What regrets to you have to the 2023 college cycle?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None within my control, or perhaps even my son's control.

His extra-curriculars were impacted by Covid. He was not mature enough to think through what he wanted to say in his essays before September of senior year, and he took a LONG time to write them, so it burdened his fall semester significantly. After giving his all to ACT testing and working for high grades, he's now burned out and his grades are lower - I hope none of his colleges rescind admissions.

My second child's college admissions journey will be different, because she won't be impacted by Covid, and she has a pointy EC that she spends many hours on.

So, what is the point of commenting (or are you OP, starting this thread?)? Are these your regrets? It sounds like your kids just did their thing and are now living with the results of doing so. I'm sure those results are not horrible.

My regret is pushing my kid to take Honors Alg 2 as a freshman. It ruined their GPA for Freshman year (B-, D, B-, B-). Could never get around that. And to what end? They are not going to be a STEM major. They could've easily just taken regular Alg 2 and have worked out a B or higher.

This is an important lesson many parents could learn. Do NOT push your kid to take a higher level of a class they struggle with/don't have interest in. The stress of that one class can bring down many class grades and kill your kid's self esteem and GPA.

+100

+101 Unfortunately, learned this one the hard way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I regret that I'm reading this thread even though my kids have graduated university. It's like the pleasure of picking a scab - you don't know why you do it and it leaves scars.

lol .. thanks for the laugh. We certainly need it on this thread.

Definitely apply to more safeties and targets. College admissions is basically a lottery after a certain threshold for the vast majority of high stats kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None within my control, or perhaps even my son's control.

His extra-curriculars were impacted by Covid. He was not mature enough to think through what he wanted to say in his essays before September of senior year, and he took a LONG time to write them, so it burdened his fall semester significantly. After giving his all to ACT testing and working for high grades, he's now burned out and his grades are lower - I hope none of his colleges rescind admissions.

My second child's college admissions journey will be different, because she won't be impacted by Covid, and she has a pointy EC that she spends many hours on.

So, what is the point of commenting (or are you OP, starting this thread?)? Are these your regrets? It sounds like your kids just did their thing and are now living with the results of doing so. I'm sure those results are not horrible.

My regret is pushing my kid to take Honors Alg 2 as a freshman. It ruined their GPA for Freshman year (B-, D, B-, B-). Could never get around that. And to what end? They are not going to be a STEM major. They could've easily just taken regular Alg 2 and have worked out a B or higher.

This is an important lesson many parents could learn. Do NOT push your kid to take a higher level of a class they struggle with/don't have interest in. The stress of that one class can bring down many class grades and kill your kid's self esteem and GPA.

A kid of a friend of mine is failing AP English senior year - already into college, but will be an issue if they are unable to pass and actually graduate high school! Seriously, on-level classes are fine, but this kid's school put them in ALL AP classes senior year. I assume because most parents complain endlessly if their kid isn't in all APs, but for some kids, it's a really bad idea.

[Anonymous]

My kid is a normal stats kid - 4.0 GPA, 3 APs but didn't score high enough on any to use the score, 2 DE classes, SAT score 1230, 100+ hours of community service, lots of various extra curriculars including two that were long term from childhood and were not sports

-Not casting a wider net for public schools out of state that w- ere willing to offer merit aid.

- Not starting SAT test prep earlier. Literally missed cut off score for very generous merit aid by 10 - 30 pts at some school.

- Should have done more dual enrollments and stuck with just one AP

[Anonymous]

DC talked into taking too many APs this year. It just caused unnecessary stress

DC applied to too many schools this year. Stressful.

We also didn't know the value of ED. Honestly, DC wanted William & Mary and didn't realize that until too late. Didn't apply ED when they could have gotten in.

[Anonymous]

One more for me
Wasted application to UCs.

Those essays took work.

And the state mandate to focus on in-state kids plus the laser focus they place on wGPA hurts kids applying from the non AP schools around here (DMV privates who directed AP courses). Every admitted kid we know to a top UC was 4.2++ wGPA

Waste of time in light of these two factors

[Anonymous]

That state mandate is a good one, we need one in va

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Test prep was a waste because their score stayed the same.

It does happen with some kids. I have one that had decent tutor and 20 hours of test prep and score was the same. That kid has ADHD/ExFunctioning issues and thus not good at test taking. Got a 26/27 Act every time.
2nd kid is higher stats (better grades) and went up 160 with 4 hours of test prep. The additional 6 hours and 3 practice tests gave same results +/1 20 points. 2nd kid used the tutor to learn the "tricks" and obviously quickly figured out how to take the test.

Test prep to learn the "tricks"

Meritocracy indeed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No regrets:

DD is a strong public school student with no hooks, and we did our research on our own. She applied to 3 safety schools (1 rolling admission), 3 target schools, and 3 reach schools (T50 state flagships). DD was accepted to the rolling admission school last fall with a nice scholarship, which took the pressure off. She got into her other safety and target schools with merit aid — and was thrilled to get into 2 of her 3 reach schools. She didn’t get merit aid to her reaches but, fortunately, her AP credits make them doable. My best advice is to set a budget early, use the Net Price Calculators, and apply Early Action whenever possible.

Parents, your DCs should start to be aware in or near end of MS about the family budget. I knew at 8 that my family had no money for college - legit no money, not because parents wanted to spend it on name brands. We had a very modest EFC and my parents always managed to scrounge up what was owed and provide me with limited amounts of spending money when they could.

Enough of that. If your budget is in-state only, then your DC needs to know that in the early months of HS, not in junior year or even senior spring. If you could swing a LAC with a threshold of merit aid, then let your DC know that along with suggestions of some LACs that are generous with money for achieving students. If you cannot afford an Ivy, then be real with your kid - let them know if the EFC is in excess of X amount, then you cannot swing it.

