Sounds like a smart list, @homerdog, and you still have plenty of time to change if your son’s interests shift. Congratulations on being so far along on the process. We are still identifying schools to visit!
S19’s list is at 5 definite, 6 or 7 maybe. I’m the one who added all the maybes. I’ve been saying to myself that I won’t push him on the list or any other college-related stuff until the play is over. Well, the play ended on Sunday. I went down to his room yesterday meaning to talk about college stuff, mainly about letters of recommendation. The school doesn’t have any formal deadlines about asking, so he has been procrastinating. But there are three weeks left! He needs to get a move on!
It got a bit painful, but he promised he would talk to the preferred teachers this week. He had settled on asking his theatre teacher for a recommendation and that was that, then he got upset when I pointed out that many of his schools wanted recs from 2 teachers of core subjects. I think one school might fall off of the list because it wants one math/science, one humanities and kiddo doesn’t like any of his math/science teachers.
D19’s currently got a list of 8 she’s satisfied with. I might push for another, more safety-ish, school, and if her SAT II scores (Math II and Physics this weekend) and August SAT retake come in particularly high, then perhaps she might stretch a bit.
Like others, I’m really trying not to discuss college much until after this weekend when the madness of the past month will end. I don’t believe she’s actually asked for recommendations, and won’t until when school starts up in August, but since she already got a couple of recommendation letters for her summer program applications, I don’t think the requests will come as a surprise. (I did make sure she gave those teachers thank-you notes.)
She’s been doing a fair amount of studying the past week or more – a couple of her good friends are also taking Math II and others this weekend, so I think the ability to spend time with her friends has been motivating. I have no clear idea about how she will do. She does a lot of studying for her classes, but my sense is that her studying for the PSAT/SAT has thus far not been as diligent. Her scores are great for 97% of students, but for the majority of the schools on her list, another, say, 60 points would at least suggest she’s definitively qualified to attend based on her scores, and then it would just be up to her essays and other qualifications when they try to figure out which of the 4 qualified students can earn the 1 spot available…
@SDCounty3Mom - Do you think that the “7 points” is just for schools that say they consider demonstrated interest?
If a school says they do NOT consider demonstrated interest, should that be believed?
M S19 is not very interested in college visits and would prefer to visit reaches later, if he gets accepted and if the money were to work out. The list is not finalized but he has visited some in state options and one out of state LAC that he likes. The remaining schools on the list would mostly be reaches due to the need for financial aid. Even though he’s not the type to get his hear set on a college, I am thinking the approach of waiting to visit is a good one for us. Fortunately, he is feeling better about one of our state flagships as a good option for him, especially since law school seems somewhat likely.
Every family is different, choosing not to apply to schools that we can’t afford works for our family, pople need to do what works for theirs.
We are only at 3 definitely and 1 maybe for applying. She might end up tossing in a lottery reach, but I can’t tell. She might decide after the August SATs. Right now, her English scores are just a little low to make a lottery reach have that sliver of a chance.
She is taking the subject tests in Math 2 and Chem on Saturday. If she remembers not to guess on geometry or last years nonAP Chem that she has forgotten (or relearns the material this week), she should get good scores in them. She’s at least done enough practice to believe me that I read you shouldn’t guess on the subject tests, so I consider that a win! #toldherso
She did ask 2 teachers for recommendation letters, so we are all set there.
I take statements from admissions offices about demonstrated interest at face value. Perhaps I’m naïve, but I do believe that AOs try as much as possible to take the guesswork out of all this, and avoid gamesmanship. I don’t think they have much incentive to try to trick applicants by telling them they don’t track demonstrated interest if they really do.
@homerdog I do think D19’s list is too long, and I may think that even more once I sit down and spreadsheet it all out. For your S19, if he’s interested in the Carleton types of schools, don’t forget that a lot of times those schools let you design a major, or a tailored concentration within a major, so the lack of major availability might not be enough to remove an otherwise desirable school from his list if there are courses he’d like in that area.
@elena13 The LAC my friend worked at is a school that says demonstrated interest is “considered” on their CDS. I’ll ask her your question about whether “not considered” in that category is to be believed or not.
@BorgityBorg Ah, we too lament the missing 60 points on the SAT. I used to think D19 would get there, but as she’s seriously losing steam in her test prep and getting lower scores on practice tests, I now think that’s not going to happen. She squeaks into the middle-50 range at all her schools so they’re staying on her list, but 60 more points would’ve made her happier. Oh well. Test scores aren’t everything. My dear friend’s son got 260 points below my D on his April test, so I have to keep this all in perspective too. My D did well and is fine, and honestly she was never going to get into a reachy college on standardized test scores alone. It’s like how we all lament turning 40, and then 50, as if those were somehow magic numbers that meant anything for our lives. They’re all silly cutoffs and as we all know, even the kid sitting at 1550 has no guarantees at the reachy schools.
