If your kid is aiming for a more selective college, I would also strongly recommend listening to (or reading the transcripts for) “Inside the Yale Admissions Office” which not provides good insights for applying to Yale, but also top schools in general.
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I would also suggest – based on my experience – to visit a ‘sampling’ of schools in junior year or over the summer. But not visit all the schools your child will be applying to. First, because it gets expensive to travel to a dozen schools, and also it is highly likely they will only get into a few of them. But if you ‘sample’ the TYPE of schools, then your child can decide if they prefer a medium sized private university, a large public university, or a small liberal arts college. For example, in our case, the child decided that a 2000-student LAC was too similar to their suburban high school (also around 2000) and he didn’t want to do what he called “high school 2.0”. Which was fine. So a whole tranche of college types were eliminated right off the bat.
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Some additional thoughts:
Re: scheduling college tours:
- WHEN to do the tour should be coordinated between student & parent(s)
- STUDENT should be the one to actually schedule the tour.
- each college handles tours differently. Some have a form that you fill out online. Others require you to send an email to a specific email address.
Other unrelated stuff:
- You might need to remind your kid regularly to check their email daily during college admissions season.
- at some colleges, once you apply, the college gives you an email address and from there onward, ALL of their communication to the student is to that email address. Student needs to CHECK IT DAILY.
- finding a college that is ‘just the right fit’ is like trying on different pairs of shoes. Sometimes you have to explore several before you find the right one. Sometimes even a Big Brand Name U sounds great but then you dig a little under the surface and you/your kid realizes, “Nah, that one’s not going to fit.”
- Everybody you know might give you their opinions between now and after HS graduation day about The Question (“where is The Child going to college?”). Some will be supportive opinions. Other opinions will be…negative. Some will be somewhere in between. It’s just their opinion. Other people’s opinions don’t count. If your family and your kid is cool with whatever their final choice is, that is ALL that matters.
- The reason I ask my kid to name 3 positive things & 3 negative things after each college tour is this is: (a) how I help my kid refine her list further; (b) how I learn straight from the horse’s mouth what she thinks of each school; (c) how sometimes over the course of a couple of tours, what my kid likes might change.
FOR EXAMPLE:
With D24, we toured UNM & NMSU in New Mexico (we live in AZ). On paper, they looked awesome. D24 is a bio major/pre-health. Both schools were SUPER affordable (cheaper than in state in AZ), she could probably get into the honors college at both, and both have some decent pre-health opportunities, AND weren’t too far away. D26 went w/us on those tours.
NMSU’s tour/event day was really well organized. Impressive. D24 DID apply, but it ended up at the bottom of her priority list for a couple of reasons:
- food in the dining hall wasn’t very good (we ate there for lunch that day)
- felt like there was “nothing to do” on weekends
UNM (in Albuquerque) was visited next. D24 applied there, too, but it was low on the priority list because although she liked the campus a lot better, felt area was too spooky/scary/dark once the sun went down (I agreed with her on this).
D26, meanwhile, isn’t going to apply to either of those at all because she “doesn’t like the vibe there.” What does that mean? I can’t quite explain but knowing how D26 is wired, I think I know what she means.
I’m a little disappointed because both of those schools have some good opportunities for the major she wants. And to pay lower $$ than in AZ would be really really nice. But that’s ok.
Couple of weeks ago, D26 & I went to tour Embry Riddle University in Prescott, AZ. Has 2 of the majors she’s interested in, she’d probably get admitted, but whether or not it’s affordable is up in the air. I had a hunch going in what D26 would think about it (and I was right). It’s an excellent school. She’d be able to get industry-relevant internships in her major, and good connections to have full time employment in her field upon graduation.
ok, all good things, right?
Except for the food (or lack of options on campus). Except you pretty much need a car there in order to do anything off campus (and she wouldn’t have a car the first couple of years for sure). And the day we were there, it snowed in Prescott as we were leaving town (so it violated D26’s weather requirements).
Ok, so what do you DO with something like THAT?
What did we learn about D26 from that tour?
