If I could start the process over .. this is what I'd do differently.

[Anonymous]

For us, not waste time thinking too far outside the box. U of Edinburgh? Some dual degree program? Some underrated gem? So many hours researching things I should have known were not really who my kid is.

We should have looked at where the class of '24 matriculated (from our HS), easily cut the half that weren't of interest, used Naviance to cull from there, and ended up with a long list of 20 schools in January of junior year.

[Anonymous]

I never thought about researching where the previous class matriculated and starting from there. That's a good idea. I'm not sure we would have had access to that data, but I guess we could have found at least some of it on social.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never thought about researching where the previous class matriculated and starting from there. That's a good idea. I'm not sure we would have had access to that data, but I guess we could have found at least some of it on social.

I know one college appeared surprised to have an application from my oldest. The school would come to the DC area but never visit DD's school, so they were wondering how she heard of it. Even the small schools appear to have a good handle on the high schools with the students they want and with students most likely to attend. The colleges probably want to keep going back to the good well so to speak.

[Anonymous]

This is one of the more useful threads in this forum. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is one of the more useful threads in this forum. Thanks!

AGREE!

[Anonymous]

Apply to more private and fewer big state schools. Be realistic — DC’s profile is not ideal for OOS. Visit more places junior year.

[Anonymous]

Put non-standard application deadlines into a calendar app, so we'd get reminders and not miss them!

[Anonymous]

I actually wouldn’t do anything differently. What worked for us was:

- Looking at the Freshman profile of desired schools early on to get a realistic sense of the SAT/ACT scores and number of AP/IB/DE classes needed to be competitive.

- Having candid conversations about budget and finances halfway through sophomore year of high school.

- Running the Net Price Calculator for any school the kids liked. (We saved a lot of time and energy by ruling out schools we couldn’t afford.)

- Applying to a balanced list of 10 schools Early Action that included at least two academic/financial “safety” schools where they felt they could be happy. (These schools also tend to give decisions earlier, which takes the pressure off.)

- Waiting to do out-of-state visits until they had been accepted.

Both kids ended up being accepted to their top choices and are currently attending T30 schools.

[Anonymous]

The best money I spent on college search was this DIY Rankings spreadsheet ($24). It has all that data from common data sets/NCES in one place

My kids were pretty clear on major, school size, region. So this made it easy to filter and sort schools by what they were looking for plus filter for factors like higher retention rate, average net cost. Quickly gave a reasonable list for further research.

https://diycollegerankings.com/diy-college-rankings-spreadsheet-lp-2/

[Anonymous]

This is unique to my kids preferences knowing how things evolved.

1 - less oos flagships, more private/lac
2 - more reaches, no ED

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Apply to more private and fewer big state schools. Be realistic — DC’s profile is not ideal for OOS. Visit more places junior year.

This X 1000. The OOS publics are getting very hard to predict and get into.

[Anonymous]

We scared by people saying how horrible the process had been, so we kept the reaches to a minimum. Maybe that was a mistake. We could have eliminated at least 2 safeties. There were too many.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is unique to my kids preferences knowing how things evolved.

1 - less oos flagships, more private/lac
2 - more reaches, no ED

This is me, exactly. DS is a senior and in at a few oos flagships and I wish we had spent more time looking at more privates and lac. Which was my preference at the start and I should have pressed that, but he insisted on rah rah schools. That are now all seeming too remote and party centered to him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For us, not waste time thinking too far outside the box. U of Edinburgh? Some dual degree program? Some underrated gem? So many hours researching things I should have known were not really who my kid is.

We should have looked at where the class of '24 matriculated (from our HS), easily cut the half that weren't of interest, used Naviance to cull from there, and ended up with a long list of 20 schools in January of junior year.

I agree that it should all depend on who your kid is.

But for my kids this would have been a terrible way to proceed. Both ended up going somewhere where none of the previous classes went. For some kids it is better to think outside the box.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Apply to more private and fewer big state schools. Be realistic — DC’s profile is not ideal for OOS. Visit more places junior year.

This plus ED to a private.