<p>My D is showing very little interest in researching schools. She is a junior and a pretty strong student. Are other parents in a similar situation? Our older D would at least visit schools. We wanted to schedule visit during spring break but she is not interested. Therefore we will visit only one school. My concern is that she is limiting her options</p>
<p>My daughter was relatively uninterested until the school started their conversations about it. Even now, she’s pretty taken up by the pressures of upcoming APs and SATIIs. It’s a challenge to try to talk about it without increasing the stress level. If you can’t do it now, maybe step back until summer, when you can take a visit vacation? It’s not ideal, but what is?</p>
<p>I would not push it. She will become interested (or not) when she becomes interested. Not visiting schools is NOT limiting her options. If she doesn’t APPLY to a variety of schools, she will be limiting her options…but that’s her choice. SHE is going to college in a couple of years…not the parents (I know…that sounds pretty rough…but it’s true). </p>
<p>Here’s what we did. We always took an annual vacation. If there was a college in the vicinity, we just drove through…got out, walked around. We didn’t schedule official tours or info sessions until our KIDS showed an interest in doing so. But they still saw a large variety of schools when we traveled around starting in 9th grade. NOTE…no official anything…just drive through and stop. At some point both kids expressed interest in seeing specific schools and going on official tours. That’s when we scheduled those. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that there are thousands of kids who apply to, get accepted, and enroll in colleges EVERY year without actually visiting the schools beforehand.</p>
<p>I agree with Thumper 100%. My DS is also not very interested in visiting schools, although we do have one school we will be visiting over the summer b/c it is near our vacation spot. I also want to invite you to the “Parents of HS Class of 2012” thread. Lots of parents of Jrs with similar questions.</p>
<p>I’m in the same situation. Our school has already had the meeting with us and we have a list of possible schools. I think the juniors are nervous about their SAT/ACT scores-I know my daughter is having issues since her brother is a senior and did better on the SATs-alot better-even though she has better grades in school. Any ideas? I know all the schools my son and I visited at the beg were not even considerations once his scores came in He was able to move up to better engineering schools-So how to get a child motivated when they are unsure of themselves and in my situation angry they are not performing better on qualifying tests? Private tutor has been used already-</p>
<p>Point her in the direction of the information. Explain it is her life and she needs to decide. Tell her you will not visit anywhere unless she has researched it and specifically requests to go there. And point out the timing issues and explain if she doesn’t get her act together she may end up having a gap year. Then don’t bring it up again until she does (which may be hard for YOU). You don’t have to visit before you apply, you can find out a great deal about schools online. As her friends start to get excited about possibilities , even the most reluctant usually start considering choices. She will get there in her own time.
On the other hand, I want to point out, admissions has become somewhat of a “brutal” game trying to figure out where you might fit in is much more intimidating/confusing these days. With an older sibling your daughter probably very aware of various war stories…easy to understand any student’s reticence to enter the fray.</p>
<p>Perhaps she will be more interested during the summer. With admissions being such a brutal experience now, she should be working over the summer on her applications and essays anyway to have them ready soon after school starts. Perhaps that process could be a motivator for visits locally/short trips. </p>
<p>This process is so overwhelming - especially if your child has the entire spectrum open to them (no dream/family legacy/peer group target/distance from home schools). Narrowing the list and keeping visits for the “special” schools will definitely help.</p>
<p>I would also say many, many kids apply to a couple colleges within a relatively short driving distance from home. They generally don’t spend much time thinking about it until fall of senior year when they fill out there apps. They don’t talk about “college” much and choose one to attend and are perfectly content and happy in life.</p>
<p>i dont really agree with the ‘sit back and let her decide later’ approach. i think that if you are an involved parent and know how to research schools that you should make a BIG list for her to begin looking at online. some school (like GW) definitely follow ‘interest’ and you should note what schools on that big list you make keep track of visits etc. Like, Boston college seems to care less if you have visited (there’s not even a sign up when you arrive), whereas GW tracks everything. if your D waits and applies w/out visiting she may be at a disadvantage. My kids weren’t dying to go see schools in 10th or 11th grade, but we made it a point (like a previous posted noted) when we were on vacation or in the vicinity…particulary to schools that tracked interest. Along with visiting…those same schools care if you have requested info, so it’s worth doing for her. surely some cc’ers will say to let your D do all the research, but if she’s not doing it in 11th grade then I’d say help her out. I’d also say to visiting a couple schools local to you (that are easy to visit) to at least narrow it down to a city school vs rural, or huge vs small etc.</p>
<p>I agree with Amy. CommonApp opens up on August 1st and depending on which schools your daughter ends up applying to, the supplements can a lot of time. If she is not doing the ground work, it is upto you as a parent to figure out a list of top 20-30 schools of interest and then start slotting them into safeties, matches and reaches. If your daughter wants to add it and wants to have discussions on the list, then you have done your job.</p>
<p>My son (who is now a VERY happy college freshman) also showed very little interest in researching colleges, etc. We live in an area where most kids attend local colleges, so it’s not an environment where there is discussion of the process or a sense of competition. Stacks of mail from colleges across the country piled up, unopened.
We have two state universities that have good programs in his chosen major, so I would have been OK with him going to either. However, when asked, he stated that he wanted to go out of state and he simply felt overwhelmed by the process.
So I did a lot of research. It didn’t make sense to me for him to apply to anywhere out of state if it wasn’t significantly superior to our in-states. I was largely responsible for coming up with the list of 9 (?) schools he applied to. We didn’t visit any (except our in-state U’s) in advance due to expense. We did attend a couple of events where reps from a college put on a presentation locally.
