@thermom …we have a kid who wants to go out of state. She was shown the budget and I did some legwork on ways she could make that possible so it is entirely up to her and therefore is the reason she is driving the bus. If she had her eye on our state flagship she would have already arrived at the destination and punched her ticket card lol.
Hi all - I have read through all the posts and have been lurking for some time but thought I would join in.
@kac425 - My D took the Feb snow make up SATs and her scores appeared in Naviance late last week.
I am following this thread with interest and so impressed with the organization that you all have in place. I guess I have to prompt D to find/make some type of spreadsheet to start keeping track of all the different deadlines and requirements as we are getting close to application time. Did you all use a special template or just make something for yourself?
I am most worried about getting someone to read/respond to her essays. When she was taking practice tests for SAT/ACT I would just give her essays a middling score – too subjective. Being our first I am not sure what adcoms are looking for in those essays.
My D has a very short list of schools that are all over the place in terms of size, character, location - but UAlabama is top on her list – just loves it. It is nearly tied with Auburn and then some more regional schools up in the Northeast where we live - some LAC, some large state – really all different types of schools. All told she only has 6-7 that I think she will actually apply to - and we feel confident that she will be accepted to most as she is above the 75% in stats.
We really can’t interest her in any reaches - as she is looking mainly at the $ figures. She knows how much she has each year and that whatever she doesn’t spend gets rolled over for grad school.
She is very practical and very happy with the schools she has seen. This makes me happy. H on the other hand would like her to apply to 10-15 to compare offers and have “choices” – she has lost all interest in the search and would be happy to only apply to UA and AU - and then compare costs (obviously UA is much cheaper - but she is also factoring in the extra costs of sorority life which is considerably more $ at bama).
The next 12 months will be very interesting!
@thermom D is excited about college and has been involved in the process, but not nearly as much as I want and need her to be at this point. I’ve done as much as I can do for her research-wise and I need her to get in the driver’s seat and evaluating the other options that she hasn’t taken a look at yet (about 20 schools…yikes!).
Welcome aboard @novicemom23kids. I think we have all pretty much come up with our own version of the Spreadsheet of Destiny, that is morphing into other things. Sounds like your ride may be more enjoyable and comfortable than ours/mine.
@Thermom, what @itsgettingreal17 said. My daughter has become a little more involved, but still lags far behind where I need her. I need to get her looking at the research I’ve done for about 15 schools, as I dig into some additional details and try to stay ahead of her now. She’s pretty comfortable with the list, and seems to overall ‘trust’ the list. She will make the final decisions.
With very little to do at school this week, D is actually finally looking at her college list and is getting excited. She texted me after I posted early to say, I’m bored…guess I’ll start looking at that list. Finally!
@thermom wrote
My Binder of Destiny was created with 0% input with D17.
There’s a logical reason for this, though. I have the month of May off from school, and May is by far her busiest month. June 1 I go back to school full time and I won’t be able to do all the hyper-focus organizational wonder that is the BOD. So, my job that I gave to myself is to have a very good start for D17, where I can hand it to her, head off to school all day, and let her take it from there.
If I don’t have a job or a project, I go koo koo for cocoa puffs, so this is my job right now until my classes start up again. I promised her I won’t discuss colleges until after June 1, but I occasionally slip and she’s like, not now, Mom, you promised :).
We’re going to do a lot of EA (I still have to learn how it works so I don’t mess it up), and I created a timeline in the BOD so she can look and see when the Common App opens (Aug 1), when stuff is due, when things are announced, etc.
So, all there in black and white and curated as best as I can, and I’m SURE she’ll add colleges to my list (which is good!).
Right now she is not excited at all about college-she sees it as a continuance of the grind of high school. I believe she’ll get there, eventually, though.
@4beardolls wrote
Yeah, we did as well after the flight back from San Fran. It was a very uneventful, nice flight on a big plane, but wow, it was pretty arduous from beginning to end. DH travels a lot and has a lot of frequent flyer points and bennies, but it felt so much farther away than a hop up to DC or MA. We’ve asked her not to do Cali for undergrad and she (right now) agrees that it was a looooooong flight and a looooong way away.
