@El-Cee, if you are willing to share, what are some things you would have done differently in retrospect? That would likely be of interest to those just embarking on this journey.
I’d just like to chime in and say, yes, 2024, be excited! But also please try to understand that parents of 2023 are TIRED, and our nerves, and those of our kids, are SHOT.
To ME - this thread is no different than any other posted - follow if it is relevant to your journey (or if you are an obsessive read-every-post type person like I am), don’t if your not. The idea that any conversation takes away from another seems contrary to the spirit of this forum. But then again - very few of these have been RELEVANT to me/my kid for the last several years - and I am still here 
Edited since this silly stressed mom posted in the wrong thread!
@soozievt Hello to you and all the parents who are starting out! My daughter is clas of 2022 and I came back to lurk and see how this year’s parents were doing, and came upon this thread. I think it’s good that people are starting early! We’d have done so many things differently, but the biggest one? Don’t go crazy visiting schools until after prescreens. We are down in South Florida and over the summer before junior year saw 12 schools. Trip cost a fortune! Ultimately she didn’t even pass some of those prescreens. She is the dreaded “generic blonde blue eyed belter.” One school came right out and told her they just don’t need another “her.” (She appreciated the honesty - at least she knew it wasn’t the talent…) This ride is very expensive and we are not wealthy. We could have saved a lot of money if we waited on visiting schools. Now I tell anyone who asks to hold their horses.
It all works out in the end, everyone goes where they are meant to be - she is a very happy freshman at BoCo (and I knew that summer she would wind up in Boston, so I wish we had been a lot calmer, lol!) if anyone needs info. Otherwise, good luck!
I meant SENIOR year! That’s what I get for posting when I’m half asleep… and I can’t seem to edit! Sorry folks!
From my D’s experience, I would say you should visit a handful of different types of schools before prescreens and auditions - urban/suburban/rural, public/private, small/medium/large. This made a big difference for my D who decided she loves the energy of the city, but wants a typical college campus setting rather than an urban “vertical” school. Definitely no need to visit very many - admissions presentations all become nearly the same and you can see dorms online.
This will help you eliminate some schools and especially helps in targeting the ones that you have to go to for on campus auditions.
@after89 - this is what we did with our D. We did not make any special trips to visit certain schools. But if we happened to be near a college or university, we did make an effort to take a look. Most of the time it was not even an official visit. More just walking around the campus and getting a feel for what it is like. Whenever you are near a college campus, I would encourage you to at least drive through it to give your student an idea of what different types of campuses there are. This will help just start them thinking about where they picture themselves in college. Are they in a high rise in a city? Are they cheering on their favorite team at a large university? Just get that thought process going. They don’t have to know the answer. They just need to be exposed to the possibilities at this stage.
So excited for all of you just starting this journey! (So excited that we are nearing the end of our super-long journey …unintentional gap year!!).
One suggestion for something fun & relaxing to do during this process is to pick a TV series to stream while traveling. My D and I decided to watch Gilmore Girls together. So, most nights at the numerous hotels, we’d pull out my iPad and watch an episode or 2. It created a bit of a comforting routine in the chaos.
Re: summer plans – my D is going back to SSTI for tech theatre. (Any other 2024 tech students yet?) She had an amazing experience last summer and is looking forward to returning!
@BrennaK - my D and I did the same thing - except we watched Downton Abbey!
Welcome Class of 2024! One other suggestion: if you can’t visit a school and it’s high on the list, see if your kid can talk to somebody in the department about the program via phone or Facetime over the summer. My D did this and it was really helpful to learn about the range of what different schools offered. It also helped her to hone in on what she wanted. And, people have more time in the summer to answer questions, so it’s not as hectic then.
In terms of auditioning, my D made a fun Broadway mix tape that differed for each audition. We listened to it on the drives and sometimes in the hotel room. Made for a fun way to get in the zone for the auditions.
Oh, and my final piece of advice: enjoy the journey as much as possible! It is sometimes hard, but we had a lot of fun moments that I will cherish forever 
Suggestions for future sanity…My d and I learned to crochet/knit - we could take it with us on the rod for hotel rooms etc. we ended up with 2 Afghans - she took the one I made to college, I kept the she made me on the couch. A tangible reminder of the journey
Make a COLLEGE EMAIL ACCOUNT - my suggestion for sanity. People have said this elsewhere, but maybe someone should repeat it every few pages, as things get lost in the flood of information here. We didn’t think to do it the first time around, and things got lost, mixed in with all the regular daily inbox messages. With D2 we did this, and it was so helpful with the mass amounts of email students get when applying to so many schools.
@toowonderful - LOVE the afghans!!!
I think the things stated about visiting schools are great advice. Only one of the schools on my daughter’s original list is still in the mix. She has some great choices but if we tried to visit all or even many of the schools on the original list it would have been an incredible waste of time and heartbreaking if she fell in love with one of them. I suggest a small school, a large school, rural and urban. Also if you plan to audition on campus, no need to visit before the audition.
Our biggest mistake was not starting early enough. Everything turned out ok but trying to fit visits in now to sit in on classes and really learn about the programs is super stressful. I think doing some of the early auditions coiuld have helped with this.
