Parent or Student - Who "actually" drives the college admissions process?

Applying to College
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That is a different thing…I was talking getting accepted not selecting the school.

The kid did lots of hard work to get accepted, arguably far more than the parents. Obviously this description is extreme and offensive and toxic, but I really don’t like negating hard work of teens, one of them could be reading this and feel even worse about their awful parent situation - implying what they did in the classroom didn’t matter (it did!). Teens have little control, given costs involved. For parents who are full pay, dropping 250K is no light matter…(and if not full pay can be as much or more of a huge deal though princeton has great aid so less of an issue in this case).

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There is a big difference between partnering or guiding your children during what can be a complicated process and doing it all for them (as described above). Frankly, what those parents did was a form of cheating and they did their child no favor by doing it. It showed a complete lack of normal boundaries .

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I’m not saying that the kid didn’t work hard or that they aren’t deserving but pointing out that it is cheating to have your parents write your college essays (even if it is against your will) shouldn’t be a controversial stance. Parents are often well intentioned when they are willing to go to extremes to get their kids into college, but by doing so they are taking away their child’s agency and sense of self worth. Unfortunately, this behavior doesn’t always end once kids are at college - a good friend is a college professor and she has parents call her constantly about their kids (even though she can’t disclose anything) hoping to intercede on their behalf.

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As parents, we have a lot of experience/knowledge that it’s helpful for our kids to have, including what living with a heavy debt load can be like.

At the same time, this is an incredible opportunity for kids to make a big decision, to imagine who they want to be in the world, and to make it so. If parents are too involved, they deprive their kids of that empowering life skill and lesson. And ofyen, the choices, while different, are all good, so it’s no lose.

All that said, some kids will be off and running on their own early on while others may need prodding to get out of their present for a while to work on their futures.

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Like a number of you, I’ve helped with the research and list building phase, but I expect my DS25 to own the application phase. This is my second go-round, so I feel comfortable helping my son think through what he cares about, then helping him build a list of potential options. He’s so busy and stressed with school and sports and extra curriculars, that i know it would be hard for him to take the time to think about this now, if I weren’t helping. I don’t ever want to be that person who nags, or who talk college all the time and makes it a chore or a source of anxiety. But I try to work what he’s interested in to conversations during dinner or while we drive somewhere. In this way, I’ve gotten some ideas about what he cares about generally (school size, distance from home, school spirit, political climate of the state/area, general geography of city/suburban/rural) and we’ve talked more specifically about what he might major in and why - and I’ve made some suggestions based on what he’s said for other alternatives, in case any of those appealed to him. And as we’ve talked about other things - his older brother will be doing a term abroad - he’s added things like “I might like to do some study abroad” which has added something else to the list of things to consider in a college.

So I try to ask questions to see what he cares about and what’s interesting to him, then I am building him lists of colleges - trying to hit all his must haves and as many of his nice to haves as possible, while also checking to make sure they are affordable, and that there’s a range of reaches and likelies and safeties. I’ve planned the visits, because it’s pretty tightly choreographed in terms of driving distances and times and my leave from work.

But when we visit, he will ask the questions, and when we are done, he’ll record his opinions. If he asks mine, I’m going to stay as neutral as I can, until he comes to a final conclusion. After we visit, if it turns out that he doesn’t like enough of the schools on the list, then they will come off the list and, hopefully I’ll have a good enough idea based on the visits about what appealed and what didn’t, to help him find some new schools to add to the list.

I don’t want him to apply to a ridiculous amount of schools - that’s a waste of time and money, not to mention stressful - but I am going to be pushy about making sure he has the right mix of schools and not all reaches. One school he’s thinking about is rolling admission - if he gets in to that school, and knows he’d be happy to go there, then he can drop any of his safeties or other schools that are less appealing to him. But until that first admit comes in, that is the one thing I’m going to push on - that he find more than one safety school that he thinks he could be happy at, should that be his only choice. So one thing I guess I would “drive” is the process to make sure that he has good safety options.