The other point for us is that we are very good road-trippers (7 hours is nothing to us!) and we can make it to DC in 11 hours and MA in 18, so dropping off and picking up at the beginning and ends of the year would be done in the car rather than flying (save that for thanksgiving and winter and spring break).
@novicemom23kids wrote
Welcome 
I started with an excel spreadsheet, but I felt like there was too much data on one page, so I switched over to a 3" binder with a lot of tabs, and I bought the Fiske Guide to colleges and the top 380 colleges, and I sticky tabbed the schools in those for her, and made notes in the book next to each school why I thought they would be a good potential match for her. I may or may not have used highlighters in different colors to point out stuff in the books that I thought she should see about each school. I really like using color to differentiate stuff.
I don’t think there is one right way to do it, just whatever organizational paradigm that lets you not run screaming from the overdose of information. I tend to be a very tactile, sorty-mc-sorterson person so the Binder Of Destiny works well for me. Hopefully it will for D17 & D18 (next year) as well.
We are going to a summer open house at a school on the White Board of Destiny (did I ask if I could ‘steal’ that @MotherOfDragons?), and were trying to decide whether to spend the money on flights, since it is about a 7-hour drive. Since waiting for 2 hours in the security line does not sound like a good use of time, we’ve decided to drive, and hit another school on the way home. But, 3 of the schools we visited over spring break that D liked are a plane ride away. Hope that remains OK with her as November deadlines loom.
^^Oh absolutely feel free to steal! 
Are there any Texas residents on this thread? DS has expressed interest in UT Austin and Texas A&M for Mechanical Engineering. We live in the northeast and will not be visiting unless he gets accepted. Any insights on these two schools would be very welcome!
@srk2017 DD 15 travels 3,000 miles to the west coast, and the trek gets old fast. Since March of last year she made the round trip a total of five times (includes school visit after acceptance, orientation, move in and out, t-day and Christmas). I made the trip three times (school visit, move in, and for part of her spring break). I’m not tallying the travel $$ totals, but we’ve been able to use miles for a few of the flights which helps. Fortunately we live within an hour of a major airport so there are multiple airlines running non-stop direct flights to LAX every day. Next academic year I think she’ll just come home for Christmas then her brother’s HS graduation. Next summer I think she plans to stay west, get a research position and maybe take a class. It’s very hard on all of us to be so far apart, but she loves her school and feels like it was the right choice. Needless to say, I’m cherishing every day of this summer!!
We braved the huge college fair with DS 15 yesterday. He went in thinking he wouldn’t get anything out of it, but we were able to rule out a couple of schools and get some valuable info on others, so I think he’s glad we went. Our list is still too long - but when he realizes the number of essays he’ll have to do it should get reduced very quickly. 
My son has a rather small list, I think I’m fine with that.
He has 2 state schools on his list. His stats and scores measure up well and we can afford them. He seems to like them too, No gripes. So I feel like he will have some place to go in Fall 17.
He has 2 other schools that he really likes, and with his scores he has a chance to get in. We can afford them. They have been showing him some love, so he likes them more.
We have visited them all, so no need for any more visits. Yay!
I think our strategy is going to apply ED to top pick. Apply EA to others. Wait to see what happens with ED school, and if that doesn’t work out, hopefully one of the EA schools will come through and we will be done by xmas time and we can relax.
I know they recommend 6-8 schools to apply to, so maybe we’ll try to find one more safety and maybe let him waste an app on a true reach. But he really doesn’t want to go to any true reach schools for him at this time.
I am trying to get him to focus on studying for ACT in June and to finish junior year off strong in school. Very important.