@mom2twogirls Wow small list! Are those 3 definites all in the match category? I wish D had more match schools she really likes. Her biggest category is low reaches. And good for your D for getting those letter writers nailed down! I’m not going to bring it up to my D until after this week’s choir concerts and the SAT. Next week we’ll be really getting down to the wire for the school year so she’s going to have to pop the question soon.
Is anyone else generating a “college resume” with your kiddo? I was given a few sample resumes at a workshop last winter so I’ve drafted one for D, but honestly I’m not super duper clear on what one does with them other than giving a copy to the letter writers. Seems like all the material is redundant with everything on the Common App…?
@homerdog Your S’s experience with SAT 2 biology is what I expect with my S. He’s only really studied for a week for biology. However he is in bio right now. It’s the week before finals. I just need to double-check if his ED choice requires all scores. I don’t think it does, so no harm giving it a go and seeing how he does. I expect high 600s but who knows. I expect he’ll want to retake if he doesn’t get above 700 since he is marketing himself as strong in STEM.
@SDCounty3Mom that’s interesting about the LACs allowing for designing a major. The problem is that geology is the subject and, at three schools very high on his list, they don’t even have one class in geology/earth science. He has a bunch that do offer those classes but they have other downsides. We are going to have to see how important it is to him come fall and then maybe identify other schools and drop some others. I still think he would keep the three schools in question because he really likes them…and they have other majors he’s interested in.
I wasn’t planning on him doing a resume. What’s the point and when does it make sense to do it? Do kids always bring a resume to a college interview?
I suspect we may be in a similar situation next spring with DS19. This is complicated (in our minds, at least) by the fact that we paid for our oldest attend Cornell (after financial aid) at a time when the financial factors were different for our family, but it makes it hard for us to contemplate saying “no” to our youngest if he gets into a top but pricey school where we now won’t get much aid, but can’t easily justify spending a lot more on school than we did when we could get aid, based on other needs in our lives at this time. He’s planning on studying computer science, so our tentative solution is that we’ve told him that if he chooses a pricier school in the end, he’s going to have to help pay for it via loans that we can co-sign for. Usually I wouldn’t want to strap a kid that a lot of student loan debt, but given the salaries kids are commanding for CS degrees straight out of undergrad, I’m not too worried. We probably “could” afford to pay without him contributing more than summer earnings and federal loan amounts, but we have other considerations at this point too, to the point where it’s not just a question of whether we can, but whether it makes sense.
He will apply to a mix of schools that will be major reaches but pricey, and those where he will be more likely to get a lot of merit. And when we have all the data, we’ll work with him to make a decision that makes sense.
We did a resume for each of our older 2 kids. I think it mostly comes in handy when applying for scholarships that may not have anywhere else to state these things. Also, it may be able to flesh out a few things more than you can fit on the common app (like for drama club, list major roles played, etc.) so that we found it was nice to have if there was an option to include one on an app (school or scholarship). Also certainly nice to have for interviews (DS11 only did one, and DS14 didn’t do any, so that wasn’t a primary use for us). For letters of recommendation, I think our school has a separate form for them to fill out.
Catching up on all of the posts – just wanted to chime in to @SDCounty3Mom and @homerdog - two of S19’s schools ask for a resume. I agree it seems repetitive given the common app but he used it anyway when he requested LOR’s. After asking a teacher, he provided a folder that contains his resume and a brief letter thanking them and letting them know his planned major, etc. He will also need it for any of the local scholarships he applies to next year. Our close friend is an chem engineer and plant manager - he is the main one reviewing applications for the local scholarship his company gives out each year. He advised me to have S19 put together a real resume. Unfortunately, most of the kids have usually just used the resume generated by Naviance which he found to be unimpressive.
I believe D19 has put together a resume recently – she didn’t use it for the summer program application requests, but I’m sure it was done at the school’s request and so will be part of what she gives to the letter writers. It can’t hurt to have a physical piece of paper that’s a little more intuitively formatted than a database-created app.
@SDCounty3Mom – yeah, I think D19 would be able to get into places she’d want to go to with the scores she has, but since I don’t think she really prepped much at all, and based on the scores of her friends, I think the 60-point increase is worth shooting for once and, if achieved, would put her in a stronger position at those schools where she’s hovering a bit under the 50th percentile. I wouldn’t want her to take the SAT again beyond August, though, no matter what the score – like I said, I think she’d get into multiple places she’d be happy going to with the scores she currently has.
