<p>We are still visiting too. UPenn and Swarthmore and Amherst his week. Want to visit some safeties too but having a hard time figuring out exactly what that means. Schools like Jhu, Wash U, Northwestern and similar where most kids I know in real life end up who are rejected by HYPSM? Or a place where admission is pretty assured? If so, how on earth do you pick? I started a separate thread on this, and got some helpful thoughts but also abuse for being arrogant. Sigh. If you post on this list and are aiming at super selective schools, what are your safeties?</p>
<p>S1’s campus tours & interviews are DONE… and the last of nine football camps/recruiting days is next Monday. Teacher and GC recs are DONE. Can I have an AMEN, please?</p>
<p>He heads off to a week-long leadership retreat this morning… and has another week away at football camp for his own team (in lieu of double sessions) during the last week of August. He is half-way through the third of four summer reading books… then has to write an essay for one of them. He also has to have a rough draft of his common app essay for the first week of school… so I won’t pressure him to get the rest of the common app filled out as a priority, at this point.</p>
<p>we still have a bunch of visits scheduled for the end of the month/beginning of September when D gets back from her summer job. I am excited to finally look at some of these schools so we know whether or not to keep them on the list.</p>
<p>Angier, A safety is a school where your kids stats are above the top range of accepted students. We also talk about on this site about financial safeties and academic safeties. Usually that is one and the same but not always. The key is finding a school that fits your son or daughter’s interests major-wise and socially. The more colleges you visit, the more the kids will hone down what they like. </p>
<p>To get suggestions on schools most parents list their kids interests, must-have’s (this can include good merit aid, football, urban, etc), and stat’s. For instance, my son is looking for a college that has computer science and information science or systems, but not just computer science. He’s a B student with low to mid-range SAT’s and would like a school generally east of the Mississippi. Co-op’s would be a plus. With that chunk of information I’ve gotten some very good suggestions.</p>
<p>So, what is your child looking for Aniger?</p>
<p>Last night, D’s boyfriend had to cancel their date because his dad was making him work on college apps. Pretty improbable since he’s visited only two schools and wasn’t wild about either. Maybe the dad is trying to light a fire under him.</p>
<p>daughter has finished very rough draft on common app essay and additional activity…needs to fill out the other stuff and figure out supplements…
did anyone else notice that some of the supplements have not been updated yet? some of the links aren’t working and others still have 2010 admissions on them…apparently the colleges don’t guarantee that they are updated until September; makes it a little difficult to finish essays before school starts…</p>
<p>one can explore elsewhere to find out what the supplemental essays are…</p>
<p>Rodney: I remember from my S’s application process that some of the schools are always tardy in uploading their supplement information. Would have driven me nuts, except for the fact that he hadn’t finished any of the ones that were up in the first place. Right now, enough for my D to start in on.</p>
<p>Tally Ho!</p>
<p>D1 tells me she’s started on the Common App, but I’m not sure if that means she’s fillling in blanks on the paper printout or if it means putting information into the electronic form. She hasn’t done a draft version of any essays, though she’s got themes in mind. School doesn’t start untl mid-September, so she does have a little more time then some of y’all’s kids.</p>
<p>Are any of you going down the ED path? This weekend confirmed for me that it’s definitely not for D1. The new academic love of her life is Wesleyan. It’s been on and off her radar for awhile, but after a talk with a a family friend who just graduated, she’s smitten. This after a long period of being smitten with Tufts. She’s also smitten with Muhlenberg and UMCP, so I’m not worried about her having her heart broken come next April 1. However, it’s pretty clear that she’s not ready to settle down and get hitched yet. :)</p>
<p>Aniger, one thing about safeties is that they can depend a great deal on your child’s high school’s reputation. If “schools like Jhu, Wash U, Northwestern and similar where most kids I know in real life end up who are rejected by HYPSM” is really true, and you’ve confirmed with your child’s college GC that JHU etc etc would be safeties for your child, then that’s fine. Otherwise, when you look at the stats and profiles for these schools, they don’t look like a safeties for anyone.</p>
<p>I reminded D that the common app was out - but all I got back in response was a grin and a shrug. She had indeed gone through the paper preview version earlier and prepared most of the answers - so, no hurry to do the electronic version yet! She’s busy spending the day with friends and I am pretty sure no work is going to get done! Several of her friends are getting together later in August for a common-app party along with an aunt who happens to be a GC. But we are on vacation that week - so have to miss this party! Good motivation to get these apps filled out for the rest of them though!</p>
<p>We are back in Western MA this weekend to pick up my S from camp. Also planned on visiting a college or two while we were there. D has indicated that the one she really wants to visit is Amherst College. Apparently our drive-by last week convinced her she should visit! If a friend joins us, we might also add U Mass Amherst to the list, although she is not really keen on visiting/applying here.</p>
<p>Kathiep - I am with you on enjoying the visits/time spent with D. Since H has been out of town and S is at camp, it’s just been D and me the past couple of weeks. We’ve enjoyed our time together, reading, visiting schools, watching the Red Sox (gosh, what an exciting last two days there!) and even cleaning the deck!</p>
<p>I second kathie’s suggestion on safeties - there was a really wonderful device from one of the safeties threads, maybe even from kathie herself, where you take the 5 most important things from what you kid wants in a school (as she mentions: major, size, location, cost, whatever else), and find a couple of schools that meet these criteria and have good admission percentages, and where your kid is in the top 25% stat-wise. Sometimes they are publics, and sometimes privates that are slightly less selective or less well-known.</p>
<p>Yes - these schools’ selectivity and often their prestige factor will be lower, but this is part of the “love thy safety” attitude: that you can have what you want, even if you get rejected by the schools that are likely to reject you. This is where maturity and open-mindedness really get put to the test, and the other threads will tell you how people have lived through that.</p>
