Ha - that was supposed to say Gonzaga educates the WHOLE person, not the “when” person! Silly ham fingers!
@ShrimpBurrito - not a swimmer. There is no way D18 would roll out of bed at 5am for practice, lol, although swimming does meet her other criteria for participation in a sport - it occurs indoors.
D18 does competitive cheerleading. (Where practices run later at night 7 - 9pm/10pm)
@RoonilWazlib99 I’ll second U Rochester, with their unique curriculum structure. They really encourage learning for learning’s sake, in a variety of areas. D and I visited, and we are both huge fans of the school, even though it’s not the best fit for my D. I may try again with my S20.
@labegg that indoors thing was one of MY criteria for a sport. No way I’m sitting out in the Oklahoma sun to watch a ball game!
I would suggest Univ. of Denver, mid-size, city location, reqs seem pretty flexible. It made my Ds list just recently, she has no idea what she wants to do, so she’s focused on size and location (among other attributes) for now. It’s actually one of the bigger schools on her list and she was at first unsure if it was too far east for her! But I pointed out that it’s actually closer to home than most of the PNW schools she likes so she decided it was ok to keep.
I love the idea of U Rochester honestly. We’ve gotten a lot of mail from them. D was completely freaked out by their marketing campaign idea that “doubt” is a good thing. She is riddled with doubt, hates it, and found the idea of a place that encourages doubt terrifying! I thought it would be perfect for her 
Alas, it is WAY to far east for her, so it is not meant to be…
The contacts after PSAT, SAT and ACT are usually made if your child flagged that colleges may contact them. In many cases it is not based on total score but just a base score in one subject. At onetime the MIT rep on CC said it could be as low as a 60 out of 80 in area of PSAT (the old test out of 240). Sometimes the same school sends you promotional material based on multiple areas of testing. I have seen Yale send a separate letter out for ACT, AP awards, SAT but this is sometimes because the schools are depending on some marketing companies to take care of their promotional requirements and those companies do not always check for overlaps.
The season for contacting 11th graders is not here yet since it is considered ideal to start reaching out to them in summer. Most of the promotional material, i.e., junk that you will receive if your kid did well will be for summer classes or enrichment opportunities as the colleges claim but it is primarily so the colleges can make money off you, the parents.
I sat down with S18 tonight to confirm which schools he wanted to visit over our spring break in early March. We decided to focus on NC and SC schools as those states have several he is interested in (we live in Southeastern VA). After going over all of the schools he narrowed it down to 5 to visit- 2 in NC and 3 in SC.
I sat down at the computer to start to map out a plan and realized that 3 of the 5 schools will be on Spring Break the same week and won’t be offering tours during that time. We are so bummed and stumped on what to do now.
What is odd is that we visited some of the same schools with D15 during the same week her junior year and the schools were in session.
It seems a waste to drive all that way to see 2 and then have to go back another time to see the other 3. I know it makes sense to visit schools when they are in session, but we may have to make an early June visit to get them all in. There would be no other breaks long enough to visit before he started applying in the fall.
Not to mention, that was our big Spring Break vacation. My 12 year old will rejoice as we need to come up with a plan B that won’t involve college visits.
@labegg – my DD18 is also a cheerleader, but our school district only has fall cheerleading and she dropped down to a half-year team on the All-Star side. That is how she made room for being a newspaper editor and other ECs. Her cousin, also a 2018 graduate, lives in California and cheers for 3 sports with a heavy competition schedule for her high school (the HS team flies to competitions both in and out of state). She has no time for anything else!
DD is pretty set on applying ED to one school – the only hitch is the weather since it is in upstate NY! She and DH will make a trip in February to check it out a second time (we visited in warm weather) just to make sure she can stand it, LOL.
We are not making any visits over Spring Break. We’ve visited a ton of schools over the last couple of years and that week coincides with my birthday so I am happy not to be schlepping around on tours. We’ll be sitting on a beach with an umbrella drink in my hand instead!
@2014novamom We are making our 18 do the same thing. College visits to all the Midwestern schools are happening over February break. I was supposed to be the parent for these as my husband went to the southeastern tour with him last spring, but I politely declined. The thought of walking tours in feet of snow and windchills below zero isn’t my idea of vacation!
