<p>I want to start a spreadsheet for both of my kids ( JR. & SOPH) for their College Aps.
I need input on what info. is REALLY impt to each school…what have you found useful?</p>
<p>School…Enroll #…class size…Avg. ACT/SAT…Cost…Merit $ benchmarks…placement…</p>
<p>It’s really going to depend on what’s important to your kids. I have an example of what I did at:[Personal</a> College Ranking Example](<a href=“http://diycollegerankings.com/personal-college-ranking-example/]Personal”>http://diycollegerankings.com/personal-college-ranking-example/)</p>
<p>One thing I found is that after visiting a school, my son would find out about something he liked or didn’t like and we would have to go back and look for it at the other schools he already had on his list.</p>
<p>In my opinion, it is useful to consider two groupings of these criteria. </p>
<p>One set relates to the chances that your D or S will get accepted to a college and that the college will be affordable. This set includes distribution of test scores and GPA, acceptance rate, cost of attendance, and expected financial aid. These must be related to your S’s or D’s stats, your finances, and tolerance for debt. You can think of this set as constraints on college choice because it determines which schools are likely candidates and which are unlikely regardless of your personal objectives.</p>
<p>The other set relates to what your D’s or S’s objectives are for going to college and environment that is best suited to them. This set could include school size, public/private, academic department strengths and weaknesses, avg class size, college setting (rural, suburban, urban), distance from home. The relative importance of these depends critically on the individual and their family. For example, one student might care a great deal about school size and another might be indifferent to that. Some parents draw a circle around their home town and limit choice to colleges within that circle, and some parents do not set such a limit.</p>
<p>A good place to start is a family discussion about concerns and objectives. What do your D or S want to get out of college and what are concerns about the college experience. What would be an ideal college look like? What would be a less than ideal college look like? And why? A discussion like this will lead you to a list of criteria for your spreadsheet that will reflect what is really imporant to you, your S or D, and your family.</p>
<p>As a current senior who had a hugeass spreadsheet for applications, let me say this: your kids should be the ones doing this, not you. ;)</p>
<p>In my spreadsheet, I had:
-appearance on the Rugg’s Recommendations list for political science, psychology, sociology, and pre-law (my most likely majors/minors)
-appearance on Princeton Review lists
-appearance on Colleges That Change Lives
-appearance on US News and World Report lists
-appearance on a list of colleges that my guidance counselor told me to check out
-having a law school (with the idea that I might have a higher acceptance rate there)
-average class sizes/student-to-prof ratio
-whether the school offers credit/placement for AP test scores
-whether the ACT or SAT is required, or whether SAT II’s are required/recommended/ignored
-middle 50% ACT scores (since I never took the SAT)
-women’s college (automatic removal from list)
-religious college (automatic removal from list)</p>
<p>Beyond that, I looked at things like the size of the school, placement on other Princeton Review ranking lists (i.e. I took off the conservative ones), location in the country (I want to go out East), and a couple other superficial factors.</p>
<p>The final six schools that I’ve ended up with don’t necessarily meet every single criterion (I don’t think any of them were CTCL schools), but they were pretty close. Most of my eliminations were based on the schools having good poli sci AND psych AND soc AND pre-law, to keep my major options a bit more open — which helped cut out a ton of schools that didn’t have all four. Location was the next big factor, since I knew I wanted to go to one specific part of the country.</p>
<p>The best advice I would give about the spreadsheet approach is: don’t eliminate a school on the grounds of a minor thing. When I was desperate to narrow down my options, I started taking off good schools for things like bigger class sizes, when they were okay in every other respect. And do this slowly, or you’ll wind up going crazy and removing ALL THE SCHOOLS, etc.</p>
<p>Thanks, all really helpful comments ;)</p>
<p>I am a lover of spreadsheets!</p>
<p>It took three spreadsheets for D. One for her initial CB-search-engine-generated list of prospective schools (n = 24) during the 1st half of Junior year–the usual columns (size, setting, rankings, accept rates, average SATs, COA, etc) and comments after website-viewing (such as whether there is an honors program or strong study abroad or internship program). D didnt pay much attention to the details on this spreadsheet!</p>
