OP hasn’t been on CC since May 10 when she last posted.
^^ It’s barely two days, lol. Six children, oldest is a junior in high school. I bet she’s busy. Now she’s been overwhelmed on this ONE topic. It’s okay.
Maybe she’s off visiting another school she won’t pay for after 1 1/2 years?? I just find it odd how this whole discussion never mentions guiding the child into what to study, just where will she enjoy it most. Is that what the college decision has come down to the most?
Also what happens if she goes to a school on the quarter system, halfway through Winter quarter she’s cut off?
Yes, that’s what I meant. I was responding to those who thought OP had been scared off by all the responses. She wasn’t scared off, she just hasn’t been back yet to read them. You misunderstood my post.
@patsmom - oops. sorry about that.
My own D has told us she doesn’t really care where and what the school is - never had a “dream school”. But she did tell us she wants the option of studying Anthropology, History, Linguistics, and Chinese or Japanese. Oh, and to study abroad, which is just about anywhere. She also stated a preference for a “not so big” place, yet she doesn’t seem to care for the three small LACs we looked at locally - says they seem “too small, like boarding school…” Ok, a mid-sized school it is, then…
We also want her to get an academic scholarship, although we can actually afford full-pay from her college fund. But we all (incl. D) agree she should try to save money for grad school later, and if that doesn’t happen, she can have the rest of her college fund for something else, living expenses for an unpaid internship, etc.
I say all this to illustrate how we picked our own D’s list of schools. OP could start to narrow her D’s list in the same way - What does she want to study? How much can you afford/are willing to pay? How far from home is she really comfortable being? Does she like big state schools that take over a whole small town, or does she like small LACs, or maybe urban schools like NYC or BU that blend into the urbanscape? Take her answers and use those as parameters for her potential schools. CC has a tool where you can plug in these factors, and more, as well as GPA and test scores. You should get a good number of schools to choose from.
We also perused the Fiske Guide, Colleges that Change Lives, and Princeton Review’s 379 Best Colleges.
All that being said, now that I’ve made a list for her, my own D refuses to look at it or look up any of the schools. ??!! I suspect it’s too early, like others have said. She just keeps saying “Well, if they have the things I want, and they’re not in the middle of a cornfield, I’ll be fine there.”
Taking her on a road trip this summer, and hopefully she’ll decide where to apply.
As for OP’s D, focus on what she wants to study/affordability, and THEN go look at local schools that fit the bill.
Ok, well I see others have said already what I have basically just said.
Maybe the Dd should say something like, “you have a policy that I can’t apply to a school that I haven’t visited. Well, I have a policy that I won’t be interested in schools that you won’t pay for.”
Seriously though, I just can’t wrap my head around the idea of a parent of a junior being “worried about her child’s indecisiveness” when the mom is in denial about how college costs will get paid.