What do I need to do over the next 6 years to get my child into a top school?

[Anonymous]

Such nice responses already!!

I was really into college and I think in 9th grade my parents got me the best 380 colleges book and I poured over that thing for years! We visited colleges, etc.

As a parent try to stay on top of when PSAT is offered, SATs, etc. these days everyone probably takes an SAT prep course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Such nice responses already!!

I was really into college and I think in 9th grade my parents got me the best 380 colleges book and I poured over that thing for years! We visited colleges, etc.

As a parent try to stay on top of when PSAT is offered, SATs, etc. these days everyone probably takes an SAT prep course.

RE: prep courses, from the research I've seen, it varies by group (whites the lowest ~10%, Asians the highest ~30%) but I'd wager that if you're looking at top schools then it's probably close to 100%. There's little evidence that it raises scores significantly, but every little thing can help.

[Anonymous]

Sports only open a door if your child is gifted in that sport. Obviously, you child found something he enjoyed and was good at. OP, your child needs to find what he/she enjoys and is good at. Don't force it. I had a friend in high school whose parents signed her up for everything that looked good on a college resume. However, I feel like college admissions officers see through this. Also, leadership positions can be important. It is better that your child is a leader in 1-2 extracurriculars rather than a participant of a bunch.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are aiming for an Ivy OP, your child needs to get the best scores, grades he/she can and excel in leadership roles in interesting EC activities. If they are recruitable as an athlete, that is great. Or, if they like music and have played at the Kennedy Center or the likes, tha tis great too. They must be the best or near best at whichever activity they choose to do.

Ignore the people who tell you to "relax". Those are the kids who go to JMU or GMU or the likes.

I relaxed and my kid is at Stanford. But he was a 4 star football recruit. YMMV, but don't kid yourself that sports don't open that door.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are aiming for an Ivy OP, your child needs to get the best scores, grades he/she can and excel in leadership roles in interesting EC activities. If they are recruitable as an athlete, that is great. Or, if they like music and have played at the Kennedy Center or the likes, tha tis great too. They must be the best or near best at whichever activity they choose to do.

Ignore the people who tell you to "relax". Those are the kids who go to JMU or GMU or the likes.

Oh, the horror! Good grief, I'm so glad I'm not friends with anyone like you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are aiming for an Ivy OP, your child needs to get the best scores, grades he/she can and excel in leadership roles in interesting EC activities. If they are recruitable as an athlete, that is great. Or, if they like music and have played at the Kennedy Center or the likes, tha tis great too. They must be the best or near best at whichever activity they choose to do.

Ignore the people who tell you to "relax". Those are the kids who go to JMU or GMU or the likes.

Oh, the horror! Good grief, I'm so glad I'm not friends with anyone like you.

Nothing wrong with those schools, but they are not the top schools that OP wants to know how to get into.

[Anonymous]

The problem with this entire thread is that it is all about what the parent wants and what the parent should do and leaves the child entirely out of the picture. Honestly, with thousands of kids vying for each spot at a university with acceptance rates of less than 10% the odds are against your child no matter how much you engineer their life so that you get bragging rights. This is unhealthy for you and your child. Moreover, today's special formula for admissions could change in the next 6 years (and likely will) and everything you engineered could be out of favor. Colleges used to want the well-rounded kid. Now they want the pointy kid. Who knows what they will want nex? &Let your child choose activities he or she enjoys and finds meaningful. They will be a lot less likely to hate you when they are adults--and are likely to better adjusted and happier individuals. Ivy League does not equal success in life. Neither does it mean you have been a successful parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem with this entire thread is that it is all about what the parent wants and what the parent should do and leaves the child entirely out of the picture. Honestly, with thousands of kids vying for each spot at a university with acceptance rates of less than 10% the odds are against your child no matter how much you engineer their life so that you get bragging rights. This is unhealthy for you and your child. Moreover, today's special formula for admissions could change in the next 6 years (and likely will) and everything you engineered could be out of favor. Colleges used to want the well-rounded kid. Now they want the pointy kid. Who knows what they will want nex? &Let your child choose activities he or she enjoys and finds meaningful. They will be a lot less likely to hate you when they are adults--and are likely to better adjusted and happier individuals. Ivy League does not equal success in life. Neither does it mean you have been a successful parent.