<p>And then a second sheet (narrowed down to about 15 colleges) created in the spring of Junior year with additional columns for application procedures (SAT IIs required? Interviews considered? ED or EA options? supplemental essays --if yes we made sure she visited so she had something to write about!)), FA (is the school need blind? meet 100% of need with grants? average FA grant? merit awards available? average merit grant, % receiving merit grants, average indebtedness of grads?) and space for comments about what D liked and didn’t like about each school when she made visits. D payed attention to this sheet!</p>
<p>The final list, now active, is helping D manage the applications (n= 8): it includes deadlines (for application, FA forms, scholarship essays, honors program apps), fall open house dates, interview dates, names of people she met (e.g., coaches, chairs, profs, admission folk), thank yous sent?, username and passwords to check application materials/status, and final columns for admissions decisions and FA/merit awards.</p>
<p>She doesnt have the time/ mental energy when school is in session to handle a ton of applications, so the effort put into making a solid list of prospective schools early on and using junior year vacation breaks & summer to visit a dozen schools has been a good strategy for us .Fewer applications for her to focus on in earnest this fall. The research also enabled us to remove colleges we believe are simply unaffordable for us (those w/ high COA, low FA grant averages, high student indebtedness, and her stats put her in the middle 50% --so merit awards would be unlikely or small). Of her final 8, only three are a financial crapshoot.</p>
<p>I would also recommend that your children plan on having all testing done by the end of junior year and the common application/draft of main essay done in August. With good research on colleges they would like to attend, they can set personal goals for the ACT, SAT, and SAT IIs. My D met her goals by June and she was able to switch gears to the application work in August. </p>
<p>I think the spreadsheets have helped D stay on task, reduced nagging from me and have given me an enjoyable role on this process.</p>
<p>I agree with pathways strategies 100%. I asked my kids the fall of their junior year how they would like to utilize my skills and services as part of their college application process. I stated that as part of the parent-with-a-kid-soon-to-leave-the-nest cycle, it would be meaningful to me to help if I was wanted.</p>
<p>Both my kids agreed that I could be the keeper of the spreadsheet. We would set a time to talk about this subjects at a mutually agreed upon time, and I would make sure I knew everything pro and con that my D and now S were thinking in terms of college. In junior year it was more about making sure they were exploring a range of colleges and arranging travel to visit (many out-of-state, lots of driving, some hotels), and by early September of senior year we had a list of safeties/targets/reaches that met our finances and also allowed for a range of locations. </p>
<p>The most important spreadsheet is the one you’ll work on early senior year to track schools you are most likely to apply. Key fields to track:</p>
<p>Name of School
Application Status (Applied 12/1/2011, or Accepted, or Accepted/$Merit
Addmissions Link
Pre-application (some schools asked for online forms filled out prior to application deadline)
e-mail ID (email you told the colleges to use for you … we created a separate ID for college application process with a college appropriate username)
Login ID
Password
Visit Date
Major Identified (example: College of Engineering/Electrical)
Early Application Deadline
Regular Application Deadline
Add’l (Honors) Application
Common App?
Supplemental App?
Unique App?
Application Fee
Secondary School Report Req’d
High School Transcript Req’d
1Q Grades Req’d
Mid-year School Report
Guidance Counselor Forms
Guidance Counselor Recommendation Needed?
Letters of Recommendation (names of teachers that you will ask and status)
SAT College code to send tests
ACT Collge code to send tests
SAT or ACT (which one is accepted)
SAT II Subject Tests (which ones are req’d, if any)
AP Credit (is college likely to give AP credit for classes you have a 3, 4 or 5)
Interview Req’d (list interviewer name and date)
Merit Aid potential
Contact Name (usually an admissions counselor you met)
Contact e-mail
Contact phone number
CSS Deadline (CSS available at Collegeboard.org)
CSS Profile ID
FAFSA Deadline (fafsa.ed.gov)
FAFSA ID
Other Financial Aid Info.
Housing Info
Address for Application Info:</p>