unofficial school visits, tours, demonstrated interest

Ohiodad51
Wed, 11 Apr 2018 16:40:37 +0000

So how many schools should she be talking to? I can’t seem to get a read on this. I want her to be adding a couple more that have more realistic admissions stats but I’m just not sure how many schools she ought to be in touch with at this point.

That seems to be a consistent issue based on what I have seen and heard over the years. Most of us as parents want to add at least a few more schools and kind of spread the risk, and most of the kids think they are juggling too many balls already. My personal opinion is that kids should be over inclusive, at least initially. And then the list slowly whittles away as the schools’ and your daughter’s interests become clearer. Different sport, but my son started with a list of maybe twenty schools that he thought were at the right academic level and mostly within his athletic range (he was pretty clearly a D1 level kid, but we included some high academic D3s kind of like athletic “safeties”). Then by the middle of his junior spring he was maybe really talking to 8-10 schools. All high academic schools, mostly in the Ivy with a few NESCACs and Patriot schools thrown in. Then that group whittled down through the spring/early summer to four, which is where it sat until he made his decision in July/August. Throughout the process, he grumbled about keeping his list so big, because like a lot of recruits he assumed that his general all around awesomeness would mean that most if not all schools showing interest would want him. I did my level best to try and scare him into keeping his options open as long as possible.

I would really try and convince your daughter to be receptive to any schools that she thinks are an academic fit, at least until she receives a clear offer of support from a school she likes and that you can afford. At that point, you can start culling the list down a bit.