Lessons Learned - The College Application Process

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

1) Do consider college admissions issues when your child is choosing courses -- even in MS. This is especially important in math where the courses are sequential and build upon one another. Make sure your child is being placed in an appropriately challenging math class.

I am not yet at the college admissions stage (reading this thread for professional reasons) but my kids are in elementary school. Could someone help me with the bolded part? How do you know what an appropriately challenging math class level is? My daughter has always been in the "second" highest math class at her MCPS elem school. This past year, she was put in the "highest" math level--two grade levels ahead. With support (i.e. a math tutor) she has done fine. Without the math tutor, I don't think things would have gone as well. My husband and I are tempted to ask the school next year to move her back down in math, even if she "tests into" the highest math class. I'm trying to think long-term here. I guess I'm asking for these experienced parents to give a big-picture answer: if your child needs a tutor to have a secure grasp on math, does that mean that the level is NOT appropriately (but rather TOO) challenging?

Sorry for the OT question but I would love to hear input from those who have BTDT. Thanks again for this thread--it is great.

I'm the poster you quoted and I would say that if your child needs a tutor, the class is too challenging. My advice was directed toward the opposite situation -- i.e., child is placed in a class that is not sufficiently challenging and is breezing through.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. I don't know how you best develop a balance between preparing appropriately for college and losing perspective but I think some of y'all have slid over on the losing perspective side.

To each his/her own. We will be paying a quarter of a million dollars for college. That's a huge investment. And the last really big parental obligation to the future of my child. It's worth the effort.

It used to be that at then end of high school, graduates were seen as young adults who set out to be more independent and to start to live their own life. Now we have parents as early as MS scripting their child's lives all the way through college. Soon it will be that parents script and financially support kids till the end of their twenties - there will be no end to adolescence! At some point you have to back off and start letting your children grow-up and make decisions and live their own lives.

Believe me, our parenting philosophy has been to let our kids make their own decisions as appropriate for their developmental stage. We've never regretted that (worried about it in the short term, yes, but in the long term it's been the right call). That said, however, a middle-schooler cannot know without parental guidance whether he/she is in the right math class.

[Anonymous]

Everyone has a different parental philosophy, especially when it comes to education. Some people have a more hands off approach and won't take further measures like getting a tutor. To each their own. What works for one family/child doesn't work for everyone.

DH came from a blue collar family. His parents never once asked if he did his homework. He was the only one of his 4 siblings that even went to college, even got a full ride. I don't think his parents even knew where he was applying.

I had the opposite experience. Mother was a hs superintendent, father constantly traveling for work. Both parents had 3 advanced degrees and there was extreme pressure. I went to a highly competitive hs, I had ADD but was able to graduate in top 10 (of 200) with doing minimal work. Parents paid SAT prep and tutor, I skipped the sessions and went shopping instead. Took it once got a 1400. I was never expected to do college applications. I just had to tell them where I wanted to apply, tutor did them. I didn't even bother reading essays before they were submitted. Horrible parenting, I took advantage. Thankfully I know everything about the situation was messed up.

I say all this bc I think there needs to be a balance. I am not for the hands off approach and I also know that overly involved a parenting is detrimental.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. I don't know how you best develop a balance between preparing appropriately for college and losing perspective but I think some of y'all have slid over on the losing perspective side.

+1. Signed, Ivy-league grad

[Anonymous]

To those who think that parents have slid over to the way-too-involved-and-invested side: I bet your kids are not juniors in high school and you haven't looked at how different things are now from what they were when we were applying to college 20-odd years ago. Things are vastly, monumentally different. What kids must accomplish today to get into the schools that were our safeties years ago is staggering. Yes, of course, kids can go to large state schools or lesser-known private schools and get good educations and go on to graduate school. If, however, your child wants to attend a selective college or university, be prepared for paying tutors, strategizing courses and academics, and making sure that your kid is doing more than just relaxing in the summer time. It's brutal. Students from all over the world are clamoring to go to American universities. International students make up 10% of each class. Athletes make up another 20%. Legacies are 10%. Underrepresented groups such as underrepresented minorities and first generation college students make up another 10-20%. Consequently, the acceptance rate for your average no-hook American student is very, very low for many of these colleges and universities.

[Anonymous]

Two kids in college and a HS junior.

Mostly sound advice – I just have a couple of additions.

With my kids, visiting schools freshman year would have been too much. They were still trying to find their place in HS. We are big proponents of taking things one step at a time. They would not have gotten much out of it. We started our visits the summer after sophomore year. At the same time, we (the parents) did a lot of research and prep behind the scenes.

Do not overlook one key component of choosing a college. The student. You have to build some space in the process for the student’s fit, intuition, desires and comfort level. For example, a top ranked school may look great on paper. But you visit with your DC and he/she just does not “feel right” about the place. Do not discount that feeling just because it is a highly ranked college. I have seen a lot of parents in my kids’ peer groups steer and guide the child towards a college that they want – without looking at whether the culture of the school is right for their child. All of us want our children to be successful but we have to make sure that all the pieces fit together. After all, the kids are going to be the ones on the campus for 4 years. We narrowed down the choice to comparable colleges. Financial considerations aside, the kids got the first opportunity to rank the schools. Then we weighed in and discussed the financial aspects. But at the end of the day, the kids felt that they had chosen and they were vested in the choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. I don't know how you best develop a balance between preparing appropriately for college and losing perspective but I think some of y'all have slid over on the losing perspective side.

To each his/her own. We will be paying a quarter of a million dollars for college. That's a huge investment. And the last really big parental obligation to the future of my child. It's worth the effort.

