<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>New to forum.
My D is a high school sophomore who’s ranked #1 in a class of 400+.
She’s got plenty of extracurriculars, great PSAT scores and plenty of AP courses.</p>
<p>My question is, what’s next?</p>
<p>Do students like get recruited for their academics?
or, is it a matter of applying to a number of quality schools and seeing what they have to offer?</p>
<p>I’m sure I’ll have plenty more questions over the next few years and I’m glad to be part of this forum.</p>
<p>Come join our thread for the HS class of 2013, we’ve got all types of students including some high achievers as well. Many of us have been through the process before too so we can offer some advice. </p>
<p>The main though is just have her keep doing well and seek out opportunities that match what she is passionate about - be they academic or athletic or otherwise. This is both her time to shine and to try new things as well. Colleges want to see dynamic applicants that jump off the page so to speak and there are many number of ways for students to achieve this. Focus more on what she enjoys and wants to pursue and less about what matters to a school. Also, keep track of everything she does so you have it as a reference when it does come time to complete college apps. Now though is a good idea to start getting an idea of what type of college environment she’d like - big/small, LAC, science/math, urban/rural, etc. Also, make sure you get an idea now of what you can pay and what colleges will expect you to pay and use that as well when determing what schools may be a good fit!</p>
<p>Welcome, 2013pop!</p>
<p>I don’t think great students really get recruited. I think some great athletes get recruited. </p>
<p>Most admissions offices have advertising/marketing campaigns and your D will probably get a ton of mail/email from schools and you may think she’s being recruited. They do want lots of students to apply.</p>
<p>If your D is a National Merit Finalist (which will be based on her junior year PSAT scores) then she may be recruited by some schools. </p>
<p>Which schools to consider will depend on lots of variables: your income, how much you can pay and if you need financial aid, if you want merit aid vs need-based aid, what kind of environment she wants, how far to travel, what she’s interested in as a potential major, etc. If you are wealthy and price is no object your strategy will be very different than someone who needs a lot of help paying for college.</p>
<p>I think it’s great you’re here while your D is just a sophomore - I didn’t discover this place until my D was a senior. My S is a jr in HS and our search for him is very different based on what I’ve learned so far.</p>
<p>Good academics are one thing. Good financials are another. Sit down with whoever it is who is going to be helping to pay for your child’s education, and talk about where the money is going to come from. To get an idea about what the colleges will expect you to pay, run the calculators at [FinAid</a> | Calculators | Expected Family Contribution (EFC) and Financial Aid](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Expected Family Contribution (EFC) Calculator - Finaid) and at [College</a> Admissions - SAT - University & College Search Tool](<a href=“http://www.collegeboard.org%5DCollege”>http://www.collegeboard.org) If you find the results shocking, knock back a couple adult beverages of your choice, and pop on over to the Financial Aid Forum for advice relative to your particular situation.</p>
<p>Enjoy the wild ride!</p>
<p>It’s good you are starting to think about this, but maybe a little early for your daughter to start thinking too much about college (at least in my opinion, others may disagree).</p>
<p>I think the main thing is to encourage your daughter NOT to live for college admissions. She should enjoy high school, work hard, pursue her interests, hang out with friends and not focus too much on resume building or anxiety about getting in.</p>
<p>There are all kinds of ways to look into colleges: the various college review books, Pope’s “Colleges that Change Lives” and “Beyond the Ivies,” “Creative Colleges,” “Cool Colleges”- you get the idea. Websites these days are great for most schools.</p>
<p>If your child gets inundated by college mailings, that means she checked a box on her PSAT. One of my kids did that, and got a lot of mail. The other two didn’t, and got no mail at all.</p>
<p>Tips for junior year and summer after junior year:</p>
<p>Continue to take a challenging schedule, filled with college prep classes.</p>
<p>Continue to work and do well with these classes.</p>
<p>Schools look for “passion”–think about pursuing leadership positions in your favorite school activities and pushing beyond the school boundaries in your ECs and community service. </p>
<p>One thing to remember: numbers alone won’t get you into a top school.</p>
<p>One very practical thing that’s worth thinking about is the SAT Subject Tests.</p>
<p>(If you hear groans coming through your computer screen, it’s because I have discussed this subject on maybe 50 different threads.)</p>
<p>If you have any idea of what colleges your daughter might be interested in applying to – even a wild guess – look at their Web sites and see whether she might need to take any SAT Subject Tests and which ones she might need.</p>
<p>Many colleges do not require these tests, but some of the most selective colleges do.</p>
<p>If your daughter wants to apply to very selective colleges and she’s interested in science or engineering, she will probably need a science test (probably physics or chemistry for engineering) and a math test. If she’s interested in anything else, in most cases any two tests in different subject areas will do, although some schools want one of them to be math. </p>
<p>You and she need to think about what tests she might want/need to take and when. Choosing the tests is partly a matter of what tests she needs, what she’s good at, what subjects her school teaches well, and timing. </p>
<p>Timing means several things. In sequential subjects (literature, foreign language), the best time to take the Subject Test is as late as possible – usually, the end of junior year or beginning of senior year, so the student is as prepared as she can be. For Math II, the best time is at the end of whatever math course immediately precedes calculus. For one-year subjects, the best time is at the end of the year – May or June. </p>
<p>It’s possible that your daughter might want or need to take one or two Subject Tests this year, and there are still a few more weeks before the deadline for signing up for the June tests. For example, if she is taking chemistry this year and doing well in it, and if students at her school generally do well on the Chemistry Subject Test, it might be a good idea for her to take it. Or, if she’s completing precalculus now and will take calculus next year, now would be a good time to take the Math II test. </p>
<p>I realize that it may feel a little too early to be thinking about these tests, but it really isn’t. Many students take Subject Tests at the end of 10th grade. It might be a good idea for your daughter to be one of them.</p>
<p>Marian makes a good point. By the time S started planning to take his subject tests in junior year, he realized that he should have taken the Math II at the end of sophomore year, right after he completed the material. Taking it at the end of junior year meant having to review material completed a year ago.</p>
<p>My junior S took math II and chem at the end of his sophomore year, and he will take physics next month. It’s also nice to get a few of them out of they way before the test-heavy end of junior year.</p>
<p>My daughter took Math II and U.S. History at the end of sophomore year and was pleased with both scores. So she was done (although she took Spanish later because one school she was considering wanted it for placement). </p>
<p>Several of her classmates did not think to take the U.S. History test as sophomores (even though they took AP U.S. History that year just as she did) and found themselves having to review U.S. History a year later to take the test as juniors.</p>
<p>
Only to the extent that she may get mailings (depending on if she checked the mailings box on the PSAT).
Yes</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s too early to be considering schools. I especially like posts 3, 4, and 7. </p>
<p>I’d add, keep in mind that even if she keeps her current trajectory, there are an awful lot of kids who are awesome - too many for the top schools to accept. You have to find safety schools (schools you can afford, that will accept her, and that she’d like) or you may be horrified in two years. </p>
<p>Also, just because she gets email from Harvard etc, does NOT mean that they particularly want her. It just means she’s possibly qualified. Don’t take it too personally and think she’s in. (Seems obvious, but some people seem to get really excited about those mailings.)</p>