I recently found my old test scores – I took the SAT 3 times, 3 SAT subject tests (I had wiped out all memory of taking them), plenty of APs, and an ACT for good measure. I was, simply put, one of those students who took too many tests. I ended up getting into many schools, but… in retrospect, I didn’t need to do all that.
I went to school in Canada in the 80s. Applying to university consisted of going to my guidance counselor’s office and telling him which 3 schools to put me down for. They looked at grades only, which they got directly from the school. No SATs, no ECs, no “demonstrated interest”. Maybe letters of reference? I sort of seem to remember asking for one, but I’m not sure. Maybe for scholarship consideration? Easy, peasy. Man, those were the days…
Grad school (in the US) was harder, and everything was typed and snail mailed, such a pain. 
I did take the GRE and I think there were graduate subject tests. Still way easier than anything these kids go through today.
@SDCounty3Mom
She has a school that is a good financial and admissions “safety” that she loved when we toured and seems a very good fit. She would need zero loans. That makes the rest easy, because anything else gets compared.
She has one admissions “match” that is a financial reach. She liked it when we toured, if she thought we could afford it, she might love it (she’s practical). She would almost definitely need students loans.
She has one reachy school, with a slightly higher SAT (based on naviance) it should be sort of lowish reachy, not lottery. As it is now, it’s not impossible but a bit of an admissions reach. It would be more of a match financially. She may need student loans to go, it’s right on the borderline of our budget. She hasn’t toured it yet, I’m not convinced it would be a good fit but she wants to at least see if she could get in.
There is a maybe school that would be an admissions safety and probably out of reach financially unless the NPC is way off. I don’t think she will apply but she waffles on it because people speak highly of it.
There is a resume feature in Naviance that kids can use to keep track of all of their activities and awards. It can be printed out and brought on interviews. Helpful. On an interview I have my son bring a resume, transcripts, test scores and course listings with him.
@amandakayak your description - “seems like a reasonable family making reasonable decisions.” I think is a very fair summary of the process. And thanks for your positive support - greatly appreciated.
@carolinamom2boys your statement - “Every family is different, choosing not to apply to schools that we can’t afford works for our family, pople need to do what works for theirs.” is absolutely true. Kind of like raising kids - no one’s figured out “the” way even though we’ve been reproducing for 10’s of thousands of years! We all just do our best!
@mathmomvt - “And when we have all the data, we’ll work with him to make a decision that makes sense.” - yup - what else are you gonna do? Best of luck.
Finally, I want to clear up one final possible misconception - during the 2-3 week period where our daughter did not want to engage with us about this decision - she was still talking to us - but she didn’t want to talk about this subject - that’s all. It was a very touchy issue during that time, but she was still talking with us and taking part in every day life.
Ok, since my D is an '18 and I have slowly figured out what the topic of this thread is, I’ll stop taking up precious internet posting space and wish all of you with '19 children the BEST OF LUCK - and if you’re like me and heading for a journey into unknown territory try to enjoy the trip - cause that’s definitely what it will be!
CHEERS!!
This was certainly not well known to me! Honestly, I find it terrifying. Its one thing to visit, do an interview if available and write a thank you note. But the poor kids have to also click on every email? They have to take a virtual tour even if they have taken a real tour? That have to come up with questions to ask the AO even if they have already been to a campus information session? This whole process is exhausting. Honestly, D2 gets so many emails from colleges, I imagine she has hardly clicked on any of them.
The other option would be to not let him apply for schools where we’re not going to get enough aid to bring the price down to something that seems “reasonable” – and we had that discussion, repeatedly, before deciding on our family’s approach – if a school would definitely be a “no” based on cost, no point letting DS “fall in love” (not that he’s really the type to do so) or have the agony of getting accepted and then not being able to go anyhow. Not to mention wasting time and money applying. But (a) it’s hard to make that call when you don’t know how the other options will really fall out, and (b) since he is going into a lucrative field, it opens the option to have him contribute more than would normally be reasonable to expect. (Of course that does put a different kind of pressure on him, not to change fields to something with a lower earning potential.)
We’re in a weird place with respect to financial aid as well since our 2017 income was anomalously high. Part of the plan will definitely be to have 2018 taxes done early and ask for either professional judgment to use the more accurate 2018 numbers (will be more representative of our income going forward) or at least a pre-read on what our second year aid would most likely look like with our 2018 income. So that’s all going to factor in as well. (Yes, we did put aside some extra cash for college during the high-income period.)
The real question is – is any education worth 60-70K per year, when there are cheaper options available, and honestly the answer seems to be, “maybe,” which is why we’re not ruling anything out a priori. (And I totally get that for some families that is the “wrong” answer, probably wrong in each direction for different families. Like we’ve said, there isn’t one right answer here at all, and everyone’s situation is complicated in its own ways.)