And another hear hear for @thermom ! The safeties were the hardest, no doubt. She insisted on finding safeties she would be happy to attend. Which is exactly what all kids should do. She won’t be attending her safeties, because she likes her top choices more. The matches were mostly, but not all, a slam dunk. We were a little surprised that she didn’t get into one of her matches (waitlisted.) Her stats were in the 75th percentile for that school. And that is exactly why you do have to have enough choices.
Just a story to add to the list of how random some admissions can be: One of my DD’s friends is a varsity athlete who is very good, but not great at her sport. She is truly lovely and a very good student, but not great. She has good SAT scores, but not crazy good. She applied to a handful of reaches and contacted the coaches. For her No. 1 choice (where she has a sibling, the coach said he did not have a spot for her. She was offered an admissions tip at Cornell, but would have to ED. She visited there and liked it, but in the end, she wanted to go to her No. 1 with her sibling. She did not apply ED to Cornell. She got deferred at her No. 1 and rejected at Cornell RD. She was all set to go to the state flagship and try to walk-on, but was okay with giving up the sport. Then she got a call from a coach of one of her reaches. His top recruit had changed her mind and was going elsewhere. All the other runners on the coaches list were committed. Our friend was “next on the list.” Was she interested? The coach sent her and her mom a ticket to visit the campus and meet the teammates. Six days after the call she flew to New Haven and committed to Yale. Honestly, they are as lucky to get her as she is to get Yale - that’s just the way it goes sometimes. I agree with OP that one should not get her hopes up, but it is okay to dream and worth it to apply to a dream school or two - one never knows.
I personally think Naviance is evil at small schools where you know exactly who each dot is. It doesn’t help kids at such schools, but it sure does tell people what scores and GPA your kid has. I had well-meaning parents commiserating with me that my 2340 kid didn’t get into Stanford while the 2280 kid did.
With our third and youngest child, we have found some safeties that are fine academically. The problem is finding financial safeties. Lower-tier LAC’s simply don’t offer as much FA as the higher-ranked schools do, and our state schools are not a great financial option either since they are relatively pricey. D is not a high stat kid or NMF, so the typcial go to 'Bama advice won’t work. Even if she were to get an LAC’s top merit award, those awards are typically around $20- 25,000 out of around $60,000. Therefore the COA would not drop lower than that of a state university, which costs an eye-popping $31,000 per year now if you live on campus (which she’d have to do because she doesn’t have high enough SAT scores to get into the ones she could commute to.) So while we are being very realistic about her chances, nevertheless we are clinging to the hope she will be admitted to a very good LAC, since the other options are pretty unaffordable.
@Massmomm , this is why Naviance has been useless at D’s school. Our school only posts data if enough kids apply, to protect privacy. That is fine, but we couldn’t use it because not many kids apply to my D’s schools.
Hello all, I’m one of those parent who daughters benefitted from CC more than 10 years ago and now am old enough to be returning to the forum to help my step daughter look for advice for her high school junior. A few observations:
- The original poster’s advice is excellent and similar to advice I have shared in recent years with friends and colleagues whose kids were undergoing the search and selection process. But most parents who have an excellent average kid do not hear you and it can be frustrating. Case in point: three years ago a close friend’s son was one of those lucky few who got both a 36 ACT and 2400 SAT first sitting. He also wound up being salutatorian of his large public ranked one of the best in the country. When my friend and her spouse began the search selection process, I offered them free advice on several occasions: find a few safeties first (and, wow, this will be easy to do for your kid) and then, of course, help him identity those reach schools, knowing that they are ultimately lotteries for everyone. Long story short: they visited Stanford twice, Harvard three times, Princeton once, Yale once, and several of their equivalents. Never once did they think that he would not be accepted at every school he applied to. They agonized over which of these schools he liked the best–as if it was their son’s school to choose rather than the other way around.
You know the rest of the story: He was rejected at all of them and he had to scramble this time last year to find somewhere to attend this past fall. He wound up at one of the many excellent LACs and appears happy. But his parents can’t shed their very vocal astonishment that he was not accepted at every school to which he applied. I had warned them, but their “kid was different.” It was painful to watch the process unfold. So try to share the advice with others beginning this process, even if they don’t hear you. That way you can sleep well at night.
2). Now that I have two college educated and gainfully employed daughters, I am thrilled for each of them because they have carved out career paths that include some exhilarating international travel, interesting teamwork (or so they report) and, what is music to every parents ears, benefits, including 401k matches. But the reason I mention this is I learned from reading CC many moons ago that I had to continue to give them advice once they were in college. I had to encourage them to try to establish relationships with professors, attend those boring job fairs, and pick a major that would actually lead to a JOB at the end of the line, one that would allow them to start that independent life post graduation that every kid longs for. I watched as many of my other friends simply told their kids once in college to follow their passion wherever it might lead. Well, in most cases, that advice has not served their kids well and the kids are baristas and servers, etc. The parents now wish they had not been so hands off and the kids are frustrated and unsure of how to navigate this tough job market when they have been out if school for awhile but have nothing to put on a resume that would lead to a job they might hope to get.
