<p>This can be a stressful time of year for families with juniors and seniors, no doubt. Hang in there! Try not to worry too much. No one, absolutely no one knows it all. Take what works, discard the rest. And for those of you with children who will be moving into dorms in the fall, get in plenty of hugs while they’re still at home! :)</p>
<p>If yours are younger than that, conserve your energy. You’re going to need it! ;)</p>
<p>"…“MOM…Guidance told us to stay off College Confidential! That it is a terrible website full of misinformation.” "</p>
<p>I give this quote of the day!</p>
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<p>Are we being perhaps just a wee bit oversensitive? I can, indeed, roll my eyes quietly, to myself, without anyone (who doesn’t know me well) ever noticing.</p>
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<p>And how in the world did we make the leap to making “sly remarks”???</p>
<p>@dodger Not over sensitive, your actions seem unnecessarily rude if the person notices. </p>
<p>I don’t see what’s wrong with going into an informational meeting with an open mind and a pleasant attitude. </p>
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That was not directed towards you.</p>
<p>I can’t tolerate GCs giving bad info.</p>
<p>Just last night I was visiting a small rural school to help with some college-going info. The GC was proudly talking about their first NMF saying she had gotten full-ride offers from every school she had applied to because of NMF. That just wasn’t true. She had gotten some need-based aid, and eventually chose one of the schools that does give a full tuition scholarship to NMF. But he was adamant that NMF would result in a full ride everywhere. I let it go. But next time they have an NMF I’ll offer to provide them with the comprehensive CC list of actual NMF scholarships :)</p>
<p>“MOM…Guidance told us to stay off College Confidential! That it is a terrible website full of misinformation.” I just laughed! At least there is a lot of information to pick through and thousands of sets of eyes to keep us focused and help us to clarify and hone. At the very least, CC can point us in the right direction and we can research from there. "</p>
<p>I think there is a lot of misinformation on threads the kids read and post on and maybe that is why the guidance counselor told the kids to stay off it - especially since most kid’s parents are not on this site and able to help the kid separate the wheat from the chaff.</p>
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Can we roll our eyes–silently, invisibly, to ourselves–when we go to the meeting with our second kid and it’s just as bad?</p>
<p>I don’t get this sense of forbearance for parents who fail to do even the most rudimentary research for what will be one of the biggest decisions for their kids and probably one of the family’s biggest expenditures. Some people don’t even do the equivalent of reading the Consumer Reports comparison of washing machines. I understand that some people don’t have the background or resources to do this–but even those who do are often stunningly clueless about the whole process.</p>
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<p>I did exactly this 2 years ago when D1 as going through the NMSF to NMF process. I went in and met with the HS’s NATIONAL MERIT COORDINATOR who had no clue whatsoever about NM scholarship opportunities other than the one-time $2500 award. This from a school that has had one or more NMFs for at least the last 10 years. Makes me wonder how many opportunities for reduced-debt or debt-free undergrad educations might’ve fallen by the wayside. At least they usually got the paperwork shuffle correct…</p>
<p>I’m ok with parents asking the “eye roll” questions at FA informational meetings, because they’re at least trying to inform themselves about the process. I’m NOT ok with the GCs running the meeting presenting incorrect or misleading information. It’s a HUGE part of their jobs, and it’s what they get PAID to do!!</p>
<p>I also can’t understand parents who don’t make any efforts to educate themselves on the various aspects of the college applications/admissions/cost process. We left our first FA info night with our parents’ voices ringing in our heads…“If something seems to good to be true, it probably is”. Telling us “don’t worry…the money will be there” wasn’t exactly the in-depth info we were hoping for. Google led to CC which led to a painful dose of reality…but a VASTLY improved college planning process. Thank God for CC!!</p>
<p>Why is it that so many students and/or parents are capable of finding CC (and other resources) and posting a rant about admissions/FA/merit “fairness”, etc. but they couldn’t or didn’t bother to look BEFORE they started the whole process?</p>
<p>It so depends on the individual kid and family. Some are going to be overconfident while others have little confidence at all. How you best help those two can be entirely different. I’m not the type to say the exact words, “don’t worry, the money will be there,” but to encourage a high achieving, low income kid who already worries a great deal about his family’s finances to put his hat in the ring, it might take effort getting him to set aside those worries long enough to brave turning in the apps to the more selective school(s). This is not to say every kid in that position needs to or should apply to those schools, by any means, just to say if the kid doesn’t turn in the app, then it’s not happening for sure.</p>
<p>No, I’m not a school guidance counselor. ;)</p>
<p>DeborahT…I don’t think anyone would tell a high achieving student from a family at any income level to not apply to selective schools, but applying with a flawed picture of reality is going into the fight unarmed. I’d encourage anyone to take their shot at selective schools if that’s where they think their heart lies, but going into it with their eyes wide-open would prevent many of the inevitable threads we see here on CC.</p>
<p>“Why was I deferred/waitlisted/rejected?”</p>
<p>“My FA package is so unfair!!”</p>
<p>“My Dream School is unaffordable and I have no safeties…what now?”</p>
<p>“Is $30K/$40K/$50K per year debt too much?”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there’s WAY too many people going into the college process completely blind and finding themselves with no affordable options and no Plan B, when in many of these cases it could’ve been avoided. There is still going to be disappointment for those that aren’t accepted to their “dream school” or find their FA package lacking, but it certainly lessens the sting when you have a better sense of realistic odds from the outset. Forewarned is forearmed…and it’s not that difficult to find the information with a modest amount of effort. </p>
<p>It’s their child’s education…what exactly were their priorities that they couldn’t put in the effort to do some research?</p>
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<p>I hear you, Wolverine. Not disagreeing with you at all on that.</p>
<p>I have an acquaintance whose son was stunningly successful in the college admissions process this year. She was very much involved. I had coffee with her this morning and asked her whether the clueless questions by other parents bothered her. Her response was very Machiavellian and went something like this: “hell no, this process is so ridiculously competitive that if they are clueless then thats probably one more acceptance letter for the children of those of us who do our homework”. So I guess this is what it has come to!</p>
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<p>My concern is that this attitude was conveyed by guidance counselors at a meeting of parents in a school with <7% of students qualifying for reduced-price meals (and I suspect those kids’ parents were least likely to be there–they probably had to be at work) in a county with a median income exceeding $100K. So, most of the parents got an incorrectly-reassuring message about the availability of financial aid. </p>
<p>That is very regrettable.</p>
<p>The one thing that makes me feel the schools might be doing something right is that people across the board end up coming out of the process feeling so covered in slime, disillusioned, disgusted, and sure it’s unfair. ;)</p>
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The one thing that makes me feel the schools might be doing something right is that people across the board end up coming out of the process feeling so covered in slime, disillusioned, disgusted, and sure it’s unfair.
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<p>I have only run into that perception on CC, not in real life.
Its also only on CC that I see students/parents absolutely * scandalized* at the thought of attending an instate public school/ taking out Direct loans.
:rolleyes:</p>
<p>It seems to me that where GCs and parents–especially of high-achieving kids–miss the boat the most often is in not having match schools. I don’t know how many kids I’ve seen who applied to several super-reaches plus an in-state safety. There’s nothing wrong with the safety, necessarily, but to some of these kids it seems to be a revelation that schools like Tufts, or Emory, or Sewanee (and on and on) exist.</p>