Once he gets a solid list, though, that’s where he takes over. He’ll be the one that drafts his essays (although I’ll proofread if he asks) and he’ll fill out the applications and manage any other to-do’s. I’m sure I’ll remind him of deadlines, because deadlines, frankly, are his biggest weakness area. But it’s his job to get it done. I’ll probably ask him a few times over the summer to work on his applications, because I know he won’t want to do it during the school year - but that’s ok, because he’s already told me that he’s committed to getting applications done before school starts his senior year. So as long as I’m not harping on him, he’ll appreciate the reminder.

When it comes time to choose a school, I’m sure I’ll have a favorite. But it will be kept in my head. It’s his choice, and needs to be the right fit for him.

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For those that are interested in the Mid-west, we felt this way about Minn/St.Paul, and many were lower cost than New England.

Same here. I also created regional travel plans for future visits. All for naught as my kid wouldn’t even look at them. But it made me very excited :rofl: Although he wasn’t interested, it was a good way for me to track predicted costs, scholarships, special programs, etc. once acceptances came out so that we could compare apples to apples.

Always build your list from “safeties” on up. If your first visit is to a safety and your kid falls in love, life becomes so much easier. Resist the urge to then make them feel like they should be looking for some reach schools to just see what happens.

Also, rolling admissions is awesome. S23 was accepted to Iowa State the first week of senior year so he knew he had one in the bag. I always push ISU and UI for a kid that really needs an early acceptance to calm the nerves. It is online and you can tell by their RAI if you have met their acceptance criteria right away. It then takes about a week to get an official acceptance which is a super exciting personalized video. He then heard from his top 3 schools all on the same day in mid-October while we were visiting the school he ultimately ended up attending. His applications were sent in as soon as the common app opened, or sooner if the school released their app earlier. Senior year was definitely stress-free after that. And I’m glad he got to really enjoy it.

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Great suggestion. When I say Boston, I mean “Boston.” It’s the one I am familiar with. Any place where you can visit several different kinds of school works great.

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I think the process is very different for students who have strong high school counseling vs. students who have none. For the former (not our experience), I can see how parents could hang back and allow the student and counselor to take the lead, maybe answering questions and offering input at key times. For the latter, there might not be a process at all unless the parent at least gets it rolling.

I remember that D22, while ambitious and interested in the idea of college, was overwhelmed at the thought of thousands of possible choices and already stressed by the rigors of ECs and The Most Rigorous Courseload. I finally cajoled her into giving me some general preferences (little or no Greek life, warm weather, strong cohort of serious students, etc.), and I set about making a spreadsheet of plausible fits that could potentially be within budget. We talked about the various options and started eliminating them; once were down to 15-20, we took opportunities to visit the ones that were close to home or within reasonable distance of relatives/planned vacation spots. It wasn’t until the actual preparation of the application, and particularly the essays, that she took over. She read me her various Common App drafts and I offered general thoughts, but I never saw most of her supplementals.

D26 is already asking me to start her spreadsheet, except she has fewer preferences so the narrowing process will take longer.

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I always felt like my job, as a parent, was to help my kids find “the bottom of the list.” Schools they will be happy even if things go sideway. Like helping DD see that the first thing she would rather compromise was geographic location. Reaches are easy and they seem to do a good job of finding those on their own.

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As mentioned, S23 went to BS with great college counseling, but one thing I found really interesting that they had them do was pick 5 colleges. Not colleges they necessarily wanted to go to. Just any five. They then had them research various aspects of these colleges and compare them (how many years guaranteed on-campus housing, how many years required to live on campus, gen ed requirements, class size, special programs, study abroad, support services, clubs available, enrollment, majors offered, common data set information ). The point wasn’t for them to learn about a specific college, but to learn how to navigate the websites and how different schools could be. While doing that, they were also exposed to things they would/wouldn’t want in a school. It was a great exercise, but I realize many kids wouldn’t do this if it was not part of a required class.

