My boy plans to apply to one school only (one of our state schools) and I am 1,000,000% okay with this. I have questioned him closely on his choice, reminded him of options, and so forth, but he is resolute. His 2015 sister already attends this school and is thriving.
Compared to the roller-coaster deadline-insanity application fee money-pit of my 2015er’s college app season, this is fall is going to be BLISS.
I could not be happier.
I realized, belatedly, how much I pushed for my 2015er to apply to schools whose acceptance would literally only be “feather in her cap” status–the chances of their affordability for our family were small. I wish I could go back to my Fall 2014 self and shake my then-self until my teeth rattled for this stupid plan.
I would have saved my daughter time, emotion, and work, and saved myself a lot of money in app fees.
Please, fellow parents, do not make my same mistake. Don’t encourage your kids to apply to schools just so they can say they were accepted there.
Sure, if you have the money to float the app fees, that’s one thing; but consider the work on the kid’s end to apply.
It is not worth it, in my humble opinion.
Last summer S got a job at a movie theater. Usher, concessions, cleaning theater, etc. He did well with it and I think it was good for him. I was a little afraid it would be too much when school started back. He took 5 APs and a dual credit class last year, no fall sport but still with ECs plus homework it kept him hopping. When track season started with the coach’s encouragement and mine he had did drop it.
He would have got another job this summer, but there was really no opportunity with a family vacation plus five weeks of Governor’s Scholar program.
@HeliMom74. - It is wonderful that he has a direction!. DD is at loose ends and not ready to make a definitive decision, as evidenced by the list. DD’16 applied to 12 and I had hoped that DD’18 would choose 8 tops. We found with DD’16 that she really wasn’t ready to make a solid/sound decision until February about what she really wanted and app have to be in well before that time. Right now it all seems intangible and I don’t think that is uncommon for many 17 year old/HS seniors.
Fortunately we have done our research re: cost and these are all within the realm of accepted cost and within the 25% - 75% range for her stats. Since she is OOS for all but the TX schools we really don’t know chances thus the very very big net. She would probably have been one and done if she were auto or academic admit to TAMU. Several of these schools are not too much work app wise. She has 3 essays written and is able to recycle them for several applications. If only we had a crystal ball!
But I agree…do the $$$ research, know what you can afford and don’t apply just to collect the trophy.
@HeliMom74 Thanks for the reminder. D is not aiming high but my merit hunt is similar to the feather in the cap thing. It’s practical but overkill.
I’ve been obsessively researching and making college lists based on D’s interests. She is so busy with working two jobs and the responsibilities with her ECs that continue through the summer. I’m getting concerned about how she’ll find time for any college applications much less for prepping for another SAT. And if I’m feeling concerned about how overloaded she is, how is she feeling? Isn’t it sad that I don’t even know, because when she’s not working, she’s doing next year’s AP work or sleeping.
I think it’s safe to say that the instate schools she likes are academically just as good and less expensive than any of the privates I’m looking at for merit.
Even if she were to get a full-tuition scholarship at a private), we’d still have to add on travel expenses and health insurance, and the cost would wind up in the range it would be for in-state after merit.
So why am I doing this? Maybe I should just stop until she brings up a college she wants to look into.
TCNJ-match
Rowan (honors option)-safety
Stockton (honors option)-super safety
Franciscan-keeping that door open
I could stop here.
But then there are:
Elizabethtown-full-ride scholly reach
St. Vincent-full-ride scholly reach
(Having a hard time letting go of Ursinus and Susquehanna for the their neuroscience major and good merit even if the COA might wind up being out of range.)
@MACmiracle Another lesson I learned during my 2015er’s application odyssey: the search must, must, MUST be driven by your kid (once the parents/whomever is writing the check sets some financial parameters).
If the kid is not doing the or some looking, it’s pretty hard for the kid to feel invested in the process.
I am a world-class Micro-Manager Mom, so this was a tough lesson for me to learn. More than tough. Fortunately, I became part of a group of fellow 2015er parents, some of whom have older kids, and they explained the wisdom and the necessity of making the college search be the kid’s provenance primarily.
Even now with my 2018er it is still hard to step back beyond issuing daily threats of dismemberment if he doesn’t email his recommenders already. 
My apologies, CCers, if I appear as a know-it-all PITA. I truly did not mean to be mean in my comments.
I just wish I hadn’t made the mistakes I made, and I don’t want anyone else to feel the regret I do.
@HeliMom74 There is a huge learning curve in this process, and I appreciate all that you’ve shared.
It’s pretty natural to have regrets. I will always remember standing in the backyard with the hopes and dreams of S15 crashing down around him as he realized that his two “reaches” weren’t going to work out and he had nothing left but safeties. That moment left me with plenty of regrets for not pushing for more options that were better matches. Now, he has grown to love his choice and it has worked out… but yeah, I get the point and it is appreciated. Options come at a cost, and it isn’t always financial.
Hello @HeliMom74 - I remember you (especially from the square orange box above your name) from the Parents Class of 2015 thread! I learned so much from all of you that year & going through this again with D18 is so much easier than back then when I was the new kid on the block. I’m glad you’re joining us on this new adventure!!
@HeliMom74, I appreciate your insights!
I envy you all who have multiple kids and get to repeat the college app process. Mine are 12 years apart and it’s too early to know the youngest son’s plans.
