@LKnomad, your son’s “stats” (that word! ) are EXCELLENT. I understand your point but it makes me sad that anything less than perfect is seen as less than excellent. 
Well, that’s why College Confidential is so incredibly useful. You learn about a whole bunch of great colleges you’d never heard of before. You learn valuable advice–how merit aid and need based aid differ or fit together, how you want to help your child start building their college list from the bottom (safety) up, how getting essays done early or applying early in the admissions cycle can take lots of pressure off your kid, and much, much more. You get a high-level view of how college admissions works, rather than just seeing it through the constricted viewpoint of your child’s high school. The advice you get here supplements what you get locally. In some cases, it’s infinitely better. 
I helped both of my daughters develop their college lists–overwhelmingly based on fit. One kid’s high school years were academically supercharged. Her list included tippy-top schools along with some that you’ve probably not heard of. The other kid attended a school that was the polar opposite in academic intensity. Her list was mainly smaller liberal arts colleges, some better known than others. There was never a feeling that admissions officers wouldn’t consider them–the feeling was which schools they wanted to consider.
It generally all works out.
@IBviolamom Excellence is relative. My son’s stats are prett good for the schools he is interested in. For other schools they would be over the top excellent. The same with your daughter. Her stats for some schools will be excellent and for others not as much. If she aims for the right fit and chooses well her stats will also be excellent.
My D started out the process mostly focusing on elite schools, but like 1518mom and eastcoastcrazy we knew even if she was admitted we probably couldn’t afford them. So she worked hard to find schools that were a good fit and ended up at a non prestigious yet excellent midwest LAC. She is absolutely thriving in her first year and feels challenged academically. She is getting great opportunities by being at a smaller school where she can shine and is so happy.
Sometimes you do have to have a thick skin, I remember one conversation I had last spring when someone asked me where my D was going and when I said the name of her school they nodded politely and then all of a sudden grabbed my arm and enthusiastically said “did you hear that Johnny X is going to Princeton?” I second all the folks who have recommended looking at the CTCL schools and kudos to you for your parenting approach, enjoy all those extra moments you have with your D because she will be gone before you know it!
@IBviolamom and @cellomom2 I have to laugh at the orchestra we are making. I am a cello mom too!
@collegemom3717 wrote “Piling on to all of the above, with one tiny addition: you are not as alone as you think. True, valuing HS for the time that it is in your child’s life is a minority sport- but there are more of us out there than you realize.”
I just wanted to agree, except to offer one correction: Valuing HS for the time it is in your child’s life is not a minority sport—it may be one here on CC, but what’s actually a minority sport is the sort of hyper-competitiveness and -obsessiveness you find on these fora.
This is why it’s useful to poke one’s head in here once in a while to get the useful advice, but afterward it’s good to go take a walk to clear your head and realize that most of the world doesn’t act anything remotely like that.
We are pretty much trained to value “brands” so it can be a bit of a challenge to go against the grain when it comes to the college search. It seems like a lot of CC’ers are shopping at Neimans, while we’re across the street at Costco. This can result in some second guessing from time to time, because most of us do want the very best for our children and we do wonder “what is good enough?” In our case, we just tried to keep the focus on our D, and we put on the noise-cancelling headphones, so to speak, when the hyper-competitive parents of D’s college-bound classmates were around. It worked out.
Our D is a solid B+ student, and a so-so standardized test-taker. She is also an engaging & attentive student, is very active in the life of her school, and she had a pretty good idea what she wanted in a college when we started looking 18 months ago. We looked at a lot of colleges (20+), mostly LACs. She found 8 that she liked, including four that she really, really liked. We went back several times to her top picks. She was admitted to all 8, with merit aid at each.
She is very confident in her choice. Some of her close friends are going off to Dartmouth, Columbia, Middlebury, Rice and Colgate in the fall. And some to Big State U. She is very excited about her choice, worked very hard for it, sat in on enough classes to recognize that it will be rigorous and challenging for her, and she cannot wait to start in August.
