I failed to say that the AP results are on a schedule over a three or four day period, but I couldn’t find that info right now when I looked. It grouped states together and the date of 7/8 was for Texas and some other states, but I didn’t pay attention to the other dates when I looked last week. There was at least one day before ours, if not two.
@shuttlebus I have noticed 2 of the school sites I haunt have recently updated merit charts for 2019-2020 so I suspect more will follow suit as the summer goes on.
DD has been working at church camp since Thursday night and is there till 6/30. Saturday afternoon I got the 1.5 hour crying to come home call. Saturday night it had morphed into “I’ll finish June but maybe I just won’t go back in July”. Today it was “I’ll come back in July if I can cut it back by a week”. Fine, but I told her to wait to modify her schedule until after her fun, sociable cousin shows up to work this Friday. She might find it more bearable with him around but I guess if cutting a week off improves her mental state that’s okay with me.
When we mention she’ll be gone in a little over a year for college, she counters with the idea that’s why she should have stayed home this summer while she still can 
And that she’s only 16 and all the other staff are college age. It does make me think she won’t be as okay with a far away school as she thought she would be, so I will start focusing on ones she can come home for a weekend here or there. I do think college will be different than cleaning and serving with the same 12 kids all day every day.
Well, we took a trip (further) north. S19 loves Boston. But it is just too far away. Which, being there, I totally understand. My kid is simply not ready to completely bust out on his own, seven hours from home, with no friends or family near by. So, the “new” list is being whittled down quickly. Which is good. We’re getting there.
I think it’s good for parents to be in tune to their kids’ development and personality and to adjust the list based on what kids seem ready for. However, some kids who aren’t ready now may be ready in a year. Also, many kids who think they are ready are often miserable and calling home that first semester but adjust over time and end up being really glad they stuck it out to have the kind of experience that really challenged them. D was quite unhappy for most of the fall semester last year, but she gained so much from working through it and also learned a lot through the travel back and forth.
@bjscheel - That sounds stressful. Glad your D is feeling a bit better at camp.
I see this thread has been going for 4 years. Some of your are way more prepared than we are. Hopefully it’s okay if I jump in.
Anyone else’s child narrowing down their choices to almost none? We still have two more visits to do this summer, but right now I think DS is only planning to apply to 2-3 schools. He shouldn’t have any trouble getting in, and at two of them, he’ll get guaranteed merit, but I’m still worried that applying to so few schools will make him feel like he has no options next year.
How many schools are your children planning to apply to this summer/fall?
My daughter has a short list in comparison to most. She has 4 universities on it. One that is the most likely best fit in every way, one that is academically a fit but financially one we would have to cross our fingers for, one that is a reach that I think is probably not a good fit all around but she wants to see if she would get accepted to anyway, and one that she already has a small merit award for but will still be a financial stretch but since the app is free anyway, she can give a shot in case I’m wrong.
There aren’t any others that she would even slightly consider over the most likely school.
@brentwoodmom One of my current college kids applied to two schools, another college kid applied ED to one school, and right now my D has two schools on her list with no desire to look at any more. She says she is done.
My college kids had no regrets about applying to so few schools when spring of senior year rolled around. I hope it will be the same for my D.
Welcome @brentwoodmom . DS16 only applied to 5 and DS19 will apply to 6. Do what’s right for your family and don’t let the hyoe if CC make you question.
@brentwoodmom There is no problem in applying to few schools if your D likes them and you can get merrit. The idea that kids need to apply to 10-15 schools is a very new phenomenon and for most people is complete overkill. Honestly, you are in a far better position than most.
@brentwoodmom DS19 is only going to apply to 2 schools. One “dream/supreme reach” that we’d get need aid at, and one financial and admit safety/match that he liked much better than our in-state options (and it comes with auto merit).
Both are about 11 hours away, but in different directions lol. We can afford a few plane tickets tickets for random weekends home as needed/wanted.
He’s pretty decisive about things, so it didn’t surprise me, but it seems to be flooring some of our friends whose kids applied to a dozen schools. He ranked them all in his mind as we visited, and the safety/match knocked all the in-state options out of contention. Fine by me - our state unfortunately has high in-state costs and tight on merit, so it would actually cost us more if he went in-state.
For those 2019 kids who took the ACT on June 9, the scores (for most students and not the essay score) are out. If nothing else, my S19 is super consistent and got the same 34 composite. He did move up in the area we thought most important, but it wasn’t enough to push him over to a 35. Probably just one question…but, we are done and moving on! He had the unfortunate circumstance to have seemingly taken the two most difficult sittings this year. But then again, the curve should have been more generous.
February 2018: English - 35, Math - 32, Reading - 34, Science - 34, composite - 34 (33.75)
June 2018: English - 36, Math - 33, Reading - 34, Science - 34, composite - 34 (34.25)
@MAandMEmom thanks for the reminder to check! S19’s first sitting for ACT to see how he liked the test, and he got a 34, which gets him into the next bracket for free housing as well as free tuition at UAH! Thinking it’s still too low for dream/reach (even though they claim test scores don’t matter much), but I’ll leave it up to him whether to retake or not.
