Help me find a school for my friend's DS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am the PP with the DD accepted to UVA and UNC. ACT was 31 composite (34 superscored), SAT was about 1290, with 790 W. Decent but not spectacular. Trust me, we are surprised but know she can do the work at either school. I only put this info out there to give other parents hope: it's more than just a numbers game.

Congrats to your DD. Was she at a FCPS? To hear FCPS parents talk the only kids who get in have perfect stats. I am one of the posters with a 4.65 in MCPS and UVA is on his stretch list. Of course that's OOS.

[Anonymous]

Well if he's having family "issues" he'll probably have some good material for her personal essay, which can't hurt.

[Anonymous]

Did anyone asked you to be involved? Because you don't really have a role here. The student should be driving this process himself. If he and his mother disagree he will ultimately have to live with his choices. Having his mother's friend ask strangers on the internet for schools based on the most generic information imaginable (nothing about interests, only information about his record. That's exactly not the way tO look for schools) makes no sense at all. Seriously, what's he going to say? I wanted X school but my mom's friend wanted Y? You just don't belong here and it doesn't even sound like you were invited in. If I were the son I would be really pissed at you for butting in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did anyone asked you to be involved? Because you don't really have a role here. The student should be driving this process himself. If he and his mother disagree he will ultimately have to live with his choices. Having his mother's friend ask strangers on the internet for schools based on the most generic information imaginable (nothing about interests, only information about his record. That's exactly not the way tO look for schools) makes no sense at all. Seriously, what's he going to say? I wanted X school but my mom's friend wanted Y? You just don't belong here and it doesn't even sound like you were invited in. If I were the son I would be really pissed at you for butting in.

Wow, PP. It sounded like the mom was stressed out and preoccupied with other things.

This needs to be turned around. Who asked for your assessment of OP's role in the kid's life? Who are you to presume that OP isn't an aunt-like figure in this kid's life? My kids have grownups they trust besides us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did anyone asked you to be involved? Because you don't really have a role here. The student should be driving this process himself. If he and his mother disagree he will ultimately have to live with his choices. Having his mother's friend ask strangers on the internet for schools based on the most generic information imaginable (nothing about interests, only information about his record. That's exactly not the way tO look for schools) makes no sense at all. Seriously, what's he going to say? I wanted X school but my mom's friend wanted Y? You just don't belong here and it doesn't even sound like you were invited in. If I were the son I would be really pissed at you for butting in.

Wow, PP. It sounded like the mom was stressed out and preoccupied with other things.

This needs to be turned around. Who asked for your assessment of OP's role in the kid's life? Who are you to presume that OP isn't an aunt-like figure in this kid's life? My kids have grownups they trust besides us.

Because nothing in OP's posts mentions that she was invited to take this role. And because nothing she has asked for would help the situation. They are not at a loss for schools to look at. The problem is that the son wants a certain kind of school and the mother wants another. Throwing a bunch of new schools into the hopper won't help.

I am going through the process right now with DC and I can see that OP is just going about this all wrong. First of, the search does not start with GPA and APs. The search starts with what are the student's interests? What size school does he want and in what part of the country? A student with those stats who is a STEM type would look at very different schools from a humanities type and preppy kid would look at different schools than an artsy kid.

But finally, if you are going through the process you know that OP has no role here. This is the student's process, with support from parents. Did the student ask his mom's friend for advice? I don't think so. What I see is a mother and son at odds over college choices -- not an unusual situation -- and mom's friend wanting in on the drama. Or to be more charitable,mom's friend wants to fix the situation when her only role here is to listen to her friend.

We were all applying to colleges once ourselves. Put yourself in the student's place here. You and your mom disagree and then her friend comes in with a list of schools to look at that have nothing to do with what you want or are interested in. HOw would you receive that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did anyone asked you to be involved? Because you don't really have a role here. The student should be driving this process himself. If he and his mother disagree he will ultimately have to live with his choices. Having his mother's friend ask strangers on the internet for schools based on the most generic information imaginable (nothing about interests, only information about his record. That's exactly not the way tO look for schools) makes no sense at all. Seriously, what's he going to say? I wanted X school but my mom's friend wanted Y? You just don't belong here and it doesn't even sound like you were invited in. If I were the son I would be really pissed at you for butting in.

Wow, PP. It sounded like the mom was stressed out and preoccupied with other things.

This needs to be turned around. Who asked for your assessment of OP's role in the kid's life? Who are you to presume that OP isn't an aunt-like figure in this kid's life? My kids have grownups they trust besides us.

Because nothing in OP's posts mentions that she was invited to take this role. And because nothing she has asked for would help the situation. They are not at a loss for schools to look at. The problem is that the son wants a certain kind of school and the mother wants another. Throwing a bunch of new schools into the hopper won't help.