One last note. If your child willl have a spring musical, talk to the director/teachers early so you can figure out scheduling/missing practices if needed.
I also love the Tower of Terror analogy…for us the waiting in line was the terrifying part, not knowing how scary the ride might be, and then enjoying and laughing that in the end it was a lot of fun. And realizing we’d spent a fortune just to visit the park. Exactly the same with college auditions…
I think it’s great you’ve all started this 2024 thread. We would’ve been clueless and even more stressed without the combined wisdom of those on these boards, either on the same ride with us or those who have gone before. A few longtime CC members went out of their way to pm us info so helpful to our situation. And if we’d only started earlier!
Our advice might not be relevant to everyone as we are international. My kid only applied to “lottery/dream” schools in the US, as she had a number of fallback options in Canada. Her strategy of “let’s apply just to see if I can get in even knowing no way we could ever afford it” was needlessly expensive, time consuming, and an ego-bruising reality check. So don’t fall in love with any of those schools unless you get in first and can pay for it. Skip the campus visits ahead of time and do Unifieds when you can. My D actually really enjoyed that experience, her mother/Sherpa/personal support worker not as much.
Do some fall auditions if you can, wish we had.
We told D that her email was ours to double check anytime during the process. Even the most motivated kid misses all kinds of bits of info in the multitude of emails and instructions. And for gods sake write down all the friggin portals/passwords/logins, we got totally lost with those. She did 8 schools, we would’ve lost our minds if it had been 20.
Most of alll…breathe. Laugh. Enjoy this roller coaster with your kids. It is a special and unique thing. And try to keep every conversation over the year from including some reference to deadlines/essay/prescreen/ACT studying. Give a hug for the inevitable “no’s” and tears. And those of us who are wrapping it up we will cheer you all on from the sidelines!
In the end my D got 2 dream “yesses” with some aid offers that we might just be able to afford. Some “no’s” and waitlists. No final decision for us for a few weeks yet.
Hi all Class of 2024 Parents! Welcome to the crazy ride!!
I would like to reiterate that getting your Common App essay together now is a must (prompts are available online). There will be many, many supplementals so having the main one done will be a big relief. A lot of the supplementals can be somewhat similar in nature. Do them first in Word, save and then copy over. This way you can have it on your computer so you can rework them as necessary and not start over from scratch.
Definitely recommend a separate college email address to use for apps. I would also recommend that you have the password for it so you can check when necessary.
Get headshots and resume together over the summer. It will avoid stress in the fall.
Also, remember that you can submit apps without recommendations, transcripts, test scores. You don’t have to wait on those to submit. Colleges know that those things come in piecemeal and don’s expect everything to be in at once. As long as you sumbit your part of the app, you can schedule the audition. Keep in mind some schools won’t let you schedule the audition until you have been academically cleared (Hartt, Molloy/Cap21, etc), and some let you schedule as soon as app is submitted and audition fee is paid (BW, PP, etc). Each school is different and unfortunately, there are changes in requirements from year to year, so keep checking web sites over the summer. Emerson added a pre-screen last year (but didn’t let you apply to the school until after you passed the pre-screen. Syracuse recommended holding off on applying until after you passed your pre-screen. This was also something new for last year.
Also, it might be beneficial to keep a list of the schools you are applying to that require the CSS form in addition to the FAFSA. For these schools, your academic application won’t be processed until both of these financial aid forms are filled out and submitted. I have heard stories this year of people not realizing that a school requires the CSS form and never submitting it. Of course that causes all kinds of phone calls and panic. I know Emerson, Carnegie Mellon, Syracuse and Muhlenburg definitely require it. There are others I’m sure.
Try for do some fall auditions and look for consortium auditions like MARCAS NY Combines and Ohio Unifides. Great way to knock out a bunch of schools at once!
Try to have fun on your audition road trips! We treated it like an adventure.
Break a leg and we will be here for advice, recommendations or just to listen to you vent!!
We are fortunate enough to live in the north east where we have been able to visit several schools. These visits allowed us to get rid of one safety and remove three other schools that are mentioned quite often on this board . On paper the schools all seemed great but when we got there they just weren’t the right fit for our daughter . This has helped narrow the list down. Our daughter discovered the right campus feel is essential for her .
I haven’t thoroughly read the full thread so at the risk of repeating… I will add to what I have seen… RESEARCH and Introspection! I have the kid that did cursory research and picked schools out by reputation rather than curriculum or other important factors. We spent a lot of money on application and audition fees to schools he said no to or would have had he been offered a spot. This is my biggest piece of hind sight advice. As the parent, you may even want to print out the curriculum from each school on your child’s list, remove names, and do the blind curriculum taste test. Hopefully, this helps you narrow down to the schools that are right for your child and determine what to look for in schools as you broaden your search.
Regarding the common app and other essays. I actually recommend doing them first on Google Docs, and then just copying them into Word to double check them. My daughter was able to work essays at the same time I was proof reading other essays. A few times it was pretty darn close to deadline (hours/minutes), so it was good we were both able to have them open on different computers at the same time.