By the way, older editions of CTCL are readily available at almost any Half Price Books store.
You have my support. Far too many parents make the college search more competitive than is necessary. Personal “fit” for the student is far more important than either prestige or rankings.
“Personal “fit” for the student is far more important than either prestige or rankings.”
Agree. It did not occur to my D. (or us) to check rankings at all when she was choosing her college. It would not play any role in her decision making, so it slipped our mind altogether. I do not know how one can choose based on some lists. Visiting and visiting multiple times is the only way to choose “home away from home” for the most important 4 years of young person life.
Aside from older editions of the CTCL book, their website includes 44 colleges, not only the 40 in the book. I would assume some of those are former entries. http://www.ctcl.org/
One thing to note is that most kids that have 4.0+ GPAs are self-motivated. It is very hard, even as a Tiger mom, to to make a kid that is laid back be super competitive. Parents may encourage or even punish kids for not getting top grades, but the reality is that you can make a kid “study” and force them to stay in the house, but you can’t make them a great student if they don’t want to be.
My kids are more laid back. That is both positive and negative. Doing your very best is important to me, and I didn’t always see their willingness to do that. But they are “good enough” to get into decent (not super elite) colleges and so far, the older ones have gotten jobs.
Also, there are very, very few schools that will not accept a kids with a 95+ average. And many of the kids whose parents are discussing the super elite schools will be going to excellent, but not super elite schools come spring of 2016.
“One thing to note is that most kids that have 4.0+ GPAs are self-motivated. It is very hard, even as a Tiger mom, to to make a kid that is laid back be super competitive. Parents may encourage or even punish kids for not getting top grades”
Not so in American k-12, yes, maybe so somewhere else. Very easy to do if you start at the proper age. And the proper age is 5 y o, not 15 - this is way too late. having the older kid graduated, I knew what is involved and told my 5 y o D. that all it takes to be “good” or best in school is to do her homework every day and do it well, and it should not take long if she does it every day. I also told her that when she was ready to go to her sport practice, she was looking forward every day to be there, it was the highlight of her day. Nope, we did not go until her 5 mim. homework assignement was completed to my satisfaction. This was never repeated to her and lasted all the way thru graduation from Medical School (in May of this year). She ended up also in very many un-related activities, continued with her sport all thru graduating from HS.
Her example inspired her older bro. when his kids were ready to go to school. So far has been working with them also, both are straight As in test-in NYC HS’s.
American k - 12 is at such a low level, I do not see why parents do not take advantage of this situation by telling their kids that not much is required for having all A’s. Not much more than doing their homework on time and do it well. No genius is required. As D. keep on commenting: “I am not smart, I am a hard working”. She was not born this way, little talk may go far way. And being heavily involved with all kind of un-related EC’s helps very well.
I agree with lookingforward about bookmarking the thread. It’s been so refreshing to read-I thought I was an outlier in having a kid who though an excellent student, chose early on not to get on the Top 20 or Bust train. I am so glad I didn’t find CC when my older D was looking at colleges. I’d have thought she was doomed to a lifetime of ditch-digging, when in reality her B average and “ok” test scores got her into several respected state flagships and small LAC’s.
My youngest is always doing something, always busy, but a lot of those things are not related to school or padding her resume. They are things that make her happy. And she gets plenty of sleep. I know that she’ll do well no matter where she lands, but it’s internal and not because of her resume.
I’m with you, IBviolamom. I saw too many great kids this year get turned down at the most selective schools, and after all that work and all that lost sleep! My S is a freshman who takes almost all honors classes, and I was horrified to learn that he stayed up until 1:30 am one night this week to complete nine hours of homework. If that’s what he’s in for over the next three years, I’d rather see him lower his load a little bit and have a life. As it is, he doesn’t socialize all that much due to studying.
Nine hours for a freshman? That’s insane. My 9th grader stayed up too late with 6 hours of homework some days ago and I told her she needs to find a way to be more efficient. Usually it’s more like 3.
"My youngest is always doing something, always busy, but a lot of those things are not related to school or padding her resume. They are things that make her happy. And she gets plenty of sleep. I know that she’ll do well no matter where she lands, but it’s internal and not because of her resume. "
This is a great example, my D. and both grandkids are the same. I know that happy go-lucky, busy, hard working kids will achieve! Also want to mention couple rules that I had for my D. (since she said recently that they were great rules for her growing up). Rule 1 - NO crying, Rule 2 - in bed by 10pm with exceptions for the parties, school events at night,…etc. Being freshly minded in a morning is a must for happy day ahead. Being “no drama queen” certainly helps socially.
@miamiDAP – just to clarify, no crying at all or no manipulative crying? I get the idea of not tolerating whiny crying used by a child to try to manipulate events, but would you agree that crying can be a healthy expression of feelings in moments of grief, such as saying goodbye to a friend who is moving out of state or grieving the death of a grandparent or pet?
I wasn’t smart enough to get my kids to take a free ride for undergrad, and I clearly wasn’t smart enough to get them to go to Med school and graduate debt free. But I was smart enough to live in a place where my kids went to HS where just doing your homework was not enough to get you A’s, and where the academic standards were very high. People who decry the low standards of the K-12 school system on behalf of disadvantaged kids living in Camden NJ or Detroit, and who want to be part of the change for the better get my admiration. People who complain about how bad their OWN schools are… and who have the education and the time to DO something about it but don’t- just like to complain about low standards… well, what’s so smart about that?
Our younger daughter–and yes she plays violin–is thriving at a small local LAC with about 1,300 students. We did what most here have said: pick colleges that are socially, financially, and educationally a good fit. Merit aid made her choice significantly less expensive than our state’s flagship, which is 20 minutes from our doorstep.
