washugrad- In our case she is only planning to see one rep and ironically it’s washu. She came up with the idea to put that school on her list. Its the farthest of the 5 schools on her list. We are planning to visit but for us this time of the year its difficult to go 300 miles and go visit. I agree with missing class which why I mentioned the one kid planning to see double digit college reps.
D20 just got her first job working at a local pumpkin patch on the weekends. Hooray for gainful employment!
Thanks @Mom2aphysicsgeek. My D doesn’t want to take time off from class to attend these, and since we are in the NE it’s easy enough for us to visit most of the schools she is interested in anyway.
Congratulations @hgtvaddict on the weekend job for your D.
Welcome @lmkiker.
Haven’t heard of in-school visits yet for DS’20 but when DS’16 was in HS the GC would sometimes pull students out of class to visit w reps. Seemed crazy to me at the time to take students from learning. I’d prefer an after-school or lunch time event. I do not think that it’s too late for seniors however as regular decision deadlines are months away and there’s still time to visit and get the apps/essays in. May be one school that was never, or barely, considered sparks an interest and can be added to the college list. Also, some juniors aren’t yet focused on college choices. Agree that it’s not ideal but may work for some. DS is pretty set w his college list, but I believe he’s also open to exploring somewhere new if it piques his interest.
Have your students been getting unsolicited college brochures in the mail yet? It’s starting to trickle in for DS. Not sure if they’re truly interested in him or just want to increase their applicant pool. I wonder how they choose who to send this stuff to. He usually just tosses it.
DS20 went to Vandy’s rep visit at his school (it happened to be during their study hall time), he said most the kids there were juniors and only one senior went. Kiddo seemed to really like what he heard about Vandy and Nashville. I kept telling him it has huge Greek life scenes and full of spoiled rich kids (lol, don’t want to add more schools to his pretty long list!). The rep might have heard about Vandy’s reputation as she emphasized the huge diversity of the school a lot. FWIW.
@SoccaMomma
DS has been receiving many college mails, both electronically and through the snail mail route. We think it might be because of PSAT? And/or our college visits? I don’t think they really target where they are sending these. Bowdoin wins the most mails received award.
DD20’s school only allows seniors to attend the in-school college rep visits. The reasoning is that the high school uses the visits to help almost decided students begin the application process specific to the colleges and ask last-minute type questions to get information not available on the websites.
@SoccaMomma , D20 has been receiving brochures, some from places even I had to Google. @makemesmart watch out for Vandy - they are winning the award for snail mail in our house. AND we get them addressed to both DD and myself, so double the fun.
@tutumom2001
Smh, I guess colleges are keeping USPS alive too.
Also, Vandy is claiming it to be a LAC, which seems strange to me. Am I sensing the upward trends of LAC?
I don’t see a big deal in missing a class. Typically kids are sick one day a year. Some of the colleges I noticed don’t visit every year. Eyeballing the amount I’m guessing at least 80% of seniors don’t sign up for the visits.
Our classes run about 650-700 students, so even 20% would be overwhelming for some of the colleges. The juniors get a college night where representatives from a hundred or so colleges come. The event also includes financial aid workshops, state scholarship representatives, AP information, military recruiters, and more.
We have a college night for juniors and seniors for the 5 high schools. The combined schools have around 12,000 kids total so that’s roughly 6,000 kids. It is held at the biggest high school. They have shuttle buses to take you there because parking is a bit limited. The college reps can visit the 5 high schools but not all do. They could visit one high school but not the other. I think the information is similar to #2488 college night. In the past you typically have a barcode you give to each college. Since I myself have never been to one it sounds like a lot of people in a small area.
I think the school visits are great for both juniors and seniors. For juniors it gives them a sense of the school and in our case there were some schools my daughter added to interest list because of them, one of them being one of her final choices in the end. Also it lets them hear different perspectives and start to formulate their priorities. Even if you visit ( which we personally did to all) it is a great opportunity for DI and I think in some cases if an AO visits a school and a student does not attend that can be viewed in a bad light. When my daughter did have a conflict with attending (such as a sport after school since her school did them before, during and after) she always reached out to the AO and let them know she wanted to attend.
