My daughter just started her sophomore year. I wanted to get feedback on the timeline for doing different things:
Sophomore year - Just School
Summer after sophomore - PREP for PSAT
Junior year (First semester) - Take PSAT (hopefully make NHRP)
Junior year (Second semester) - PREP for SAT and ACT
Summer after Junior year - PREP for ST, ACT. Also college essay and recommendations (get started)
Senior year (first semester) - Take SAT and ACT
Senior year (end of semester 1) - Finish all applications by December 15th
Prep for the ACT after sophomore year and instead of prepping only for the PSAT after sophmore year just study for the SAT and kill two birds with one stone.
Consider SAT subject tests if you think applying to highly selective colleges is in her future. If she is taking precalulus this year, then have her take the Math level 2 subject test in June.
I revised your timeline based on what worked with my two children and what works with my students. Some of this depends on whether you need merit money to attend college and whether your daughter will be applying early decision. My philosophy is to make the process less stressful for students and parents and to increase the chances for acceptances from colleges that are both an academic and financial fit. I recommend “baby-steps” which will create a “going to college culture” . My students love this plan as well and my own children and it seems to work.
My daughter just started her sophomore year. I wanted to get feedback on the timeline for doing different things:
Sophomore year - Just School (Have her attend National College Fair and Colleges That Change Lives College Fair if possible (you want to do these kinds of things in a low key way so she can get a handle for how they are and what they look like with no pressure-My DD was super nervous but by her junior year she was an old pro and knew what to ask since she got all the awkwardness out soph year. Tour 1 or 2 colleges (even local ones so that you can start seeing the differences and be able to just basically “cut student’s teeth” on what happens on a tour. We live near L.A. so I had my DD and her first gen friend tour Caltech. It is small enough and detailed enough for them to get a feel for what a college tour looks like. (I also bribed them with Magic Mountain so it was a winner experience). I have parents do research for summer programs and have child apply to them. The types of summer programs are those either local or out of town, but the cost is primarily covered by the program. My DS did the leadprograms.org business program at Northwestern and my DD was a STEM girl so she did an “intro to engineering” at UVA and a Caltech CS program. The summer programs were life-changing for my children and they were very good test drives for college. Both had no problem going 3K miles away for college because they enjoyed their summer program experiences. My DS didn’t do his until after junior year because we didn’t learn about them until then. The other great thing about summer program apps are that they are like mini college apps so by kids were not afraid of doing college apps and had everything organized. There is a forum on CC for summer programs. Also the type of programs I am talking about are 1-3 weeks long. I had a deal with my kids that for every week of enrichment they would get a week of just going to the beach and hanging with friends. Also get a plastic milk crate and those file folders that have metal on the end and the other kind and make some files for your DD which she can turn into using for her college apps. Here were the files for my kids-general, testing, test prep, recommendations, summer programs, school work, extracurricular activities (remember you have to keep track of hours and weeks on activities), community service (same) (my kids would put programs, news articles about their experiences, newsletters announcements etc., honors (all the certificates etc), scholarship, resume and financial aid. My kids started on their resume soph. year just to keep their activities organized and they would revise them every 6 months.
Parents: Read the book “The College Solution” by Lynn O’Shaughnessy and her website and facebook page. This will teach you about the money aspects of college admission and help you create a list for applying. We made a dollar too much for financial aid so merit money was very important for my children’s college lists.
Summer after sophomore - PREP for PSAT
Junior year (First semester) - Take PSAT (hopefully make NHRP)(To make things less stressful I have my children and students do college visits junior year and attend info sessions. Depending on budgets, I took three trips with my DD of four days (she would have this time off of school). We focused on two states at a time and she did those visits. They were actually a lot of fun. Our purpose was so my DD had a pretty good college list by June of her junior year (it was about 80%) finalized. She kept a notebook about her visits so that she had info to write for her supplemental essays. Again we did not talk college 24/7 just a couple of days a week. Also begin doing research about diversity fly-ins and opportunities. Here is a good list for diversity fly-ins. http://getmetocollege.org/what-colleges-look-for/2016-fall-diversity-visit-programs Notice many apps are due in the summer before senior year. I like this website , they have essay advice and good time-line advice. Look over the getmetocollege website, it has good info. My DD qualified for NHRP so she started getting a ton of good emails. The one I remember the most was from Cornell from their multicultural recruitment staff. They invited her to a session to learn about Cornell and how to apply to the Common App the way Cornell liked it. Only about 10 students showed up and we had the west coast rep from Cornell and 4 other staffers. They went line by line with the Common App which was very helpful and gave my DD a an application waiver and told her that if she could accepted to Cornell they would fly her out free to visit the college. I looked over diversity fly-ins and made some college recommendations to my DD, plus we found some colleges that we put on her list. A book I like is the college partners book from the imfirst.org website. Although targeting first gen student, the info is very relevant for Hispanic students. Be sure your child “demonstrates interests” with colleges and sends admission reps an introductory email. Also visit national college fair again and local college presentations.
