental music. But Creativity and Service would have been difficult to do during the school year because of conflicts with musical commitments. She did volunteer work both the summer before 11th grade and the summer before 12th grade (one year at a day camp, the other at a museum) that provided opportunities for her to get most of her Creativity and Service hours. This took a lot of pressure off of her during the school year.</p>
<p>Get out your tax return & your asset info. Find a financial aid calculator & plug in numbers for both federal & institutional methodologies. Print out your results & keep them in a file. This will give you a realistic view of what college is going to cost. If you are looking at 100% need-meeting schools, find out what percentage of need is met with loans, CWS, etc. Also, find out how they compute cost of attendance for financial aid. All of this info is extremely important in deciding whether or not a school might be affordable. Some people eliminate expensive schools without really checking into them. </p>
<p>Make sure you are upfront about what you will/will not pay. Don't encourage your child to apply to an expensive school without letting him/her know if you will only say okay IF the merit $ (and specify amount) comes through.</p>
<p>DO NOT EXPECT anything in terms of admissions or scholarships!!!!! There is no way to know whether or not your child will be accepted or get a scholarship. I know kids who didn't get into state flagship U, even though classmates with similiar or seemingly lower stats did. On the other hand, it can be worth a shot even if you think it's a longshot. And full ride scholarships are very few and very far between!!! Best bet (still not sure bet) for those is publics that are trying to recruit top students.</p>
<p>And ... if your child can't handle rejection ... he/she shouldn't play the selective school game. It takes nerves of steel.</p>
<p>So how much trouble is it to change email addresses if one has already contacted all of the schools, uses said address for CB, etc.? The email address isn't silly, but it's my son's personal email, and I'm not going there...</p>