<p>Good to know. Thanks BunHeadMom.</p>
<p>Taking a quick break. My D, who has recently discovered fashion, and has been binge watching “what not to wear” is helping me go through my closet! Lol. I have definitely fallen into a rut over the last few ( many?) years…solid color t shirt and jeans/pants…already have quite a stack of things to get rid of. She doesn’t seem to be coming through with the $5000.00 gift card though . ;). Going back in now. Wish me luck.</p>
<p>lol shoboemom. My D13 was convinced a LONG time ago that I am completely a lost cause.</p>
<p>Wow you guys have been moving fast these few days. Last I posted I was trying to figure out how to bring 7 girls to the city for the “free” One Direction Good Morning America concert. Well, that has now turned into 13 girls as another mom got 6 tickets! The thought of trains, subways and taxi’s with just me and 13 girls was too daunting so we are splitting a limo/car service that will take us there and back. I will be sitting on the sidewalk in the freezing cold on Tuesday at 2 a.m. so think of me while you’re all warm in your beds!!</p>
<p>I am dumping D in school as soon as we get back ;)</p>
<p>Lol shoboemom…my D thinks I’m a fashion disaster and loves shopping for me :)</p>
<p>Kudos to you keepme! I am not sure I’m made of strong enough stuff to get up that early and brave the cold. Your D will love this. </p>
<p>Shoboe, my D is not into fashion but has very definite tastes and definitely thinks I have no taste at all. Have fun!</p>
<p>Do any of you run into differences of opinion with your partner as to college plans? H and I are in solid disagreement as to what schools should be on D’s college list. How do you work through that? We both want to let D lead (ok, well I do) but she is looking to us for help. I’ve already sent her to her guidance counselor and to the Fiske guide and I’m hoping that will help.</p>
<p>Keepme I fee for you as it’s been freezing here!!
Shoboe my kids do not make fun of the way I dress- they make fun of my husband!! I promised my H that over the December break I would help my D15 clean her room and organize her drawers. Right now things are all over the floor in piles and all the drawers are overflowing with stuff. Nothing closes. </p>
<p>3girls sometimes my H and I disagree but for the most part we have been on the same page. He was originally against schools that were either a long drive (10+ hours) or a plane ride- but now he realizes that we can’t hold her back from opportunity and she really needs to cast a wide net. He is still against Ohio State ( sorry OHMom) because he feels that the 10 hour car ride is too far and the school is too big, yet he is ok with schools in North Carolina and Pittsburgh ( those schools are also far). He feels NC and Georgia are an easier commute than Ohio, but I do not know how accurate he is and if my daughter wants to apply to schools in Ohio ultimately he will be ok with it. So far we are both on the same page about which schools to visit and how much we are willing to spend, which makes it easier. The other day I told him that I do not want to pay $50,000 ( too much $$ for us) but at the same time we may have to pay a little more than what our state schools cost in order to get the right fit. He agreed ( not happy, but he agreed) which makes it easier. The key is finding the right fit at a price that we can afford without breaking the bank and ruining our retirement. At least we both agree on that. </p>
<p>Today I sat in Barnes and Noble reading the Fiske Guide and I started to get very very anxious. There is just too much information in that book. I also picked up a few other college books but ultimately I did not buy any. I kind of feel like I can get the info doing my own research.</p>
<p>Ds school makes the Fiske guide app available to the kids free on their ipads. I thought it might be a good start for her. Do you think it is too much?</p>
<p>You are lucky that you see things similarly. My husband is more prestige oriented than me and it is causing some tension.</p>
<p>My husband is the opposite of prestige- he is the anti-prestige. I am somewhere in the middle- i do not care about the name of the school or how prestigious it is- I just care about whether it will be a good fit for my daughter. I am sure there are prestigious schools that are a good fit as well as schools that are less prestigious. My husband’s brother is all about prestige- sometimes I can’t believe they are brothers. </p>
<p>Despite my H being the anti- prestige, we do have some prestigious schools on the list. Some more so than others. </p>
<p>My daughter is feeling it the most because most kids here talk about top schools, which tend to be prestigious. We are really looking at a mixed bag of schools for her. If she falls in love with the southern schools I will attempt to find a few more for her to apply to. It’s going to be hard keeping the list at 15- I realize that’s a lot.</p>
<p>3girls is the Fiske guide app the same as the book? The book has tons of information in it and I just got very anxious trying to read it. There are just SO many schools to choose from!</p>
<p>The best thing in Fiske is the “overlaps” chart for each school. If you start with three or four schools that you know your kid likes, and then read up on their “overlap” schools, you can start to get an interesting list of schools to explore. In our first search, it was particularly useful to see which full-size universities were listed as overlaps for the LACs he spent a lot of time considering. </p>
