Did your kid enjoy process of applying to colleges?

[Anonymous]

Did your kid enjoy the process? What aspects? Where did they end up? (Try to keep it positive)

[Anonymous]

They both enjoyed college visits . . . it was good family time. The rest is pretty tedious and stressful. One is at Swarthmore, the other starts at Carleton in the fall.

[Anonymous]

Are college visits necessary before applying? Or wait to visit until accepted?

[Anonymous]

No not at all. And neither did the parents. It’s not what we hoped or thought it would be like. The jumping through hoops to prove you are somehow more worthy or special to a university than others borders on the insane, the time it takes to write supplements, the agonizing on test or no tests, the fact that you are also dealing with teens who are striving to show their independence (a normal stage in their development) and they don’t want to be reminded or hounded or told what to do or share what they are doing. The whole applying to a good university that your kid should get into and probably won’t despite have great gpa and essays. It’s a horrible process.

[Anonymous]

The only positive was the college visits.
That’s all.

[Anonymous]

Kid 1: the supplementals can (in italics) be fun
Kid 2: what the h, fun?
Kid 3: some schools have interesting questions if you have time to think and write about an interesting thing that happened
Kid 2: no one has time to get cute with all the shit going on junior and senior years

ah, time. Our precious resource.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No not at all. And neither did the parents. It’s not what we hoped or thought it would be like. The jumping through hoops to prove you are somehow more worthy or special to a university than others borders on the insane, the time it takes to write supplements, the agonizing on test or no tests, the fact that you are also dealing with teens who are striving to show their independence (a normal stage in their development) and they don’t want to be reminded or hounded or told what to do or share what they are doing. The whole applying to a good university that your kid should get into and probably won’t despite have great gpa and essays. It’s a horrible process.

This

[Anonymous]

Yes, mine did. They liked the common app, the web interface, filling it out, adding the colleges. Hitting submit! The supplements were their least favorite part. If those went away, the process would be much less annoying.

[Anonymous]

We all know that the selective schools are a crapshoot and you cannot have your kid fixated on one dream school because the odds are getting into any particular one is low.

BUT, you also hear that they should apply ED somewhere where they would increase their chances of getting in just by applying ED. So, they will spend at least a month or two completely focused on their ED application, ED supplements, the interview, etc. for that one school and get emotionally invested in that school. For most kids, they will be deferred or rejected by that school.

In my kid's case, they were rejected by their early school and decided to apply to 20 schools after that. It was a lot of work and took up their entire winter break. I wouldn't call it fun. If they had gotten into their ED school, they probably would have thought it was all fine and not that bad.

[Anonymous]

Figuring out what EC to include and not was annoying.
-NP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We all know that the selective schools are a crapshoot and you cannot have your kid fixated on one dream school because the odds are getting into any particular one is low.

BUT, you also hear that they should apply ED somewhere where they would increase their chances of getting in just by applying ED. So, they will spend at least a month or two completely focused on their ED application, ED supplements, the interview, etc. for that one school and get emotionally invested in that school. For most kids, they will be deferred or rejected by that school.

In my kid's case, they were rejected by their early school and decided to apply to 20 schools after that. It was a lot of work and took up their entire winter break. I wouldn't call it fun. If they had gotten into their ED school, they probably would have thought it was all fine and not that bad.

This

[Anonymous]

Reading Fiske was a plus. Lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are college visits necessary before applying? Or wait to visit until accepted?

For Ivies, no, because they don't track demonstrated interest, except perhaps for UPenn (allegedly). But for Northwestern, Rice, Emory, Case Western, Boston U, and JHU that do, you bet a visit will be viewed positively. It also helps with the why us essays. For example, Northwesrern asks what would you paint on the Rock, a campus tradition. Even WashU and USC who said they don't track DI, a visit certainly helps.

[Anonymous]

^^ Actually, JHU doesn't track DI, but the point remains.

[Anonymous]

Kid did. But I am sick of it!