^^^ The news about Carrie Fisher brought us down a little today. Sad to see her go at such a young age.
Horrible horrible year. George Michael and Carrie Fisher in the same week.
And Debbie Reynolds. This year cannot end soon enough.
So D19 did not get the scholarship to the other private school but they are known for being really great with FA, so we will see whatās what ā hopefully soon, because we have to sign a contract with her current school, or decline, in the middle of January, I think.
And Dās brother, whoās in sixth grade, was also accepted at the new school. He goes to a local Catholic school now and is not being challenged - weād love to have both of them at this new school. I would be over the moon if this was possible.
Happy new year!
Iām looking for spreadsheet help. The email account Iāve created for D & I is already becoming inundated with stuff that I email myself as I find it online.
I have never ever created a spreadsheet and know pretty much nothing about how they work. Iād rather not recreate the wheel, if there is help out there - I searched on CC and found a couple of folks who seemed to have successfully used them but nothing really recent.
Any guidance would be great. It seems to me that one huge spreadsheet is not the way to go. But I am like a deer frozen in the headlights staring at a blank Google Sheets page.
ETA - hahah - itās even worse than I thought, my ignorance. I tried to start a Sheets and canāt figure out how to name the freaking columns so theyāre not āA,ā āB,ā etc. Sigh. So clueless.
Google Sheets doesnāt allow renaming columns (nor does Excel, for that matter). Just use the first row for your column heading names; in Sheets and Excel you can āfreezeā the top row (to find out how, just google the name of the spreadsheet program youāre using plus freeze top rowāitās very different for all of them, but always pretty straightforward).
OK, thanks @dfbdfb - Iām actually cruising along pretty well now that Iāve gotten over my initial panic and refusal to learn. It helps that I am currently chained to my desk @ work and there isnāt actually much work, so I have lots of time to play around.
I have a spreadsheet humming along, but havenāt tried to make it DO anything yet, like sort a column. (Kind of afraid - pretty sure I have to tell each column how to behave or something.)
Iāve figured out how to wrap the text, widen the columns, freeze the first row, etc.
My columns right now are:
College name
Location
Distance from home
Size (enrollment)
Application fee
Tuition cost
Room/board
Books
Personal Expenses
Transportation
Meets 100% need?
Uses CSS Profile?
Avg aid amount
Avg loan package
Sports detail (for Dās sport)
Majors (tailored to her wants)
Middle 50 SAT range
Whether we have a personal contact
Percent admitted
Application deadline
Most important criteria for acceptance
Unique features (right now, this is from the College Board site; likely will be a frequently edited cell
Before I get too far along, am I missing stuff?
I might include average gpa (or the % by gpa bracket) a column for if they are a safety, match or reach. Personally Iād lump all the costs together to just show Total COA at this early stage. Also note the average award for need based students versus non need merit at this point. I wouldnāt bother with the average loan amount as thatās pretty standard but I look at 4,5 and 6 year grad rates as well as loan default rates (tells me if those kids have jobs lol). I also do track rankings (a variety) and median starting salaries. Also any odd things from an admission requirement or curriculum requirement, kind of a special c
To filter you just want to highlight all your columns and rows and then click data filter. Then you can sort any way you like. Quick google search should show it as well.
Ultimately mine is very much a workbook with different tabs for different things but the initial one started out much like yours. Iāve not started one for S19 yet. Most likely a summer project.
I would add how many essays each school requires. Our sonās possible list has schools with no extra essay and some with seven! Also, if you have Naviance, I would add the average GPA or ACT/SAT scores from your high school to a column. For us, those numbers can be very different from the 50th percentile that is quoted by the college itself. Iām also thinking of adding a column about how important demonstrated interest is and if an interview is required or suggested.
Thanks so much, @eandesmom - when you say yours is a workbook, with different tabs for different things, does that mean you insert a new sheet? That would show up as a different tab along the bottom?
Iām not worried about grad rates or loan default rates at this juncture ā maybe when we get closer ā and rankings seem to be not in the cards for D ā if the schools are highly ranked, either she wonāt get it, or we wonāt be able to afford it 
The beauty of a spreadsheet is that you donāt have to set it all up perfectly at the outsetāyou can simply add new columns as stuff comes up. (Protip: Donāt ever delete a column with data, thoughāhide it, so that you donāt have to go hunting for all the information if you ever need it again.)
One thing I realized I should have done from the outset, though, is include a row at the bottom describing where to find the data. When it became apparent that I needed a column showing average wintertime hours of sunlight for my D17ās spreadsheet (due to seasonal affective disorder issues), I looked it all up and put the information inābut then when a couple schools got added in later, I had to refigure everything because I couldnāt remember which siteās calculations Iād used, and they arenāt all comparable.
I get what youāre saying about being able to track the data back ā but itās not necessarily all from one place. Even after a couple of hours worth of work, Iāve got College Board, individual schools, Forbes, etcā¦ Iām sure thisāll be huge pretty quickly as far as sources.