Sure, no one can really force a kid into the Ivy League, but if you aren't on top of these things as a parent then you may be closing doors in your kids' face. If your kid is struggling academically and you have to fight constantly to get those straight A's and they have no free time because they are busy filling up a college resume then it's probably not worth it. But if your kid is bright and has at least a few passions, then it is important as a parent to think longterm on their behalf and set reasonable but high expectations and help them figure out how to turn a passion for something into the kind of longterm commitment that will prepare them not only for college but for life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are aiming for an Ivy OP, your child needs to get the best scores, grades he/she can and excel in leadership roles in interesting EC activities. If they are recruitable as an athlete, that is great. Or, if they like music and have played at the Kennedy Center or the likes, tha tis great too. They must be the best or near best at whichever activity they choose to do.

Ignore the people who tell you to "relax". Those are the kids who go to JMU or GMU or the likes.

My parents were relaxed. My sister went to Yale. I went to state school. We were treated the same. My sister didn't go to Yale because my parents hounded her. She went to Yale because she was self-motivated and highly competitive and brilliant.

If you have to hound your child to do things to get into an Ivy, they aren't cut out for an Ivy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem with this entire thread is that it is all about what the parent wants and what the parent should do and leaves the child entirely out of the picture. Honestly, with thousands of kids vying for each spot at a university with acceptance rates of less than 10% the odds are against your child no matter how much you engineer their life so that you get bragging rights. This is unhealthy for you and your child. Moreover, today's special formula for admissions could change in the next 6 years (and likely will) and everything you engineered could be out of favor. Colleges used to want the well-rounded kid. Now they want the pointy kid. Who knows what they will want nex? &Let your child choose activities he or she enjoys and finds meaningful. They will be a lot less likely to hate you when they are adults--and are likely to better adjusted and happier individuals. Ivy League does not equal success in life. Neither does it mean you have been a successful parent.

Excellent post.
This thread reeks of helicopter parenting.

[Anonymous]

Make a lot of money. There are 2 admission piles at almost all private colleges. One for students whose parents can pay 100% of tuition, room and board (50-60,000 per year) and those that need financial aid. It is easier to get accepted if you can fully pay. If you have money you can get the best tutors for your child so that if they struggle in calculus or AP biology, or with writing an essay the tutor can help. Money gets you great one in one SAT tutoring. If your child is good at a sport money gets you private coaching. That can lead to a better chance of being a recruited athlete. Affluent parents aren't looking for a sorts scholarship just a hook to make it easier to get into a top school. Being s recruited athlete does that.
So money, money, and more money. It is not an even playing field between the haves and have nots in college admisions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem with this entire thread is that it is all about what the parent wants and what the parent should do and leaves the child entirely out of the picture. Honestly, with thousands of kids vying for each spot at a university with acceptance rates of less than 10% the odds are against your child no matter how much you engineer their life so that you get bragging rights. This is unhealthy for you and your child. Moreover, today's special formula for admissions could change in the next 6 years (and likely will) and everything you engineered could be out of favor. Colleges used to want the well-rounded kid. Now they want the pointy kid. Who knows what they will want nex? &Let your child choose activities he or she enjoys and finds meaningful. They will be a lot less likely to hate you when they are adults--and are likely to better adjusted and happier individuals. Ivy League does not equal success in life. Neither does it mean you have been a successful parent.

I work in the industry so to speak, specifically with foreigh-born and immigrant students, so OPs question is a really good one. Stop putting your US vision and values on OP. Yes, they want their child to be successful and is in a country where they don't know the system. You wouldn't know how to naviage the system in Europe or Asia, and would ask the same question. Also realize, the expectations US parents have of kids in the US k-12 system is Nothing compared to kids abroad. We get young people from Nigeria and Trinidad who test out of Calculus and into Differential Equations because their k-12 system has different expectations. So telling OP, hey, you should make sure they take Algebra by 8th grade is a good way of letting them know the bench mark here in the US.

OP, you got good advice here! Good luck!

[Anonymous]

One quirk of the US system (and maybe it will have changed in six years -- I hope so!) is that students who apply as early applicants (early action, early decision (binding), or restrictive/single choice early action (can only do it for only one private University in the US, but may do regular decision elsewhere)) often have MUCH better odds of getting in than those who apply "regular decision" (usually a January deadline).