I’ve worked out the perfect essay writing motivation for S18. I’ll study Latin in the same room with him, if he’ll work on his essay. He gets to teach me (and practice his Latin too!) and I get to see him actively typing. Win-win!
@HeliMom74 it has taken me a while but I have finally got to that point where you let your kid drive the boat. I didn’t start there. In the beginning it was dreaming about Ivy League and other elites, and then when S wasn’t feeling it the new prize was trying to win a big full ride at the most highly ranked school possible. As we started visiting schools it became clear he didn’t want to be too far away from home. Now we are down to just five schools, all of them safeties from an admittance standpoint. They are the only five schools though that HE wants to apply to, and I am just fine with that. I am just fine with that. I am just fine with that. (See I say it to myself over and over several times a day until I am sure I mean it).
I won’t say that I don’t have moments where I second guess the list, and find myself wondering how it is that a kid with his stats isn’t applying to any top schools or even a school in the top 100. But it doesn’t really matter how much second guessing I do (internally, not to him). HE seems to be quite sure about his list now. Good enough for me.
@NamePoster yes, if the school superscores, then that would be good, I am not sure if the ones we are looking at do.
My daughter worked last summer at a restaurant, but we agreed we needed flexibility for this summer’s college process/tours. So she is babysitting and working at College Application Bootcamp. :))
S is working F/Sa/Su at a taco place. Crazy shift from 5pm-3am. He sleeps M-Th.
So impressed by the workers! S technically does have a job that he’s been doing for a year, as the IT tech for a tiny law firm. But it’s only a few hours per week and some weeks they don’t need him at all. He can do many tasks remotely so he offered to be “on call” while he was at UTD for five weeks, but they didn’t need him then and he didn’t have to go in this week after coming home either. He likes the people at the firm very much but it’s really not much of a job lately. And of course it’s very late in the summer for him to be looking for another job that offers more hours, although I might ask him today if he’d like to apply for a new job to take him through the school year. His school and EC schedule will be lighter than junior year, so he might like to use some of that extra time earning money.
Great discussion here from all, I truly appreciate all the wonderful insight and advice! @HeliMom74 excellent points for sure. As you mentioned applying just for the" feather in a cap" my daughter has decided to forego applying to any Ivies and focus on the affordable state Universities.
We visited University of Delaware yesterday in the insane nearly 100 degree heat. I was not expecting much from the tour as a friend had just returned with her daughter and said it was terrible. But as is often the case, i was pleasantly surprised. Our tour guides were knowledgeable and as far as campus tours go, it was really quite extensive. We met for 1.5 hours with the World Scholars Program coordinators and just like that we have a new front runner. There are no guarantees that my D18 will get invited to apply for the program; but if all the stars align this program could be that “unicorn” that she has been chasing. It’s been a rollercoaster ride with her, from her absolute certainty that she wanted a military academy and all that goes into that, to deciding in spring that in fact is not her path. She is continually honing in on what it is she wants to study and learn and how she wants that experience to look. This program seems to cross all her Ts and dot all her Is. Her father and I won’t complain, best years of our lives were spent in Newark DE at the UDel…a family legacy might be born here :). We never pushed Udel too hard as this is her journey but when we came upon this program, still in its infancy, I saw a spark in her eyes and a request to tour the campus was music to my ears.
For the first time in this process I think she has two really excellent top choices in University of Delaware and University of Pittsburgh. Those options will be rounded out by Rutgers (aiming for Honors College), Boston University and she still hasn’t given up on Bryn Mawr (the only school she likes that is recruiting her for Field Hockey). But BU and BM are quite frankly in the category of needing a ridiculous amount of merit…not out of the question but by no means a sure thing.
@bearcatfan Same with my D18…she has a very flexible work situation, and didn’t pick up anything else so she could focus on her summer school work, sports and of course the application process haha. I see it as a a fair trade off…she babysits and pet sits enough to pay for gas money and movies lol. I’m ok with that for the moment. Next spring when she’s out of her varsity sports and preparing to go away to school I will expect her to have a more serious job.
One neat perk I have discovered this go-around: some universities send their alumni codes which can be then given to applying students to use as waivers for the app fees. Check around on your kids’ lists, and talk to any alumni of those institutions. It’s worth a look, and might save some nice $$$!
*ACTIVE alumni.
S18 has XC practice he leads every M-Th morning, but after that heads right to work and comes home sometimes around dinner or later. Then works more on weekends. He is working about 50-60 hours/week. He is exhausted, but loves the work! He is working with a handyman and learning all sorts of amazing and useful skills - he has installed/fixed/updated just about everything around a house by this time and the handyman has moved him up from being his assistant to sending him out on jobs by himself and bumped his pay up from $15/hour to $20/hour because he has demonstrated he is a hard worker and trustworthy guy that has great attention to detail. Yes, we’re proud! 
His first day on the job, his boss texted me and said, “Don’t tell him I texted you, but he is doing an awesome job!!” He’s a great guy and S18 is lucky to have this job.
In his spare time (ha!) he has been working on finishing up his last merit badges for Eagle (he finished his project last summer) and starting his college essays. He has a full week of XC camp next week and is looking forward to the time with his best friends and honestly, running the 5 miles in the morning and 8 in the evening is going to be a vacation compared to what he has been doing for work!