<p>@GMTplus7 A stark contrast to a recent prep school visit where both all the boys and dads (didn’t see a girl on that day) in the reception room wore blazers, khakis, dress shirts and ties on an 85 degree day. Mine wanted to leave his jacket in the car and go with only shirt and tie due to the warm weather but he didn’t. Perhaps other dads insisted too ?!! 
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<p>I always think it is odd when we tour a school and one of the prospective applicants shows up wearing a sweatshirt of a neighboring or competitive school. Has happened twice and both times my D said “what are they thinking”?</p>
<p>I am neutral on the topic of a Gap year. They need to have a plan. It can be hard to conceive of not going on when all the friends are excited about college. I do agree with postponing matriculation after acceptance. At the end many kids are just burned out on the whole applying to college process. Hard to predict whether your child will fall in that basket ahead of time, though. </p>
<p>Oh wise 2015 parents, how did you start and manage the college search process for your boarding school kids? We are trying to include some college visits in our travels, which is what the school suggests. When do you start seriously considering Naviance, etc to target things more strategically? And how do you do this with a kid who is overwhelemed at the whole idea?</p>
<p>Not only do I think a gap year can be a great thing, I also think holding a job of any sort can be the best thing. There are kids who are burnt out from the pressure of high school and the application process and who want/need some space to reorient themselves. For those kids, the appeal of a low wage job can be great. From a parent’s perspective, that low pay job may be a godsend too because it will motivate a kid like nothing else. I grew up in a lower middle class to middle class community and I can tell you emphatically that working that minimum wage job opened my eyes in a big way. </p>
<p>We know kids who took high pay high skill jobs out of high school and there it’s true that the motivation to return to the academic fray hasn’t been quite as sharp, lol. Even so, seeing what the world of work can offer has been a wonderful and empowering thing to those kids. Most did matriculate to their chosen schools the following year and hit the ground running with renewed enthusiasm and drive.</p>
<p>Maybe I’m naive but it’s hard for me to believe that kids apply only to schools that they’d be happy attending. There are some schools on the list that are “good enough” but are only there as worst case scenario schools. If that worst case scenario does indeed end up being the actual scenario, I can see that there will be some readjustment required. Not to say the girl won’t go or that she won’t be happy. </p>
<p>The gap year itself may or may not enhance a new application but it may allow a kid to put more care into the applications and to select schools that weren’t on his radar the first time around for one reason or another. I know kids who were accepted the second time around after a first time WL and even a denial. (On that point: Isn’t Andison the cc legend proving that there can be a very different outcome?)</p>
<p>I’m also not sure why the community service option with delayed start to college requires a fat trust fund? Is it because the tuition rises each year? There are ways to earn a basic wage with minimal parent contribution during that community service year so it’s not as if you are signing on for 5 years of tuition or even heavy parent contributions for that gap year. </p>
<p>Obviously, my bias is in favor of the gap year. High school has become a pressure cooker. Kids don’t see the world around them and the possibilities it offers because they are too busy meeting one requirement after another. I have encouraged my daughter to consider it seriously, yes, preferably with an acceptance in hand. I look at her and see a person so straightjacketed by all the hoops and hurdles and I’d love to see her broaden her horizons. </p>
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<p>@friendlymom: This is one of the wonderful benefits of the very personal, one-on-one college counseling that your child’s BS provides. At most schools, it seems this process starts around January of junior year, and the CC office should be very communicative prior to this about their process and how they will guide your student through it. Have you checked the website of your child’s school to see how they do it? In Choate’s case, the process started with a very lengthy questionnaire to parents (which I posted somewhere last year) asking for input on a variety of things to help the CC get a better understanding of the student, but also to determine if the parents had any suggestions for colleges and and gating factors like FA, religious considerations , distance or type preferences, etc. At College Info Weekend in February, we were given access to Naviance with instructions on how to use it and how to interpret the data. From there, you can be as involved or not as you want.</p>
<p>Our case is not very helpful because our kid knows exactly what he wants to do so his list was rather predetermined without input from us. As Michigan grads, our only reminder (as we’ve told him all his life) was “anywhere but Ohio State. “ 
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<p>So, I would start by checking the school website and contacting the college office to get specific information on how they handle the process. Part of what they are very good at is helping students manage the process properly so they are not overwhelmed. Good luck.</p>
<p>Duh. I posted the Choate questionnaire in this thread, post #26.</p>
