Would have needed to change child raising practices a decade (or more) sooner. Looking back at would have/could have/should haves our child is comparable to his parents’ high intelligence and lack of the intense drive that sets those uber achievers apart from the rest of those with comparable ability. Kid is as stubborn, strong willed, independent, lazy (H’s concept of himself)… as his parents (wonder why) so he would have had to have different parents to set an example.
Being born later with more internet access and gifted education opportunities at an earlier age would have been useful. However- it would have been a lot simpler for today’s HS parents if the clock were turned back a decade or more and students realistically could only apply to far fewer schools. It is far too easy to churn out apps with the common application. There would be fewer applications for schools to deal with et al.
intparent, S applied to colleges in 2006. Back then, most of his schools were not on the common app yet. He filled out many different paper applications, so I can’t remember if the citizenship question was optional or not and for which schools. I do think it was a mandatory question, though, since FA policies differ for the domestic and foreign populations for many colleges. Regardless, we never anticipated any negative consequences from answering it honestly. After all, he had lived in the US his whole life except for 3 months and had done all his schooling here. Why would I ever guess they’d put him in the international student applicant pool? We only realized that had happened when he started getting special mailings for international students. So if I had a re-do, I’d tell him to just check US Citizen.
I would have saved the time and money spent on too many safeties, I made D15 apply to schools that we both knew she didn’t want to attend. I would have looked at more privates if I had understood how much aid many would offer. And I agree with many others - I would have let her enjoy HS more and less focus on college, although we both enjoyed the process and excitement of it all. And I agree with testing early and often and doing prep before ACT/SAT/PSAT.
My kids are 5 years apart in school, so S20 is busy looking at High Schools right now, plenty of time to worry about college. The advantage for him is that he will have spent more time on various campuses even before we start visits, because of camps and his sister, she had only been on one campus (my alma mater) before we started visiting.
@cardinal2020mom, to stay sane, I had charts up on the wall! I think the hardest thing was filling out financial aid forms and staying on top of checking portals. But it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. Five schools were Cal State requiring one app and no essays. At least four other schools required no essays and just apps. The UC app covered three schools. So that left one UT schools (maybe one essay?), and then seven Common App schools and one essay school off the Common App.
The hardest one was the school where he will be attending! He was stubborn about the “Why this school” essay. Fortunately, he had already written an artist’s statement, so he just used that and expanded on it.
Having gone through it once, and also working part time as a college consultant gave me the experience to get through it, but I definitely don’t recommend 23 schools! And I agree with @ITBgirl that my son could have done with fewer safeties, but honestly, at the time, I didn’t know if he’d get in anywhere that we could afford. Money was the driving factor for my son who had a good SAT, but weak transcripts (GPA was ok, but course load was weak).
Our older son attended early college at a university which didn’t emphasize ACT/SAT and college essays ; it treated the kids like young college students. As a result he didn’t study for ACT’s and was rejected from our state flagship (Michigan) and stayed at his early college university for undergrad. He is now taking classes at the flagship and applying for Ph.D programs. In retrospect it would have been better for him to attend regular HS but it turned out OK at the end.
Our younger son attended a prep HS, took the ACT 3 times until he was satisfied, excelled in classes, visited lots of universities starting in 10th grade, was admitted to our state flagship in engineering and 3 of 4 others, and is waiting to hear from 5 more and Michigan Ross PA. He applied to 10 schools total and we visited about 20, so many that after awhile they all ran together. We had some fun vacations as a result. Most fortunately his choice of subject restricted the college list to a manageable level within a day’s drive.
Son #2’s mistake was not starting early enough on his essays. As a result his RD applications were much stronger than his EA ones. He vastly underestimated the time required to complete the college applications, school supplements, scholarship applications (!) , etc. etc.
Another difficulty was determining what was a safety. Some of his safeties rose to the match and even reach category (e.g. Michigan, Georgia Tech) because admission rates were dropping so quickly - hard to call any school with 25% admittance rate anything but a reach. In addition, the ‘holistic’ admission continues to insert more uncertainty into the process.
I should have added that some people might wonder why taking a bunch of community college courses while in high school is preferable to just gong to a community college for a year after h.s. The answer is that when u go to a community college after high school and then transfer to a 4-year school, u are likely missing out in the best financial aid, which is reserved for those coming out of high school, even if their AP credits and community college courses make them a sophomore or a junior.
