How involved were you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In helping your kid with this process? What’s the average level of involvement among parents on this board?

- picking ECs, competitions, projects, summer activities?
- choosing schools?
- application story or strategy?
- essays?
- reviewing the final common app?

What were/are the outcomes?

The only thing we did on your list was offer to review the final common app. One kid said yes, the other didn't share any of it with us

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Paid a college coach to help with most of the application things.

Admitted to a T15 ED1 school.

Finally someone who is honest.

Great use of my money. Saved time and sanity and achieved desired result.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC picked out their own ECs, competitions, job, and summer activities.

DC has challenges with ADHD and executive function skills, so I helped with college app process. DC listed top priorities for colleges of interest, then I helped with research for the list. We reviewed essay drafts and final common app. DC applied EA to colleges and is waiting for the outcomes.

Like every kid on this board . . .

[Anonymous]

Offered to review essay and paid for apps. The kids chose their own ECs, summer jobs, course load, etc.

[Anonymous]

This is our first, she's in public school (west coast) and we didn't have a clue. We didn't talk about college at all until midway through her sophomore year when we decided to meet with a private college counselor for one hour to advise on how many AP's to take junior year. To that point, all the advice we had heard from school counselors, other parents, and even her pediatrician was "Do less! No need to take more than one or two AP's a year. Just focus on well-being!" The meeting with the counselor was a wake-up call. She encouraged DD to take on more rigor (DD was well-adjusted, all A's, and in retrospect underchallenged in classes). DD thrived with more AP's junior and senior year, and I'm really grateful for the advice from that counselor. Depends on the kid of course.
- picking ECs, competitions, projects, summer activities? DD picked these mostly, but she cared most about her two sports. I know these don't matter much for admissions (another thing we didn't know) but because she was passionate about them ended up a varsity captain of both team sports senior year and national champion with one (niche sport). She liked journalism sophomore year, and because of that I did encourage her to keep signing up for it and she's now EIC this year and really enjoying it. Lastly, we were advised that she needed something academic to talk about, so she took a guess about an area of study she might like, we brainstormed a related EC more to try out the subject than for an admissions point, and she ended up loving that EC, going far with it, and writing her essay about it. But she did not start it until junior year. There was one and only one activity that I pushed: a summer activity that seemed to tie all her interests together. I regret pushing it. She did it, but she was never into it and it resulted in conflict between us. And it doesn't look that great anyway because she just did the bare minimum
-choosing schools? She created her school list mainly based on her niche sport (club). There was no dissuading her from this approach! She's adaptable and I think will be happy at any of the ten that she applied to, which ended up being quite a range of sizes, urban & rural, etc. We did take her to visit almost every school she applied to.
- application story or strategy? Basically just what I described above. She did the app and activities list etc. mostly on her own.
- essays? Helped brainstorm ideas. She did the writing.
- reviewing the final common app? Proofread the whole thing
In the end, her profile is more well-rounded than spiky, and she has ED'd to a T10 LAC. Will update in a week or so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In helping your kid with this process? What’s the average level of involvement among parents on this board?

- picking ECs, competitions, projects, summer activities?

They decided their interests on their own, but we nurtured them. Signed them up, paid, drove. And also identified activities in known area of interest and encouraged involvement. I did basically make my kids volunteer during the summer, so that was really the only one I truly pushed.

- choosing schools?
very involved in the the initial list of possible schools, in that I researched and put together a list based on kids' criteria, refined it as their criteria changed, made arrangements for visits. Then they picked from this list. They were of course free to add to the list if they wanted. One did, one didn't.

- application story or strategy?
Some involvement.

- essays?
Helped with brainstorming ideas, proofreading, staying on schedule

- reviewing the final common app?
Yes, reviewed all before they hit send

What were/are the outcomes?

Fantastic! Both got ED at #1 choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everything on that list. Did it all snd more.

Especially the narrative - but crafted it after the fact or into junior year.

- t10 & Ivy

My kids are at T10 and Ivy (RD- no hooks) and I did none of it…other than drive to the activities they wanted to do —mostly travel sports. They just did what they liked and a story revealed itself by end of junior year—u could see their likes and personality thru the things they chose themselves to do.

