Supposed to basically just guess where to apply? What are we missing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Discuss location, size, finances, etc. to get a basic idea of what to look for. Have your DD look at the Fiske College Guide.

+1 Once you can ID a couple school you like (starting with in-state matches as PP said is a good starting spot) the Fiske Guide shows what are similar/cross-admit schools which can be a good way to expand the list.

[Anonymous]

OP, did you go to college? If not, I would probably hire someone to help. If you did, curious why this is hard for you to navigate with your kid. Hire a counselor if you feel like you need it, but it really isn’t necessary. You can totally do this! Spend 5-10 hours researching schools, strategies, talking to friends who recently went through it, college confidential, etc. When it comes to drafting the list, look at the school’s Common Data Set to see the average scores, gpa, and admit rate. You can also see how much weight (if any) they give to other factors (ECs, interview, legacy, etc.).

[Anonymous]

This breaks down a good process: https://www.collegeessayguy.com/blog/how-to-choose-a-college

[Anonymous]

Start with your budget. Look at the cost of your state universities and some private options. If you will be needing financial aid, use their Net Price Calculators. Addressing cost should be the very first step because it can drastically limit options in some cases.

[Anonymous]

Re: admission chances, for grades, use Naviance scattergrams. For score ranges, you can find them at IPEDS under the admissions tab https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/

[Anonymous]

With all the rankings and what not today, it should take a single weekend day to figure out colleges to apply to. I don’t really understand the question- do you expect your school to assign someone to research colleges for you? That would be great and I’m sure the prep schools already do something similar, but not exactly sure what you can do about it

[Anonymous]

Caveat, do not use Naviance's reach, match, safety designation on the bottom of the Overview page - it is utterly and completely wrong, false, irrelevant, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With all the rankings and what not today, it should take a single weekend day to figure out colleges to apply to. I don’t really understand the question- do you expect your school to assign someone to research colleges for you? That would be great and I’m sure the prep schools already do something similar, but not exactly sure what you can do about it

If you can't be helpful, please don't post.

[Anonymous]

This is the fun part in my experience, doing the research, visiting when you can, talking to people about the schools... exciting times!

We started early because we love to college tour, so by the time my kids were fall of junior year, we had been to 10-12 college campuses across the country. We only did official tours at W&M and UVA, the others were just walking around campus, exploring the towns, just getting a feel for the atmosphere. We've also attended some sporting events (football and basketball) which are fun to do and give you a different sense of the student life.

Naviance is actually very helpful but certainly not the be all and end all. Its a good starting point but if your kid doesn't know what they are looking for yet, they will put the wrong parameters in and come up with some schools that ultimately they probably won't be interested in. There were some really kooky schools that came up high on my daughters list, no name colleges that neither she had nor I ever heard of. That said, when you go to each schools page, they will list the cross applications, the places where other students in your school applied along with that school. That is helpful to leverage other people's experience to put some ideas on the list.

[Anonymous]

Get a Fiske Guide. Let her flip through it and tab anywhere of interest. I saw a “trend” when I looked where my kid had tabbed - big state unis - so I asked what he liked about them. Then I was able to help point out some colleges in that ilk that could be good fits that he hadnt noticed (the book is huge and my kid barely knew harvard from liberty so definitely tabbed some random colleges, haha). Then we could start honing in by geography, stats, etc.

[Anonymous]

Also I am hoping that this aummer we can at least do some self guided walking tours through campuses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the fun part in my experience, doing the research, visiting when you can, talking to people about the schools... exciting times!

We started early because we love to college tour, so by the time my kids were fall of junior year, we had been to 10-12 college campuses across the country. We only did official tours at W&M and UVA, the others were just walking around campus, exploring the towns, just getting a feel for the atmosphere. We've also attended some sporting events (football and basketball) which are fun to do and give you a different sense of the student life.

Naviance is actually very helpful but certainly not the be all and end all. Its a good starting point but if your kid doesn't know what they are looking for yet, they will put the wrong parameters in and come up with some schools that ultimately they probably won't be interested in. There were some really kooky schools that came up high on my daughters list, no name colleges that neither she had nor I ever heard of. That said, when you go to each schools page, they will list the cross applications, the places where other students in your school applied along with that school. That is helpful to leverage other people's experience to put some ideas on the list.

That had been our plan, until COVID.

[Anonymous]

OP, for my son I took him to visit 3 schools. 1 SLAC, 1 medium sized regional university and 1 big state school. Based on that, he decided that he liked the SLAC environment best. That allowed us to narrow the focus to schools that fell geographically and financially where we felt comfortable. His guidance counselor was not really helpful, so we were on our own. We also look at the CTCL book for ideas and spent a lot of time on the USNWR ranking list.

[Anonymous]

Yes, OP. You do it or hire someone to help. It's yet another job that will fall on me bc my DS or his dad don't seem interested in doing, so personally I've had thoughts that DS shouldn't even go to college unless/until he can put some effort into figuring it out on his own. My DS is a junior and goes to a larger private HS, but I haven't found it particularly helpful yet in this regard.

[Anonymous]

You should do your own research and campus visits. You are not flying blind in public. The colleges do a tremendous job with outreach, metrics are more transparent now than they have ever been before, and hiring someone else to guide you will only lead to their personal interests being served, not your student's. There is an inherent conflict in hiring someone to give you direction which is why there is less of this than ever before. They don't know you as well as they know the colleges that they promote.