No, there's not a fourth category. It's just colleges, recruited athletes, and suckers. |
For prior to junior year we focused mainly on driving distance schools - VA and PA options. DD wasn't super into the search process and we didn't want to waste a flight if she wasn't totally bought in to looking. During Junior year the search fleshed out to other states. |
Yep, unlucky. We had the flipside experience (also by happenstance; no brilliance claimed here): saw Temple first and the kid totally could see their life there being so much better than HS--got them very excited about college generally and made us all realize that the floor was pretty darn high. |
Agree with sentiment that they may fall in love at first sight - I would visit the school you think is the most likely actual school for them first. Then work from there. We visited a safety and they never came around to matches and reaches. Its worked out fine but I might have visited another school first if I were doing it again. |
Emory and Tufts are not the same level, and for ED only Columbia, Duke, JHU, NW, Brown , and maybe Dartmouth are better than Emory for ED. That's why Emory has ED2. The ones that apply Ed1 know they cant get into those. |
This is so true, the same happened for my kid. He fell in love with the reach that was his first college visit, but didn’t get in. The final visit was to a target that he’d been accepted to and received a great scholarship for, and decided to attend this fall. While he is satisfied with his choice (I’m actually thrilled with it, it was my top choice for him from the get go), that first visit (the reach school) is like his wistful “one that got away”, lol. I told him just apply there for grad school if he’s inclined to at that point. |
You've totally missed the point. |
Are you ok with sending your kid to all of these schools. Sometimes parents really don't want to send their kid across the country.
I was just speaking a parent yesterday and he was commenting on how difficult it was having a kid go to school a plane ride away, especially because a direct flight wasn't an option. |
Does your DC know what they want in terms of size location etc? If not I’d start there visit a small, medium and large school. And also rural suburban city. Just what’s close to you or near a place you are travelling. It doesn’t have to be a school they want to go to. Just enough for them to get a sense of the different options and what vibe they want. |
You’re just mad you can’t afford the schools that have ED. |
No don’t visit safeties first that’s ridiculous. Visit your targets and throw in one safety in the same region. |
Please, girl, I'd be full pay with a tenth of my NW and income. But I still wouldn't be a sucker. |
Ideally you'd visit most of them, but if you really can't swing it then you're going to have to prioritize ED. I would never let me kid ED to a place they have not even visited. You can visit safeties later. |
In your dreams. |
By the time senior year rolls around, haven't most kids attended camps, seminars, Model UN, debate tournaments etc. at various colleges? They probably already have a few thoughts and impressions. You can start building from there. |