@jmek15 Texas resident here. My D does not want to stay in Texas, but she has done camps at both UT and A&M and will be doing a summer program at UT this summer. My liberal D prefers the A&M campus. A&M is very conservative and I’ve heard some quite unpleasant stories about intolerance on campus. UT is more liberal as is Austin. Austin is a really fun city for music lovers, lovers of the outdoors, and those who like dining out. But its also very expensive. That’s about all I have for you as D is interested in business and languages so I only have info on those programs at UT.
Hopefully someone else will chime in about the engineering programs.
::headdesk:: you made me look…nope, still not there, and it doesnt appear we can self edit.
i’m finding it highly annoying at this stage of the game…i’ve had them for quite a while, no idea why the school doesnt! this weeks goal is revisting teacher recs so i’d like things to be orderly. my kid already asked a few teachers and there has been some “issue” with each one she chose–one retired and left her hanging, and two arent in the “formal system” so she needs to ask others…its been a nightmare so far. we need to get it done, as in now.
at the rate we are going, her may ones will make it there before the feb scores.
but thanks for giving me some hope though-hopefully it will be soon.
@thermom S gets excited on tours, especially it is a tour he likes. But as far as actually having much input into the list (other than to say NO to a school) he really hasn’t done much. He had some early input but not much since then. He did not set up any of the tours but did weigh in on where he felt comfortable visiting at this point in the process as well as what type of tour. He feels he can’t tell a whole lot by websites, curricula etc and when he looks at them tends to feel they all run together. As a result, he avoids it as much as possible and since we still have 4 weeks of school, I am not nagging him yet.
He will definitely dig into it this summer though honestly I won’t be on him to review anything until mid July just based on his schedule. He does trust me to come up with the list and while he has added a few things, is pretty open to reviewing what I have looked at.
In his case it’s a bit challenging as we are looking at 2 totally different potential major paths and types of schools so really have to find a mix of options and that overwhelms him. I also do a first pass financial screen which eliminates a lot. It has to have very strong potential to remain on the list if there doesn’t appear some hope of a financial match. I am frustrated trying to find the line up of program combos he would like with a price that works for me and a school he can get into and in a part of the country he is willing to go. So far there isn’t one that hits it all. A few have some, a few have “most”, but none really have it all. Hoping the summer academic program helps him refine what he does want.
The Spreadsheet of Destiny (or actual workbook of destiny, it has multiple tabs) is definitely a moving target and the amount of schools on it goes up and down accordingly. At the moment it has 18 on it. However, the vast majority do not quite pass the financial match target though some are closer than others. Financial gap schools will need to be ones he really loves. At the moment I’d say only 3 are likely application schools and one could get bumped off. I can afford 2 of them, 2 are safeties and one is a match. The unaffordable one might bridge the gap, it might not and won’t know until he applies and auditions for a music scholarship. Definitely work to be done as I want more than those as options.
@RightCoaster that’s great that he has 4 he is happy with and all meet your needs as well! We are shooting for 5-8 though S is more in the 5 camp than the 8 camp lol. Some of the ones on the list that work financially, I just can’t get excited about.
Due to finances I don’t think we will do ED anywhere but EA to as many as offer it that end up on the final list.
@4beardolls travel is a concern. S does have some distance schools on the list at the moment and will absolutely be a variable. He may not be comfortable with being far away, he goes back and forth on that one. SD is out of state and though it’s not that far as the crow flies, the logistics of getting there make a long and pricey trip that does add up and woe to the child who misses their flight (as she did last year). Nightmare. For some of the schools on our list it s a big check in the “con” column if it isn’t easy to get to from here, and that includes driving as well. Doesn’t take them off the list but it’s a factor to be sure.
@jmek15 that is good to hear on the college fair. We plan to visit 2 this summer, NACAC and CTCL. I am quite disappointing in the line up of schools attending our NACAC one but there are 2 he should see and at least this may justify, or not, an actual visit to either. One I had high hopes for but they’ve restructured their auto merit in a way that may well take it off the list. Hard to tell for sure. We’ve never braved a fair so it will be interesting if nothing else.
As for TX engineering I have no insight but I will say, in general, Mechanical is one of the most (if not the most) competitive of the engineering disciplines to get into for undergrad in a direct admit situation and is impacted at a lot of schools.
