BTDT Parents: please recommend college app to-dos and timeline for a first-time app parent
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Anonymous
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We're rookies at this.
Have met with college counselor at our school. Have toured colleges. So far everything has been very pleasant, fun even. These are what we have done so far: - Met with college counselor; agreed with rough college list. We are happy with CC's recommendations and DC is very excited - DC (separately from us) met with CC to discuss which teachers to approach for rec letters - DC worked on activity and award list, which has been submitted to CC - DC took the SAT and got a great score the 2nd time so that is done - Summer job and senior year course load all finalized So far, no drama. Since we came back from campus tours, I have been asking DC to start looking at prompt questions and what each college asks for. We also asked DC to contact graduates from our high school who attend these colleges (this was CC's suggestion). DC now suddenly seems uninterested in college apps, so DH and I find ourselves nagging a bit because we don't know what we're supposed to do from this point on to keep making progress. DC has done nothing since coming home from campus tours. Is this too early to nag? Is there a cadence or timeline BTDT parents can recommend, e.g., meet every sunday to work on college essays or is that too frequent? What else do we as parents do now other than plan how to pay for college? Are there keys steps I am missing between now and Nov 1? Should we go back to tour shortlist of ED schools again? DC is making good grades and working hard at ECs. We don't have a consultant. DH and I don't know what we're supposed to do. |
Anonymous
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I’m assuming your kid is a junior?
If they are not currently overloaded with homework/beginning review for AP tests/studying for SAT, consider having an hour or 2/wk where you parallel work. They research prompts & you do whatever (research financial aid, do actual work, whatever) side-by-side. It’s like a study session. Maybe go somewhere with Wi-Fi & order coffee or soda |
Anonymous
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Are you able to have GPT summarize all of this for you?
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1309583.page https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1235389.page https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1251044.page |
Anonymous
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You don’t have to do anything right now—save your strength! Over the summer your child should work on his or her common app essay. This is the main essay that almost every college will see. Your child can also work on the activity list, deciding what order to put the activities and making the descriptions fit the character count. You don’t need a consultant, but I hired an essay coach, and I found that out as a way of keeping my child moving on the essay writing over the summer. If the kid completes that essay over the summer he’ll be in pretty good shape.
Colleges don’t release the prompts for supplementary essays until August, but your child can start generating material for likely types of essays they might need to write (ie, usually, there’s one about your “community”.) I had high expectations for how much we get done over the summer, and my kid didn’t get that much done. But it was OK. He wrote a lot of essays over winter break for RD including an overhaul of the Common App essay and it worked out. |
Anonymous
You are far ahead. Don't worry about the rest during the school year. - May/June: Ask DC to think about small moments (and capture in notes app) for the main common app essay. Just brainstorming might take weeks....no stress. - Do a writing workshop in June or July for the main Common App essay. Try to finalize by Aug 1. Ask for suggestions on here or better in FB groups. - 1x a week have DC do "research" on a school (input into a Google Doc) for the supplemental essays: research classes, professors, activities, traditions, anything of interest. Organize in one place. - Begin working on supplemental essays in July/August. - Try to get one rolling application in by Aug 15 (Pitt?) so the kid feels good. - Make a timeline for fall and master Google Doc with deadlines (August). |
Anonymous
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My only piece of advice if your kid attends a large public school, is apply to at least one school that requires a complete application that has a 10/15 deadline.
That way, your counselor/school has to have their act together with your transcript, teacher Recs, counselor Recs, etc. It can't just be a school like Pitt with rolling admissions (nothing against Pitt) that doesn't require all the bells and whistles to apply. Pick a school like UNC...even if your kid doesn't want to attend. That way, everything is done for perhaps the schools you really care about for 10/31 EA/ED deadlines. |
Anonymous
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Here's a claude summary of the 2 long Lessons Learned Threads (I definitely think its missing stuff, but...)