<p>I’m starting to suspect that prestige and “bragging rights” (eg how they - or we - want to answer the “where are you going next year” question) are at the root of a reluctance to add safeties to their list. Yes, there are issues of “quality” (however defined - I won’t go there), and fit (which is definitely important). But so often it’s just a question of image or some dream that doesn’t entirely have to do with the school itself, like wanting to be in a certain part of the country, or at a big sports powerhouse, or thinking they absolutely have to do such-and-such to get into med school. If you drop the prestige factor, these goals can almost always be met somehow.</p>
<p>My D has a couple of safeties that are local publics. At this point she’s decided not to have privates that are easier to get into than her favorites, even though there are many she could choose that resemble the ones she wants. I’m intrigued by why she is OK with these schools as possibly her only 2 choices when all is said and done, because she finds them so “typical,” and like many kids she wants to have a “new” experience for college. </p>
<p>In terms of applying the “what she wants” test to these schools: She does have a geographical preference, but she also hasn’t decided to have any safeties that will guarantee she is out there. Her biggest, and extremely overshadowing, preference is for an excellent program in her area(s) of interest. These local publics provide that, and that seems to be enough for her. Also they are in cities that offer a ton of opportunities, which also is big on her list, even if they are close to home. We’ll see how that feels in a few months, but I’m OK with it, since we’ve talked about it and looked around a lot.</p>
<p>Hi parents, please help me! I’m a rising senior and I’ve reached panic mode. I don’t even have a list yet while everyone else is already working on their applications!! I’m an intl student and we visited colleges over the summer but the entire trip was disastrous (perhaps that’s a strong word) but I felt we didn’t get our money’s worth. The list of colleges to visit was put together haphhazardly by me and comprised almost entirely of reaches. NONE of the colleges “clicked” with me and never did I feel as though I belonged there, as other CCers mentioned. I don’t know whether this was because I was so unhappy about some family issues that I couldn’t focus; or because I was so unsure about even getting into those big reaches that I couldn’t like anything; or because those colleges weren’t right for me in the first place. Now I only have a marginally better idea of what I want, reduced confidence and LOTS of panic. I don’t even have a list yet.</p>
<p>I want to work bottoms up for my list. Till now I was reluctant to consider true safeties because I’l be paying full tuition (unless I get merit aid) but now I’ve realised that my thinking was wrong and that I really need a proper safety. I also can’t figure out how accurate my own appraisel of myself as a candidate is. Do I overestimate or underestimate myself? So basically, I am very lost right now.</p>
<p>SmellyH - you have not given enough information to ellicit any specific advice. What scools did you visit and find lacking? What are your stats? What do you want to study? What size school would you prefer?</p>
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<p>But the trip wasn’t disasterous. You visited the schools and decided they weren’t for you. Better to find that now than after you start attending. List specific things you liked and disliked about each school. Then use the college board or CC college search to help better identify schools that might provide a better fit. And most certainly do find a safety you will love attending. As for over/underestimating yourself, how about accurately estimating yourself? I imagine you have a GPA and have taken the SAT, use those as a basis to see where you fit, you can find that data in the common data set for most colleges.</p>
<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>Not much new except poor S has impetigo again-no wonder he felt awful on his trip to NY over the weekend!</p>
<p>He is somewhat more motivated but still not attacking the process! I have so many other things right now going on that I cannot spend any more energy on his search. He is very much a procrastinator and after years of trying (and failing) to change my husband in this area I realize there is only so much I can do-I have information, I have talked to him, he has at least started the process as much as he is going to and I need to accept that is just the way he is. </p>
<p>I will say that compared to his friends in this process he is not in bad shape at all-I like things done yesterday and he will think about starting them next week so I have to keep that in mind. </p>
<p>SH I don’t think you should look at the trip as a disaster. My son hasn’t even thought about looking at the common app let alone an essay-nor does he have any solid list of schools. He had a good trip this weekend in the sense that he told me he is at least starting to figure out where he might like to be and more where he wouldn’t like to be-and still has no solid idea on a major.</p>
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<p>poor kid. hope he feels better soon.</p>
<p>Has anyone looked at McGill? Insight welcome. Thanks.</p>
<p>A neighbor friend of S1 is a Canadian citizen, and looked at McGill a few years ago. For him, it was a case for the CC thread, “Schools you crossed off your list after visiting.” His interest at McGill fell cold because he saw it as old and in dire need of upgrades & repair. He opted for University of Western Ontario, instead… much bigger, newer, more urban. He also reports UWO has a highly regarded business school…which is his intended major. He will be a Jr there this fall.</p>
<p>I don’t mean the trip was disastrous but … hoping for anonymity on the internet let’s put it this way… there were some “family issues” which made me unhappy and maybe clouded my entire thinking process. Also, when the colleges are very similar, how do you make a list? Is it ok to put something as silly as “I love the transport”?</p>
<p>@Angier
a lot of kids in my school who look at McGill also look at UBC and UofT. Might want to check those out too.</p>
<p>University of Western Ontario more urban than McGill??? How do you get more urban than being in the middle of downtown Montreal?</p>
<p>Some prospective students on CC also indicated that Harvard was too old and “smelled funny” so they crossed it off their list. LOL</p>
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<p>Hey, you’ve got to eliminate schools some way. Maybe easier to say you don’t want to go to Harvard because it smells funny than because you’d never be admitted there.</p>
<p>Several years ago we were in Boston, so we rode the train up to see Harvard…not that I thought any of my kids would ever get in, but to see if it would spark a great academic desire in them…they were not interested or impressed in the least.</p>