What regrets to you have to the 2023 college cycle?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We hired a Test prep tutor. Big waste.

Huge waste for us too. Unless your child is motivated, a one-on-one tutor will not make a difference because SO much work still needs to be done independently. We used a local test prep tutoring place with great reviews, and I could tell almost immediately that it would not go well. For the second child, we tried a tutor on Wyzant, and as soon as I could see that it was headed in the same direction (with hours and hours of independent work being scheduled), we pulled the plug. I'm not saying it's a waste for everyone--if you have a motivated child, you would probably have different results.

Which service? Only a few are worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish my DS had studied more for the SAT. He did really well, but with a little extra work he could have been a NMF.

Mine is a NMF. Didn’t help with admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish my DS had studied more for the SAT. He did really well, but with a little extra work he could have been a NMF.

Mine is a NMF. Didn’t help with admissions.

There are schools your child could’ve gotten a full ride at if they wanted one.

[Anonymous]

I regret putting my child in a high-performing high school. Should’ve put them in a failing one that should be shut down instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish my DS had studied more for the SAT. He did really well, but with a little extra work he could have been a NMF.

Mine is a NMF. Didn’t help with admissions.

There are schools your child could’ve gotten a full ride at if they wanted one.

heartbeat!

Yes, but we also have a National Merit Scholar, and the schools offering the free ride were not the ones they wanted to attend

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I regret putting my child in a high-performing high school. Should’ve put them in a failing one that should be shut down instead.

Why would you want your kid in a failing school?

[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.

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

Yes that’s what his classmates did. He’s my oldest so I didn’t know that was done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: If I were a college admission officer and saw that an applicant was applying to 30 schools, I would wonder how much they care about our school. Does it look like the student is just throwing Jell-O at the wall hoping anything sticks? Why is this student even applying here?

Maybe less is more.

I’m not sure they get to see where else you are applying, do they?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I regret putting my child in a high-performing high school. Should’ve put them in a failing one that should be shut down instead.

Why would you want your kid in a failing school?

I assume this poster is jealous of the admissions advantages that applicants from failing schools get. I also hope this poster is not stupid enough to believe that four years of a somewhat higher ranked college is worth sacrificing a decent secondary education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We hired a Test prep tutor. Big waste.

Huge waste for us too. Unless your child is motivated, a one-on-one tutor will not make a difference because SO much work still needs to be done independently. We used a local test prep tutoring place with great reviews, and I could tell almost immediately that it would not go well. For the second child, we tried a tutor on Wyzant, and as soon as I could see that it was headed in the same direction (with hours and hours of independent work being scheduled), we pulled the plug. I'm not saying it's a waste for everyone--if you have a motivated child, you would probably have different results.

Which service? Only a few are worth it.

It does not require that much motivation with 1-1 tutoring. Issue is what was the initial score/baseline and what was the desired result? Because if you get 1540 initially, you will have to put in more work to go up to 1580/1600 than someone at 1300 initially who wants to get to 1500. The one at 1300 (if truly capable of a 1500) will just need a few Hours to 'learn the tricks" and determine what silly errors they are making. My kid only needed 4 hours of tutoring then took another test and was at 1490---did another 3 practice tests with 30 mins of tutoring and a bit of Homework and each additional test put them at 1480-1500. So we got our bump with minimal tutoring.
Likewise, if you are hoping to push a kid from 1200-1500 and the kid is not really that smart (my kid had a 3.99 GPA in HS without much effort required), it will take a lot of work---if math is not their strong point, it will take work to ensure they don't make silly mistakes.

Our tutor said my kid could have gotten to 1550+, but it would have required a lot of work/effort and to us it was not worth it.

FWIW, we just had a basic everyday SAT/ACT tutor center, paid only $90/hour.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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

Yes that’s what his classmates did. He’s my oldest so I didn’t know that was done.

That is ridiculous! Cannot imagine making my kid start Calculus or AP English over the summer. If they cannot handle that many AP courses in a school year, then perhaps they are not ready to be in 7 APs (I mean in college you only take 4 maybe 5 courses each semester.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: If I were a college admission officer and saw that an applicant was applying to 30 schools, I would wonder how much they care about our school. Does it look like the student is just throwing Jell-O at the wall hoping anything sticks? Why is this student even applying here?

Maybe less is more.

I’m not sure they get to see where else you are applying, do they?

No, they don't.

[Anonymous]

My regret is that we didn't take registered visits/tours to the colleges my kid was interested in attending when they were a Junior in HS. Just a guess, but I do believe that inflated grades since Covid, the new test optional approach many schools have adopted and the common app has changed the admissions landscape. I also would suggest spending time on the college sites that your DC applied to. Interest seems to have an impact on admission in our experience .

If we had to do it again, college visits would be mostly be concluded Junior year (with others happening early year of being a Senior). In our experience, jamming college trips/tours into a couple months became overwhelming for our DC. Too many schools DC saw, and impressed by most.

If we gave out DC time to think about the schools we visited earlier in the process, our DC would have had time to narrow down the schools we visited /toured. In my opinion, in this new admissions process, ED would be the way to go if DC loved a couple universities over others.

I don't regret this, but advice to parents. Even if you don't apply ED, I would recommend applying EA to all schools your DC is interested in attending.