After acceptances came in, he went to an admitted students event at the college he ultimately chose and is happily attending.
I don’t know what advice I have for you, except maybe to talk to your daughter and try to find out what she is thinking. She could be feeling overwhelmed, or she may simply want to attend a local college that she doesn’t need to research, or?? Maybe by talking you can figure out a plan that works for both of you.</p>
<p>I did spreadsheet for my D. She picked schools that she was interested, visited some, others were visited after she was invited to interview. She has many un-related area of interests and was looking for schools matching her very specific criteria. It was straight forward process, spreadsheet was organized in order of preference from #1 down. She was accepted to all schools with Merit awards, but not all of them accepted her to programs that she was interested. So #1 fell out because of rejection from the program and as a natural choice, she went to #2. This process was more successful than we originally predicted. She is graduating from her UG in few weeks, having UG experience that went well beyond our expectations. It was so successful that D. has asked me to do the same for Med. Schools, which has proven to be a great success also.
This time around it was much easier. </p>
<p>As I have mentioned the whole process was initiated by me and the program that D. has chosen was discovered by me on internet. This may or may not help you depending on your specific situation.
Best wishes.</p>
<p>Senior year is so hectic I would take the reins and visit schools during spring break even with a disinterested kid. Deliberately pick a mix of schools - rural, suburban, urban, big and small so that the student has some notion of what they like and don’t like. For my older son, by the end of visiting four school during spring break he convinced me that the only thing he cared about was the quality of the computer science department and he didn’t visit more schools (until accepted student’s weekend when he decided maybe he should look at the schools - though ultimately he did choose the best department.)</p>
<p>For younger son it became very obvious that he would not consider schools smaller than his high school, rural schools or urban schools with no campus. In the process of looking at schools he discovered this major called International Relations and realized this was the solution to “likes history, but doesn’t want to teach” problem.</p>
<p>Both my kids made the choice of where to go entirely by themselves, but I made most of the original suggestions of where to look. It worked out well for us.</p>
<p>I think it can be overwhelming for a student to try and decide where to start when it comes to picking a school. I did like the other parents, and put together a spreadsheet of schools that met what my daughter was looking for. Every once in a while, she’ll visit one of the schools websites and check out things, like what the dorms are like. She is trusting me to put together a good list - but in the end, it’s going to be her decision. I have noticed she gets much more excited about the process when we schedule a school visit. Then she becomes much more engaged and opinionated!</p>
<p>Getting the first visit done helped motivate D1. She figured out that it was a kind of shopping 
</p>
<p>D2, however, HATES to shop. But sees the necessity, so has not balked at visits. D2 provided some input on what she is looking for in a college (she has a preferred major, some geographical ideas, and thoughts on college size). She was happy to have me go through Fiske and pick out about 25 colleges to consider. We sat down and talked about each of them, and narrowed the list down to 18 during sophomore year and started weaving visits into our family vacations.</p>
<p>A couple of weeks ago we visited two of them while on vacation (her first two visits). One a high-power, high stress urban school, the other one a very laid back, more rural safety (both financial and academic safety). She definitely gained some clarity – liked the safety very much, crossed the high stress school off her list. I am excited to have a good safety already on her list.</p>
<p>Oh, and I did make a spreadsheet. Put in columns for 50% score ranges, location, size, comments on the specific major she is interested in, cost, what merit aid is offed, whether the ECs she likes are offered, etc.</p>
<p>It’s nice that you are willing to help your daughter, but she’s not ready. I had a son just like that. Suddenly, when all his friends were applying to top schools for ED, he went into overdrive. (Fortunately he got in. But oh I remember the arguments!)</p>
<p>For my youngest, who was ambivalent about the whole thing, she ended up only applying to two schools that she was pretty sure she would get into. Made the whole thing much less overwhelming.</p>
<p>She got into the one she most wanted to go to, we visited a second time last week, and she is going to go there, without even visiting the other one.</p>
<p>It’s a wonderful school that suits her perfectly.</p>
<p>I think for some, the whole things is just so complicated and stressful, that they shut off.</p>
<p>I would also emphasize that there are many great schools for kids with SAT’s that aren’t stellar, and that kids should try to relax about all this. </p>
<p>The important thing is to find a fit.</p>
<p>“The important thing is to find a fit.”</p>
<p>-The most important. We did not consider ranking at all while choosing UG, never even cross our minds. D. was a bit more into ranking while applying to Med. Schools. But her main criteria has always been the same - to be close from home (no more than 4.5hrs driving). It is very important to stick to what they are looking for.</p>
<p>I did the initial research for my S too, starting midyear junior year. I went through Fiske and Insiders guides, put sticky notes on about 30 that sounded like him and then he narrowed it down from there. We visited 20 (and I did all the planning for the trips too), he applied to 10 (he did all the work there!) and he is now graduating from one of them after 4 wonderful years. I did ask him if he wanted my help with this and he did. I preferred that he have time to focus on his schoolwork, ECs, etc. Some parents wouldn’t have time for this or wouldn’t enjoy the process. I really loved doing it.</p>
<p>bethievt describes almost to a T how it has worked with my kids. My D is now a college senior and my S is a junior in HS. They have a pretty good idea of what they ar looking for in a school. I do all the research and find them a list that fits their criteria. The list has not been big for either of them.</p>
<p>I made a couple of trips with my D and have one planned with my S. It was really fun and helped my d make up her mind. I’m sure it will go just as well with my son.</p>