"ALWAYS be polite. ALWAYS be truthful. Admissions officers [should have read “Financial Aid officers”] are usually underpaid and overworked. They spend months getting yelled at by morally outraged parents. Don’t add to their difficulty, try to be reasonable. Be a team. "
“Be a team”, means that if you have something to say, do it as if you are on the same side. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being polite or asking questions. Admissions officers always were a source of information for us. Sometimes it is ok to communicate. It got our file out of the pile of no return (local community college did not send paperwork electronically and it wandered through several offices. Had we not communicated, there would have been nothing but limbo for the application.)
No one ever suggested making up excuses to call and annoy anyone. I would think that would have been obvious.
Your kid might or might not be able to raise his/her grades, and if you know now that there aren’t any changes coming, then work with the numbers that your kid has now. Neither you nor your kid need to exhaust yourselves fighting about grades.
Your kid might or might not be able to score high enough to get NMS status with the PSAT, and if you know now that your kid won’t, your kid doesn’t have to waste any energy prepping for or taking that exam. Go out to brunch that morning instead. If you know now that your kid won’t score well enough on the ACT or SAT to land merit-based aid, or to get into X, Y, or Z, then base the list on A, B, and C instead, and read through www.fairtest.org
Keep your own head screwed on straight through this process so that you can help your kid keep his/her head screwed on straight if necessary. If your kid was born with a screwed-on-straight head, thank your lucky stars for that!
The best advice was given to me – many decades ago – by my chemistry teacher.
He told me that even though I was a 10th grader and hadn’t taken the SAT yet, I should consider taking what were then called the Achievement Tests (now the SAT Subject Tests) at the end of that year because I was likely to do well on the one in chemistry.
I followed his advice. I got an 800.
This basic concept – that a student might benefit from taking some SAT Subject Tests as early as 10th grade – is one I passed on to both of my kids.
I kind of disagree with the advice about not letting the student take any standardized tests without prep, or whatever. If they are not into studying/prepping, don’t make them. If they want to do better, or take a prep class or get a book and self study, that’s fine too. Neither of my sons ever studied more than maybe 30 minutes for any standardized test, and they did very well on the tests, and were offered scholarships at various schools. I certainly suggested they study, and bought them the blue book, but neither did much with it. They are both attending very good schools now.
If ur kid is a high scorer on std tests than plan on studying for sat or act in summer before jr yr and take test in fall of jr yr.
Take practice act and practice sat under full timed test taking conditions and based on ur results and feelings, study for just one of the tests. If ur kid is in the PSAT NMSF range, then make the test the sat (in fall$ along with PSAT in fall so only studying once.
Take practice PSAT in soph yr
Take sat2 in same yr as the class, so usually ap test in may and sat2 in June of soph or jr yr
Look for schools that offer merit money. These may not be your "first choice" schools, but merit money is generally based on GPA/SAT/ACT. They also often become the financial safety schools.
Start touring early. With my older son, we did our first visits right after his freshman year of high school. He had never been on a college campus before, so he got to see what a dorm looked like, tasted the food and saw the facilities. One of the schools he saw during that trip made his final cut, too.
It is not too late to become involved. If you are in NHS, volunteer to tutor or do the blood drive. If you love sports but are not a great athlete, think about doing the statistics for a team. My older son had a blast doing the stats for the girls basketball program. The public library always needs help. So become involved in something.
That isn’t necessarily the best advice for everyone. At the beginning of Jr. year S took the ACT in September and the SAT and PSAT in October. He didn’t prep, and never retested. What an incredible relief it was to have testing out of the way so early.
Make sure your kids stay true to themselves and don’t fall to pressure. Start touring junior year and ask for teacher recs before junior year is out. Have a safety you will be happy at.
Great advice. I definitely agree that one should let your student know how much you are willing or able to contribute. I also agree to help your student find a safety school that academically and financially will work for him/her, but if you can afford application fees “throw a wide net” and have them apply to schools that are reaches in both categories. You never know what might happen. Students should take the lead in the college search, but realistically many of your juniors and even seniors aren’t as interested as you think they should be, or too busy to really investigate college options. Help them if they aren’t. Put a list together of good schools and then have them take a look at it, and then force them to take college visits to a few of them and see what they like and don’t like. December of their senior year (when most applications are due) comes really fast!