Truthful advice about getting into top colleges, for your "average" excellent student

Hello all, I’m one of those parent who daughters benefitted from CC more than 10 years ago and now am old enough to be returning to the forum to help my step daughter look for advice for her high school junior. A few observations:

  1. The original poster’s advice is excellent and similar to advice I have shared in recent years with friends and colleagues whose kids were undergoing the search and selection process. But most parents who have an excellent average kid do not hear you and it can be frustrating. Case in point: three years ago a close friend’s son was one of those lucky few who got both a 36 ACT and 2400 SAT first sitting. He also wound up being salutatorian of his large public ranked one of the best in the country. When my friend and her spouse began the search selection process, I offered them free advice on several occasions: find a few safeties first (and, wow, this will be easy to do for your kid) and then, of course, help him identity those reach schools, knowing that they are ultimately lotteries for everyone. Long story short: they visited Stanford twice, Harvard three times, Princeton once, Yale once, and several of their equivalents. Never once did they think that he would not be accepted at every school he applied to. They agonized over which of these schools he liked the best–as if it was their son’s school to choose rather than the other way around.

You know the rest of the story: He was rejected at all of them and he had to scramble this time last year to find somewhere to attend this past fall. He wound up at one of the many excellent LACs and appears happy. But his parents can’t shed their very vocal astonishment that he was not accepted at every school to which he applied. I had warned them, but their “kid was different.” It was painful to watch the process unfold. So try to share the advice with others beginning this process, even if they don’t hear you. That way you can sleep well at night.

2). Now that I have two college educated and gainfully employed daughters, I am thrilled for each of them because they have carved out career paths that include some exhilarating international travel, interesting teamwork (or so they report) and, what is music to every parents ears, benefits, including 401k matches. But the reason I mention this is I learned from reading CC many moons ago that I had to continue to give them advice once they were in college. I had to encourage them to try to establish relationships with professors, attend those boring job fairs, and pick a major that would actually lead to a JOB at the end of the line, one that would allow them to start that independent life post graduation that every kid longs for. I watched as many of my other friends simply told their kids once in college to follow their passion wherever it might lead. Well, in most cases, that advice has not served their kids well and the kids are baristas and servers, etc. The parents now wish they had not been so hands off and the kids are frustrated and unsure of how to navigate this tough job market when they have been out if school for awhile but have nothing to put on a resume that would lead to a job they might hope to get.

Bottom line is due to the sage advice I read so long ago on CC, I opted throughout the college search, selection and actual four years of school to regularly remind my daughters that the reason their dad and I were paying for college was for them to wind up with a job, where they would do work, some of it drudgery, and some of it exciting if they were lucky, starting on day one. So to those parents who are now celebrating that their kids are going to school in the fall, and a decent one at that, and who hope that their kids do not wind up on their couch at age 27, I submit: your work has just begun. :-).

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