@BrooklynRye - we are also definitely including the subject tests.
The safety discussion is interesting. To me, it is important to have one I know (or highly believe) I can afford, that my kid has a HIGH likelihood of being admitted, and they like. We are fortunate to have UVM three hours away and a high school that not only gets most kids admitted to UVM but sends 20-30 kids there. And in Naviance speak my kids fell well within the āgreen x zoneā.
@homerdog your search for a safety is complicated because your son wants to run. I lived that two years ago so i get it. Youāre doing the right things now. I think some of his matches will present themselves as safeties as he moves forward. And I do think his situation is complicated by the environment (which is just so similar to our HS). Kids that are strictly academically focused have one less variable. What you are going to find (I suspect) is that the best school is going to be the one that meets academics AND running. Keep the faith!
The other night I announced to my DH that our D got accepted at one of her in-state āoptionsā. That sounded nice. This was the school that D decided she would apply to because she saw a picture of her friendās dorm room on Instagram. :(( My D is a good student, but not a super high stats kid, so she isnāt looking at any super reaches. She is sort of bent on getting out of Texas, so weāll see.
@homerdog Report back on the Kenyon overnight. Would like to hear those impressions
@TS0104 That is a problem for D too - most of our friends have lived in FL their while lives and many havenāt heard of smaller schools up in the northeast or even anywhere too far out of the south.
@swimmingdad UVM was one of our safeties too and I love it there (I went to college a few hours away and spent many fin weekend visiting UVM friends.) We visited last year and D loved it but has taken it off her list because it is too hard to get there and too cold. 
@jellybean5 Congratulations!!
@gnocchiB - I love that you saw Rhett miller so long ago! I have seen him solo once and the Old 97ās about 5 times - even flew up to Boston to see them with my BF for my 40th birthday! 
Jumping back in here after a long hiatus. I guess coming from a underperforming district has its own advantages. Here most of the top performing kids are heading to our top instate schools: UVA and W&M. Maybe one student from their high school per year goes to a school outside VA that makes people ooh and aah. My D19 has friends going to schools from UVA all the way down to the local community college. Not a lot of pressure to wow people here.
That said she would like the opportunity to go away to college like her older siblings did but her ultimate safety is our local public where one of her best friends is and is having a great experience. We have narrowed down her list to mostly middle/ match schools that I feel she has a 30-70% chance of admission at. She only has one super reach school left on her list and Iām not even sure she will ever apply there. She plans to apply ED to her favorite āmiddleā school and EA to her second favorite.
The most ironic thing is that her siblings both went tippy top schools but she just doesnāt care. Very proud of her for being herself in this.
@BrooklynRye we sent all scores to all schools. All of my dās scores were good scores, a couple closer to her interests were great scores. I wanted her to know she had nothing to be ashamed of in her scores and some things to be really proud of. If they donāt consider them, they donāt have to look if they donāt want to.
Sounds like your daughter has great perspective @Dragonflygarden . Iām sure sheāll be very successful wherever she ends up.
I wish our school had Naviance. Iām confused about your comment (sorry rephrased) ābased on metrics no kid with DS stats has gotten rejected from Georgetownā. Is Naviance that specific? IS Gātown not a holistically reviewed school?
@ilovebillyjoel even wholistic review weigh stats heavily.
@SwimmingDad the āaffordā part (or likely to) is a requirement around here to fit the safety category. I agree that the running may well skew things positively for @homerdog and a match or two is more safe than not and certainly hope so.
I lived it 5 years ago for soccer. Happy not to be dealing with it now lol.
I spent the weekend at UVM visiting S17 and couldnāt be happier with where he is at and how he is doing.
@momtogkc it does get cold there! So pretty though, so so pretty!
Safeties are a funny thing and they do change over time.
S17 has a safety he absolutely adores and will be happy to attend. It is not a school he was interested in on his own and it was a āmomā pick in terms of forcing him to tour. But thatās where it ended. He fell in love with it all on his own. He has 2 other safeties and I wouldnāt say he loves either one of them, more of a warm fondness, but he would be happy to attend. Prior to that mom forced tour though he was pretty convinced that heād love attending one of the other safeties that has now moved down into the favorite cousin category. The favorite cousin would cost me a lot less than the girl he can see himself dating but it was worth forcing the issue to find a safety he is truly excited about. No, it isnāt his first choice. But itās a darn good one.
Plus mom being right is always really nice. LOL!
@ilovebillyjoel The way Naviance works is that you can see past results for students per school but you only have their GPA and test scores. It can be quite telling, though, even for schools where admissions are holistic. One doesnāt know any more about each of those students but, if there are nothing but acceptances above a certain GPA/test score, then it doesnāt matter what each of those kids did for ECs, essays, etc. They were all accepted. So, as long as your student had average ECs,etc., for that GPA/test score, then itās pretty likely he will get in.
For example, we have one top 20 school where everyone gets waitlisted or accepted above a certain GPA/test score, so thatās what we expect to happen to S19. Itās a pretty high threshold and the school supposedly doesnāt care are demonstrated interest so no one really knows why some kids get accepted and others waitlisted. Presumably, itās those extras that put certain kids over the hump.
We have another school on S19ās list, a liberal arts school, that has a 21 percent acceptance rate and an ACT range of 30-33 (25th-75th percentile) but everyone above a 31 at our school has been accepted. Granted, itās just six kids as LACs are not popular at our high school but that LAC in particular really likes our school. S19ās stats being above 75th percentile really makes me want to think of it as a safety but that acceptance rate still gives me pause and I think Iām also being a little superstitious. Donāt want to count any chickens before they hatch.