So it really helps to figure out where your DC most wants to go to college by October of senior year and to have at least the first round of applications ready to send out then. Which tends to mean that essays get drafted in August before school starts and that all standardized testing has been done once by the end of junior year. There will be a chance to retake prior to early decision, but probably only one type of test. And, to use the early benefit wisely, DC needs to have a sense of what those scores look like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with this entire thread is that it is all about what the parent wants and what the parent should do and leaves the child entirely out of the picture. Honestly, with thousands of kids vying for each spot at a university with acceptance rates of less than 10% the odds are against your child no matter how much you engineer their life so that you get bragging rights. This is unhealthy for you and your child. Moreover, today's special formula for admissions could change in the next 6 years (and likely will) and everything you engineered could be out of favor. Colleges used to want the well-rounded kid. Now they want the pointy kid. Who knows what they will want nex? &Let your child choose activities he or she enjoys and finds meaningful. They will be a lot less likely to hate you when they are adults--and are likely to better adjusted and happier individuals. Ivy League does not equal success in life. Neither does it mean you have been a successful parent.

I work in the industry so to speak, specifically with foreigh-born and immigrant students, so OPs question is a really good one. Stop putting your US vision and values on OP. Yes, they want their child to be successful and is in a country where they don't know the system. You wouldn't know how to naviage the system in Europe or Asia, and would ask the same question. Also realize, the expectations US parents have of kids in the US k-12 system is Nothing compared to kids abroad. We get young people from Nigeria and Trinidad who test out of Calculus and into Differential Equations because their k-12 system has different expectations. So telling OP, hey, you should make sure they take Algebra by 8th grade is a good way of letting them know the bench mark here in the US.

OP, you got good advice here! Good luck!

I am the poster you are responding to. My US attitudes have not harmed my child as he was accepted to several elite universities and he accomplished this by pursuing his own interests and dreams not because I engineered his life and sacrificed his childhood. No matter what we do or do not do, and no matter what paid consultants tell us for their fee, it is in many regards a crap shoot and today's formula won't necessarily work tomorrow. This attitude of pushing our kids for an unlikely spot at a"top" university not only doesn't mean success in life, it equates to stressed out, miserable teens, depression, anxiety and kids who are overly dependent upon others to think for them.

[Anonymous]

9:56

FWIW, I don't think that the poster you're quoting was suggesting your attitudes harmed your child. She was just pointing out that the bragging rights/engineering your kid's life rhetoric wasn't a fair response to a parent who grew up elsewhere and was simply asking "how do things work here?"

That said, my take was that you were responding to the responses and offering OP a different perspective/approach rather than slamming her for asking the question.

FWIW, I wholeheartedly agree with the encourage your kid to do things s/he finds meaningful and to do them well advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with this entire thread is that it is all about what the parent wants and what the parent should do and leaves the child entirely out of the picture. Honestly, with thousands of kids vying for each spot at a university with acceptance rates of less than 10% the odds are against your child no matter how much you engineer their life so that you get bragging rights. This is unhealthy for you and your child. Moreover, today's special formula for admissions could change in the next 6 years (and likely will) and everything you engineered could be out of favor. Colleges used to want the well-rounded kid. Now they want the pointy kid. Who knows what they will want nex? &Let your child choose activities he or she enjoys and finds meaningful. They will be a lot less likely to hate you when they are adults--and are likely to better adjusted and happier individuals. Ivy League does not equal success in life. Neither does it mean you have been a successful parent.

I work in the industry so to speak, specifically with foreigh-born and immigrant students, so OPs question is a really good one. Stop putting your US vision and values on OP. Yes, they want their child to be successful and is in a country where they don't know the system. You wouldn't know how to naviage the system in Europe or Asia, and would ask the same question. Also realize, the expectations US parents have of kids in the US k-12 system is Nothing compared to kids abroad. We get young people from Nigeria and Trinidad who test out of Calculus and into Differential Equations because their k-12 system has different expectations. So telling OP, hey, you should make sure they take Algebra by 8th grade is a good way of letting them know the bench mark here in the US.

OP, you got good advice here! Good luck!

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