Bottom line is due to the sage advice I read so long ago on CC, I opted throughout the college search, selection and actual four years of school to regularly remind my daughters that the reason their dad and I were paying for college was for them to wind up with a job, where they would do work, some of it drudgery, and some of it exciting if they were lucky, starting on day one. So to those parents who are now celebrating that their kids are going to school in the fall, and a decent one at that, and who hope that their kids do not wind up on their couch at age 27, I submit: your work has just begun. :-).
2 Likes
@thegfg, I feel your pain. We are in pretty much the same spot with kid 2. She does have a shot at NMSF, which would make things a bit easier, but without a solid hook it is tough going to find academically and financially attractive safety schools for a kid who likes smaller LACs.
@glido , fascinating story!
@glorymom , your post is 10,000x more useful than mine. Thanks!
So true @glorymom . My college D and I talk about classes, internships, strategies for this or that. It’s all her final call, but she asks for advice and I give it - sometimes even when she doesn’t ask 
When you add the top ~25 LACs to the top ~25 universities, I wonder if there aren’t enough places to accommodate most of the top 10%, 2100+ students who want them and who can (one way or another) afford them. ~121K students scored 700 or above on the SAT-M in 2015. When you intersect that number with the number who also scored 700 or above on the SAT-CR, who ranked in the T10%, and who even want (and can afford) one of these spots, I would imagine there are just about enough to go around, notwithstanding the “hooked” competition.
There are more than enough places to go around. In the old days (before the internet) the smartest STEM kids in Missouri ended up at U Missouri at Rolla (now M&T). The smartest humanities type kids in Ohio ended up at one of the public U’s or at Wittenberg or Kenyon. The smartest kids in Texas went everywhere- UT of course, but Baylor, Rice, SMU, etc.
It’s only now with social media, easy access to information and (gotta say it) the Common App, that everyone “needs” to apply to 22 schools.
I applaud the colleges efforts- across the board- to identify first gen kids, and a diverse student body, and to broaden their reach geographically, and to “level” the playing field (the smartest girl in my HS went to a non-BS nursing school- imagine that- her parents didn’t want to pay for “a girl” to get a degree so she got her RN). All of this has been wonderful for higher education and for society. And it wasn’t that long ago that tens of thousands of kids went to the local college- good, bad or indifferent, because they got bad advice or a guidance counselor didn’t think a minority kid would “fit” at Dartmouth, or a woman could “handle” Cal Tech.
But we are now seeing some of the not-so-wonderful fallout. Kids are posting here about their applications- 15? 18? 22? That’s crazy. Waste of time, money, energy. Parents are posting about their 6th graders and how to shove them onto the “right path”. Both parents and kids are posting crazy stories about what they’re going to do to afford the “dream school”-- insanity. I don’t care if it’s Providence College or U Chicago or Otterbein or U Michigan–the degree of debt that people seem to think is “required” to make little Johnny’s dreams come true… some of these posts are horrifying. And there’s usually a solid and affordable choice sitting there- but the kid hates the school, or someone the kid despises from HS is going there, so the solid affordable choice is off the table even when the “dream” school is unaffordable and ALSO has some potential flaw- the kid just doesn’t know what it is yet.
There are plenty of great options.
One of the best pieces of advice I have received thus far in this process came from my daughter’s high school college counselor. She told a roomful of parents to make sure to add to our list of colleges ONLY schools our children would be “thrilled” to attend, including reaches, matches and, especially, safeties. “Love Your Safeties” is our new mantra now.
@PragmaticMom-- “Love thy safety” was quoted often on the Class of 2014 thread…at least that is where I think I read it the last time around.
I am having a more difficult time nailing the safety with this second child as his stats are very high and his interests specific. Older son had less of an idea of what he wanted to study and had stats that seemed to offer up more gradations of reach/match/safety.
Best of luck to everyone. I have enjoyed reading this thread.
After touring and visiting widely, we were not successful in finding safeties that DD would have been ‘thrilled’ to attend. She would have been happy enough to attend as it would get her OOS, and perhaps would have ended up loving it. However, only two schools that she found ‘thrilling’ up front were low admit schools, though not the usual suspects. We did enforce ‘no falling in love’ which she mostly succeeded at. This, however, also meant that she had to forgo ED at one of the ‘thrilling’ schools since she had not fallen in love with it.