The CSS Profile is available this morning for 2019/2020 school year. I filled out as much as I could without husband (heās sleeping in - need him to log into his 401k, etc accounts). I just have to say, this is far more painful than taxes!
Estimating earnings, etc, for 2019? Heck if I knowā¦ lol. It can vary quite a bit based on husbandās profit sharing bonus and how cheap my company is with raises. Estimate how much S19 will make next school year and next summer, not counting work study? Again, give me a dart and some random values, and Iāll pick something ;).
Iāve heard FAFSA is easier. Iām counting on that for my mental health tomorrow (hopefully). Theyāve taken down the website for maintenance, so Iāll just keep my fingers crossed that it works tomorrow. If not, later in the week.
@homerdog Ok, this makes sense. As I mentioned, we donāt have Naviance. Our school is a top one in our state and (I feel that) a lot of our guesses on acceptances to colleges ARE based a bit on history. For example, a medium sized LAC with <15% AR has taken kids every year, so based on that we have a small hope that DD could get in there. Our school doesnāt send kids to Ivys, thoughāso thereās that. As I say that, we have top top kids with many ECs and AP/IB classes, so Iām not sure why.
@homerdog Can you view other HS stats on Naviance?
@ilovebillyjoel - no, you can only see gap and either SAT or ACT for your high school Take a look at my profile picture to see what it looks like.
@parent2one Far more painful than taxes? Really? Ugh. We have fairly complicated taxes which I do myself using standard software, and I did my husbandās elderly auntās taxes through a home sale and mortgage payoff, so Iām hoping itās comparable to my annual spring sit-down. I only recently learned that I have to do this anywayā¦weāre one of those families for whom itās kind of close, but we donāt expect to qualify for need-based aid with one kid in college. So Iād been thinking for months here that I wouldnāt have to bother with these forms but Iāve now gotten multiple sources telling me itās a good idea to submit them, so I guess Iām on the hook after all. Sigh. Itās my new leisure activity ā ha!
D19 has now had five interviews. She had two last week alone ā one off-site in a hotel lobby in our town, and we drove 2 hours to another one on campus. They seem to be rather uniformā¦almost always take right around 25 minutes, and she gets asked the same types of questions. They all seem to love asking her for one to three words to describe herself, or to speculate on what various other people (parent, teacher, friend) would use. Thatās a pretty standard one. She also gets asked about her high school a lot ā describing it, and what she does and does not like about it.
Her essay progress is going so slowly that Iām battling with myself about how much to force/push this or not. She has a lot of content to write, both essays and short-answer questions, and if she maintains her current rate, she will literally not get it all done. Sheās been inching her way through her CA essay since July, about two and a half months ago. Her current draft is improving, but right now Iād say itās onlly a 3+ on a 5-point scale and I think she can do better. Lots of caution and playing it safe, and constantly pushing it to the back burner. I suggested Iām going to get a white board for a huge visual aid so she can SEE how much she has to write, and she told me not toā¦but I think she doesnāt fully grasp just how much has to get done. Sheās got an EA school that wants a full 500-word essay with very, very, very dull prompts and SIGHā¦the dull prompts donāt help my cause at all here. Anywayā¦these next three months now, we are really pushing off from shore. January 1, here we comeā¦
@SDCounty3Mom I love the idea of the white board. We donāt have one but I did draw out a paper calendar with the due dates of everything and S19 wrote in his target dates for getting essays done. I feel like every time I report back here, Iām still saying he has three essays left but thatās still where we are. BUT he does have a plan as to when to write them.
One of those schools is sending a rep to our school this coming Friday and he will meet with her before he writes that Why X School essay. He thinks meeting her, hearing her presentation, and talking a bit with her will help him with that essay. The other two schools are the big reaches. Dartmouth is coming to school in three weeks and he will meet with that rep. Plus, tomorrow we are going to a college rep road show with Vanderbilt, Dartmouth, Princeton, Columbia, and Northwestern reps presenting and then manning their tables. Maybe heāll learn more about Dartmouth there too. The last school is not coming to our high school and is a total lark. We havenāt visited and no one from our school ever gets in but not that many apply. He wants to give it a shot. The essay is a bear. I think that one may wait until Thanksgiving weekend to get written.
He did sent the Dickinson EA application in yesterday but still has to attach his portfolio. He needs 12 pieces for one of his other schoolās portfolios and he needs another month to get to 12 that he wants to send. Once he finishes all of the pieces, heāll go back to the Dickinson app and fill in his Slideroom submission. Iām starting to realize that sending these portfolios is a very one-off experience. Each school seems to do it a little differently. So, it could be more work than anticipated. He may have to build this portfolio for each school separately. Thatās going to be a big pain. Some schools have a link in their CA but some wait until you send the rest of your app in and then email you a password to get into their system to send a portfolio. Ugh. Thatās just a ton of busywork for him.
@SDCounty3Mom For me it was more painful in the āhow in the world am I supposed to know THATā sense. While taxes are tedious for us, itās all ārealā numbers and no estimates involved. I also had to dig up different information than whatās needed for taxes - home value (I ended up using Zillow and taking off the cost of a new roof, which is needed), 401k balances as of today, etc.
Iām glad that partās done, though. All in all it took less time than taxes, just more frustration on my part :).