Hurrah! for the outcome of the college search by the daughter of @MidwestDad3! Also, study after study has found that being a hard worker is more indicative of future success (measured a number of different ways) than innate brilliance (generally as measured by performance on tests or grades), so there’s that, too.
Yes, @LKnomad, we can start a chamber group! @cellomom2, I’d love to know where your daughter attends. Many of those Midwest LACs look great, and I’m wondering about opportunities to play in an ensemble, even if you don’t major in music (my D isn’t sure about music as a career, but she does love playing). She is not in love with the idea of attending school “in the middle of nowhere” but I think visiting some of the schools and getting a taste of the environment might change her mind.
OP - only your daughter can answer what’s good enough.
There is a price to be paid whatever choice one should make. It is part of life. Kind of like when a woman decides to take the mommy track to spend more time with her kids, it is great to have priceless time with kids, but at the same time it is wishful thinking to think her career is not going to suffer. As long as your kid is happy with her choice then that’s what matters. What would be bad is if you and your kid believe think it is possible to have it all.
IBviolamom, my D is at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. It sort of is in the middle of nowhere and yet Appleton is a larger town than some of the very rural LACs. My D really didn’t want to be in a super small town, i.e. Oberlin but wanted an LAC. Appleton is a town of about 80,000 in a larger metro area of about 200,000. It’s really got a lot going on. The college is adjacent to downtown so there are lots of shops and restaurants in walking distance of campus as well as a regional performing arts center that draws a lot of touring shows. LU has a conservatory and they are very open to having non music majors participate in ensembles. My D has been able to take cello lessons and play in the Orchestra. It’s a wonderful school, can’t say enough good things about it! One of the very cool, unique things about Lawrence is that they own a retreat property in Door County on Lake Michigan and student groups can use the facility on weekends and they have seminars throughout the year there for the students.
Thumbs up to the chamber group!
Wow, that sounds great, and a good one for my daughter to consider. Having a place to go outside of campus, that you can walk to, will make a difference to her. Thanks for sharing!
The first post asked if there were schools and admins who wouldn’t even consider the OP’s daughter. Of course. There are also schools OP’s daughter won’t consider. It’s really your attitude that will determine if you are happy. Why even care if others in the high school are going to Yale or Cal or MIT? You are on your search for a school you will like and that will like you, not on a search to impress the neighbors. One of my daughters goes to a small tech school only 2 hours away but many people in our area had never heard of it. Science people had (my dentist) and my brother, who is 2000 miles away, works with a lot of people who have because they work for aerospace engineering firms. We didn’t care who knew about it. It’s the right school for her.
I grew up in an area where half didn’t go to college, and half of those who did went locally. Almost everyone else went to the flagship or other state schools. It was not a competition and even those very few who went OOS, public or private, Ivy or not, were considered the outliers, not the norm and not even better than those who stayed local. Everyone made the choice right for him. One of my classmates went to the flagship, to med school at the flagship, and then came right back to the community. No one thought that was strange or special, just that it was his choice.
The thing I love about CC is getting ideas, considering schools or scholarships or ways to buy dorm supplies I hadn’t thought of. I especially like the tax discussions and feel I saved some money this year. My kids are at the schools they applied to and were accepted to before I joined, so I never thought it was a competition.
I wouldn’t necessarily believe all the hype you hear or read on this site. My daughter did what she wanted in high school. She was sorely lacking in quite a few things everyone claims are absolutely required for admittance to top schools, and yet she got into most of them with no regrets about her high school experience. And except for that fall of senior year, she got plenty of sleep.
I do not think in terms of my kids not being “good enough for the system.” Our kids are all uniquely individual and all of them have their own personalities, goals, and things that make them tick. What is a good balance for one is not a good balance for another. We look for schools which match their “them” vs. trying to form our kids to match the schools’ “ours.”
FWIW, attending a tippy-top highly competitive school is not a familial goal. We don’t function that way. We really don’t care about rankings. No one makes people climb aboard the top 20 train. Many families can and do make the decision to follow a different route and just apply to schools that want their student as much as the student wants them. And they still have excellent educations, great careers, and their lives are not ruined forever.
