My son is closing out 10th grade, so we have been climbing the learning curve in preparation for the upcoming marathon that will ultimately find him a college. For you veterans of the college selection/admissions wars, what is the best advice you ever received about how to manage/hack/endure the process (coming up with preliminary college list, college visits, interviews, financial aid, application or essay strategies & tactics, etc.)? Any and all nuggets of wisdom are welcome and appreciated!!
Have a safety you can definitely afford, for which your child is assured admission, and that s/he would be HAPPY to attend. Any other school on the list is gravy.
There is no “Perfect”.
Follow your own path.
Apply early action or rolling admissions whenever it’s offered - this applies especially for safeties, but getting into a reach college early is a good feeling too.
- It's a great stress reliever to know you are going to college before the winter break.
- It means you actually get the main parts of the application out of the way early. You'll still be working on supplements and the "Why ____ College", but the bulk of your work will be done by October.
- Assuming you've found a safety with EA, you might get some merit money to sweeten the deal.
Lots of hidden gems out there. Don’t fixate on only the big name, heavyweight schools. Open up your mind and look at all that’s available to you.
Make sure you build in a healthy cushion for submitting apps. Illness and technology issues and weather events can really throw off the best laid plans.
Don’t join the “dream school” cult.
Set your deadline 3 days before the Actual Deadline. The Common App website will be jammed with last minute applicants. Your computer will die. A storm will knock out your internet service. You will realize you need a piece of information from a teacher, guidance counselor, coach. Your child will get sick. You just can’t imagine how stressful it can get.
Here’s my own worst case scenario that actually happened during D’s senior year. I was in my pjs at 11:15 pm trying to get our scanner to work so my D could transmit a form to complete her scholarship application before midnight. Hubby was out of town and couldn’t repair the scanner. So I got dressed and raced to the local copy store to use their equipment to get the paper sent before midnight.
Respect the Deadlines!!
We did not have a war, we had enjoyable and memorable process, because D. choose not to listen to anybody’s advice but select her college based on her own criteria. Looking back and more so after graduating from the Med. School a week ago, she is still in love with her UG and would not choose any other. She attended in-state public on full tuition Merit scholarship where she was accepted to a very selective program that had only 10 spots. That was NOT her “dream” school, it was her #2. But close research indicated to her that this college was the closest match for her personality and wide range of interests. After graduting there, she ended up attending the Med. School of her dream way back in HS and ended up matching to her top choice of residency in a very selective specialty of medicine (the specialty was also a dream way back in HS, when the naive high schooler did not realize how selective it was).
So, if you are looking for the advice from others, my advice is to develop the list of student’s own criteria in priority sequence, giving different weight to each and use it a bible in personal selection process. This has worked wonders for my D. in college selection, Med. School selection and the selection of residency programs to apply (and the last one was the ONLY stressful and torturous process and again, D. was successful because she relied ONLY on herself, her own intuition and research)
Best wishes! Have fun! We did, still have a smile remembering some moments.
Trust your child’s instincts if they dislike a school that they visit, even if they can’t articulate the reasons. A college that looks like a perfect fit on paper (or via website) may be a total mismatch when they see it in person. There are so many great options that there’s usually no need to force a fit when something really seems off.
This is a minor thing but it definitely helped. Ask for teacher letters of recommendation in May or June, at the end of junior year. Send in the administrative stuff (transcripts, test scores and GC recommendation requests) for all the schools in August or early September before submitting the common app. D’s guidance counselor was very enthusiastic and helpful - he composed his LOR with D in the office - in September. From what I heard from others, he wasn’t so eager and helpful in December.
The absolute best advice? Run the NPC. Now. For all the schools.
Get the essays written prior to the beginning of your senior year - finish mid August. This will relieve so much of the stress related to application dead lines.
Begin making an extensive resume now, this helps when you have to fill out applications. It also gives one place you can document everything you ever did while in high school - a fantastic reference.
Be realistic about cost if this is a point of concern. Apply to more than one school that is projected to offer you a good financial package while offering an exemplary education.
Don’t judge which schools to apply to based on your major at the start of the application process. If you want to major in Economics the fall of your senior year chances are you will change your mind at some point. In other words don’t go to a school based solely on their ratings in one department. Make sure they are well respected in other departments you may switch into.
Have fun. At the end of the day the college you attend will not make or break you. It is the attitude you take into your time at college that will make the difference. Fantastic scientists, innovators, and businessmen have gone to what society today calls “mediocre colleges”, but still turned out to be leaders in their field.
It’s a marathon. Long, arduous, and seemingly unending, but the day you press “accept offer of admission” it is all worth it. As a senior graduating this week I wish all who are embarking on the this journey good luck, and hope that it will be as rewarding for you as it was for me. It was a time of growth, self introspection and a exercise of perseverance like non other.
Gig’em and Good luck.
It’s a marathon, so pace yourself—and try to keep track of everything you do (and all the hours involved), starting in your freshman year. You’ll need to list all this on applications for colleges and scholarships.
There is no such thing as a “good” school or a “bad” school - only the right school(s) for your student.
+1 on picking the safety first (reply #1). Parents and student should discuss the price limit and financial aid situation before getting deep into selecting schools to apply to.
11th grade PSAT is the one that counts for National Merit qualification.
He should consider taking the SAT and ACT while in 11th grade. If schools that need SAT subject tests are under consideration, take them at the end of 11th grade. That way, he can better assess reach/match/safety with a full set of test scores, and has the option to retry in fall of 12th grade if desired.
Get a medical power of attorney for your child when they turn 18. Otherwise, in the event that something happens while they are away, you may not be able to get access to the medical reports, etc.
Follow the money. For many, Ivy leagues offer way better FA than the Flagship State
- Junior year is everything. Take all tests, etc during that year. My D started applying to colleges in September of her senior year....all stats were from 11th grade.
- Ask the teachers EARLY for recommendations. The ideal is at the very end of 11th grade. Kids who waited until Oct or Nov of senior year, many times found out that their teachers were already booked.
- Tour tons of colleges. mostly because it's awfully fun and you and your kid will always remember the trips you took together....
Really? 18 posts in and no one has said “love the kid on the couch”?
Great advice for college-selecting and for life in general.