<p>It amazes me how so many people are ignorant in so many areas. With the internet, there are no excuses…sorry. Anything you want to know is a click away. Even those that aren’t the brightest have no excuse of being ignorant.</p>
<p>amtc–</p>
<p>Hi sister!</p>
<p>I have led two troops of older girls & as part of the 40 hour Career Award log (no longer required for Gold Award as you know), we took “field trips” to visit colleges. We live near Princeton so we victimized them.</p>
<p>Most of the girls would never apply (“too close!” they whine) nor have a chance of being accepted there, but it is a fine place to visit for the eye-opening aspects of the college visiting process, and you do learn things that are applicable to anyone’s college search. Then they are less newbie when they do it with their parents “for real.” </p>
<p>Any college will do for this troop field trip.</p>
<p>Is anyone planning to do their Gold Award? It is a very good thing to have on that resume.</p>
<p>Frankly I don’t care if other parents are informed or not. It isn’t any of my business. I also think there are people who clearly obsess way too much on the process but that isn’t my business, ether.</p>
<p>I find it surprising that people will spend more time researching a new car, or even a washing machine, than they will researching colleges. Even people who seem relatively informed often have really crazy lists.</p>
<p>My D (now a college junior) did her Gold Award. I think it was a help in that merit aid process 
Hmm… maybe someone could do a Gold Award on improving access to college information for teens and parents in an underserved area.</p>
<p>Hunt, I completely agree with you. It is crazy how little research people actually do for what can be a $200,000 plus expenditure. We were mega-researchers (D1 and I).</p>
<p>I think part of the issue is financial. Many only have the money to send their child to the local cc, or maybe to the local commuter college. Sure, there is merit aid to make other schools more affordable. But when you consider the obvious truth that half of the kids are in the bottom half of their class, there probably isn’t merit money for the bottom half of most public HSs.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yup yup yup. </p>
<p>It’s also timing. If I need to make a major consumer purchase or find a new doctor or a plumber to re-plumb the house, I do the research right before I’m going to write the check. When we’ve bought houses, we’ve saved money in the abstract for years, but only get into the nitty-gritty of checking neighborhoods and comparables and getting pre-approved for a mortgage in the months leading up to starting to look.</p>
<p>The college search is an entirely different entity. The legwork ideally starts much, much earlier. People just aren’t thinking along those lines at the start of high school. By the time they start researching at the end of junior year or start of senior high, it’s very late in the game.</p>
<p>Why do parents decide not to inoculate their kids? Why do mothers put Coca Cola in their kids baby bottles? Why does my next door neighbor (college educated herself) buy her kids every single new video and computer game that comes out and brags that her kids don’t have a library card? And shows up at school committee meetings to scream that her kids can’t score above the mean on the state standardized tests for reading and literacy?</p>
<p>Why ask why, it will drive you crazy.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Well, a different form of timing is the timing of the economy. Parents may have thought that their home equity, stock options or investments would pay for college. Or that one or two high-income professional jobs would pay for college. Economic reality for a lot of people has changed dramatically since 2007. BTW, here’s a video news report from CBS Marketwatch on people having to downsize their jobs. One of the examples is a former currency trader that made $150K/year now working at Starbucks for $9/hour. I will say that he has a good attitude about it now.</p>
<p>[From</a> Manager to Janitor - MarketWatch Video](<a href=“http://www.marketwatch.com/video/asset/from-manager-to-janitor-2011-01-10/0EF53640-E67D-4BD1-BB69-488C16377E87]From”>http://www.marketwatch.com/video/asset/from-manager-to-janitor-2011-01-10/0EF53640-E67D-4BD1-BB69-488C16377E87)</p>
<p>Haha…I’m with ya, Blossom. I try, I really, really try, to think ‘It takes all kinds’. But part of me is thinking something altogether different. To stand back and do nothing at this most crucial point in a child’s life-- inconceivable! And the weird thing I see is that it’s people who have micromanaged in other areas. A kid who was never allowed to watch a PG movie or walk to the school bus stop alone…but college plans get a giant shrug.</p>