@glorymom: Excellent! I will bookmark your daughters’ story. And @Massmomm: That’s a horrible way for an institution to use Naviance. It is, as I noted earlier, only as good as the data that is used. Our school will block the data if there are fewer than 3 students. Some of the best advice I received when beginning the college search for D1: Match schools are not a given. Know that your student will not be accepted at all of his/her match colleges. This friend’s daughter only got into one college - a safety she didn’t care for - and had to scramble (but is now very happy at her final choice). I was amazed - wasn’t that what a “match” meant? D1’s GC espoused 2 reach-3 match-2 safety. We identified 1 reach - 6 matches - 3 safeties. D1 was not accepted at 3 of her matches, so it was very good advice. But now I see kids applying to 15-17 colleges! D2 applied to 10 and she ended up with some good choices. Phew, we were lucky this time, I think!
Sometimes kids apply to a lot of colleges because they’re trying to find something affordable and college is so expensive. That was the case of my son. In retrospect, I should have eliminated about 8 colleges that I knew wouldn’t be affordable. OTOH, some of those had potential for large scholarships. It’s great if kids can apply to just a few schools because they know they’ll be affordable, but that wasn’t the case here.
Even my son living at home and commuting to the local state college is more expensive than his going away to the private 100% meets need college, and by a significant amount because of the way they figure state aid.
“Love thy safety”… It is easier said than done. You really cannot force your kid to love his/her safety and as long as the school is safety, the kid wouldn’t love it…
I don’t know about guiding the kid to the major that leads to a career. It would be great if the kid’s interest and the career opportunities are in the same area. but what if the kid wants to immerse him/herself into this obscure area of study and ends up having the time of his/her life? What’s wrong with being baristas and servers?
I know many parents might disagree with me but I want my kids to study whatever their hearts desire regardless of the future career potential. If the college education enrich their lives and help create thoughtful human beings, that’s what I really want out of college education.
““Love thy safety”… It is easier said than done. You really cannot force your kid to love his/her safety and as long as the school is safety, the kid wouldn’t love it…”
In my opinion, if one decides to not place too great an emphasis on prestige, I don’t think its that difficult. There are SO many wonderful colleges and universities out there. Pick up a Fiske Guide and read through. My kid built the list balanced with safeties/matches/reaches and had 9 schools to choose from in the end. The top 3 in the end were a safety, a match, and a reach with the match being the chosen school.
“I know many parents might disagree with me but I want my kids to study whatever their hearts desire regardless of the future career potential. If the college education enrich their lives and help create thoughtful human beings, that’s what I really want out of college education.”
Totally on board with this. Worked fine for me and jobs were no easier to find when I graduated. Plus, our kids are likely to end up working in jobs that we never knew of or existed before. There’s always grad school if one desires a new path or direction, a requirement for many careers anyway. Life is too short to study stuff that doesn’t interest you because there is a fat carrot on the end of the stick. And things do change. 5-8 years ago I heard a lot about the high paying and easily found jobs for pharmacist majors and petroleum engineers. Neither is seen as a robust career right now. Be careful what you chase for a paycheck.
At my younger daughter’s school, all that we heard at orientation was “follow your passion” and “take classes that interest you and do not worry about a major.” I have mixed feelings about this. My daughter currently has a major (possible double major) and double minor, and seems to have some type of career path lined up, however every so often when I ask her a question she will rattle off what the school says to them: majors do not matter right now and she is there to explore her passion. She is doing great academically, but I do have to remind her that at the end of this journey she needs to work and support herself. This type of talk does not happen at my older kids school.
A few years ago at our high school, top 1% students were getting into Vanderbilt, some with merit. Fast forward 5 years and kids in the top 1% with top scores etc are getting wait listed. 5 years ago top 1% at our school were Emory Scholars. Today, kids who fit that profile are getting in easily, but are not getting any merit money like they did 5 years ago. Things are changing.
My daughter did not apply to any Ivy League schools by choice, and I was fine with that. She wanted more of a balance and the odds of getting in were obviously very low. People do not realize that and were constantly asking questions. For some reason our HS always gets a lot of Cornell acceptances, but she changed her mind about applying. She applied to several excellent non-Ivy private schools and some outstanding state flagships. She got into all but one school- wait listed at Vanderbilt. Being #1 just does not cut it any more- which is fine but is something that many do not understand.
I thought we picked too many safety schools, but it turns out that she did not like them so in reality she had none, or maybe one. Some schools that we thought were matches turned out to be safeties because they came with large merit awards. You just never know.
She attends an outstanding OOS flagship school where she has balance and is happier than she has ever been. It really does work out despite the bumpy path that is traveled.