Starting the college search from scratch

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am realizing my kid has literally no idea or understanding about college. Is interested in college but lacks interest in the details. Wants to be "not too far", "not completely in the middle of nowhere", "not too small". He cannot define these things objectively so I have no idea. He is interested in biology but he doesn't yet understand how just because a school offers biology, it may not have the course selection or research opportunities that another school may have. Or, how if he ends up changing majors he may want to consider a school with more options for majors. We are just at the beginning of the process thankfully.

Very normal. Why would you expect anything else?

[Anonymous]

Parent of a 10th grader here, so we are early in the process. But my kid has needed a long entrance ramp for all big life decisions.

We bought a few guides that lay around the house (Fiske, Princeton Review, Colleges Worth Your Money). My kid likes to flip through them and read about schools, even those they know they won't attend. It's helped them to think about what they do and don't want in a school (big/small, LAC/research uni, rural/suburban/urban, big Greek life/no Greek life, big sports emphasis/lots of performing arts).

We've been tacking on college info session/tours as we've gone on vacations or to schools nearby, even if it's not one they want to attend. We've also gone to a few sporting events and performing arts performances at some relatively local schools to get a sense of the sort of vibe my kid likes.

Right now it's all about my kid knowing who they are and the type of school they feel is right for them. This casual exposure has helped to narrow the spectrum of schools more than I expected.

We do have a messy shared Google Sheet where we can all add schools that pique our interest including a link to the school. My kid can then browse whenever the mood strikes. They have removed schools I have added and highlighted others that seem really interesting.

This is just what feels natural right now in our household - my kid enjoys this process and is interested in reading about all the schools in a low pressure way. We will get more targeted in having an official "list" next year.

I'm sure for some families this may feel like a lot for a 10th grader, but it's working for us?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Students at all academic levels can have a "deer in the headlights" reaction to the process. It saddens me so much when parents of lower performing students (but still could be college bound) make their kid's inaction a reason for not letting them go to college.

+1 Figuring out where to apply to college is a huge, amorphous project that they have never encountered before. Most kids benefit from some guidance. They don't know what they don't know. I'm also a librarian and love research so was happy to take the lead on that part of the project.

We approached it by first doing the tours to a range of types of colleges early in junior year -- urban campus, big school/college town, liberal arts college -- and discussing their reactions. We talked about what they wanted - activities, major, greek life, distance from home etc. Both were very clear on their majors, helped by doing short pre-college programs the summer before junior year that confirmed those interests. Those programs also gave them some insights into what college might be like. We also got really clear on our budget and knew private schools that only give need-based aid would be out of budget.

From the early tours and discussions, one kid was all in on a big school/college town. So, he started his list with VT and JMU. He looked at the Fiske Guide for overlaps and added a few others. But, really, he just wanted to go to VT. I was very involved in keeping him on track with college apps, but once he started VT, he was 100% independent, graduated on time, and has a great job.

2nd kid liked small colleges in rural/small town areas and wanted to study environmental science. We toured a lot more schools with her. IME, the feeling of fit is much more important with small schools than with large ones. Large schools have everything and all types of people, and are more similar to each other than different. But with the small ones, DD definitely felt a vibe that felt right at some places and not at others. And, since most of these were private schools, I did a lot of research on merit aid likelihood. I identified a list of possibilities to start with by looking at lists online of good environmental programs, skimming Princeton Review, Fiske, generally searching for unique programs, etc. I gave DD the list and had her read about them in Fiske. She gave me feedback on which sparked her interest and which didn't. The list evolved from there. We did some tours and open houses, and the list was adjusted further. I insisted on in-state options just in case, so she included UMW and W&M. She ended up at a Pennsylvania LAC that had most of what she was looking for, fit the budget, and felt right to her.