And, as parents, accept this is the reality of financing higher ed at this point in time. Of course, you can always advocate for that to change and those who work on equity in higher ed would always welcome more members to their ranks. The number of parents who post on the FB Grown and Flown and College Bound pages seeking scholarship money as if there are just pots and pots of it out there and they just need to be pointed in the right direction is distressing. Figuring out how to pay for college should happen before figuring out the list of possible colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Test prep was a waste because their score stayed the same.

It does happen with some kids. I have one that had decent tutor and 20 hours of test prep and score was the same. That kid has ADHD/ExFunctioning issues and thus not good at test taking. Got a 26/27 Act every time.
2nd kid is higher stats (better grades) and went up 160 with 4 hours of test prep. The additional 6 hours and 3 practice tests gave same results +/1 20 points. 2nd kid used the tutor to learn the "tricks" and obviously quickly figured out how to take the test.

Test prep to learn the "tricks"

Meritocracy indeed.

What jobs require someone to take tests cold?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m advising my next kid to fight for every half grade in every class. Not a lot of room for error with grades.

Teachers will hate your child.

Not a smart thing to teach them for college either.

Caitlin Flanagan writes about exactly this during her time teaching at Harvard-Westlake in an essay called “They Had it Coming,” in the Atlantic Monthly.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/what-college-admissions-scandal-reveals/586468/

This was a great article…both laugh out loud funny AND a sad reflection of our times.

Fantastic article! This part is awesome:

"A successful first meeting often consisted of walking them back from the crack pipe of Harvard to the Adderall crash of Middlebury and then scheduling a follow-up meeting to douse them with the bong water of Denison."

The Denison president is perhaps one of the best college presidents in the country, but, yeah, laugh about bong water.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None within my control, or perhaps even my son's control.

His extra-curriculars were impacted by Covid. He was not mature enough to think through what he wanted to say in his essays before September of senior year, and he took a LONG time to write them, so it burdened his fall semester significantly. After giving his all to ACT testing and working for high grades, he's now burned out and his grades are lower - I hope none of his colleges rescind admissions.

My second child's college admissions journey will be different, because she won't be impacted by Covid, and she has a pointy EC that she spends many hours on.

So, what is the point of commenting (or are you OP, starting this thread?)? Are these your regrets? It sounds like your kids just did their thing and are now living with the results of doing so. I'm sure those results are not horrible.

My regret is pushing my kid to take Honors Alg 2 as a freshman. It ruined their GPA for Freshman year (B-, D, B-, B-). Could never get around that. And to what end? They are not going to be a STEM major. They could've easily just taken regular Alg 2 and have worked out a B or higher.

Interesting…my kid is a freshman and dealing with this now. Although I did not push him (I didn’t care), he pushed himself. The teacher has been a nightmare, the tests impossible, incredibly smart and hard working students cannot do well in this class. And yes it will hurt them all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Test prep was a waste because their score stayed the same.

It does happen with some kids. I have one that had decent tutor and 20 hours of test prep and score was the same. That kid has ADHD/ExFunctioning issues and thus not good at test taking. Got a 26/27 Act every time.
2nd kid is higher stats (better grades) and went up 160 with 4 hours of test prep. The additional 6 hours and 3 practice tests gave same results +/1 20 points. 2nd kid used the tutor to learn the "tricks" and obviously quickly figured out how to take the test.

Test prep to learn the "tricks"

Meritocracy indeed.

What jobs require someone to take tests cold?

Ones with drug tests

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None within my control, or perhaps even my son's control.

His extra-curriculars were impacted by Covid. He was not mature enough to think through what he wanted to say in his essays before September of senior year, and he took a LONG time to write them, so it burdened his fall semester significantly. After giving his all to ACT testing and working for high grades, he's now burned out and his grades are lower - I hope none of his colleges rescind admissions.

My second child's college admissions journey will be different, because she won't be impacted by Covid, and she has a pointy EC that she spends many hours on.

So, what is the point of commenting (or are you OP, starting this thread?)? Are these your regrets? It sounds like your kids just did their thing and are now living with the results of doing so. I'm sure those results are not horrible.

My regret is pushing my kid to take Honors Alg 2 as a freshman. It ruined their GPA for Freshman year (B-, D, B-, B-). Could never get around that. And to what end? They are not going to be a STEM major. They could've easily just taken regular Alg 2 and have worked out a B or higher.

Interesting…my kid is a freshman and dealing with this now. Although I did not push him (I didn’t care), he pushed himself. The teacher has been a nightmare, the tests impossible, incredibly smart and hard working students cannot do well in this class. And yes it will hurt them all.

Not that I like it, but plenty of public school kids get started on tough subjects in summer - tutors or enrichment centers so they are less stressed out in school year and less reliant on teacher quality

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Test prep was a waste because their score stayed the same.

It does happen with some kids. I have one that had decent tutor and 20 hours of test prep and score was the same. That kid has ADHD/ExFunctioning issues and thus not good at test taking. Got a 26/27 Act every time.
2nd kid is higher stats (better grades) and went up 160 with 4 hours of test prep. The additional 6 hours and 3 practice tests gave same results +/1 20 points. 2nd kid used the tutor to learn the "tricks" and obviously quickly figured out how to take the test.

Test prep to learn the "tricks"

Meritocracy indeed.

Kid could have done the "learning the tricks" themselves, but it would have taken much longer and required them to be highly motivated and during covid they were not really motivated to do so. The fact that only 4 hours of "tutoring" got them a 160 point bump shows they are capable of doing that themselves and are smart.
But it is a privilege to be able to pay for the tutor.