“How many parents of teenagers have successfully been able to make their kids like or not like something? It’s one thing if you don’t have to worry about a budget for college - that makes finding safeties much easier. However, I had to accept that both of my kids were not going to love their safety schools and that was ok with me.”
I don’t think this is the winning approach. The point is not to make a teenager like something they hate. The point is to figure out something lovable about each and every school on the list and to get rid of the “safety” and sloppy seconds terminology and thinking.
IRL I observe parents sabotaging themselves every day. They plan a fun trip to Boston, which consists of Harvard and BC tours on day one, Northeastern tour on day two, and then a day three which consists of a Brandeis drive-by, tour at Babson, and a cup of coffee near Stonehill because it’s dark by then and there’s nothing to see.
Then the SAT scores come back and Harvard is a total waste of time, Brandeis is a high high high reach, Northeastern (which was only affordable with merit) becomes a pipe dream, and the kid “hates” Stonehill and has now decided that Boston is done, the goal is NYC, so the parents repeat the entire exercise with Columbia, NYU, and Fordham. Someone like me asks “Did you look at Baruch or Queens” and the answer is “why tour the safety school?”
That’s how you create a kid who is miserable come April with a couple of “awful” choices and much teeth grinding over how competitive the process is.