It used to be that at then end of high school, graduates were seen as young adults who set out to be more independent and to start to live their own life. Now we have parents as early as MS scripting their child's lives all the way through college. Soon it will be that parents script and financially support kids till the end of their twenties - there will be no end to adolescence! At some point you have to back off and start letting your children grow-up and make decisions and live their own lives.

so true and probably why the kid who started a landscaping business and became an EMT did so well on his college apps. I think the savvy admissions counselors these days can spot a "packaged" applicant a mile away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. I don't know how you best develop a balance between preparing appropriately for college and losing perspective but I think some of y'all have slid over on the losing perspective side.

To each his/her own. We will be paying a quarter of a million dollars for college. That's a huge investment. And the last really big parental obligation to the future of my child. It's worth the effort.

It used to be that at then end of high school, graduates were seen as young adults who set out to be more independent and to start to live their own life. Now we have parents as early as MS scripting their child's lives all the way through college. Soon it will be that parents script and financially support kids till the end of their twenties - there will be no end to adolescence! At some point you have to back off and start letting your children grow-up and make decisions and live their own lives.

The time to back off for us isn't when a quarter of a million dollars is the investment. Feel free to do that yourself if you'd like. Like I said, to each his/her own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. I don't know how you best develop a balance between preparing appropriately for college and losing perspective but I think some of y'all have slid over on the losing perspective side.

+1. Signed, Ivy-league grad

If you're an Ivy League grad surely you know it's the Ivy League and not the Ivy-league. So much for the value of an Ivy education. Ha,ha,ha.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To those who think that parents have slid over to the way-too-involved-and-invested side: I bet your kids are not juniors in high school and you haven't looked at how different things are now from what they were when we were applying to college 20-odd years ago. Things are vastly, monumentally different. What kids must accomplish today to get into the schools that were our safeties years ago is staggering. Yes, of course, kids can go to large state schools or lesser-known private schools and get good educations and go on to graduate school. If, however, your child wants to attend a selective college or university, be prepared for paying tutors, strategizing courses and academics, and making sure that your kid is doing more than just relaxing in the summer time. It's brutal. Students from all over the world are clamoring to go to American universities. International students make up 10% of each class. Athletes make up another 20%. Legacies are 10%. Underrepresented groups such as underrepresented minorities and first generation college students make up another 10-20%. Consequently, the acceptance rate for your average no-hook American student is very, very low for many of these colleges and universities.

Well said and spot on!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To those who think that parents have slid over to the way-too-involved-and-invested side: I bet your kids are not juniors in high school and you haven't looked at how different things are now from what they were when we were applying to college 20-odd years ago. Things are vastly, monumentally different. What kids must accomplish today to get into the schools that were our safeties years ago is staggering. Yes, of course, kids can go to large state schools or lesser-known private schools and get good educations and go on to graduate school. If, however, your child wants to attend a selective college or university, be prepared for paying tutors, strategizing courses and academics, and making sure that your kid is doing more than just relaxing in the summer time. It's brutal. Students from all over the world are clamoring to go to American universities. International students make up 10% of each class. Athletes make up another 20%. Legacies are 10%. Underrepresented groups such as underrepresented minorities and first generation college students make up another 10-20%. Consequently, the acceptance rate for your average no-hook American student is very, very low for many of these colleges and universities.

I totally understand that my kid probably won't get into the school I got into, even though I am pretty sure he is smarter than me. In the 30-40 years in between there's a lot greater growth in the number of students than in the class size at any one school. But that's ok, because the same is true for professors and for other students, so the experience he'll get at what I might have thought of as a "safety" (although I don't really like that term) may not turn out to be any different than the experience I got at my "selective" college. It stands to reason that if schools are more selective, then even so-called less selective colleges will be getting a high(er) caliber student.


I also have to say that, even assuming your numbers are right, I dislike the implication that minorities and first generation college students are not average Americans-- seems like there's some implicit racism and classism there.

[Anonymous]

It depends on how you are defining "average." I am using the term in a very specific context -- to mean without a "hook." If you are white or Asian and not a recruited athlete, your chances of being admitted to a school like Duke, Chicago, or Penn are very, very small. Valedictorians with 2200+ SATs who have leadership positions in extra-curriculars are a dime a dozen for these schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It depends on how you are defining "average." I am using the term in a very specific context -- to mean without a "hook." If you are white or Asian and not a recruited athlete, your chances of being admitted to a school like Duke, Chicago, or Penn are very, very small. Valedictorians with 2200+ SATs who have leadership positions in extra-curriculars are a dime a dozen for these schools.

Over 82% of Duke's class of 2012 was white or Asian. I find it hard to believe that the majority of those kids were recruited athletes (and that none of kids of other race/ethnicity were). It's a competitive school and I think you are overstating the situation.

[Anonymous]

Let's hope I am. Look at the stats of rejected applicants to Duke on College Confidential if you want to see what keeps me up at night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let's hope I am. Look at the stats of rejected applicants to Duke on College Confidential if you want to see what keeps me up at night.

It is what it is -- your staying up at night (or worrying about it) definitely won't help and may hurt things. Really listen to the experts who tell parents with kids in the college application process to let the kids be the driver of the process. Sure, I planned trips to schools and helped with the logistics of the college search, but my kids made just about every decision in between (including what sports to play or other extras, what classes to take in HS, how to write the college essay, how hard they'd work for their grades, etc etc etc). This all helped me sleep better and be at peace when DD fell in love with the big university with the gritty urban campus.