@MAandMEmom - My S has similar scores to your son. He’s going to try once more in July for the straight 35 but I’m not confident there will be much studying happening (there was almost none previously). Just curious, how do you know which sittings are more difficult compared with others during the year?
@parent2one - Congrats! That’s great. I have tried to get my S to consider UAH. It seems like a great option, but S will not be an engineering major so we probably won’t pursue it.
My S19 just got his June ACT scores and his composite score went up quite a bit from his April sitting. He is very happy with his results and puts him in good shape for schools he is interested in.
D17 applied to 10 schools (accepted at 8, so had a good list). S19 will likely apply to 6 or 7 schools. His top choice (my alma mater and where his sister attends–could be a plus or minus depending on the day…) does not have ED, otherwise he would probably want to do that.
Next up for him, the essay…
My intel comes from the ACT subreddit where these kids literally talk about exact questions and passages. They know their stuff that’s for certain and know exact how generous the curves are for each test. We have UAH on the list as well but I’m not certain my kid can be a plane ride away and I think he needs to be within striking distance if need be. He’s aiming for civil engineering so I think staying local in the northeast will be important if he plans to settle here for a job. My husband works at a private that has ABET engineering but just general with tracks. We have access to the Tuition Exchange program, which is competitive and that’s why we had him retake it a second time.
S19 has decided on his list. 15 schools. He’s looking exclusively at LACs and not using ED. The acceptance rates to most of his schools are in the 20% range, some lower. Since LACs take a decent percent of kids ED, the RD acceptance rate is actually lower.
The list isn’t quite as crazy as it seems. Five of the schools do not have supplemental essays. And three that do have the same supplement that asks for an essay on a favorite EC. Five of the schools also have no application fee. Two are safeties, five are matches, three are low reaches and five are bigger reaches. Some are closer to home, some have cold weather and some warm. I really believe he could be happy at any of them and I think having a longer list is helping him keep an open mind. He’s visited six of the schools and we are seeing two more this summer. We aren’t visiting any of the big reaches since they don’t care if we visit!
I’d be all for having a shorter, less-reachy list but that just won’t work for him. Maybe D21 can be the child with the short list!
@Brentwoodmom - Welcome! Yes, I do feel as though the list is getting smaller and smaller. D has 1 definite safety, 1 match, and after that- who knows. There are plenty of fabulous reach schools, and a problem seems to arise with each. Mostly affordability. We are waiting for the net price calculators to update in August- (in my mind this happens, but does it???) And then we will see. D has a dream school that would fit her so perfectly but I keep downplaying it because I believe we can’t afford it. And of course I feel awful about that.
And YES, @SDCounty3Mom ! D gets so uncomfortable when people ask about which colleges she is looking into. She usually just rambles off the usual state schools and then tries to toss it to me to save her. It’s really awkward. It seems like a very personal question to her at this point, one that casual acquaintances shouldn’t be asking.
There is another topic that I rarely see mentioned here on CC, but I’m putting it out there. Are any other parents concerned about what may happen with college choice if their child has a serious significant other? Right now D seems to be thankfully focused on college first, but has a very strong emotional attachment to her boyfriend. Of course anything could happen in the next year but it is in the back of my mind.
@brentwoodmom We still have a loooong list. Shortly after @dowzerw commented about early application strategies, I started seriously entertaining ED to a school that fits most of her criteria, so we could potentially limit the list tremendously and use a Phase 1/Phase 2 approach.
D19 is the holdout, and I can almost guarantee that based on her nature, we’ll be at this till April 30th. Also, because she’s done summer programs at a few different schools, I think she’s trying to emulate a combination of environment/student characteristics that may not naturally exist anywhere. In reality, those summer programs may not present an accurate picture of the undergraduate experience at that school anyway. For instance, an girls’ math program at UNL left her with this cool, geeky, girl-power impression of UNL. But, really??
So whatever… we re-visit UAH next month, and maybe two more. UAH’s first visit was a walk around sophomore year on the way from space camp, so it does warrant a re-visit. UGA has some Open House she registered for, but even though they’re only about an hour away, I’d rather re-visit in the spring if necessary.
@peachActuary73 I hear you about the “visit in the spring if necessary”. S19 and I talked yesterday and he was under the impression that we will just visit (or re-visit) all schools he’s accepted to next spring and then he can decide. I’m not counting our chickens before they hatch, but I also know there will only be time for a handful of visits. I told him that we need to see how things fall regarding acceptances and then maybe he can visit his top three or four (given he gets that many acceptances). I can’t see visiting more than that. I mean, he will still be in school and track will be going on and those accepted student days are on weekdays.
D19 has 8 schools on her list, but in part that’s because aside from the state school she’s OK attending, the rest of the schools are not sure things. I think she’d get into at least 3 of the 7 others, but it’s difficult to tell, of course. For us, the list is financially doable, not unrealistic admissions-wise (albeit chance-y at some schools), and each school has a particular strength that speaks to my D. We’re comfortable with 8.
I don’t think there’s any problem in having a short list, and as others here will say, the majority of college students in the U.S. apply to only one college/university. Each student (and family) has a different set of parameters, and there’s nothing inherently worse (or better) about applying to 3 schools as opposed to, say, 12. As long as there’s at least one academic safety that the family can afford and the student wants to attend, everything else is gravy.