<p>And BCEagle, you’re exactly right that timing is a huge factor-- still you’d think people could put their bond trading skills (research, for one) to very good use for their kids now.</p>
<p>It may also be a case of not having any idea how much you don’t know until you start to learn something about it - enough to realize just how much you don’t know!</p>
<p>It really isn’t unreasonable to think that if you send your kid to high school, and the kid is doing well, and the high school spends 4 years telling you how great they are at preparing your kid for the future, that things should kind of fall into place once they get to the applying stage. You have to get your feet wet before you even realize that there is a whole different approach from applying to two state schools and heading off to college. </p>
<p>And often, that approach is A-OK. My husband and I have chuckled at (and sometimes lamented) the fact that we make school choice so difficult - we’re rarely sent our kids off to the local school down the street. We’ve been searching for fit ever since our oldest had an awful kindergarten experience. At one point we had three kids in three different school systems. Snow days and school vacations never matched up! Sometimes we would look at each other and say, “now, what’s so bad about putting your kids on the bus and wishing them a good day? Why do we make things so complicated?” I think it was inevitable that we’d take the CC route to the college application process. </p>
<p>On the flip side, my sister’s step kids went off to two different state schools, had a great time, and now are gainfully employed.</p>
<p>TrueLove, contrary to what you’ve been taught, “Christians” are not the only people who have good parenting skills, nor are they the only people who have “good values” or who are moral and ethical. There are plenty of good people, and good parents, of other religious backgrounds, or even of NO religion at all.</p>
<p>I first found this site in August. D is a senior. I feel like I started WAY too late on CC but I have learned a lot from all the smart people on this site. I thought her public high school would tell me everything I needed to know, when I needed to know it. WRONG. The info session junior year was extremely vague and by the time the fall session came, I knew more than they did (because I’d been on CC day and night). I am convinced that if I quit my job and spent all my time researching this process, I still wouldn’t know enough. I don’t think I planned her “strategy” well enough (no state schools for merit aid; she applied ED when we need financial aid – thank God she got deferred). I guess I thought since I got into an Ivy league school (but chose not to attend), I was smart enough to guide her through this process. NOT TRUE.</p>
<p>Plus she was on the cusp for her sport (not recruited yet still fast enough to attract some interest) which added a whole other layer.</p>
<p>D tells me I’ll be off CC for 3 years (until S is applying to college). I smile, but I know I will be on it every day and maybe then I’ll be ready when he’s a senior.</p>
<p>I’ve noticed a lot of parents at our high school have “tunnel vision” - they know about the schools they know - mostly the big state schools. My first child picked a school halfway across the country, and almost every parent asked me why send him so far away? No thought given to fit, or meeting people from other parts of the country, or the myriad other reasons a kid would like to experience another type of environment.</p>
<p>I’ve also been told that they aren’t looking at some state privates because of the cost. So I’ve tried to spread the word to the parents (at least to the ones with kids near the top of the class), that some of these privates offer wonderful merit aid, that would make the college more affordable than State U. I’m not sure many believe me!!</p>
<p>“The ability to pay for boarding school and private tutors really gives these kids a leg up. The SAT, is a test that most kids would perform well on if they had the resources that the wealthy kids have.”</p>
<p>I agree with Dadx on this one. I never took SAT classes or paid a tutor – just skimmed through a cheap (literally, like $5 offline) prep book, and I did fine. Same with many of my friends, even though most of them are fairly well off. I also have a few friends who DID take prep classes, but did the same (and sometimes even worse) than the rest of us. Aptitude is the most important factor…</p>
<p>“Imagine kids whose parents only speak their native language and are only making minimum wage. The children should not suffer because of the situation they are born into.”</p>
<p>Smileygerl: My parents only speak their native tongue, and made minimum wage until a few years ago (unemployed now, and likely never to be employed again, because of their age). Given the circumstances, I don’t mind that, and I certainly don’t begrudge my friends the advantages to being wealthier. You make do with what you have.
