@ninakatarina Our school doesn’t even have honors chemistry or honors physics OR honors econ. Sigh. So D19 is taking standard physics and standard econ…and she still has to do two trimesters of PE which she had to put off until now. Her academics won’t be as demanding next year but she’ll have plenty to do with college apps…
@brentwoodmom There is a lot of variability in the number of schools kids apply to. If you can reasonably expect to be accepted to schools of interest, then I see no reason why you need to apply to a lot. Having said that, here in California, I did see that few-schools strategy backfiring on a few kids because our UC system seemed to be pretty stingy with acceptances out of our district.
@peachActuary73 My D19 definitely wants a combination of characteristics in a school that does not actually exist. She’s said this herself. So it’s finding the closest approximation that accepts her, I guess. Nothing in life is perfect, and life also doesn’t generally work out as planned. She’s often still at the stage of wishing her perfect school in all ways did somehow exist, which isn’t a particularly helpful impulse…
My D19 currently has 15 schools on her list but I would not say that’s the final list. For her it’s 3 high reaches, 5 low reaches, 2 matches, 3 safeties, and 2 University of Californias (hard to categorize these days – probably also low reaches). I do anticipate that she may drop up to four of those after this summer – I could see one dropping from each of those four main categories, and another UC added. I do still get tempted to ADD schools at this point, or to put schools back on that we dropped. Honestly I’m the only one who ever researches schools, including D19 herself and my DH, so it’s all me.
D19 really seems to be struggling lately with wondering if she’s got what it takes to go away to school. Which I didn’t think would happen. Two years ago she was totally content with not seeing the rest of us for a month. Our home was being remodeled, so we all went in different directions. She traveled abroad with her aunt and uncle and then lived with her grandma. This didn’t faze her at all. Maybe now that the hypothetical is getting closer to being her actual lived experience, she’s feelin’ it? And being with extended family seems easier than being a college student? I do try to tell her that even if she goes away, it’s only an 8-month academic calendar for college so she can still be home quite a bit. But I can see her turning inward lately rather than looking outward and I’m surprised. It’ll continue to play itself out as the summer and fall progress, I am sure. She’s about to spend a week living in a dorm on a college campus on the other side of the country so she’ll get some experience with it all.
Why is the June SAT so slow with results? I’m jealous of these ACT results being available already. Such an unusually long wait for this June sitting. Hmph.
I read some essay advice today I can pass along:
focus on what isn’t already apparent elsewhere in the applications (including in letters of rec),
end on an upbeat note,
show growth/change,
don’t be afraid to show flaws/failures/missteps (and relatedly, don’t be boastful),
choose something you’ll be proud of in 30 years.
On that last one, does anyone remember the topic of their college essays?? I remember snippets of mine, and I know I over-emphasized the importance in my life of a hunger retreat I’d done because I thought it made me sound cool. I think it was about poverty and my relative privilege, which sort of sounds like a contemporary theme. I wish I had my college apps again as I’m sure that would be entertaining to read…