Junior year (Second semester) - PREP for SAT and ACT My DD was very busy her junior year because she played three sports and did robotics. We discovered a reasonable cost SAT boot camp that ran over Xmas break. My DD did it and really liked it and then took the January SAT. It is tough to take the SAT at the end of junior year because students have finals and AP exams. Like others have suggested, my kids took the subject tests based on AP exams so that they did not have to double prep. If they needed to take the standardized test again they did so in March and April. For both kids, the January of junior year was always their highest score. They took it in fall of senior year but the January junior year score was best.
Okay ti was too long so here is the rest of my revisions. Sorry for any typos or mistakes, I need to run.
Summer after Junior year - PREP for ST, ACT. Also college essay and recommendations (get started) You want your child prepping for SAT or ACT (only focus on one) during junior year. Summer is spent on a summer program if they want one or an internship or job and working on their college apps. Focus first on the Common App. I also had my children apply to 1 or 2 safety schools at that time that had no essay applications and offered good merit money (like New Mexico and Missouri Science and Tech). These type of colleges were rolling decision so by the beginning of July my DD was accepted and had a scholarship making college affordable for us. It took the pressure off of her so that she could focus on the harder applications. I find students are afraid of the process but taking it in small steps and having successes along the way it helps make it less scary.
Start finalizing college list- I recommend 10-14 depending on fin/merit aid and what the student wants. We do the common app in its entirely and then plan out how to do the supplements. It has been my experience that the best odds of acceptance are in the Early Action rounds and the best money is in those rounds. Plus why drag it out all of senior year- you want to enjoy them before they go off to college. My DD did her top 3 choices first and then started knocking off the supplements based on how easy or hard (she would do a mix each week). Teachers and her college counselor helped her with edits. She was done with all her applications between Nov. 1-15. She found that the supplements would sometimes be duplicates and the more she wrote the easier it got. This helped because she still had to keep up her grades and have some fun in high school. I helped her stay organized by creating a chart with due dates, prompts, scholarship dates, whether separate apps due etc. If you send me your email I can send you my sample. I helped her with secretarial chores since I wanted her to be less stressed.
Senior year (first semester) - Take SAT and ACT (Really too late for Early Action applications-you want the first ones during junior year unless).
Senior year (end of semester 1) - Finish all applications by December 15th Most of my students and my own children had all their apps done by Nov 1-15. The 15th is tough if they have semester finals.
Also do all the financial aid documents which now are available in Oct. My DD started getting acceptances from Common App schools around Nov 15 through Jan 15 but got into her top choice on Jan 4 and enrolled Jan 5. We had a great senior year with her and as her father said, “it didn’t even feel like she applied to college.” She would work on essays like 30 minutes a night and about 2-3 hours on weekends. I will admit it took her four months to write her main common app essay. As her English teacher said, “She had to get all the bad essays out of her system.” One Friday school was closed and in the morning she wrote her common app essay and it was the winner version. She did it one week before her first common app deadline of Oct. 15.
One thing that was important to my DD was not to jump on the crazy senior bandwagon. She took only as many AP and honors classes where she could maintain balance in her life and get her 7-8 hours of sleep a night. She took some time off on weekends for fun and still played her sports etc.
In Oct of her senior year she started applying to private scholarships. Now colleges provide the best scholarships but my DD’s top choice was a school that was not generous but affordable to our family with $10K in private scholarships. My DD got her first award during Dec of her senior year so she kept on applying and has hit her target each year. I am talking about scholarships from the Hispanic Scholarship Fund and Hispanic Heritage Foundation and STEM ones.
Hope this info helps. Don’t be scared. You are smart to start early and it doesn’t have to overtake your life or your daughters. Just small steps along the way.
Thanks so much - very good and detailed answer. My situation is similar. We will definitely not qualify for any sort of financial aid. So I think National Hispanic Scholar designation is kinda important. For this she has to take PSAT in the Fall semester of the Junior year. We are thinking of doing a PSAT bootcamp the summer before Junior year as well as do a 4 week COSMOS program at UCSD. This is a STEM based summer program that has a cluster in biology and life sciences.
Any thoughts on PSAT and National Hispanic Scholar designation