[Anonymous]

If my kid were not an athletic recruit, we'd have had to just give her a list. As it turned out, we just helped her vet the list of schools that were recruiting her for appropriateness based on the non-athletic factors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m going to be honest, my kid is super high functioning and ambitious in all aspects of life but somehow wouldn’t engage in college exploration and research. I finally just made a list based on my own assessment of what he would like and what seemed important to me and, with one exception that he took a dislike to, those schools are where he is applying.

I am working with a kid like this. Super smart and has picked a crazy number of elites and one safety where he is guaranteed admission. Unfortunately he doesn’t understand the amount of work that a competitive app involves so I think it’s going to be the safety for him!

[Anonymous]

I bought my 10th grade kid the princeton review book and it just sits on the floor gathering dust. Kids these days prefer looking at websites and doing virtual tours anyway, so I think the printed format is not appealing. I would start seeing a few campuses that are nearby places you would go anyway for family visits or vacations or sports events, and then see what type of school your child would like to visit and then go from there. I think if your child is interested in a specific area, then it may make sense to do a trip to multiple schools in that area over a break. We took my now-senior to 13 schools and she is not going to apply to some of them and the visit made the difference. Yes, it was expensive but we had fun visiting and I'm glad she was able to rule out some of those schools (and also found one where she wants to go early). So, I highly recommend visiting lots of schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am realizing my kid has literally no idea or understanding about college. Is interested in college but lacks interest in the details. Wants to be "not too far", "not completely in the middle of nowhere", "not too small". He cannot define these things objectively so I have no idea. He is interested in biology but he doesn't yet understand how just because a school offers biology, it may not have the course selection or research opportunities that another school may have. Or, how if he ends up changing majors he may want to consider a school with more options for majors. We are just at the beginning of the process thankfully.

Very normal. Why would you expect anything else?

Yeah, I mean I just hadn't thought about it and just sort of assumed some level of baseline knowledge (he is a junior) he didnt have and so it was surprising to me. Not a knock on him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I bought my 10th grade kid the princeton review book and it just sits on the floor gathering dust. Kids these days prefer looking at websites and doing virtual tours anyway, so I think the printed format is not appealing. I would start seeing a few campuses that are nearby places you would go anyway for family visits or vacations or sports events, and then see what type of school your child would like to visit and then go from there. I think if your child is interested in a specific area, then it may make sense to do a trip to multiple schools in that area over a break. We took my now-senior to 13 schools and she is not going to apply to some of them and the visit made the difference. Yes, it was expensive but we had fun visiting and I'm glad she was able to rule out some of those schools (and also found one where she wants to go early). So, I highly recommend visiting lots of schools.

My kid reads. Voracious reader so liked the book. We don’t allow iPhones or laptops in room overnight- they charge in the kitchen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m going to be honest, my kid is super high functioning and ambitious in all aspects of life but somehow wouldn’t engage in college exploration and research. I finally just made a list based on my own assessment of what he would like and what seemed important to me and, with one exception that he took a dislike to, those schools are where he is applying.

I am working with a kid like this. Super smart and has picked a crazy number of elites and one safety where he is guaranteed admission. Unfortunately he doesn’t understand the amount of work that a competitive app involves so I think it’s going to be the safety for him!

My kid was like that and did boot camp of apps over winter break, late December. Worked out great

[Anonymous]

I took the lead in different ways for both kids because the were somewhat paralysed by the process. First super high performing kid had one reachy-reach she wanted and wouldn’t really talk seriously about anything else so I basically came up with a short list of other schools that I thought were generally good fits for her with range of acceptance rates and said “we’re going“. Second kid a little less ambitious but just had zero idea what he wanted- again I basically proposed a bunch of places that gave a range of “types” and he went along with it. Is it possible we missed some schools they would have really liked because I was leading process? Sure. But I understood the college world in a way they didn’t and high school juniors and seniors have enough on their plates so I was pretty actively involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's probably a discussion about this somewhere but I can't find it. As a parent did you do any early college research to help jumpstart your DC's search? Probably from reading this board I've come across a few schools that IMO might be of interest to DC. Is it worth offering up a few to suggest visiting their website or doing research on their own as a way to begin to dip their toes in.