I might take our 21 and 27 to visit my dad in Texas instead!
Coming out of lurkdom to introduce myself…I have a DD18 and I know I will need a lot of advice to help her. I’ve learned so much reading CC already.
My DD has a perfect GPA in a mix of honors and accelerated classes (4.5 W/4.0 UW), and she will come out of high school with a few APs. Her high school is private with some specialized requirements and prerequisites which have prevented her from taking the high number of APs I read about here. She has reasonably impressive EC’s including community involvement, leadership and awards, one at the state level.
Part of my insecurity is that I did not get her on the highest path to begin with in math–the school wanted her to start honors algebra 2 as a freshman–because I had concerns about her ability to keep up as she always seemed to work so slowly in math despite good ability. And I was not very successful in my attempts to remediate the speed problem. Because she started out on the regular college prep math track, the administration wouldn’t let her move up, even when her math teachers recommended it. She will take calculus in high school but it will not be AP.
She was invited into a special program to take lots of APs that may have worked despite the math and prerequisite issues, but she declined because it wouldn’t work logistically without her giving up her instrumental music class and orchestra, where is very successful and people depend on her. I also had concerns about her getting burned out because of a history of medical problems…
Even though I think we made the right choices for HER, sometimes, when I read about kids here, I question our choices.
We opted out of the rat race a long time ago due to learning-related and medical issues with our other kids, but when I’m tired…
DD took the PSAT and as I expected, her math score was lower. But it was even lower than I expected: more than 200 points difference. She could not finish. She did not prep, so now she is prepping for math on the SAT, but I know being able to finish will always be a problem even if she knows the math.
Her verbal scores are in the 700s. That’s good and I believe that reflects her true ability.
Financially, we are also in an unusual spot. We are low income. For now and into the foreseeable future, I am a SAHM due to my children’s special needs. We meet the Questbridge income requirements but I don’t think DD would be accepted due to our assets. In our past life we paid off the mortgage on our small older home (which happens to be in a rather costly area), and we held on to some savings by living very frugally.
The NPCs are giving tremendously varying results depending on each school’s algorithm, but generally are telling me that we need big MAC due to our house and savings. Besides, MAC the only other choice would be to drain our savings and have nothing left for our younger children, not to mention our retirement.
We’re looking into ROTC. It would suit DD well but I anticipate a medical disqualification. 
This is long enough and thanks for bearing with me. I just wanted to explain all our challenges because if I’m going to get helpful advice, it will be here with full disclosure.
Welcome, @MACmiracle. We will be happy to help you in any way we can. It sounds like your D is lovely. It’s hard not to look back, compare what choices we made for our kids (or allowed them to make) and not have some regrets, but I urge you to fight that. We’re all doing the best we can with the information we have at any given time. I think opting out of the rat race is actually a very healthy thing to do.
I think if your D continues on her path, she will have many affordable choices. My suggestion to you would be to have her spend a decent amount of time prepping for the SAT. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see what practice can do. Does the school offer any type of SAT tutoring? Is she signed up to take an SAT yet?
Welcome @MACmiracle!
Every student is different. Every school is different. If you think you made the right decision for your DD that is what matters. My DS15 was 2 years advanced in math. That was right for him. He pushed for that. DD18 is on target. That is right for her. She is in pre-calc now and isn’t sure she wants to do calc next year. Note that different schools have a different definition of on grade level for math.
Glad to hear your DD is prepping for the SAT. I would also suggest she try an ACT to see which works better for her. My DD is only planning to do the ACT. She did take the PSAT and improved her score from the previous year, but it is not super high.
Note that some schools only look at income for financial aid and some look at income and assets. You might be better looking at FAFSA only schools instead of ones that require the CSS profile.
Please ask anything you need to.
I hope I’m replying correctly. I still have to figure out the ins and outs I’d posting.
Thank you for your kind reply. Her school has an SAT prep course but it costs several hundred dollars and is scheduled on the same night as the community orchestra.