She didn’t select the highest ranked LAC on her acceptance list: Rhodes. Although it was a great fit, it didn’t offer enough merit/need-based aid and there was no reason for our family to stress out for 4 years. Not going to Rhodes was far from being the end of her world.
Our older daughter picked a state U for its nursing program and because she wanted the adventure of living 3 hours away (and now she can’t wait to get back to the 'patch).
Rankings smankings. It’s a matter of your personal sense of fit, your wallet, and the program of study your D’s interested in undertaking. If a kid feels more at home at the flagship, a state college, or at a LAC, then buy the college’s T-shirt and wear it proudly.
One more thing:
Firewall yourselves away from any parents in your circle who are in the Ivy race. When DD1 was a high school sophomore, we were cornered in the grocery store by a church member who was livid that her D’s GC hadn’t gotten her into XX math class during fall semester junior year meaning her D was a bit rusty on the XX math concepts so the chances of scoring high on the math section of the PSAT was hosed and therefore her D’s chance for NMFS status was o-v-e-r. She was so upset you’d have thought someone had died.This crap went on for about 10 minutes. The stress O’ meter was off the charts. Once the church lady’s spewing stopped and she was out of earshot, my daughter turned to me and said, Mom if you ever do that to me when I’m applying to college I’ll never speak to you again.’ No worries, kid. Oh, and the church lady’s daughter did go ivy: Cornell U. Is she happy? No clue.
@Knoxpatch Do you mind sharing where your daughter attends? And I agree I will have to learn to tune out the stressed and overwhelmed parents! I have a dear friend who has a lovely, smart daughter who will succeed wherever she goes, but my friend is starting to push her to do things because “if she wants to go to Impressive University, she needs to do XYZ.”
I really, really liked the reply that said find the college that fits your child and don’t try to fit your child to the college.
Sure! Maryville College in… wait for it… Maryville, TN. Both my husband and I attended our states’ flagship Universities. Mine was UC Berkeley and his was UT Knoxville. We both wish we’d have known or been aware of the LACs in our respective states. Maryville is off the radar for CC and yet it attracts students from 30-ish states and I can’t remember how many countries. My D’s roomie is from South Korea by way of New Jersey. They are big on music but I know nothing about the music program as my kid is a proud science and math nerd. http://www.maryvillecollege.edu/
The feel is quirky yet still affiliated with the Presbyterian Church USA. It’s located against the Great Smoky Mountains National Park so Bio and Env. Sci majors have a truly unique “outdoor lab” available. It’s about 30 minutes from Knoxville and about an hour from the Oak Ridge National Lab. They are big on a new program: Maryville College Works, which guides kids all four years in matching their interests to a major and then matching the kid to internships and opportunities and eventually preparing them for success in grad school and work. Another big feature is the senior thesis. All are required to develop a 2-semester senior thesis, also designed to offer an edge in grad school admission or job applications.
And one more thing: I fully confess we spent who knows how much in applying to 8 different colleges, with 3 out-of-state, travelling, travelling again, and so on. MC was a free application, 30 minutes from our home, and had rolling admissions. Go figure.
I am now one year post D1’s college graduation. My friends had kids who went to all kinds of schools. The WashU history major kid took 9 months to find a job in finance, but he’s found one now (caveat: not happy). The Willamette Poli Sci kid spent a year in Nepal and is in a PhD program at the top university in his field. The UC Davis English grad is being a waitress and applying to MSW programs. The Carleton IR grad is doing fabulously as a consultant at an IT company. The Poli Sci grad from Oberlin is working for an educational non-profit. The UC Merced grad is in osteopathic med school.
To my mind the big issue is debt. You want to come out with as little as possible. That lifts a huge obligation to be immediately productive off your shoulders; it allows you to take some low paying jobs out of school and it potentially leaves money for grad school.
I am an Ivy grad (and loved it). I did get some opportunities because of the “name.” Did they matter in the total scheme of my lifetime earnings and career? Not so much. This is a new world. It is tough out there, and I think success will depend far more on the kid than the name on the diploma. The gift you want to give them is the gift of being able to explore without having the burden of debt.
Full disclosure: My 2014 Oberlin graduate D (debt free) is currently self supporting but not in a permanent position. However, I am completely blown away by how much she has learned about networking and other necessary job skills. I’m 100% sure she’s going to figure this out.
@IBviolamom This is a great thread. When I read your first post it reminded me of the sick feeling I had in the pit of my stomach when I first joined this website in November to get information on how to help my very high achieving daughter survive this process. It also reminded me of the old Lily Tomlin quote, “The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.” When I read post after post on this site from kids saying their 3.75 GPA was too low or their 2190 SAT was horrible, it made me question where this whole process has taken our teens. For some teens that level of achievement comes rather naturally with low effort, while other teens are practically killing themselves to achieve this perception of perfection. It is really sad to me, and I have contemplated quitting my affiliation with this website many times since November.
On the other hand this website has been an extremely helpful source of information and I have learned about so many schools that are great that my family never heard of. And I have learned so much about financing a college education, particularly when you don’t qualify for need based aid but can’t afford a $60,000+/year education, which is a huge factor for most of us mere mortals. My only child, scientist/musician daughter applied to eight schools, was not admitted to two, and got merit scholarships of increasing value with each subsequent admission at the other six–the last offer being full tuition merit at a small private school that was a great match but was going to be a financial reach and out of the question without a big merit offer. All eight schools that she applied to, she believed she could be happy at. That made the process work for our family. And when the last scholarship offer, which was hoped for but unexpected actually came in, we were all over the moon and are so excited for next fall.
It will all work out, your daughter has the foundation that you have helped her to build.