And I’m pretty sure that colleges consider socioeconomic status in the admissions process. They won’t frown at someone because he couldn’t afford a certain activity or whatever.</p>
<p>I think that parent involvement is necessary for visits and the financial issues, especially for middle class/upper class families, in making sure that the student knows what they have to consider financially when looking at colleges. Other than that, though, I don’t think that parents need to know everything and anything about the college process, though it’s nice to get help and support from them (:
My parents are aware of a few in-state schools, and only because my brothers went there. They also know Ivy League schools by reputation, but they never pushed me to apply to them or anything. They know nothing about applications, admissions, etc. My dad understands that the college process is more complicated than just asking a school nicely for admission, but he assumed I’d take care of the research and everything. Same with my siblings. I did, and it turned out well (: They just wanted me to get into a college I liked, and graduate.
Most of my friends’ parents have busy lives, and can’t dedicate the time that it takes into researching so much stuff. My friends get financial info and stuff from them and talk about colleges they’re considering at dinner, but they do everything else. It’s working out okay for them, too!
At the end of the day, it’s the student who’s applying and choosing where to live for the next for years. He/she should definitely know more about the college process than the parent…</p>
<p>I really think that the student should take most of the responsibility, with or without involved parents. If the guidance counselor doesn’t help, the internet will (:
Wow, that was long lol…</p>
<p>Even private hs’s aren’t that informed on some of the specifics. I had to explain merit to the GC, of course very few kids need or have needed merit scholarships so it wasn’t something that she had a lot of experience with. The same with athletic recruiting, unless they do it a lot they really don’t understand all the nuances(not my S, but friend of S had a disaster).<br>
But it’s pretty much the same as anything. I don’t do anything or purchase anything without researching it myself. It’s a good idea to go to an expert, but by that time I’m just hopefully confirming what I know or don’t know. When my older two were applying to colleges, I read every book/article I could get my hands on. Of course, things weren’t as crazy then.
The lead time is what gets everyone with college. As everyone said Sr year is way too late to get into it. I was going to start a thread with “top things I learned this round”, but the only people who would read it are already on cc, and the info is everywhere. It’s the people who will never get here who need it the most.</p>
<p>JRZ - only 3 of our 10 are going for the Gold and I’d be thrilled if any one of them actually completed it! They have, as a troop, earned the Leadership Award so at least that’s something! They’ve also earned enough money through creative fundraisers to travel to DisneyWorld in 7th grade and England in 10th grade. Our level of service is also very high so we’re a very strong troop. I need to get the girls to understand just what a big deal all this is.</p>
<p>We visited 3 colleges earlier this fall - Muhlenberg, SUNY Binghamton, and Vassar and at all three there were girls from my older GS troop who met with us and gave the girls the “unoffical” tour. It was great. </p>
<p>But, back on topic, it is important to be knowledgeable when spending so much money and four full years of your childs’ life - it’s just good common sense.</p>
<p>Many people don’t assign the same importance to a college education that folks who post on CC do. I have family members who think I was over-the-top nuts when I started researching colleges for my oldest d 11 years ago and then encouraged her and her sisters to choose schools out of our immediate area. Part of it is the “I never went to college (or to a Big Name college) and I turned out just fine” mentality. They’re productive people who certainly seem content with the lives they’ve made for themselves - they just don’t place the same value on the college experience that I do.</p>
<p>Speaking for my own family members, they’d never have wanted to look beyond the local colleges suggested by the high school GC for their children, because why should their kids go elsewhere? This attitude doesn’t apply to many parents nowadays (probably), but it’s one explanation for why some parents aren’t up-to-the-minute on the latest admissions strategies. I don’t think it has much to do with not wanting to do the best for their children that they can - they have different values. It’s a big world out there, and not everyone sees it the same way I do.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is true at our local HS, but much of this is driven by the students themselves. I was actually surprised at how many of D’s classmates wanted to go to colleges with a lot of people they knew from HS. Literally 1/2 of her class ended up attending one of 3 schools (all good schools, one very good, all in state public). Some of these students and their parents admitted that the kids wanted to be with people they already knew. One child was considering an Ivy but decided to be close to home, with friends.</p>
<p>There are usually many threads on the kids forum sometime after the fall semester starts about loneliness and asking how to make friends on campus so a desire to start with a few is easily understandable.</p>