I am going through the process right now with DC and I can see that OP is just going about this all wrong. First of, the search does not start with GPA and APs. The search starts with what are the student's interests? What size school does he want and in what part of the country? A student with those stats who is a STEM type would look at very different schools from a humanities type and preppy kid would look at different schools than an artsy kid.

But finally, if you are going through the process you know that OP has no role here. This is the student's process, with support from parents. Did the student ask his mom's friend for advice? I don't think so. What I see is a mother and son at odds over college choices -- not an unusual situation -- and mom's friend wanting in on the drama. Or to be more charitable,mom's friend wants to fix the situation when her only role here is to listen to her friend.

We were all applying to colleges once ourselves. Put yourself in the student's place here. You and your mom disagree and then her friend comes in with a list of schools to look at that have nothing to do with what you want or are interested in. HOw would you receive that?

I repeat, nobody asked for your assessment of OP's role in her friend's kid's life, and certainly not five paras of your opinions on her. Actually we have just been through the process this year. (ED accept at an Ivy, thanks for asking!)

College application time is a fraught period for many families. Who knows how this distracted friend and her son are coping. Looks like there's no dad in the picture to handle some of the overflow, either. Sometimes kids really don't want to be nagged by mom. Or, from what it sounds like here, kids don't want to hear mom's opinion that Harvard isn't going to come knocking. It looks like mom tried making this point, but the kid isn't listening. So without another adult entering the picture, what's going to happen is that the kid is going to apply only to HYP, and that's not going to end well.

Some families hire consultants just to take parent-child struggles out of the equation. If OP can do that for free, with a little help from the school counselor and us, I think that's great.

Other families hire consultants to weed through all the overwhelming choices. Those who don't have the money ask on DCUM, maybe naively, but I don't see anything wrong with that. If we chopped every naive poster off at the knees, we'd only have our own insufferable selves to deal with. And who would want that....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Because nothing in OP's posts mentions that she was invited to take this role. And because nothing she has asked for would help the situation. They are not at a loss for schools to look at. The problem is that the son wants a certain kind of school and the mother wants another. Throwing a bunch of new schools into the hopper won't help.

Actually, throwing a bunch of new schools into the hopper is exactly what's needed. Somebody needs to get this kid's mind off the most selective colleges. He needs to look more closely at a good school like UVA, and start to see the appeal.

Just because OP didn't explicitly mention getting an invitation, doesn't mean the mom didn't ask for her help. The fact that she didn't identify his interests may be because he doesn't have any so-called passions, or she didn't want to reveal personal information. I guess the other solution would be to set up a cage match between mom and son, although really the mom needs to win this.

[Anonymous]

OP here - to all the helpful ones here, thank you so much for the naviance info.

To everyone else, I truly don't understand what planet you guys are on. This is my dearest friend we're talking about, we have been in each others lives for 15 yrs. I have watched her children grow up! Her father is on his death-bed, which is sudden. Her daughter (a teenager) is suffering from severe depression . She has a tremendous amount on her plate -so THIS is the kind of friend I am. Apparently none of you (the ones with the nasty comments) have any true friends in your lives - and I am very sorry for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - to all the helpful ones here, thank you so much for the naviance info.

To everyone else, I truly don't understand what planet you guys are on. This is my dearest friend we're talking about, we have been in each others lives for 15 yrs. I have watched her children grow up! Her father is on his death-bed, which is sudden. Her daughter (a teenager) is suffering from severe depression . She has a tremendous amount on her plate -so THIS is the kind of friend I am. Apparently none of you (the ones with the nasty comments) have any true friends in your lives - and I am very sorry for that.

BTW, it's worth mentioning that you can't just invite him over one afternoon for a Naviance session if he doesn't already have access. In MoCo you have to ask the school counseling office for an ID and password. I don't think you (a non-parent) can do it, he'll have to ask for it.

If he's already on Naviance, then no probs. If not, ask him to get access through his counseling office.

[Anonymous]

I'm the pp you say has no friends and I have been through literally everything on your friend's terrible list plus a second child with a disability and a life threatening illness so I get it. I apologize for my tone but I also think there are better ways for you to help. I don't think suggesting more schools is helpful because a student this bright knows what schools are out there are how to research them, he just chooses not to. The best thing your friend can do is call the school college guidance counselor and tell her everything in her plate and then ask them to completely take over the process. He will be more likely to listen to advice frOm a professional and this is a situation they deal with all the time.

Other things, which you may already be doing: spend a day with your friend's father so she can give herself permission to take a day away. When my mOther was dying I really needed that one day to take a break. As for her daughter, what your friend needs most, assuming her dd has good professional care, is to know she isn't alone. Gather stories of kids who have gone through depression and recovered and are doIng fine. That helped me a lot.