I never looked at canvas in HS or any of that. They had all As and when they needed help they went to teacher office hours. There HS prides itself on making kids fully self sufficient from the first day they arrive on campus. They were always motivated to do well in school.

I did essay edit/brainstorm with them and reviewed their common app for errors/typos. We didn’t get outside help.

We weren’t aiming for T10/Ivies. They ended up there but this wasn’t done long time goal/dream. When I see those college counselor talk people and services on Instagram I cringe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cue the chorus of "I never even READ my kid's essays!" "I didn't even know DD had gotten into Harvard until I got the tuition bill!"

99% of people on this forum have a heavy hand. They're lying if they say otherwise.

I 100% assure you I didn't read my child's essays. I didnt even know what they asked.
I also didn't even know what schools they applied to until I got the application fees.
She is just fiercely independent and I think didn't want to talk a lot about it, and I tried to respect that, as hard as it was.

[Anonymous]

I paid for applications.

I made DC apply for a job at age 14 at the local pool. He took it from there and became a lifeguard.

I suggested schools, some of which made his list, some did not.

I drove all over visiting schools.

I asked him to look at course offerings before narrowing down his list.

I made him revisit the school he wanted to ED to and arranged for him to meet with a professor.

I didn’t see anything application essays until he got in ED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cue the chorus of "I never even READ my kid's essays!" "I didn't even know DD had gotten into Harvard until I got the tuition bill!"

99% of people on this forum have a heavy hand. They're lying if they say otherwise.

Why would they do that? It's an anonymous board. I get the same feeling from lots of posts (not just this topic), but don't understand why people would lie anonymously.

The people who had a heavy hand don't chime in on threads like this. They're embarrassed and don't want to talk about it.

Not at all. My kid has special needs and I had a "heavy hand" all throughout his childhood, not just for college admissions! Why would I be ashamed of this? If I had done nothing, he wouldn't even be in mainstreamed classes, let alone college. I'm PROUD of my parenting.

But I do believe other posters if they say they didn't help their kid. Why would they lie?

You two just need to accept that there's a wide range of families out there.

[Anonymous]

Here's our 100 percent honest answer.

We suggested a few extra schools for each kid to throw into the Common App bucket (none of which any of them ended up going to) and for a couple of the kids we edited the essays.

That's it.

Two went to UVA and one went to a top 10 LAC.

[Anonymous]

100%

I have always been very involved, clued-in, strategic for my kids academics and ECs. I did not hire a CC etc. My kids were high achieving.

[Anonymous]

High performing DC1 didn’t apply to any school until after Christmas. We weren’t aware of her ADHD symptoms and thought she was lazy and procrastinating. Thankfully she got in a few schools including her #1 choice by literally submitting her application within the last half hour of the deadline. Needless to say we weren’t involved enough and neglected her struggles.

DC2 wanted to get recruited since Day 1 of high school. We weren’t familiar with the recruiting process so we paid a guy thousands of dollars to get general guidance and feedback. We reminded DC2 to get good grades and test scores while he worked his tail off to be the best player he could be. He worked on his application with his friends and we checked for typos. English is not our first language so we can’t help much. He got recruited by his ideal school so we are very happy about the results. Again, not involved much except taking him to school visits, games, ID camps, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I shared a “Notes” document on my phone with my kid, and we wrote down essay ideas. Sometimes a previous life event, anecdote would come up in conversation, and we just kept a running record. When it was time to write the essay, she had a bunch of ideas to choose from. Did this for about a year.

^ This is a fabulous idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In helping your kid with this process? What’s the average level of involvement among parents on this board?

- picking ECs, competitions, projects, summer activities?
Child 1 - none, only summer activities
Child 2 - none, only summer activities

- choosing schools?
Child 1 - somewhat
Child 2 - none

- application story or strategy?
Child 1 - somewhat
Child 2 - none, child refused to share

- essays?
Child 1 - yes, I reviewed essays and I got so sick of it
Child 2 - none, child refused to share

- reviewing the final common app?
Child 1 - somewhat
Child 2 - none, child refused to share

What were/are the outcomes?

Child 1 - UVA
Child 2 - London School of Economics