<p>Thanks @ChoatieMom. SPS will be doing all that too so it sounds like I can follow their schedule. They do manage to get the entire class in to college each year, after all, without too much “help” from parents!</p>
<p>@gmt, re: your college tour dress comment…how much of it is just socio-economic variation and/or a lack of sophistication/familiarity with what might be appropriate dress (possibly related to socio-economics)?</p>
<p>FWIW, I see college tour dress as very different than boarding school tour dress…because in general, the BS tours are one to one and kid/parents will most likely be interviewed that day whereas I’ve been on many college tours over the past few months but the kid hasn’t interviewed in conjunction with any of them. Meaning, we’ve all been more casual on the college tours than we had been on the BS tours. But not sloppy, even down to the younger sibling who is not applying to colleges.</p>
<p>Regarding the college lists and how firm they should be at this point…I got the feeling from the SAS folks that they wanted kids to come back from summer break with a list of possibles (which I consider to be tighter than a “to consider” list). Then, when you factor in that many will be applying at least one place early (Nov 1), I’d think you want a kid’s list to be mostly finalized by Oct. 1, no? Which is in just a few weeks.</p>
<p>My point about the colleges who are just now sending marketing materials to my daughter is that I doubt that anything sent BY ANY COLLEGE at this point will make any difference to her final list. Her standardized test scores were all available to these institutions last year — and seeing as the scores were not terrible — I would have expected some of these schools to try to get on her radar much earlier than now.</p>
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<p>These did not appear to be poor, first-gen families. They were just tacky people. The cutoff shorts that were just remnants of see-thru horizontal strings across the front, was just too much (too little?) for me. 8-| </p>
<p>The “college tour dress” is the first of many “sharp objects” that will be bursting the boarding school bubble that we all have been so comfortably ensconced in. I know we all appreciate our BS’s, but I have a feeling those of us with 2015 grads are about to find out just how great these schools are. Can you imagine if our children come home from college in those “remnants of see-thru strings?” I will be bummed……… Onward and upward(?) I guess.</p>
<p>It’s particularly hard for me to look at the (lack of) clothing on girls at my kid’s local high school at the car pool lane given I went to Catholic girls high school back in Stone Age and was expected to dress like a nun (like… in Sound of music movie) . Also, too much PDA (public display of affection) at school to my taste. </p>
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<p>Once they get admitted to dream college, they are welcome to wear banana peels if they want.</p>
<p>@friendlyMom, we started exploring colleges in sophomore year - in a casual way, visiting large state U, engineering school, LAC, all easy and local or on vacations, to get a feeling for all the different types. Definitely no big names at that point. It helps narrow the field if kid has a sense of what type of school they are most interested in. One of the disadvantages of boarding school is the limited time for visits during the school year, so take advantage of any long weekends or vacation days when colleges are in session to visit, well before junior year. It gets much more pressured and serious as it goes along - then the counselors main task is helping kids handle the enormous stress. The kids seem to self-impose most of the stress (they talk a lot about colleges amongst themselves senior fall), as a parent I try to reassure that state flagship is a fine choice (thankfully it is) and the rest is a lottery. </p>
<p>I have the impression from my two, that the students at their schools only talked with very close friends about their favorite colleges. Unless it was obvious, such as a kid being a rabid fan of some college’s football team, or focused on the top college near their home. </p>
<p>I have the impression my 2015 student has a firm list now. I’m recycling every college brochure from other colleges arriving in the mail. Down to the final 8.</p>
<p>My D has been incredibly closed lipped about her list to schoolmates. When I ask what schools so and so is looking at, she invariably replies, “I have no idea.” They just don’t talk about it, even if they are always thinking about it.</p>
<p>Kids at DS’ school hold their cards close to their chests. There has been rumour of admissions sabotage in the past.</p>
<p>Then there is the basic fear of embarrasment of peers knowing u didn’t get admitted to disclosed school.</p>
<p>It seems that one can easily tell the difference between people who simply are wondering where your child might be applying and those who are keeping score. The score keepers question is always “what is your child’s first choice school?”</p>
<p>@Harvest: That is pretty funny…we’ve been asked that by a few people recently, and I didn’t read anything into it based on who was asking (family friends who seemed genuinely interested). On reflection, these people asked if she was applying anywhere early…is that the same or different?</p>
<p>I don’t know if my daughter is sharing her list with kids at school, but we have been fairly open with people who’ve asked where thinking of she’s applying early. For some reason, I do feel like I have to explain that her grades/scores/personality seem to make her at least “in the ballpark” fit for this school.</p>
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<p>What is “admissions sabotage,” GMT?</p>