Congrats. The confirming score can be an ACT too and it has to be in by Dec. 2025, so there is time to get it up. As jessvig said, it just needs to meet the commended score, which will be released in April. Hopefully there isn’t a lot of stress about it.
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S26 is mainly interested in B1G or similar schools — large, public, good business programs, school spirit, sports, and lifelong connections to the school’s brand. We’ve visited several schools casually, and have started doing more focused tours and research.
But now that the DOE is threatened, what does that mean for these types of schools? Should we refocus on private schools? It’s difficult to imagine what could be different a year from now.
I think it depends on what your top decision criteria are. For example, is COA (cost of attendance) after financial aid one of those decision factors? If yes and if after running the NPC (net price calculators) on your kid’s desired Big 10 colleges, you discover that some of them are not affordable, then there’s no point in applying to colleges in the unaffordable category (in my opinion).
However, there’s a heck of a lot more colleges other than just Big 10 schools which have good business programs and great school football & basketball spirit.
COA is definitely a main consideration and it was already. He won’t be applying to schools outside of his budget. I’m concerned about faculty layoffs making classes harder to get or eliminated entirely, funding being cut for things like mental health services, research, etc.
I would go on as normal but maybe with a plan B, so yes maybe apply to one or two privates he may not have otherwise. I know they’ve been talking about this a long time and maybe they get it done or maybe they don’t, and of course it’s worrying, but I wouldn’t be eliminating options yet based on that.
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I hadn’t even thought about that! My D26 is also interested in flagship-type state universities. And, although COA is not a main consideration for us, some of the other things you mentioned are definitely important.
On a different topic, anyone have a kid applying to National Honor Society?
My daughter applied to NHS and was inducted last week. The application process was pretty exacting. I was glad she did 35 hours of service over the summer; one of her friends who was otherwise a strong candidate was not selected because she didn’t have enough service.
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Congrats!!
Unfortunately, service hours may be an issue for my D26. She actually does have a long term volunteer position (at a hospital) now – but it took months to secure and may be too late.
She emailed the volunteer coordinator at an area hospital back in July when she turned 16. At that time, there were no student openings and she was told to check back in September. In September, she got the ball rolling but the “hiring” process was lengthy (application and resume, interview, two recommendations, a meeting with employee health, vaccinations and TB testing, onboarding/training, a test on the training, etc.) After all of that, she officially started this week and really liked it. It is a weekly commitment with a required minimum of 100 volunteer hours. Given the setting and training involved, they want volunteers who are gonna stick around.
D26 really wanted a hospital volunteer position because she is interested in healthcare, maybe nursing. But, sadly, she is unlikely to have the minimum hours of service needed by the NHS application due date. [I was actually just googling for other options to get those few missing hours in before the application deadline, although that feels kind of like cheating.]
Honestly, from what I’ve read, NHS is a nice “cherry on top” type of thing, but really won’t make or break a student’s college admissions chances. The hospital volunteer opportunity sounds awesome!
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Our school just has a GPA requirement in order to apply to NHS. Student doesn’t have to come in with volunteer hours already.
NHS was not on our radar 
I looked it up, and D’s school does have it, I guess. But there’s no web site or anything with requirements, just a contact email (for one of the college counselors, I think). Is it worth suggesting to D that she try to find out more?
I hadn’t thought about this either. But D has been saying she wants to add some Canadian universities to her list… She told me that in a year from now when it’s application season, and then later in the year when offers are coming in, she might have a better idea about how US universities might be impacted by political changes. She wants to keep her options open.
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I guess each school sets its own criteria? At our school, you need a minimum 3.75 UW GPA, certain # of service hours, two recommendations, leadership activities, and essay
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Same for my daughter’s school.
We don’t have NHS at C26’s school, but we have CSF. You need to meet the requirements 4 out of your last 6 semesters (so, from sophomore year onwards) to get lifetime membership. D19 got that fairly easily. Because of C26’s late diagnosis /treatment with ADHD it will be a little more difficult but they made the requirements last semester and looking good so far for this one.
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D26 is being inducted this Thursday, the application was done I believe shortly after this school year started
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Not cheating at all if the minimum hours are met you should be good. The hours can come from various volunteer positions.
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Wow that is pretty chill our H.S. requires student holding leadership positions,volunteer hours, involvement in school clubs and or sports. There is a whole point system. Minimum GPA is also required.
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In our school students can apply both Junior and Senior year. So if your child missed it this year, next year is probably a possibility. All students who met the GPA requirement where mailed an application package.
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Our HS requires 3.5 GPA, submit an app where you answer a couple of short-answer essay questions, and I think 1 letter of rec. No requirement to have leadership positions or prior volunteer experience.
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My son just found out he got accepted into NHS yesterday. His school has a GPA requirement, a one page essay, 2 letters of recommendation from teachers, and they asked what classes they’ve taken, volunteer experience, and leadership roles.
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