<p>were we all on the same reproductive cycles?? Another 10th/college freshman here. Poor youngest was dragged on so many college tours I didn’t think she’d ever want to go herself. Although some buzz seems to be starting at school… it’s mostly among eldest, as someone else said. Our experience was that those who had watched their older siblings endure the process wanted to put it off as long as possible.</p>
<p>I’m trying to instill an open mind in my D with regards to colleges. Will never tell her if a school is “good” or “bad” will just tell her things I know about it. </p>
<p>Just like you parents with a different older sibling, she is a totally different kid than either of her parents, so we are in less well known territory for schools. </p>
<p>20 years ago I applied to maybe 5 schools, don’t remember how I picked them, there were all schools I knew and had good engineering/comp sci programs. Went to Cornell Eng and had a great time, large lectures were not a problem for me as I never participated in class in high school anyway.</p>
<p>H went to community college for 2 years, then xfer to U of AZ for a time, was overwhelmed by the size and the transition from cc, then xfered to Northern AZ U from where he graduated after 5.5 years (total) The cc first then state school was what his brothers did also, there was never a choice in his family. He isn’t totaly sold on the paying a private school tuition thing.</p>
<p>So since Ds go to a small school with 10-15 person classes they are used to round table discussions, and she is definitely a humanities kid. Also went to Exeter summer program last year and likes that model of education. It will be a LAC for her. Our biggest question right now is how the stats at her small private school compare with the college stats regarding class rank, GPA etc. They have grade deflation and in a class of 65 kids from 40 surrounding towns she is only top 20% by our estimation. We are “allowed” access to their naviance data until mid junior year.</p>
<p>momof3sons – what SAT IIs are your twins taking at the end of 10th grade? That’s not even talked about where I live. Older D took 3 of them at end of jr. year, after AP CalculusBC, AP Biology, and AP US History. My 10th grade S is now in Pre-calculus. Is that enough math for the SAT II?? He’s also taking AP European History, but there’s no SAT II in that, unfortunately.</p>
<p>Welcome to the dads! </p>
<p>sxm2872, your daughter’s stats sound amazing - and at least you know you have a guaranteed acceptance if she continues this way. We won’t know D’s class rank until the end of her junior year - we know she has an outstanding GPA, we just don’t know how many others are similarly high. Our plan is for D to take her second SAT II this June (first was taken last June). She’ll take the PSAT in Oct., the SAT in either the winter or spring (depending on PSAT score), maybe the ACT in the spring, and her last SAT IIs in June of next year. If she needs to retake anything, that will be in fall of senior year. College visits will be mainly during junior year when we can fit them into her busy schedule.</p>
<p>BengalMom, our process with D was very, very easy. She applied to one school EA, got in, and never looked back. She was also top of her high school class, stellar scores, completely self-motivated, etc, etc. S does not have an intellectual bone in his body; he has never read a book for pleasure in his life (and given my screen name you can imagine how that pains me.) He has terrific social skills, something his sister lacked until recently, and he’s motivated enough to do pretty well in school, in a mix of regular and honors classes. However, he’s a poor standardized test taker (ACT, here we come!) If only there were a test that measured sports knowledge! 
He goes to a highly regarded suburban public high school which sends a lot of kids to the Ivies and similar schools. So it’s going to be an interesting couple of years…</p>
<p>It looks like college freshman S is more interested in where his Sis should be looking than she is. He is full of ideas from his experience. I think they will be very similar in stats, but very different in ECs. She is all sports all the time and he was SC pres and theater. It will be interesting. I am waiting for her peers to motivate her.</p>
<p>"BengalMom, our process with D was very, very easy. She applied to one school EA, got in, and never looked back. "</p>
<p>This is a beautiful thing.</p>
<p>booklady, your son sounds a lot mine with exception of high sports intrest. ACT here we come too! I want to qualify this a bit. My son does like to read on occasion, but he is not a book worm. He has actually read some books for enjoyment, but I would not say that I could write out a list of 50 (more like 7-8 during hs which were unassigned, and lots of magazine articles).</p>
<p>northeastmom, I’d be delighted with the 7-8! S does read Sports Illustrated, if that counts at all…</p>
<p>zoosermom, ain’t it though? If only it would work this time around!</p>
<p>“zoosermom, ain’t it though? If only it would work this time around!”</p>
<p>Confession: I have a small, secret list of EA or rolling schools that have the classics major. No one tell my daughter, please.</p>
<p>ivoryk, I think someone told us that three years was ideal spacing. Then we forgot about college overlap. Who could think that far ahead?</p>
<p>Booklady – LOL! I love it. I can relate. Good luck to both of us. And congrats on D’s EA acceptance. What a relief! :)</p>