Oh, noāI meant at the bottom of each column. So ZIP code (which I use to create maps) has āschool websiteā at the bottom of the column, but the 25%/50%/75% ACT score columns have āPetersonsā, the school colors column has āWikipediaā, and so on.
School COLORS?
Hahaha ā I thought I was obsessive.
LOL
I have a mascot column type of school (LAC versus research Uni etc) school size, distance to major cities if applicable etc.
As far as rankings go I look at many sources, is news is just one and we werenāt looking at top schools for S17, but were focused on the best schools for him and that meant leaning on CTCL and the A schools for B students lists. We also cared about things like green schools and LGBTQ friendly. It wasnāt really a goal to find schools that were on those but interestingly enough the bulk of his list happened to be on both and that tells me a little something.
And yes multiple spreadsheets. I have one for COA comparisons year one, annual COA averaged over the 4 years and total cost (bar charts lol). And of course what the delta is in those compared to budget. I also track list price versus NPC price versus actual offer.
I have an app status one that tracks the stages of actual apps, deposit dates and orientation dates.
For me I find that things can get unwieldy quickly and segmenting the data into chunks worked best.
I agree completely regarding hiding columns or versioning (saving as a new file name) or both so you preserve data.
Iām old school. I never did a spread sheet DS16 , but he only applied to 5 instate schools. I also recommend looking at the CDS for each school. That will give you stats of accepted applicants , importance of showing interest , ethnicity and diversity, etc. We wonāt even start anything until beginning of Jr year , but our search is focusing on instate schools .
Others already covered quite a bit on the spreadsheet.
I had created a folder named DS2017 and shared it with S17.
Inside were several spreadsheets, google maps for tour/visit scheduling, itinerary spreadsheets, and Docs for essay prompts.
DS2019ās folder has a sheet with all the potential test dates for next two years - SAT, ACT, PSAT, SAT subject, and AP exams. Those dates are also entered in shared google calendar.
On the College List spreadsheet,
- Yes, I have many tabs at the bottom and renamed the tabs properly.
- I created Tabs for Extracurriculars - Common Application Activities - to keep track of Activities, Service hours, Honors/Awards, so that we can sort them by importance and choose top 5 to 10 depending on the application form.
- I filled in a number, 1,2ā¦, in the first column and the number was changed at different times. First, it was visiting order, later application submission order, now preferences, etc.
The 2nd column then was for the College Name. I then froze the first 2 columns. As the columns expanded to a mile wide, I could slide columns right and compare a particular tribute. - For Location, if a flight was involved, I put in the nearest airport and distance to it.
- Diversity is important to us so I had %White/%Colored/%International.
- Gender ratio. Tech schools have more men (better chances for girls). Recently turned coed and small liberal arts schools have more women (better chances for boys).
- For Acceptance rates, I put in both published acceptance rates and our school acceptance rate from Naviance. I also put in Yield rate.
- For Average GPA/Test scores, I put in both the published ones and our school averages.
- Y/N for Need Blind, Meets 100% Need, Merit scholarships.
- Need for Interview, Resume, SlideRoom/Zeeme/etc.
- Ratings: Princeton Review and Fiske ratings for Academics, Admission, Social, & Quality of Life.
- I hid and unhid columns and rows multiple times along the way.
In retrospect, the number of supplemental essays was the most important criterion for S17. Zero is the best 
Early Action (non-restrictive) was also important.
I also used Highlight Colors and Bold Font for various purposes. Yellow, Purple on Interview dates, unfinished items.
Graying out schools once application is submitted. Green highlight when the acceptance arrived.
Light grey colors or italic font as the schools are falling off the List.
The Spreadsheet became dynamic with varying colors and fonts and served a tracking tool.
is easier than āgoogle CDSā and clicking through common data set.
I did not add columns for the data that can be easily referred back to the data in collegedata.com
College data is much better than digging through each cds, we also tracked diversity and gender.
Good point on test dates that is something I should start now. I donāt expect to do much more than that on S19 for some time.
Truthfully the biggest initial litmus test was each schools NPC. If it couldnāt come it at or under our max, it never made it in the spreadsheet.
^^ Yes, NPC was the 3rd column next to the school name, and then COA (Cost of Attendance totaling tuition, room/board, etc) and then the merit size.
The first College List was for initial list of colleges with all the properties for āfit,ā admission chances, and affordability.
The second spreadsheet was for admission criteria for putting together application.
The last sheet was for tracking application progress.
Completely different topic: My D17 consistently disregarded āplease send in this postcard for more informationā mailings. My D19, on the other hand, absolutely loves them. Sheās selective about which ones she sends backāand she hasnāt sent any yet where she has to use her own stampābut she really, really likes the idea of sending a physical object to express interest/request contact.
Just kind of an observation about how different oneās different kids can be.
I have no way to run the NPC now. No. Way.
We could have a huge bump in income next year, which would make everything hunky dory, or be in the same boat weāre in now, which is pretty awful. In the latter case, we have one spouse self-employed, with highly irregular income and income from farm/royalty $$, which makes the NPC pretty useless.