📚 Lessons Learned: 2024–2025 (42 pages) Timing & Early Action: Treat all applications as due Nov 1. Many parents were surprised how much EA/ED matters — acceptance odds are dramatically better early. Get SAT/ACT scores as high as possible — even 10 points on the SAT can make a real difference for merit aid. Start the personal essay as soon as junior year ends. The best essays took months of refinement. New, better ideas emerge over time. Submit everything EA even for schools with later deadlines — but be aware kids sometimes lose motivation after early admits. Push them to finish everything before any results come in. School List Strategy: 1 safety is often enough. Many parents said they wasted money and time applying to 2–3 safeties their kid had no intention of attending. Avoid letting your kid fall in love with a single "dream school." Instead, build a list of 4–5 schools they'd genuinely be excited to attend. Check the Common Data Set for each school to see if demonstrated interest actually matters before spending money on visits. Major matters enormously — e.g., one poster's kid got into UT Film school OOS while everyone else was deferred. Know your budget before your kid starts researching schools. Don't let them fall in love with a school that's never going to be affordable even with aid. ED/Counselor Advice: Don't blindly trust school counselors — multiple parents (public and private) said they wish they'd done more independent research. Being a legacy with VIP/donor parent connections has a huge, visible impact at top schools. ED is a gamble. Girls from competitive private schools noted boys were getting in with significantly lower stats in the 2024-25 cycle. Girls tend to have stronger early-round results; boys tend to benefit from waiting for RD. Early rounds may favor female applicants before gender-balancing kicks in during RD/waitlist. Waitlist movement in 2025 was reported as heavily skewing toward boys. Mindset: Things are not as dire as forums make them seem for most students. Deferral early doesn't doom RD results — some families found it was actually useful motivation to improve essays for RD. Your kid's preferences will change between summer before senior year and December. A kid who EDed to a small rural SLAC may want a big urban campus by winter break. 📚 Lessons Learned: 2025–2026 (30 pages, ongoing through April 2026) ED Strategy: Don't ED to a school where no one from your high school has ever matriculated — you lose a key data point and school context. Be cautious about ED at small SLACs where a large portion of spots go to recruited athletes via pre-reads. The ED rate can be very misleading. If EDing to a reach, make sure your kid keeps working on RD apps with the expectation they won't get in. This softens the blow of a deferral. Do NOT panic-ED2 to a lesser school just because your kid is scared after an ED1 deferral. Let them work through it and fall back in love with RD options. Conventional wisdom that you must ED somewhere to get in is not always true — one parent reported their kid got into 2 of 3 schools (Tufts, UChicago, WashU) applying RD only. School List: Fewer safeties is better for high-stats kids — 1 solid safety is typically enough; spending time on safety apps is often wasted energy. The "right" school list is very personal. If you have a second kid, don't assume what worked for kid #1 applies. T20 Applications: Each T20 school sees itself as unique. The supplemental essays need to reflect that you genuinely understand what makes that specific school different. But the outcomes are also highly unpredictable — "wild last minute no-research apps panned out" for some, while meticulously tailored ones didn't. Internal coherence matters most: the different parts of the application should reinforce the same story about the student. CollegeVine was reported as actually under-predicting outcomes for some high-stats kids. Many families saw strange mismatches — kids admitted to each other's dream schools but feeling meh about their own results. Counselors: Same recurring theme: don't rely solely on school counselors (public or private). Do your own research. |
Anonymous
+1. This is spot on. I'd add that it can be helpful to have a weekly "college stuff" meetup scheduled with your DC once summer starts to stay calibrated, make sure they have their "to-do" list for the week, etc. If they're on track doing more on their own (e.g. drafting the common app essay, etc), great. If they're not making progress with what they planned to tackle for the week, just be curious and see if they need more support - like work with an essay tutor for a few sessions, writing camp, parallel work time with parent at coffee shop, etc. Then, during the rest of the week when you have thoughts or questions and urges to nag, just stick those on your "weekend meeting topics" list on your phone and leave your DC alone. This help keep the relationship from being all about college, and over time your DC or the universe may have solved/handled some of those items before the next check-in time rolls around. |
Anonymous
| How do we tag @Jeff to have him make this a sticky. This sums things up really well, IMO. Signed, another parent new to the process. |
Anonymous
Post in the Website Feedback forum. Or use the Report button. |
Anonymous
I would absolutely not be asking DC to contact grads from your high school who attend the colleges. Is there a particular purpose you have in mind with that? Unless there are very specific issues your DC needs answers on, I can see why a normal teen would not want to do this. Right now, the most important thing for your junior to do is to finish out junior year strong, getting great grades and preparing for AP exams. Some high schools have students ask for recommendations at the end of junior year. In summer, it will be time for essays and filling out the Common Application. Your job is to figure out what schools will be affordable, if you have not already done so. |
Anonymous
OP: thanks for your reply (and other PPs above. very helpful). What's the harm of contacting our HS alum currently at colleges DC is most interested in? CC suggested it so DC can ask how they like it, how the culture is different or similar to our HS. It's a small HS (100 kids a year) and a tight-knit community, plus CC makes it sound like a routine thing to do so I assume the alums themselves did the same when they were applying to college. DC is not taking AP exams. College affordability already sorted out. |
Anonymous
DP...i don't know. That is what I had my kid do and it was super helpful for really getting to know what the school is really like. |
Anonymous
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You and your spouse don’t know what to do…but you have a cc you’ve met with, kid has met with, kid has sat done/courses picked/summer job/college list?
Mkay Translation: we have done a tone of research about what is needed, we are doing ok and have lots of decisions and plans made. I am gonna act like I don’t know much so you all can tell me what I should know and do so I can capture anything else. |
Anonymous
Np: it seems weird and presumptuous to me, too, unless they’re already friends or have specific shared interests so niche-y that applying would hinge on finding out more. I guess my advice is apply broadly and get in touch once you get in. The process is very anxiety provoking anyway and I think this would just make a kid more anxious. They have no idea where they’ll be admitted and it’s best not to get too attached to any school. |