Finally, she may be butting heads with her son because with everything going on that's the only area that feels like she can influence. But she can't. She's in a power struggle and she can't win. She's just Increasing her own stress. Passing him off to a professiOnal and letting him live with his decisions will not lead to the bottom falling out. Plus I'd he's a junior there's plenty of time. He's more likely to make sensible decisions if it isn't a power struggle. He doesn't have to decide where to apply for some time. Everyone should stop fighting him and give him room to make the right decision.

[Anonymous]

OP, Collegeboard.com is a great place to start for a very broad search. You don't need an account. It has lots of useful info.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm the pp you say has no friends and I have been through literally everything on your friend's terrible list plus a second child with a disability and a life threatening illness so I get it. I apologize for my tone but I also think there are better ways for you to help. I don't think suggesting more schools is helpful because a student this bright knows what schools are out there are how to research them, he just chooses not to. The best thing your friend can do is call the school college guidance counselor and tell her everything in her plate and then ask them to completely take over the process. He will be more likely to listen to advice frOm a professional and this is a situation they deal with all the time.

Other things, which you may already be doing: spend a day with your friend's father so she can give herself permission to take a day away. When my mOther was dying I really needed that one day to take a break. As for her daughter, what your friend needs most, assuming her dd has good professional care, is to know she isn't alone. Gather stories of kids who have gone through depression and recovered and are doIng fine. That helped me a lot.

Finally, she may be butting heads with her son because with everything going on that's the only area that feels like she can influence. But she can't. She's in a power struggle and she can't win. She's just Increasing her own stress. Passing him off to a professiOnal and letting him live with his decisions will not lead to the bottom falling out. Plus I'd he's a junior there's plenty of time. He's more likely to make sensible decisions if it isn't a power struggle. He doesn't have to decide where to apply for some time. Everyone should stop fighting him and give him room to make the right decision.

These suggestions are helpful. But MoCo school counselors often have 100 or 200 kids on their plates. They are too busy arranging schedules for next year, changing schedules, and dealing with immediate discipline problems to help a kid choose colleges. I know, I've dealt with them about colleges. Basically, all they can do is go into listening mode rather than helping mode. Between junior and senior year OP's friend's kid will have to fill out a long packet with personal info, and this will likely to be the first time the counselors learn much about OP's friend's kid. Once in a while the counselor may suggest UMD, which is a fine school, but we got the impression that they wanted to stay out of the business of steering kids. This isn't a private school, where the counselors know each kid well and can assess fit for a wide range of schools.

Possibly the best way this could work is if one of the volunteers at the school counseling office is willing to sit down with OP's kid. Some of them are very knowledgeable and are more at liberty to spend the necessary time steering OP's friend's kid through Naviance.

I'm still not convinced OP can't step into this role. It depends if the kid trusts her, which only she can answer.

[Anonymous]

In addition to Naviance have the student/his mom look at the institutional research page on the websites of the colleges he's interested in. Have him pull up The Common Data Set for 2012 (2013 won't be available yet). It tells you what the scores/other stats enrolled students had to gain admission. It is very telling.

Also realize that the student admitted to UVA/UNC with a 3.4 unweighted was either very lucky or her test scores and/or "positive contributions" to her school were extraordinary.

The one thing any kid needs to know about the current admissions climate is that you need to LOVE YOUR SAFETIES.

[Anonymous]

I am the PP, parent of the student admitted to UVA and UNC. Responding to the question about whether my kid is in FCPS - the answer is no, she goes to a private school in DC. Several other students from her school, with her approximate academic profile (ie, <4.0 weighted GPA, strong but not off-the-chart test scores), were admitted to UNC and UVA this year and last (along with others who have more typical credentials for these schools). I think having college counselors with a smaller case load who really know the students and the admissions officers at these schools made a *huge* difference - they were able to advocate for the students because they know them well and won't try to sell the schools on a kid who won't succeed there. This is probably where private school makes the biggest difference in college placements - the counselors have <50 students in their caseload and most of them have been college admissions counselors at top schools and know how to make the system work for their students. They are doing far more than just checking to make sure application packages are complete.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In addition to Naviance have the student/his mom look at the institutional research page on the websites of the colleges he's interested in. Have him pull up The Common Data Set for 2012 (2013 won't be available yet). It tells you what the scores/other stats enrolled students had to gain admission. It is very telling.

Also realize that the student admitted to UVA/UNC with a 3.4 unweighted was either very lucky or her test scores and/or "positive contributions" to her school were extraordinary.

The one thing any kid needs to know about the current admissions climate is that you need to LOVE YOUR SAFETIES.

Thank you!