<p>Of course, I eventually read the entire book when my 13er was applying, but that just means I need better hobbies.</p>
<p>Yes I agree Same Old- the best part of the book is the overlays. I may splurge and buy the book after all. I guess we both need a hobby!</p>
<p>Naviance has a section that is kind of similar- if you look up one school such as Muhlenberg for example, it gives you a list of schools that kids applied to who also applied to Muhlenberg. It is not the same as Fiske because I believe Fiske lists similar type schools in their overlay whereas Naviance lists schools that kids applied to who also applied to the school you are looking up. I hope I am making sense…</p>
<p>Well, this discussion prompted me to buy the app. The write-ups don’t look much different from the paper edition we had, but we gave that to a family friend. My kid has a relatively tight list, so I will probably use the book and the overlaps to see if I can get him out of his comfort zone for a while. (That said, we visited 14 schools with DC#1 and he ended up applying early at a place he first saw as a five year old. Oh well.)</p>
<p>That does sound helpful. I will ask D to take a look at that. Our naviance provides the same sort of information along with acceptance rates at the various overlap schools. </p>
<p>I think I still have an ancient copy of the 2006 Fiske Guide that should be entertaining fiction. It will be fun to compare it to the current version. I read it cover to cover back then too. The problem I have with the schools’ information is that they all manage to make themselves sound highly appealing. How does a kid possibly choose? </p>
<p>I am not entirely anti-prestige but I can’t help my peasant background. 
My grandmother used to brag to my mother that she and my grandfather had made a great sacrifice by allowing my father to attend college. He was the first in both his mother’s and father’s families. Never mind that it was a free city college and he worked to support his parents throughout that time.</p>
<p>H comes from an upper class, educated lineage. They have a completely different outlook on education and what’s acceptable for their grandchildren. I find myself smiling and nodding a lot when I’m around them. </p>
<p>Maybe it’s a good thing. This way we can balance each other.</p>
<p>I went onto our overlaps section on Naviance and looked up some overlaps for Muhlenberg ( a school that we looked at but my daughter was not crazy about- too small for her). Two of the overlaps were Penn State and Northeastern. Really??</p>
<p>Well, there is now a small mountain of clothes next to my closet door…on its way to be donated. Tomorrow there will be shopping. LOL Not too much, just a few things that will help pull the other things together.</p>
<p>Yes, I thought cappex was a good find. Bunhead, let us know if you find out more about it. I love the college search sites…'cause ONE of them is going to have that perfect school listed and will somehow make it obvious that it is also a safety, and the angels shall sing…</p>
<p>The Fiskeguide app sounds interesting.I just looked it up. $20.00 hmmm, I doubt it I will be able to resist.</p>
<p>Another college finder website that does overlaps is collegedata.com. I find them a bit easier to navigate than cappex in terms of finding data about the colleges but they don’t have scattergrams.
Here’s their overlaps for Muhlenberg: Students interested in this college are also interested in:
Franklin & Marshall College, Lafayette College, Gettysburg College, Dickinson College, Skidmore College, American University</p>
<p>crepes, I just started playing with that CollegeData site. They do have scattergrams. You have to go in a few layers to get it. Click on a school, then on 'more detail, in the box that gives you your chances of being accepted, then on ‘get admission tracker results’. There may be an easier way, but that’s how I found the scattergram. It even has different shaped symbols for athletes, legacies, EA, ED and combinations of those things.</p>
<p>Shoboe that is interesting about the scatter grams for college data. I have been using that for a long time and had no clue. I basically use it to look up the 75% ile SAT and ACT scores. I also want to look at the overlaps. American as an overlap for Muhlenberg also sound a bit off, but the others sound on target.</p>
<p>I just went on college data admissions tracker and looked at the scatter grams for a few different schools- it left me very very confused. I know three kids at our school who received large merit awards from a few schools and although these kids had good stats, their GPAs and SAT scores were not anywhere near perfect ( these families are all close friends and the moms volunteered this info- we would never ask LOL). The money was merit and definitely not FA. When you look at the scatter gram it is quite obvious that there are kids applying to these schools with an unweighted GPA of 4.0, a 1600 or close cr/m SAT ( or at least in the 1500s). Meanwhile I know kids with good stats but lower than this who got very nice merit. What does that mean exactly? To me it means that the mystery continues- I am not sure exactly what makes these schools give out merit awards. There must be more to it than perfect GPAs and test scores. </p>
<p>I also noticed that the GPA tracker does not post every single applicant- those numbers would be in the thousands.</p>