I'm not sure how this process starts in a way that isn't handing a kid the Fiske guide or something and saying good luck. Any advice or BTDT on how your student geared up in exploring schools?

This is going to 100% depend on your kid. My kids did not really like to do college website research up front. They were willing to participate in the college process events put on by their school, attend college fairs mentioned by the school and meet with college reps that visited the schools. I used the College Board website (and trust me it’s a love/hate relationship with how we feel about the College Board) to help spark initial ideas and conversation https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-search. What size school, LAC or not, what geographic region, rural urban or suburban, was being able to continue their high school activities important to them, what about Greek Liffe? We also had a conversation about budget/cost. Also, my didn’t want every conversation to be about college so we had an agreed upon timeframe where we discussed anything related to college logistics or process. With one of my kids when we where in the thick of college applications senior year we made an outing of it - breakfast at x place and they had their laptop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's probably a discussion about this somewhere but I can't find it. As a parent did you do any early college research to help jumpstart your DC's search? Probably from reading this board I've come across a few schools that IMO might be of interest to DC. Is it worth offering up a few to suggest visiting their website or doing research on their own as a way to begin to dip their toes in.

I'm not sure how this process starts in a way that isn't handing a kid the Fiske guide or something and saying good luck. Any advice or BTDT on how your student geared up in exploring schools?

Depends on the kid. But for us, I think our daughter was overwhelmed at the thought of finding colleges she even wanted to apply to because (1) she had no idea what she wanted to study and (2) she had no idea what to look for in a college.

So, we tried starting with questions like big or small? near or far? She really didn't know.
She knew a certain activity she wanted, so that gave us one factor to include.

By spring of her junior year, she still had no clue. So we determined that we just needed to get her to visit a few schools so she could just get a feel for different campuses.

We arranged for two visits back-to-back one weekend. One was a very small private school and the other a mid-sized state school. She immediately was able to determine she preferred the mid-sized school. Great.
Took her to my alma mater when we were on a trip nearby. She decided she would be interested in it if it were closer to home. Great. So, we then knew 4 things: mid-size, not too far and not to close to home, specific activity requirement, and liberal arts.

Just have to build from there. If they don't know what they want to study, that narrows it down to community college or 4-year liberal arts (in-state public...not spending 2-3x as much money to "explore").

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For us, it was just lots of small conversations sprinkled in. Trying to get a sense of location, size, major interest, etc. -- while not stressing them out. In the beginning, my kids didn't know what they wanted so I did lead a lot of it, planned college visits around what sounded like a good fit and modified from there. I think a lot depends on what kind of child you have and their level of interest in the process. Good luck!

This. My kid knew she wanted a big city. So we visited mostly big city colleges.

This was my son, too. It helps if your kid has a strong sense of what they want geographically and socially. My DS wanted a large, diverse school in an East or West Coast city, with an excellent social sciences/humanities program. He was strict about this, no PWIs. His record was good, but not Top 20 good, so that narrowed things down a little. So we visited them and schools adjacent to these cities and then applied to most of them. The tours gave him some insight as to his preferences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Usually, the initial conversations are very broad. Do you think you would like a big school or a small school? Any ideas on majors? Would you want to be within 2 hours of home, or very far away?

A tried and true strategy is to visit a few different "types" of schools. DC, Philly, and Boston are all good venues for doing this. Let's pick the DC area. You could see a large state school (Maryland), urban religious, both highly selective and high-acceptance (Georgetown, Catholic), urban nonreligious (George Washington), then kick it out to the suburbs for a couple of others. By that time, your kid should be getting some general ideas. Grades will help them start to identify targets.

Georgetown and CUA have literally nothing in common other than Georgetown was founded by a Catholic order

[Anonymous]

We bought DD the Princeton review book at the start of 10th. I thought it was a waste of money but now she will read about a school if she hears about it, which is a start. We’re going to visit schools in our area and near family vacations to get a sense of what she wants in terms of size/setting.