Help with college list for visits and applications

bloomfield88
Fri, 14 Feb 2020 16:31:18 +0000

The caveat to that is if it is very early on in the process a ‘type’ trip in a relatively small area is good to ‘possibly’ cross out wide swaths of schools. I did this in SoCal when all 3 of my kids were in 9th grade or younger. I am glad we did it, but it didn’t narrow the type as much as I thought it would for my three kids. Too much variation within types.

It worked for 1 out of 3 kids.
One of mine decided all giant state schools anywhere in the country and crossed off all other types.
Another crossed off all LACs and kept looking at and applied to a very diverse group of the rest, including overseas.
Another liked individual schools in every category. So, she loved this LAC, hated this one. Liked this giant state, crossed off this other giant state, etc

Really is a completely different vibe from UCSD to UCLA to UCSB and they are all within a SoCal drive and in the same UC system.
When it comes time to get serious W&L differs from Tufts differs from Bowdoin differs from the 5Cs, so a kid might apply to 3 LACs, 3 mid-size privates, 3 giant state schools.