@IBviolamom, you’ve done an awesome job navigating high school and the sometimes insane and inane expectations imposed by others. Your daughter will be fine.
There are probably hundreds of colleges and universities where your daughter will be accepted and given substantial merit aid. The press is adept at focusing on a few schools to create a false impression (sort of like a video loop that shows the same burning car over and over again) that the child has to be extraordinary to gain acceptance. This is probably the case for a two or three dozen schools. Out of 3000.
If your daughter wants small liberal arts, look at the book, Colleges That Change Loves, They list 40 colleges but more important, the book outlines an alternative way of looking for college beyond rankings and prestige and name recognition.
It may not be easy but find the best college for your daughter. Forget about fitting your daughter to the “best” college. Her grades are fine. She’s a happy, well-rested child with her own interests.
My daughter didn’t get the grades your daughter has. She is more B / B+, but she followed her own path through high school (sleep being a necessity to her - she didn’t give it up even for the chance at an A). So obviously, she didn’t look at schools with acceptance rates below 30%’ Like @MidwestDad3 we discovered there are many excellent schools that accept many, even over 50%, applicants. D chose seven school, LAC’s, based on her research. Applied and was accepted with merit awards to all.
Sometimes I think kids like your daughter show more wisdom than the kids on CC who have straight A’s and write panicked posts asking if their B in AP Chern will destroy their chance at an Ivy, thus ending their trajectory to another Ivy for med school.
Best advice I read on CC for a parent, run NPC’s for every single school on the list. Best advice for the student, don’t pay attention to where other kids are applying or have been admitted or will attend. You don’t know their whole story.
“The college admissions process seems insanely cutthroat to me”
- it is only so if family wants to make it so for themselves. Our D’s college admission was fun and lots of great memories. I still smile when I remember bits and peices and few events that our family got to spend together. It was 8 years ago. Even D’s Medical school application cycle was not stressful, but rather fun, except for few “adventures” during her travels to interviews. I do not know why all the cycles involved traveling to interviews during winter, I wish it was summer. But, yes, she was trailed by huge snowstorm in Chicago, she got a flat tire on a trip to Columbus and she waited in her car for about 2 hours late at night in not the best neighborhood of Pittsburgh for her host to arrive, I kept her on a phone and prayed that her phone will not go dead. But these “fun events” happened much later, she was a college senior.
As I said, if family wants the college admissions process to be "insanely cutthroat ", they can easily have this option. But it is not required at all for achievin g the success at the end.
D. decided to pursue medicine. She mentioned that she would do fine anywhere, but she wants to feel “at home” while in college. She ended up being accepted to 3 combined bs/md programs, all at our in-state publics, 2 offerred full tuition Merit for the UG portion of the program. She attended in-state public on full tuition Merit and ironically decided to apply out of her program to other Med. Schools.
The only "insanely cutthroat " application cycle in D’s life so far has been her residency application. This one was unexpectedly “insanely torturous”. She did not have any control over this process except for choosing a different specialty. However, she is graduating in May with her first choice of residency in her pocket.
All colelges are GOOD, they are as good as a specific student makes it for herself. This point is missing in many cases, I would say the most here on CC. The concept is very easy, straight forward and IT WORKS!
@SlackerMomMD (love the username!) We have been investigating those 40 schools, and I have ordered the book, which is supposed to arrive tomorrow! My daughter has already looked at some videos on YouTube and likes the look of Kenyon in Ohio and Rhodes in Memphis… Although I think the main attraction at Rhodes was that it looks so much like Hogwarts! I think she stopped breathing when she saw the pictures of the campus! Another mom on this thread recommended Lawrence University because of its music program. I am so glad I started this thread, because it is making me feel so much better! It is hard to find like-minded parents in my community, so it’s good to find them in this one.
Here’s a question: can anybody find information about schools that used to be included on that CTCL list and were later removed? I figured those might be worth a good look too.
This link is for the 1996 first edition of the CTCL book. You could purchase that, or just take advantage of the “look inside” feature on that page to see the table of contents which lists all the colleges. They are using the 2nd edition from 2000 for the “look inside” feature.
Great idea, thanks!