She is signed up for the SAT later this month. I also plan to have her take it again in the spring and maybe in the fall. Two will be free with the CB waiver. Yay! Her older sister made an impressive leap on her third test so I’m keeping that option open.
I was thinking about having her try the ACT at least once and then decide if it’s worth doing again. She loves science and with her strong reading scores, she might do well on the ACT. But the timing of the math might be worse than the math on the SAT. We’ll only know if she tries it, right?
@MACmiracle, the collegeboard website offers free online SAT prep through Khanacademy and practice tests.
I think they can even link their PSAT score and work on things they need to improve upon.
She should do some prep and practice tests. Yes, I don’t think they give you a lot of time for math, especially the calculator part.
We will be focusing on instate schools, because we qualify for state aid. Merit would be nice too.
S18 still has very little interest in the college search process, completely the opposite of D17. Very frustrating! He still hasn’t even looked at the list I’ve worked up for him. He likes UMD because the college fair rep was great. Maybe I’ll just tell him that if he has no interest, he can apply to UMD, RIT (which I think he’d like after visiting with D) and an in-state safety. I really enjoyed the search process with both my D’s, but I guess not every kid is going to look at websites for 20 schools and carefully narrow them down. I just don’t know what to do with my first college search slacker!
@RoonilWazlib99, my D17 was just accepted to Gonzaga in EE and it is very high on her list because she wants to go to a school that’s not all about a tech emphasis. We loved everything about our visit, including the engineering session. The prof really emphasized the school’s philosophy of doing good in the world in terms of engineering.
I would recommend looking at U of Rochester. They have a very open curriculum and a wide variety of classes. My D really likes UofR, but too much of a reach for her. Another one with a pretty open curriculum is RPI. Our tour guide said he “accidentally minored in psychology” because there’s a lot of freedom. Although I’m not sure how wide their non-tech offerings are (she ended up not applying).
(Now that I read through the end of the thread I see I’m not the only one to suggest UofR. I also agree that Case is a good candidate despite the fact that they just deferred D to RD!)
@snoozn, my S18 is also a college research slacker. I doubt he’s looked at a single school’s website. He’s been grateful for my research but uninterested in doing his own. I suspect he will apply to no more than five schools, possibly as few as three.
D18 (my oldest) has no interest in research or SAT prep or anything college related. He can go to my choice.
DD18 is not interested in college visits or research or anything. She has taken the ACT. I would suggest to everyone to make sure their kids take an ACT and/or SAT before the end of this school year. That will help create a college list and reduce the stress when their scores come in late. We are still waiting for DD18’s score from the December ACT. Scores are released in waves from 2-8 weeks after the test.
Luckily although S18 hasn’t taken the reins for his college search he took both the SAT and ACT in December. He studied hard for the SAT and did great (780 M, 780 EBRW, 6/5/6 essay); no scores yet for ACT but unless he knocked the ACT and its essay out of the park he will use the SAT for admissions. His first thought was that he needed to retake the SAT to improve his comparatively weak essay score and also go for a 1600, but I’m trying to talk him out of that. His current score is great for his likely applications (U Tulsa, UT Dallas, WPI, and UT Austin) and if he decides to go for some reaches (MIT, CMU, and/or the UT Dallas McDermott scholarship) his time would be better spent beefing up his weak leadership and community service ECs rather than studying for the SAT again. If he decides not to go for the reaches, his time would be better spent doing whatever he wants rather than study for the SAT. I think he’s convinced, but we will see.
I can’t believe junior year is halfway over! I’m really glad that S’s test prep paid off and he can be finished with this part of standardized testing. He will probably still have to do SAT subject tests, unless he decides to drop UT Austin and the reach schools off his list. For the SAT subject tests, the advice S got from his test prep teacher was to take them in June as he’s finishing his courses. He’ll take the math and chemistry exams, and is in AP Chem and AP Calc AB this year. Has anyone had a child take these subject tests before completing AP Chem and AP Calc AB? If so, how did it turn out? Both subjects come easily to S18 and he took chem and precalculus last year. Of course spring will be very busy so he might not be interested in doing the subject tests early anyway, just wondering if he would be ok to take them early if he wanted.