<p>My D is interested in STEM. She is still trying to figure out what area to focus on. Last summer she did a summer program in aeronautical engineering. Liked the program but wasn’t sure about a career with that specific focus.</p>
<p>I’ve just found this forum! My D attends a prep school but not a boarding school but I’m hoping I can join you guys? D is not entirely sure what her college interests will be as she is equally interested in computer science and history. It’s important to her to find a school that will allow her to study across the disciplines. </p>
<p>We have visited Northwestern and U Chicago and have planned a mini-east coast trip for February and a west coast trip for April. We’re hoping to visit a variety of schools including Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore, Penn, and Georgetown and then Stanford, Berkeley, the Claremont Colleges and USC.</p>
<p>3girls3cats: Welcome to the Prep School Forum (which skews heavily toward boarding schools)! </p>
<p>U of Chicago seems to be on a lot of folks lists…it is on ours, but I had a chat with a sibling of grad recently who didn’t paint a very pretty picture. Oh well, I guess we’ll have to visit and see for ourselves.</p>
<p>Also interest on our end in the Claremont Colleges, but for Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>Parents, please help your student find safeties/likelies they love. It’s easy to love a lot of schools you have mentioned above, but its important to have a well-rounded list. Not likely, hopefully, that you’ll need it but sometimes it can be hard after focusing visits on top-tier colleges that seem to have it all. Ideally, include a rolling admissions or EA school on the list so your student has an early acceptance to bolster their confidence.</p>
<p>Tx creative1 for chiming in on this. A good reminder that “cast a wide net” applies to colleges as well as BS.</p>
<p>Were paying Choate to do this work. They know ChoatieKid as a student far better than we do, and ChoatieKid knows himself better than we do. Im not sure what value we have to add in this process. CK knows exactly what he wants to do and where he wants to go (frightening as one of those choices is to us), and Choate is in the best position to help him clarify his objectives and craft a list of schools that will help him achieve his best. Any research I would do would only produce a list that satisfies me no matter how objective I might pretend to be.</p>
<p>I just returned the completed Family Response form to his counselor last night. To the question, Please list the names of any colleges you think are a good fit for your child. Why are they particularly well-suited?, I just had to laugh. Why not just ask outright, How big of a PITA do you plan to be in this process? Just how HYPSM/Ivy-crazed are you? I simply said that, as Michigan alums, weve told ChoatieKid he can go anywhere he wants, just not Ohio State (for obvious reasons).</p>
<p>Seriously, after all the prattle here about letting our 14-year-olds lead the way to BS, were now discussing how involved we plan to be in our seriously-well-prepped, even-more-independent kids college choices? After all the sacrifices weve one-upped each other about here to make it possible for our kids to attend these schoolsschools that have been in the BUSINESS of prepping kids for this very day and counseling them successfully through this process for decades or even centuries–we feel we still might need a hand, a finger, a breath on the helm? Were looking at our initial list Sorry folks, these posts sound identical to the new posters you jump all over for using the wrong pronouns in their quest for BS.</p>
<p>I understand that there are financial parameters that have to be stated and perhaps personal or religious beliefs that also might narrow or guide choices, but other than relaying such gating factors, we plan to let our kid and his school work their magic together. Lest you think I am naively abdicating my role, I did supply close to seven pages of information on the Family Response form all of it giving the detail and anecdotes asked for in helping CKs counselor get a picture of what makes my kid tick, but based on what I know of his relationship with the school and theirs with him, I doubt I enlightened them much.</p>
<p>As we always have to say, YMMV, every family is different, etc. Boy, am I cranky tonight. I think Ill have to apologize to 7D in the morning.</p>
<p>I demand my apology NOW! ;-P</p>
<p>I think the college lists being shared ARE different from the BS lists I rant about…because not a one has listed Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, and Stanford to the exclusion of any others. Right?</p>
<p>But I think you make good points, CM. My particular interest in this topic was triggered by a similar form to the one that you filled out, and the specific question (or something close to it) you mentioned. Like you, I am hoping the SAS CC staff is able to help 7D1 put together a list that makes sense for her.</p>
<p>No question about it, creative and it’s a good reminder. I admit, I’m not too sure about how one determines what constitutes a “safety” these days but we’ve done our fair share of looking at schools where D’s scores and grades place her well above the college’s 75%ile for stats and where the high school’s scattergrams place her safely within the admit pool. (USC is such a school as are two of the Claremonts.) She’ll probably look at a few of the east coast women’s colleges as well. </p>
<p>Like Choatiemom, we’re also expecting some clear guidance from D’s school on this!</p>
<p>May I please join? My D is in a prep school but not a boarding school. It’s nice to read this thread – we have a long document we also need to fill out, regarding our thoughts on the college process. I’m hoping that the college counselor assigned to my D will do a great job, but I feel the need to do a bit of research as well.</p>
