We will look at ACT. She’s in a MOOD so I’m going to not bring up anything college related all weekend.
4 Likes
I follow the Class of 2025 thread as well as this one, and some parents made these comments tonight that I thought might be useful for the Class of 2026 parents as families start making plans to visit colleges. For those who are not aware, this is the time of year when many of the reachier colleges are announcing their decisions.
10 Likes
I 100% agree with this! I have learned to work from the bottom up when creating a college list (this is my 3rd kid).
I know I just posted that our spring break trip includes mostly reaches but (1) our first three college tours were safety/likely schools and (2) I am very realistic about what constitutes a reach. Even if my kid’s stats are well within in the match range, I consider any school with a low acceptance rate (under 45% or so) a reach. No matter what.
4 Likes
We did a family trip to Boston last summer. Highly recommend going to almost any restaurant in the North End for Italian food (Google what some of the local faves are), and then hitting up Mike’s Pastry for cannoli. I don’t know if that’s just a touristy thing, but it’s really good. (We actually went to the one in Cambridge – the lines at the one in the North End can be long.) We also ate lobster rolls at the Barking Crab, which is near the Boston Tea Museum – again, it seemed kind of touristy, but the lobster rolls were delicious.
We didn’t take any official tours – in hindsight, maybe we should have. But at the time, D26 was still saying she didn’t want to go far from home. We did walk around MIT and Harvard just for fun – and my D22 wore her Rice t-shirt, LOL. (We also got a funny picture of her in front of the Harvard Book Store, because she was awarded the Harvard Book when she was a junior in high school, and it’s as dry and pompous as you might imagine, so we kept joking that she should have brought it with her to see if she could return it. 
)
4 Likes
Thanks! We are touring BC, BU, Northeastern, and UConn…. But will have plenty of time to visit popular sites. It’s my D’s first time in Boston (and only my third) so we are definitely fine with touristy!
1 Like
Yep, I’ve found the 2025 discussion interesting and enlightening. We started with our in-state flagship first for an informal visit (went to a public observatory visit). That was our starting point, and frankly I talked it up a LOT. Then we went to some reachier schools to do a little bit of inspiration/exploration. Does she want to try for these harder schools? What would she have to do to try to be competitive (short answer: probably more than she was doing). Then we hit the targets and likelies. After some of the likelies, we had a bit of a conversation about whether she wants to try to be the “big fish in a small pond” or try to go swim with the other big fish. We talked about there being no right answer for any of this - just what’s right for her.
Who knows what mistakes we’ve made along the way and which ones we’ll make as she goes into senior year! 
5 Likes
When are you coming and where are you staying? So many food options in the city. Make time to walk Newbury Street- you can start at the Common and walk around and then up Newbury to Hynes Convention Center T stop- or do the opposite to end in the Common. Also walk to Faneuil Hall and across to the pier. If you have time the Seaport is a fun area too. Boston is much smaller than one would think and if you are up for it and have comfortable walking shoes you can see a lot on foot.
La Famiglia Giorgio’s in the North End is a great spot! I would do Modern Pastry over Mike’s for dessert but you will wait in line at both.
Table Mercato also in North End makes phenomenal sandwiches and on a nice day you can walk to Christopher Columbus Park and have a picnic.
For seafood- Saltie Girl or Neptune
Boston also has a great China Town- can’t go wrong at any of their restaurants- the go to’s are China Pearl and Hei La Moon.
Hope you have beautiful weather- it’s supposed to be 60 and sunny here today but snow on Monday- so check the weather and make sure you have warm clothes- spring here is all over the place.
1 Like
I don’t think there’s one right way to do college tours! It depends so much on the kid, too. I know kids who don’t like any school. But my own kid suffers from recency bias, LOL – she seems to find something to like at every school we’ve seen. It’s been a looong road in figuring out exactly what she wants, both in terms of environment and vibe and what she wants to study. And she’s still figuring it out!
3 Likes
So, my D26 did not get into the prestigious summer program she spent all year applying and interviewing for. It stings a bit right now, but big picture, she only pursued it because my D22 did this program and had a life-changing experience, so D26 wanted to have a similar time.
But their academic and professional goals are really different, and truthfully there are much better ways my D26 could spend her summer.
Now we just have to find what those are and put something in place. 
10 Likes
Thank you for all the recommendations! We are staying in Back Bay (seemed centrally located) and leave in three days. I am definitely checking weather. At this point, it looks like we will be getting a little bit of everything – typical spring.
We are coming from a large city, where we actually live in the city, so are used to walking and comfortable taking public transportation. We will not have a car, except for a one-day rental when we drive to UConn and back.
Gonna start googling restaurants now. Yum!
1 Like
We are currently waiting to hear back about a summer program that, I suspect, will have a similar ending. She tried last year too, and was waitlisted.
Hope your D bounces back quickly, and finds something fun to fill her summer.
2 Likes
We only did Brandeis and BU. It was still snowing in April that year. We did, I believe, the entire freedom trail while we were there which was fun. Boston is such a great city for students.
Edit: we also stayed in back bay. It’s a great base.
1 Like
D26 is waiting on several summer programs… ranging from super reach, to reach, to very likely. They will all notify in about two weeks. It was definitely good experience for her to do the short essays and arrange LORs from her teachers.
2 Likes
D26 isn’t doing anything fancy this summer. Just working at Walmart.
10 Likes
My semi-cautionary tale is that I took S23 to visit safeties first… and he did fall in love. It was difficult for me as a parent when he decided towards the end of the process that he preferred this beloved safety school, over all of the reaches where he’d been admitted! 
But I do still think it’s best to put effort into identifying and visiting the safety / likely schools first, and that’s how we did it with D26.
Just be prepared as a parent that this tactic may work so well that your child might genuinely love the safety (and it might be a great choice for them too). 
7 Likes
C26’s preferred program at the moment had a 75% admit rate for OOS last year. Of course I’m paranoid about the 25% rejection rate. It will be our first proper visit too. Depending on how that visit goes and on how the plans go we may or may not visit other colleges before any admits, though I would like them to see some others too. (Their summer program is at another college, but one that they are not likely to be admitted to.)
Because of the various constraints on the list, most of the current college list is large publics. Of course, there is also the chance that the summer program shows C26 that they don’t want to do architecture after all, and then there is going to be a whole other scramble to figure out what and where.
2 Likes
We loved doing the freedom trail, too! One funny thing is that my son is a huge fan of Chipotle – like he’d eat there every day if he could – and there is some historic building on the freedom trail that the brochure/map said was now a “place of commerce.”
Yes. It’s now a Chipotle. We took so many pictures of him in front of it, LOL.
Other fun things in Boston were a tour of Fenway (husband is a rabid Red Sox fan) and candlepin bowling, which was a fraction of what we pay for regular bowling at home. Kids enjoyed both thoroughly.
4 Likes
A real job is awesome!
7 Likes
Thanks. 
She’s grown a lot and has come out of her shell a lot since she started the job last November. The job has been a big part of that.
6 Likes
In other news, happy to report that the junior prom dress we ordered online fits perfectly and looks gorgeous, so that’s done, and all relatively painlessly! Now for shoes.
10 Likes