Hi All. I’ve been a lurker on and off for the past year and decided to come out of the dark! We live in the SF Bay Area and DS16 (our oldest) is fully into the swing of senior year. So far so good. He is interested in CS, possibly combined with EE. We have a long-ish list of schools including many of the UCs as well as several out of state publics and a few larger privates. It feels like he’s really stepped up his game in the past six months in terms of schoolwork, standardized tests and college app stuff. Fingers crossed that I still have some hair left to pull out when my younger boys get to this point!
Welcome @threesix! Glad you came into the light!
If anyone is interested in a little fiction I just finished a book called The Admissions which is about a family in N. Calif with a daughter who is applying to …wait for it…Harvard.The daughter is a typical high achieving senior, stressed out over college applications, ECs, etc. The author does a brilliant job of showing the stress of the fall of senior year. She even nods to College Confidential. It is about all the members of the family, not just the daughter, however. The characters are likable and each family member seems to have a secret. It is worth the read if you want some light fiction and need to turn of your brain.
Welcome @threesix - sounds like your DS is well on his way!
@carolinamom2boys we’re in the same boat. D will take the ACT next month, pushing for a couple more points to open up larger merit possibilities for some LAC’s.
Several UC’s are on D’s list. I’m looking forward to see what kind of special events UC’s will be hosting for their prospective students. 
D just made arrangements for an overnight stay in the dorms with her cousin, who is a freshman at Chapman. It’ll be super for them to spend some time together and I think it will give D a better feeling for college living.
Welcome @threesix.
Welcome @threesix. There are a lot of Californians here, so there should be a lot of good resource sharing opportunities!
I’m from the southeast and have dashed the hopes-- gently-- of a couple of S and D’s friends recently by pointing out the unlikelihood of getting into a California school with significant financial aid as an OOS applicant, no matter how good one’s stats are. I think I’m going to put up a billboard that says “the odds are not good: apply if you want but have a plan B, C and D.”
Welcome @threesix !
Welcome, @threesix !
Rankings played absolutely zero role in the creation of my D16’s list. With my overt instruction… 1) She found cities she wanted to live in. 2) She checked which private schools had accredited B Social Work programs. 3) cross-referenced which of those schools were on my free-tuition employee benefit list. Then added other schools from that free-tuition list with Psych major programs. 4) Once she had her ACT scores, she matched the score with schools on her list where she’d be in the upper quartile of admitted students (most of the schools). Also id’ed those where she’d land in top half (just a few of the schools). 5) Ran NPC and checked CDS (minus tuition) to get an idea of our COA. (Insert freak-out when I learned that room and board is, um, unaffordable.) 6) Apply and let the chips fall where they may, with the understanding that almost every college, culled for fit, can be excellent for my D16, no matter ranking.
Bye, USN&WR…
@collegemom2boys My son enjoyed the book Escape Essay Hell. I think it did give good pointers on writing personal narratives without being too serious and uninteresting to teens.
@EastGrad Some of us have kids in 16 and 17 My S16 started thinking about colleges earlier and his final list is shockingly similar to his early lists though he did trend upward due to doing better than expected on standardized testing. I think my D17 is more laid back in thinking about undergrad because she is fairly certain she wants to do grad school and/or med school so she’s thinking a bit more about preserving her college fund for later. I definitely am telling my mom friends from her grade to get going on the testing stuff especially if they think their child would be better served by the old SAT rather than the new one coming out this spring.
@Themommymommy and @dcplanner Thank you both for the book titles. I’ll suggest these to my son. I am sure he would agree he is in Essay Hell right now…lol
@dcplanner, you brave parent. Can’t decide whether it’s better to have back-to-back admissions years and get it over with or if it’s better to spread them out. Let me know what you think.
Thank you for the kind welcomes everyone!
@LKnomad, thank you for the book recommendation. I just placed the book on hold at our local library - unfortunately they’ve ordered the book but haven’t received it yet.
Although Harvard is not on our radar, DS and DH are making a last minute trip to visit UPenn in early October (might be his ED school). We realized after the fact that the weekend of their trip is also the weekend that S signed up to take the SAT II Physics. We checked all his schools and it looks like they will accept the Nov Sat II results so planning to change his test date.
My boys are all 3 years apart in schooling. I feel like our oldest is our toughest nut, so hopefully it’s smoother sailing with the others…
@EastGrad , right now I’m thinking I’d rather have one each in 16 and 17 than two in 16. At least the costs would be spread out a bit. The credit cards may never recover from college applications.
Okay…I am going to say “HI” and “hope everyone had a good summer!”…and now I will go back to read the 1.5k posts I have missed since July!!! (we’ve had some illness in the grandparents and such, so it’s been a hectic summer–not a lot of college “planning”…but it’s time to get on track!!
Sorry to hear you’ve had a rough time drmom123. I hope everyone is on the mend. Welcome back!
An odd conversation has been taking place at my school lately, some students, all middle class seniors who will be over 18 when they graduate, have been talking about getting married when they graduate. They reason isn’t because they are in love and want to be soulmates forever, but because they say it will make them independent of their parents income and allow for more financial aid. The goal is to marry their friends and then get divorced at 24 or when they are done with school. Now that same sex marriage is the law, (this is not a knock on SSM) some girls in my class have even talked about marrying each other.
Welcome back @drmom123
@mysonsdad Wonder how that will affect their experience with dorm life!
@LKnomad, from what I have seen, they don’t plan on attending the same colleges.
Catching my breath from driving my three high schoolers around to pop in. Welcome to all the new folks! And congrats to those who have already received acceptances!
My S has not made any progress with essays this week. ~sigh~ On a brighter note, we now have his cap and gown with 2016 tassel hanging in the laundry room. Yikes! It is getting real-er!
@Mysonsdad That. Is. Crazy. I am speechless.
@drmom123 - Welcome back, and I hear you on catching up on posts. I can barely keep up. This group has become prolific!