<p>Dear 7D: I’m sorry :P</p>
<p>I just want to add, a bit sheepishly, that you can tell from my posts that I am not a boarding school parent. It’s definitely a “we” project here and my daughter very much turns to me for guidance. I suspect I’d feel very differently if she’d already lived away from home for 3 or 4 years. Having said that, some of this is an issue of temperament too. My eldest handled the entire search on her own, along with her faculty “friends” and college advisor. I barely knew where she was applying until the decisions came in.</p>
<p>Waving hi to mamabear from the parents of 2015 thread!</p>
<p>Welcome mama bear and 3girlscats. There’s a good group of helpful parents here.</p>
<p>BTW, where do you find the scattergrams tool on Naviance? Because all I get to see is a chart…I’m thinking that every BS/Prep School configures Naviance differently for their students/parents. For example, our parent questionnaire was offline, where some have indicated that it was one via Naviance.</p>
<p>I love the word “prattle.” Thank you CM. You are my favorite poster.</p>
<p>In thinking about this, I’m unapologetic for my interest in what colleges other Class of 2015 parents are looking at with their kids. If the thread helps SevenMom and I at all in researching schools with our daughter (as CC helped during the BS search), then it’s a win.</p>
<p>Also, I think 3girls3cats’ point about different kids having “different temperaments” is very valid. </p>
<p>And finally, the SAS office (and I guess Choate also) asked if there are any colleges we (the parents) hope our child will apply to…and in the absence of CM’s wit, I simply did the homework I was given.</p>
<p>@SevenDad: Once you are at the college’s chart on Naviance, You will see a “GRAPH” link above the title bar that has “How You Compare”, “GPA” etc.</p>
<p>Here is our rather difficult spot for college: DS is wound up tightly in the “rankings” of the various schools. No matter how much we try to convince him otherwise, he rejects any school he considers merely “average”. We have “shot our wad” with boarding school, so the funds just are not there for a 60K+ bill for college. And, I think FA-wise things will play out much like it did for BS: we won’t be getting any. He might well get merit aid at a less higly ranked school, but so far, he won’t consider those. I’m hoping the CC office might work its magic and find some that he would. </p>
<p>Luckily, since he will be graduating from a BS in CA, he is eligible for in-state tuition at any of the UC’s. Berkeley & UCLA meet his “top-25” criteria and he would be happy to attend. But those are very selective, and although his stats are very good, they are by no means safeties. He is considering UC San Diego as a more of the “Safety”. </p>
<p>I believe his very top pick is Johns Hopkins. He hasn’t actually seen it yet - he’ll be visiting over break with his aunt. He’ll be applying to some excellent private schools in addition to the UC’s (JH, Penn, USC). Worried though if he gets in to any of the prestige schools and not to say, UC Berkeley, that he might actually decide to go the loan route, which I think would be a really bad idea! Especially if med school stays in the cards…</p>
<p>I don’t want to discourage him from applying to where he would really like to go though. Who knows? That unknown great aunt may leave us that wad of cash, or maybe we will actually get some other aid that I am not at this point counting on. Biting knuckle now…</p>
<p>Lists are just that–lists. I see nothing wrong with taking your kid to a variety of different institutions. Often the process of elimination is the same thing as the process of clarification of priorities.</p>
<p>Yes, the school CC will drive the process much more with direct input from DC, but to some extent we’ll be the ones schlepping him to far-flung locales. I’m not hung up on this being MY college search, I only want to make sure I’ve offered some due diligence in terms of presenting a spectrum of options based on DC’s stated needs and preferences.</p>
<p>My D is a freshman so I have been following this thread out of curiosity but didnt feel it was anything I would need to think about for quite some time!</p>
<p>My daughter is with ABC so she gets invited to various events and functions for networking and education opportunities, etc. We just received an invite to a college tour, about 15 schools. I was surprised she was included since she is a freshman. But, I thought it would be a great opportunity to get on a few college campuses. Thus far she has visited local schools Harvey Mudd, USC and Cal Poly but not toured specifically. </p>
<p>The tour would be a financial sacrifice. Have your students been interested in visiting schools this early? Is it something we should consider? She may not be able to go again until junior year and it will most likely be a different region then.</p>
<p>I plan to discuss this with her over the weekend so of course her enthusiasm (or lack of) will be the deciding factor.</p>
<p>D2 was in 8th and 9th grade when D1 was visiting colleges and had little to no interest. Unless your D is very motivated, given that it is a financial sacrifice I’d think twice–especially if there’s a good chance she’d have similar opportunities as she gets older.</p>
<p>HailuMu, is your daughter motivated to work in her high school courses? If she isn’t slacking off, what would be the point? At some point, there’d be a danger of putting too much pressure on a child. </p>
<p>They also change so much between freshman and senior year. When she’s a junior, it would be great for her to visit 15 colleges. She’ll have a better idea of her own wants and needs in two years.</p>