Well, I am glad to hear I’m not the only one who’d like their kid a little more firmly in the driver’s seat at least! She has definitely been better (way better!) since I first started bringing all this up earlier in the year, but yeah, definitely could still use a lot more input from her.
@mtrosemom I do like the idea of telling her, “look, it’s going to be Stony Brook unless you get a little more involved here…” and seeing what happens. And @MotherOfDragons I envy your Binder of Destiny! Right now I’ve just got an old laundry basket filled with the literature D has been bombarded with and a copy of Fiske with some pink post-its sticking out of the top.
We definitely need to get more organized, especially since I want D to do a few EA too (or one ED if she finally gets involved in the process to decide there’s one that stands out to that degree and we can swing it financially). It just seems like it would be much better for a kid who has some anxiety issues to get some answers early and spread out the stakes a little!
Oh, and to add to the Naviance comparisons - my D does not have the ability to edit any of her own data, she has to wait for the school to do that. Crazily, on the CB side, they only have her 10th grade PSAT grade up there, not the one for junior year. They do list her AP Euro score from 10th grade. When I saw that, I despaired that her April ACT score would not show up until after she’d graduated, lol, but lo and behold, that showed up just last week so she has a current little red circle to work with at last!
It must be a real pain in the @$$ for those of you trying to figure out the college list and figuring out how to pay for it with savings, loans, merit, grants etc. I have sympathy for you all struggling with this issue. I’m sure it’s stressful and frustrating and confusing. It must add an entire new level of complexity to the situation. Sounds mind boggling, and I don’t think I’d enjoy it much.
Fortunately my son’s list is within our financial limits, and unfortunately since he won’t qualify for any aid and probably won’t receive any meaningful merit I just don’t give it a lot of thought. If he gets some merit or discsounted tuition offer it will be a welcome surprise. Since he doesn’t want to go far away, I don’t need to worry about travel budgets.
@jmek15 There was no chance of me getting my son to go to that college fair yesterday. Congrats, glad it worked out.
Welcome @novicemom23kids your D sounds very practical!
@thermom My D is excited but everything is currently on the back burner. Just finishing up the year, and taking both the SAT and ACT in June. (she signed up for June SAT without even knowing her April score) She just got back her SAT score from April and it was on par with the ACT she took. But she feels like she can improve her reading on the SAT and superscore it. We will see.
@rightcoaster My D is doing ED as well and maybe 1-2 EA. Like you will will wait until December and fingers crossed she will be done, but after what I just went through with my D16, I fear it may stretch out until April 1.
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Both are good engineering schools but they will be expensive for OOS students (50-60k?).
If someone makes the cut for national merit semifinalist, A&M gives tuition waivers and gives some additional departmental scholarships to offset other costs.
I am not sure OOS students will get much from UT. if they get any scholarship or job for 10 hours, the tuition drops to instate.
Welcome @novicemom23kids ! You seem to have a very smart and pragmatic daughter!
State ACT (without writing) scores from April 19th finally arrived in the mail Colorado today.
S’s math went down to 33 from 36. He got everything correct in trig/geo/algebra but a bunch wrong in Elem. algebra. He must have made tons of simple mistakes. 
The composite went up by one point (did better in science) so he is claiming good enough. [-( It will be a battle to have him do one final retake in June ACT. sigh. ~X(
Yes, the College List is totally Mine so far unfortunately.
^^Ugg, this doesn’t make me feel good about the June SAT Math 2 exam for my D. I’m sure she’s forgotten a lot of elem. algebra too.
Any suggestions on quick study ‘hits’ for refreshing algebra skills before June 4?
@jmek15 For OOS students to remember is that 1. Apply Texas (not Common App) closes December 1st, and for engineering, they have to apply by October 15th pretty much. - have the transcript and letters sent by then. The deadline is even earlier than ED/EA 2. They do not superscore. Require essay/writing in SAT/ACT.