- smaller colleges are ok
- smaller colleges that are remote, or FEEL remote or have little to no access to some sort of easy public transportation are not ok
- food options on campus & NEAR campus are a big deal for my kid
- Prescott felt “too full of retired people, doesn’t feel like a college town”. Hm ok, so either it ideally should feel like a college town or BE a college town. And by “feel” like a college town, what D26 REALLY means is “there’s shops & restaurants within walking distance of campus.”
So she’s not going to apply there either. Was that tour a waste of time? HECK NO!
One other thing…ask your kid how they feel about online classes. This is something we didn’t think to ask about until part way through the college tour process with D24. A LOT of public universities are doing WAY more online courses now compared to a few years ago. Do NOT assume that all of your classes at a public university these days will be in person. If a class says on the college’s ‘schedule of classes’ that it’s “hybrid,” ask what that means. It could mean that you only go in person on test days and the rest of the time, it’s all online.
For D24, she does NOT do well with online instruction, so that moved all of the public universities she applied to further down her prioritized list.
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- Be up front about finances. That way you avoid disappointment later on. The last thing you want is your kid to get their heart set on a school that doesn’t end up working out financially.
- On the tour, encourage your kid to ask questions. If you, the parent has a question, ask your child to ask the question for you.
- Don’t say “we are applying to Yale.” Say “Bobby or Janie is applying to Yale.”
- I think someone else said this but don’t try to keep up with the Joneses. Every kid is different. Also, every family is different and has different finances. Don’t go into debt for a fancy school just because your kid’s friend’s family is doing that. Or maybe a family is so wealthy that money is no object, don’t take on debt to keep up with that.
- Also, don’t criticize other kid’s college choices or other family’s decisions regarding college. This is already a stressful process, don’t fan the fire. It also sets a bad example for the kids.
- Remember college is only 4 years. You have many great years after college.
- Don’t say “college is the best 4 years of your life.” Yeah college can be great. But, life doesn’t go downhill when you graduate. Also, college won’t always be fun…it can be hard.
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One thing I believe in is knowing your child. I had a highly motivated child who was determined to get into a top school. There were a limited number she was interested in. she understood she needed a safety and begrudgingly chose one. As people who went to our state school, DH and I thought this was nuts (from a “who needs that kind of stress” department , the financial end we’d covered long before). I provided a ton of “ admin” help because she was insanely busy with all AP classes, leadership roles and an internship. I did the research on what schools required what essays, when special visit days were open ( such as ones for females in engineering) and planned the travel and made a chart of when things were due. I had one counselor tell me she needed to do this herself but frankly I thought that was ridiculous. Why.? What would that gain her?This was not a kid who needed time management skills. It was a kid who needed time to sleep after completing 5-7 hours of homework. In the work place I use my admin aide to do this sort of research for me ( when is my brief due, what sections are required, what color cover does it need? How long can it be etc…..)
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Another piece of advice is to check your kids and their notions about what they think they know and maybe challenge lazy reasoning. Using the example above, my kid wasn’t targeting LACs when her search began but her appreciation for the options became more sophisticated after visiting a few and understanding what they were and what they were not, as well as what the other options (large state flagships, larger private R1s) were and were not. It’s a big investment and you don’t want to make the decision based on hackneyed stereotypes and descriptions or uninformed preconceived notions like “LACs are high school 2.0”. Two of my Ds attended a 2000 + student suburban high school and 2,000 + student LACs. I asked them specifically if their college experience felt in any way like high school 2.0 and they laughed at the question. They might have had more of that if they had stayed home and attended my alma mater, the University of Washington, a behemoth flagship R1, and participated in the Greek system, where they would have seen many, many familiar faces.
Sure, if you attended a rural New England boarding school and head to one of the smaller rural LACs in New England, then there is a valid point to wanting to do something different. But suburban high school kids wind up happy at all kinds of places because I can’t think of any college anywhere that is going to feel like that.
In short, I think categorically eliminating an entire “type” of college without having given it a sophisticated look is a mistake. You don’t know what you don’t know.
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Completely agree with this sentiment. My D24 attended a 3,900 student high school and is now thriving at a 1,900 student LAC. She couldn’t be happier about her decision.
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