How early to start preparing kid for attending a good college?

[Anonymous]

Harvard, Duke, and Princeton are pretty much moonshots for anyone. There’s no way to predict in 8th grade if they’ll be cut out to get in unless they’re already showing signs of exceptional ability. But again, those are 3 of the best schools in the world, and there are plenty of other great options!

[Anonymous]

Maybe your question should be, "How early to start preparing kid for accepting the fact there are many excellent colleges outside of Harvard, Duke, and Princeton?"

In that case, 8th grade is a great time to start.

[Anonymous]

If you have to do the thinking for your child they probably aren’t smart enough to attend schools 1-10 the caliber of the ones listed maybe NOVA CC?

[Anonymous]

Encourage your child to do their best in high school. As I told my kids, good grades and SATs (a few years ago) gives them choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have to do the thinking for your child they probably aren’t smart enough to attend schools 1-10 the caliber of the ones listed maybe NOVA CC?

Not true. Granted it is too late for OP to make huge interjections, but the kids getting into T10 schools have huge amounts of parent push, intervention, coordination of multiple extracurriculars, and securing opportunities starting in elementary school.

[Anonymous]

Even if you start prepping for a perfect score, it won’t really help that much. Thousands of applicants with perfect scores are rejected every year. Same with GPA. If you’re having to ask about this, you’re already behind as others have said. You need to be athletic recruit and have amazing extracurricular activities that don’t look contrived. That look like they’re actually a passion project and activities that were started way before high school. And even then it’s a crapshoot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Encourage your child to do their best in high school. As I told my kids, good grades and SATs (a few years ago) gives them choices.

This. Parent the kid you have. Encourage them to take on appropriate challenges and do the best they can.

[Anonymous]

First, recognize that Duke is nothing like Harvard or Princeton.

[Anonymous]

Give at least $50M to the school you'd like your child to attend. Done!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even if you start prepping for a perfect score, it won’t really help that much. Thousands of applicants with perfect scores are rejected every year. Same with GPA. If you’re having to ask about this, you’re already behind as others have said. You need to be athletic recruit and have amazing extracurricular activities that don’t look contrived. That look like they’re actually a passion project and activities that were started way before high school. And even then it’s a crapshoot.

So...just to be clear, if you are truly a coveted athletic recruit, you don't really need anything else other than minimum grades and test scores. Those minimum grades and test scores depend on the sport (football and basketball are most lenient) and how good a player you are and are definitely high at Princeton and Harvard, relative to say football players in general (but maybe several hundred points lower than the average Harvard or Princeton player).

Duke is a completely different recruiting animal. You need to be a better athlete and your minimum grades/SAT scores can be very low for basketball, football and baseball. A number of Duke basketball players have no intention of graduating, nor does Duke expect them to graduate. They will play one year and get drafted into the NBA.

[Anonymous]

My kid was an REA admit at HYP and here is how she approached it. She told me at the beginning of high school that she wanted to work hard and get good grades and be in the top 10%-ish, but she wasn’t going to sacrifice having a social life and doing ECs that she loved, having time to walk in the woods etc for perfect stats. I said great! Public school kid, no hooks, worked hard, but didn’t make herself crazy, and definitely left time in her life for things that she loved. We did no “ prepping” she just took the standard rigourous courseload that a lot of kids took and did some Khan Academy SAT practice. When it came time to apply to college, she had very good (but not perfect) stats. But what she also had was, an application that showed deep commitment to things that were important to her. Remember that those lottery tickets schools are practising holistic admissions and the stats are just the hoop you jump through to be considered in the next round.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid was an REA admit at HYP and here is how she approached it. She told me at the beginning of high school that she wanted to work hard and get good grades and be in the top 10%-ish, but she wasn’t going to sacrifice having a social life and doing ECs that she loved, having time to walk in the woods etc for perfect stats. I said great! Public school kid, no hooks, worked hard, but didn’t make herself crazy, and definitely left time in her life for things that she loved. We did no “ prepping” she just took the standard rigourous courseload that a lot of kids took and did some Khan Academy SAT practice. When it came time to apply to college, she had very good (but not perfect) stats. But what she also had was, an application that showed deep commitment to things that were important to her. Remember that those lottery tickets schools are practising holistic admissions and the stats are just the hoop you jump through to be considered in the next round.

What do you mean by “deep commitment to things that were important to her”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let’s say a kid’s goal is to get into a school like Harvard, Duke, or Princeton. Is there any benefit to early prep for high school classes and standardized tests or is it too early? DD is in 8th grade by the way.

Your poor kid.

[Anonymous]

Move overseas and have your kid educated at a top American school.

My high school overseas had 40 (class was 75) kids going to US colleges and universities last year. 2 Harvard admits, 1 princeton 1 Yale and a Stanford. Several Brow, several Northwestern. The rest of the class went to similarly prestigious universities.

Living as an expat at a well-regarded secondary school is a hit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Move overseas and have your kid educated at a top American school.

My high school overseas had 40 (class was 75) kids going to US colleges and universities last year. 2 Harvard admits, 1 princeton 1 Yale and a Stanford. Several Brow, several Northwestern. The rest of the class went to similarly prestigious universities.

Living as an expat at a well-regarded secondary school is a hit.

No, they didn’t. There are no “similarly prestigious” universities in the US to Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Stanford.

Why not just name the school and cut the bullshit.