The son of very good friends of ours did decently enough on the SATs, did a few APs, applied only to the state Flagship, and did so early, and then attended that school. His college application period was the least stressful of any student I have ever known.
In fact, the difference that I have seen between the students and parents for whom it is relatively easy and those for whom it is stressful, is whether a student is obsessed with getting into the college with the lowest acceptance rate which will still accept them or with finding a college where they will be able to do well.
Well, the most stressful thing is money. All other stressors related to college admissions shrink into insignificance, when compared to the stress of not being sure that you will be able to pay for any decent college for your kid.
College search doesn’t have to be stressful if you know that you can afford a decent college.
However, to quote your other thread:
There is your problem right there. You made your kid’s entire high school and at least one year of middle school all about college.
We started looking at colleges to get an idea as to what each types actually is when my kid was in sophomore year. We actually only started visiting colleges in which she was interested during her junior year, and she was lucky enough that her AP English teacher included putting together colleges essays as part of the curriculum. We were lucky that our kid is awesome, her college decision was over early. But she also had applied early, and been accepted, to two flagships, our own and another great one. Had she not done very well early on, she would have applied to a couple of other smaller colleges, and seen whether they would be good selections financially.
Most of the strategizing had to do with finances.
Had she not done so well early in the application process, there may have been some stress down the road. But we’re talking about maybe a few months of stress, not five years. That’s crazy.
Furthermore, my kid got into those two great flagships without spending her entire high school obsessing about college.
She had stress, but that’s because she has anxiety, not because of college.
Say what?
We got enough college literature to choke a heard of elephants, but no college ever harassed my kid. Weird.