For seniors I think they are great for helping answer some of the supplementals if they apply, putting a face to a name and DI.
Every school is different in how they bring the AOs on campus but it is a great opportunity for the students!
my S20’s HS frustrates me sometimes. It just took the guidance office secretary 7 minutes to confirm that school was offering PSAT and what date it was on. She had no idea.
Rambling thoughts: the High school is basically not thriving; more than 60% free/reduced lunches. So many people in the neighborhood move away for HS – white flight. Very few NMFs there. Bad score on Great Schools.
We can’t figure out what to do with our youngest. There are some good teachers at our HS; and lots of AP classes and i do feel the kids are safe. . . but its been turning so rough and non-academic focused (and yes, they are ranked #1 in the state for football). I think my older D16 who went to school there got a good education (high ACT/APs). It makes me feel almost racist for thinking of not wanting my youngest to be around this situation.
i wonder how URM kids and families at this school feel when the white kids leave by droves every year. Sure you can say it’s for a better education, but lets get real, that’s not why our neighborhood is packing up. (eg: from my girl scout troop of 22 girls four years ago, only 5 girls have stayed within the district) What do you guys think? is it racist to pull your kid, even though you know your kid could succeed in an underperforming school?
as i said . … just rambling thoughts that started on that 7 minute phone call hold . . .
Why do you assume they aren’t leaving due to education? You just stated that the school is not thriving and that the secretary couldn’t answer the simple question about the PSAT/very few NMFs and bad score on Great Schools.
^^ i guess i say that because i feel there are good classes & teachers in the mix. A kid CAN succeed. My daughter did way better academically in HS than my 2 closest friends’ kids (5 kids total) who transferred to the neighboring school district. We’ve found the teachers and classes. But the whole public view of the school is not good. Moving districts didnt make my friend’s kids any smarter . . . but it’s certainly popular to do. I just can’t figure it out.
@bgbf4us Thanks for explaining your thoughts. I have no real insight to offer, though, b/c we have completely rejected traditional brick and mortar education. 
@bgbg4us
Does your DS have enough peers who are academically driven like he is? I generally pay more attention to my DS’ friends as I think these peers could have stronger influence on DS than his teachers and the overall school environment. Of course safety is very important too. If you or your DS stop feeling safe at the school, then it is really not a good sign and definitely time to move.
Sadly, it is a “luxury” to have the option to move away.
As for the football/basketball, it seems to be pretty important in lots of high schools. My partner’s colleague who is an empty nester knows and follows the basketball players in my DS’ school (his children didn’t Even go there). And those jocks got many special treatments from their teachers.
When DW and I were looking for our first house we made sure that being in a good school district was a top priority (instead of paying for expensive private schools). LAUSD (LA Unified School District) has some good elementary schools but they feed into lots of questionable middle school and high schools and we didn’t want anything to do with those schools. I know some families don’t have the means to choose but several of our friends went for the big, expensive houses in a bad school district but are now regretting the decision as their kids are getting older. Many now have to petition to get into our school district (with somewhat mixed results).
We chose the older smaller house in the better school district and are pleased with the education. We had backup plans for both kids however if this district Just was not a good fit.
Our high school is almost 60 percent free lunch and has a ton of advanced classes, great teachers and 10 to 15 NMSF every year. There are ways to keep high performing students in an overall mixed High School. Our school did it by offering magnet programs including IB.
We’ve been in our house 20 years and D20 wasn’t born when we bought here. We hadn’t really considered school districts when we bought the house but the schools were supposed to be reasonably good. We ended up opting for a local private school which has been a really good fit for D20 but there has been times that we wish we had spent all of that private school tuition money on a house in a stronger school district.