I didn’t know the importance of checking the portals from time to time with my first child. With the second, he knows to check and has also had some brief email communication with he admissions counsellors. Just administrative stuff, but at least they know he’s out there and interested. Having.my first child admitted off a waiting list taught m this lesson about maintaining a level of buzz.
With our second I have emphasized the college visits more. I also agree that ACT/SAT prep is key…University Merit is usually dependent on those scores. I took more of a hands-on role with my first and have been much more relaxed with the second. Once #2 picks her college, we will be gearing up for the third to start the process.
I already did the second time around, and it was so different than the first time around, that nothing I learned carried over! With first D, who was your typical good student with well rounded interests and no major in mind, I thought we did a lot of research. I found that we probably would not qualify for fin aid, but it was so late in the process, and D had worked so hard, that we told her to just go for it. (I can feel the disapproval of many CCers.) She did have a financial safety very early on - our state U with full tuition scholarship - that we learned about in October of her senior year. The rest were just schools she was interested in. Thankfully, everything turned out so much better than expected, and she had a fantastic 4 years in a college she loves on a full scholarship, and is now gainfully employed. D2 was interested in art and design school, had a passion for a certain field from a very early age, was a typical good student. Top art and design schools do offer merit, unlike top “regular” schools. So that was just such a different beast, but in the end, everything came out surprisingly well with great merit aid, and she is happy at school.
What would I do if I had a young child today?
Travel.
Say yes more often to experiences they want to do that cost $$$.
Say yes more often to experiences that take them out of school.
Encourage a gap year between high school and college.
What we did differently was really tailored to the second kid…she didn’t want to do as much research…her sister looked at big schools, but the second looked at smaller ones. DD2 didn’t want to be as far from home. For both I came up with a “Mom pick” based on their criteria…it turns out that they both ended up at the mom pick. Also DD2 did ED…because she is terrible at decisions and I said if you like this college the best, why apply to others? (it was affordable)
Oh…and i made sure DD2 wrote most of her essay during the summer before senior year. I remembered how busy DD1 was the fall of senior year.
Fortunately I discovered this site in plenty of time and have found it HUGELY helpful. Still waiting on RD results, but I definitely think my D applied to too many schools, 12. She lost interest in several of them after applying. Even now, I say " you should hear from College X soon." She says “I don’t care about that College anymore.” In retrospect, it was clear a while back that those were “just in case” colleges she really wasn’t interested in, and they were not safeties.
I think 6-9 is a good number. I don’t think it really is possible for any kid to be genuinely excited about many more colleges than that. I see plenty of kids here on CC applying to 15-20 colleges. That is truly a waste of time and money. Any parent that allows their kid to do that has more money than sense, IMO. If you plan the list right and don’t apply to colleges “just in case”, a kid will absolutely get into colleges that they like and look forward to attending.
I would have visited potential colleges during D’s spring break last year, while their classes were in session and weather was more pleasant (instead of booking a trip overseas - I was not thinking of college visits when I booked the trip!)
The schools she ended up applying to, were visited in the summer, and few students were there; and now we need to go back to visit during this year’s spring break.
Other schools that she ruled out were visited in January and February and it was not an ideal time to visit upper Midwestern schools.
I also did not know about NMF and NMSF scholarships. I would have had her prepare more the PSAT. I did not realize how much was riding on it.
I’d advise my younger sister (HS Class of 2018, currently a sophomore) to only apply to a maximum of 8-10 colleges. I personally applied to 14, which was far too many. I lost interest in a few after applying, and I lost interest in every other school as soon as I got into mine.
I’d also advise her to have a mixture of fancy privates and in-state publics. She’s shooting for the Ivies for both undergrad AND med school. I want to make sure that she can go to a school that is simultaneously affordable AND enjoyable for her in case the reaches don’t work out. In the event that she doesn’t get into an Ivy right off the bat, I would urge her to probably attend our in-state flagship for all four years and knock it out of the park to set her up for Ivy med school.
Best thread for the parents who are helping their kids navigating college application process. Thank you all for sharing your experiences. This is the page I go to first every time I am CC.
I would have eliminated 2-3 academic/financial safeties that she had zero interest in, and I would have added 2-3 more schools that meet full need. I also would have researched Greek life a little bit more and eliminated 1 or 2 based on that.