Meeting with professors on visits were helpful to my daughter.
When the Class of 2018 local scholarship awards were listed in the newspaper, I wrote them all down so I could ensure DD applied for all that she could the following year. Apply for competitive scholarships at their college too if eligible, and the endowed scholarships for continuing students, in future years.
If your kid knows their major, it’s helpful to read through the course requirements and descriptions. For DD’19 some schools took her major off on a different track than she wanted.
Agree on holding the line on budget. She was off on flights of fancy. I was her ball and chain. Fall of senior year was not a particularly fun time.
Dual enrollment classes taken during HS have made it possible for DD to get a double major. Without those 24 credits (which were free for us) it would not work.
Tamp down expectations, both for yourself, and for your kid. Particularly if your kid is applying to HYPMS type schools.
Even if they have stellar stats.
Even if they have National and International level awards and ECs.
Even if they have everything that everyone thinks makes admission to those kind of schools a strong possibility.
Even if the admit comes through, the finances can blow things up.
One of my son’s classmates had everything on the list, was accepted to HYMS, but with no fin aid (and a sister in college at the same time) had to go somewhere else for merit money.
I spent years talking up our in-state flagship as a great place - not just a consolation prize - just in case.
Luckily, everything fell in to place for us, but things could just as easily have gone the other way.
Have real safeties - both academically, financially and personally on the application list. Schools where your kid will definitely get in, you can definitely afford, and where they won’t be miserable attending.
Avoid the giant nation-wide college tour where you visit 20, 30 or 40 schools all across the country, many of which your child has virtually no chance at academicly, and you may have no chance of paying for. When the other parents bask in their visit tour to the IVY’s, you don’t have to do the same. Plenty of time to visit schools on admitted student weekends.
The spreadsheet was also super helpful to “present” the different schools pros/cons to my H who has an attention span of about one minute! We could share the bottom line easily and quickly.
@doschicos Couldn’t agree more with
"Tell your child not to check off those boxes that allow ACT/SAT to sell your info to marketing companies and colleges. "
Made that mistake with DS, but did not repeat with DD!!
Treat finances as a precondition before applying to schools. Private schools are not as generous as they tell you. Even if you could pay for it, a $250k bachelors degree is an extremely poor value. There’s nothing that these private schools have that a state flagship can’t offer at a small fraction of the price.
It’s not worth paying triple the tuition going out of state. It’s just not!
NEVER co-sign private student loans to your kid under any circumstances! If you have to do that, you can’t afford the school. Not all first-time careers work out, and high student debt will limit opportunities for a career he/she might enjoy, not to mention be a crippling financial burden when they start a family.
I would suggest asking specific questions about HOUSING and CLASS REGISTRATION while on campus tours with student guides:
Where do students live after freshman year?
Is there housing available for all students enrolled?
If not, how hard (and how expensive) is it to find “off-campus” options?
What is the class registration process like?
Have you gotten into all the classes you wanted so far?
You would be surprised at how many parents complain about these issues, even at very expensive, “top-tier” schools.
Well purely based on threads on cc and some stressed out kids in real life - make very sure you know which schools require official test scores and send them EARLY. Do not wait until you submit your app - they will absolutely keep the scores until the have your app to match with.
Tell your kid the essays will take at least three time as long as they think. Writing the first drafts in summer before the senior year will take the stress level significantly down in the fall.
Great advice so far. All I would add is that once acceptances start coming in your child may be overwhelmed. Making that final decision is hard and intimidating. When it started to seem too much for him I randomly told him to knock one college out of the running - ANY EXCUSE - whatever makes it least appealing.
Sometimes they just need to know that you aren’t invested in which school they pick and any excuse is fine. They can only attend one school!
Don’t cheerlead for your favorite school. Keep discussions about particular colleges very even, limited to pros and cons of each.
I was in love with one particular U for my D. It was a great fit on paper and I was very vocal about it. I think she ended up disliking it as much as she did because of that. She ended up at a school she visited by herself, so I was never able to offer a strong opinion either way. It turned out to be a great choice, though not perfect particularly because it’s weak in one of her majors and my favorite school was top-notch in that major. But she has compensated nicely at the school she attends…
Another one is when you get down to the final contenders, plot out a 4 year plan that includes courses, ECs, research opportunities, study abroad, and anything else that’s important to your student. We found that really helpful in making a final decision. Every school looked noticeably different when we did that with pros and cons to each.
@cinnamon1212 my kid actually liked American better than Georgetown. (I think the crosses on campus freaked him out.)
My number one suggestion is to find two safeties you like. They don’t need to just be the big state university. They might be a school that is a little too rural, or a little too small, but are strong in a likely major for example.
My number two suggestion. I’m not a fan of ED, but if there are any EA schools or schools with rolling admissions make sure your kid gets those applications in. First, if they get in it takes a tremendous stress off the rest of the school year. Second, it ensures that those major essays are written, you’ve tracked down all the info the Common Application requires, and both the teachers and GC have their materials ready and submitted.
I do believe that the student should mainly drive the selection process but I also believe in having room for a:
Parent’s Pick: Although the final list should be chosen by the student, mom and dad get to add a school of their choice to the list. Doesn’t mean the student has to attend if accepted. Sometimes kids do rule out a perfectly good school for silly reasons.
I was fortunate that my kids and I were on the same page for the most part, though.
The best money I spent was on a private college counselor who was geared to helping my kids find colleges they were interested in AND keeping me out of the process which helped keep my relationship with my kids unfraught. If I had told my kids that almost all essays should be written the summer before senior year they would have rolled their eyes. But they fully complied with the college counselors admonition to do so. And with her requirements that all applications be in by October 1.
If know this isn’t a luxury most people can afford and that many who can use someone who is trying to get the kid into a certain type of school but that’s not the type we used. She was simply a resource for things like “what are they looking for in a what community do I belong to” essay or what do I do if my teacher doesn’t send in a red by the deadline? And she’d text reminders about what needed to be completed or things like “ start asking teachers for recs.
If you can afford it and your only expectation is that they are a procedural help, it is a wonderful thing to do. If not I’d still take steps to pull out of the process if at all possible.
As a gift to several of my friends and my siblings I have acted in this role for their kids. For some I’ve been very involved. For others I’ve reviewed essays and made suggestions ( this doesn’t tell me much about you. Can you explain more about how your working with veterans helped you develop your world view and skills rather than just talking about them?)
While I know most people don’t have access to that either, If there’s anyone you know who can help keep you out of the process at all , review essays for typos, go over pros and cons with them, etc… I can’t recommend that highly enough
One more thing is that I wouldn’t be so insistent that you kid the process early on. This was my initial inclination but My D was really not ready to figure it all out the summer before junior year which because of other things that would be going on that year that summer was the best time to really start the process. I did most of the research on schools and laid out where I though we should visit based on what I knew her criteria to be.
The one thing she told me definitively was that she didn’t want our flagship state school. Although money was not a consideration I didn’t understand given the extraordinary excellent engineering program at the school. I was impressed when she laid out her reasons why she thought it wouldn’t be a good fit based on talking to many older kids : She was very social and would likely end up in a sorority at our state school with girls who had nowhere near her academic load. While the engineering school is incredibly rigorous many other majors were so so not. She thought based on talking to these older girls who were like her that this was a huge downside. I realized she was likely right. She wanted to aim for a school with much more rigor all around.
I thought this made a great deal of sense. But my daughter was still 15 at the time and needed a great deal of help to navigate the visiting process. By the time she was applying a year later she was much more ready to take this on but so happy we had gotten in a look at so many schools the summer before.