<p>ivoryk: welcome, and yes, three years does seem to be a popular interval between kids, although my next child won’t be graduating HS until 2015. When D2 goes off to college it’s almost going to feel weird to not to go to college fairs/admissions tours/open houses, etc. for a couple of years until D3 starts taking the PSATs.</p>
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<p>Lol, Zoosermom, my daughter was initially put off from Skidmore because of its name.</p>
<p>Actually, speaking of Rutgers, I noticed that a few different posters in this thread expressed interest in it. We’re in southeastern PA, so, location-wise, it could potentially work out well for my D. But I have been hearing in the news for the past couple of years that NJ has been slashing its higher education budget rather significantly, so I was wondering about the level of resources(i.e., course offerings, number of instructors, etc.) at Rutgers. My daughter definitely seems to favor LACs, but she’s also going to need to look at public universities as financial safeties. We’ll probably visit U. Pittsburgh over the next year, and possibly check out the SUNY schools, particularly Binghamton, since it’s supposed to have a relatively strong English department. But I’ve read a lot of mixed reviews about Binghamton on CC. I remember reading that the now Ex-Governor Spitzer, was proposing to turn Albany and Buffalo in the NY state flagship universities. I’ve also read a lot of positive feedback about SUNY New Paltz on CC, so we’ll see. If anybody here has any thoughts/feedback about the SUNY system, I’d appreciate it.:)</p>
<p>zoosermom, D is a Classics major. (And I promise not to let your D know about the list!)</p>
<p>momonthehill, we’re in SE PA also, and S has expressed interest in Rutgers. I’m very interested in what the NJ folks have to say about it, as well as the New Yorkers’ take on the various SUNY schools.</p>
<p>D is going to take Latin and maybe Chem SAT IIs in June. She is taking AP Psych in May, self studying, actually she took a psych class last summer and has expressed interest in it, so thought she would study for the exam.</p>
<p>Plan is to take Math II and USH SatIIs next year as a Junior. </p>
<p>Don’t know about the Chem this year. Think that spreading them out and not taking 3 next year would be better. She is doing Honors Chem but there are several topics on the SAT which she will not cover in class. We’re going to wait and see if she wants to take the time to study the extra topics. You can make the descision (change from 2 to 1 test) the day of the exam, is that correct? She is in H Alg II this year so will wait and take math next year after Pre-Calc.</p>
<p>booklady,
We are the same person! S applied to one school, SCEA, done. And he’s a classics major! 10th grade D has not wanted to go to an Ivy League school from birth like her brother – she hates reading, doesn’t care what’s going on in the world, just wants to have fun. She wants to go to NYU, so she can party and give me a coronary – or any school with hot guys and lots of snow.</p>
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<p>And it’s the same school. </p>
<p>S doesn’t much care for cities, but other than that he and your D sound quite similar. It’s nice to have a bunch of fellow parents in the same boat!</p>
<p>Hi fellow parents of 10th graders. Nice to know I’m not the only one thinking of colleges so early. D is really not so focused on colleges, which for her is good, because i think the next year of high school is going to be a bear, and she will need to focus.</p>
<p>My concern is when should we start discussing finances? Gee, I had no idea private college tuition is like $50K. I’d always thought I would tell D (and S to follow in 3 years) go ahead apply anywhere you want. But somehow I thought tuition + room was like $30K. Turns out even the state school is $25K. We live in CA, so we have a lot of good public choices. Financially, I don’t think we would get need based aid, but paying $50K a year will still be painful. I’m tempted to tell D to either skip private schools or apply to only top tier private schools (where the extra cost is more easily justified), but I hate to limit her. On the other hand, is it fair to let her go thru the whole process, and then tell her she shouldn’t go somewhere because of the cost. </p>
<p>In terms of fit, I think she would get along fine at a big UC or a LAC.</p>
<p>Excellent point, need2Breath. I was thinking about the same thing after reading posts like “Crushed Dreams, Financial Reality”. One could perhaps make a case that 50K+ for HYPS is worth it. If the child does not get into HYPS, but is good enough to get into Duke, JHU, Rice etc. - how do people feel about shelling out 50K+ for these schools as opposed to accepting a half or full-ride from the local state university (such as U-Mich or UT Austin)? I am thinking of sitting down with our rising junior sometime late next year and explaining to her our rationale so that she is not surprised come decision time.</p>
<p>jackief - my D is in honors chem and I was told that now is the time to take the SAT II. Her teacher told me that their class covers the curriculum for the SAT II better than AP Chem. I have been told that the right time to take the Math SAT II is after Pre-Calc. So, our plan is for D to take the Chem SAT II this June, and then the Math and US History SAT IIs next June. Someone on another thread recommended that the language SAT II test be taken in June of senior year because it could be used for placement at some schools. I think that was a great suggestion because I know that a lot of people do worse than expected on their language tests.</p>