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You are right, but not all guidance counselors are the same so I think a lot of parents who value higher education jump in to fill that gap. And then of course there are also kids with learning disabilities who will excel at school but struggle with things like executive functioning or ADHD paralysis and being overwhelmed which might require a little more guidance. I don’t think it is one size fits all. However, no matter what the kids should be driving the process and have the ultimate say. (I say that as someone with ADHD who is now a tenured professor)

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My daughter is the guide, but I am doing a lot of the legwork because she’s just so darn busy! I’d find schools/programs for her to check out. She would evaluate the programs and decide if a visit/contact/application was warranted.

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Ours was a combined effort, b/c they started out with less knowledge and the schools and the process. They had a strong counseling dept at their school, but the one assigned to older s was new and knew nothing about him. We filled out all the forms and listed his interests and ECs and test scores. DS is (was) a quiet, shy kid, Eagle Scout, interested at the time in robotics and physics , ruled out one school b/c it was known for having too many drugs and this new counselor suggested…. Hampshire!!! Um, no! So I spoke to the head of the counseling dept who was a friend (she sadly just passed away) and she looked over my s’s forms and recommended the perfect school, which he attended.

Younger s went to several college fairs and school presentations. I also helped him
When he announced that he wanted to go to school where he could ski in the morning and go to the beach in the afternoon (so we visited Southern California). He applied to 4 but really liked one particular school that had informal “rolling” admissions and heard early, so never bothered to finish the 1 or 2 half finished apps.

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Let’s not forget that a kid asking a parent for help, or accepting reasonable help, IS driving the process. The kid is smart enough to know what they don’t know and that they need help. It’s when a kid needs extreme hand holding or a parent wants to take over the decision making that one should perhaps take a step back and re-evaluate.

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Oh, and the other thing I’m going to push on - nothing goes on the list if there isn’t a reasonable likelihood that it will be affordable. So if the listed cost is above our budget, then we need to have checked the common data set to see what the average merit award is, and how many kids get them (because we won’t qualify for need based aid). My older son had one that was a financial reach - they give some merit aid, but not to many students. Because he had above average stats for them, and had a coach recruiting him for a team (no athletic $$ at the school though) he had high hopes for merit aid. And overall, it was his favorite school and top choice. No merit aid came through and it went off his list. Every other school was less of a gamble - either it was under our budget outright, or they had a history of awarding significant merit aid to a larger number of students. I don’t want my son wasting his time on a “dream” school that will never be within the budget. The budget we’ve set is generous, and there are plenty of schools that will come in within range, so this shouldn’t be too onerous.

There are really only two things I care strongly about and that I will drive: (1) that there be more than one good safety choice, that DS would be happy at; and (2) that all the schools on his list be affordable on it’s face or with a reasonable likelihood of becoming affordable with merit aid. I don’t feel like I need to pick which schools meet these criteria, just that the eventual list needs to include some.

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count me in the group of parents disappointed by their kid not wanting to do college tours :joy: Despite D22 applying to 16, we only went on 5 college tours. I would have been happy to check out the rest, she didn’t think it was necessary.

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I am one of the parents who drove the process because my kids had zero interest in doing so. I did worry a bit that their lack of motivation meant that they would fail at college, but my daughter is set to graduate her college in May and has a 3.8 GPA. I don’t know what my sophomore son’s GPA is, but it’s much better than it was in high school. They are both super happy where they ended up. As I said in a prior post, it just isn’t the school culture to go anywhere other than a few in-state universities so doing college visits, researching, and making lists was a foreign concept and not something they wanted to make time for.

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My son HATED college tours. We did two total and one was (begrudgingly) at his sister’s school. He went to his college site unseen and it’s worked out great.

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Ok… So who has a great list of “soft” criteria I can give D25 to rate 1-5 as we go on our grand tour? Does anyone have a college tour worksheet of sorts?

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It is 100% going to depend on what is important to your D.

I really like this thread: Personal college ranking

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