HS Class 2016 - College Admissions Process
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Anonymous
| I've actually been paying very close attention. Michigan is a safety for some students but, increasingly, those students are deferred and admitted RD rather than EA. In the end, stats win out for full pay OOS, but perhaps only if the applicant is still sticking around (a kind of demonstration of interest). This phenomenon hasn't hit DC's school yet (qualified kids still get EA acceptances), but I know it's out there. |
Anonymous
NP - Michigan is no safety even for relatively high stat kids. Even very, very high stat kids, I wouldn't call it a safety. |
Anonymous
| This strikes me as a pointless or maybe just tangential discussion. My point wasn't "Michigan should be your safety" -- it was that the time between hearing the outcome from an EA app to a safety school and sending out extra RD apps before the deadline is very short and likely to be fraught because of vacations (crucially, other peoples'), holidays, and the predictable funk that any decision other than acceptance might produce. I happened to use Michigan as an example because I remembered their decision date (Christmas Eve) and because deferral was a plausible outcome at that stage. |
Anonymous
| I think the degree of involvement depends so much on the kid. I have one complete self-starter who we rarely needed to even check in with. Another kid was self-starting but pretty disorganized -- he was our first and we let him do most of it without our help, but in hindsight we probably should have been a bit more involved because he found some errors on application essays, etc. because he was rushed and didn't proofread properly. Our youngest has ADHD and will really need our help next year when she applies. It will be a much more hands-on experience I'm sure, but I'm trying not to take too much of the responsibilities out of her hands. She'll need those same self-motivated, organizational skills when she gets to college, right? |
Anonymous
| OP here. Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I hope I'm not the only parent of a HS Senior that is involved in this process. It feels like I am though. Anyway, I managed to get DD to get her list of colleges to apply to from 25 to 11. 2 of the 11 are very much reach schools(she realizes it, but has kept them on her list), but I'm going to let her apply and not discourage. She has completed the 1st draft of the common app essay, has secured 1 letter of recommendation, and is starting to look at requirements for the schools that don't accept the Common App (5 of them). We have not visited all the schools yet. 9 of them are close enough to go on a wknd (been to 4 of them already), and 2 are in Chicago (I am going to wait for an acceptance letter before making that drive). Not sure how to handle keeping scholarship applications/essays organized. |
Anonymous
I used paper folders - one folder for each school with key dates, requirements (e.g., testing, cost info and LOR) and print out of Naviance, and draft essays..etc. Some schools will require separate scholarship app some don't. Each school is different. |
Anonymous
| Good luck OP ~ as you can tell, everyone has their own story & approach. Hope you find likeminded parents to support you through this. |
Anonymous
Sound like you're in roughly the same place we are. I'm probably even more (but differently) involved than you are because I'm a former professor with a kid in a field where there are some significant differences in undergraduate curricula -- even among schools with comparably strong departments. DD doesn't have the time to figure this stuff out, but does seem to have real preferences when I lay out the alternatives. (Not my field, so I don't have strong opinions, beyond that it's something worth investigating and thinking about in her case.) |
Anonymous
You are way ahead of the game for August. Definitely don't stress her out too much and find other things to talk about besides college applications. If she's already got her list down to 11 then don't worry about visiting them all at this point (unless they are schools that care about demonstrated interest). Fall grades are very important so she needs to be spending time on school rather than being away every weekend for a college visit. This is not a paper based process so not sure what kind of file management system you really need. We just had a piece of paper with the schools listed and the key activities (common app sent, recs requested, transcript requested, scores sent, supplemental app sent, alum interview requested/done) as a checklist. Pretty much all of this was in Naviance too, which DC preferred anyway. Plus in Naviance you can see if the electronic recs were actually sent. EA is a plus (and yes, my DC did get in to Michigan EA) but DC did not wait for ED/EA decisions to get applications in. The normal ED date is 12/15 and the Michigan EA date was closer to 12/20. UVA does EA notification in January. So DC had at least 6 apps in before the decision dates, and did another round of applications after the decisions. DC dropped a couple of schools from the list based on EA notifications. |
Anonymous
| I created a simple outline for each school and listed basic criteria such as: name of school, all due dates, transcripts, SAT scores, subject test, FASFA, CSS,transcripts etc and leaving room for when each piece was sent electronically. For each app, the school's portal will list the information that they have received and what is still missing). If the application has supplemental essays, a printed copy of those can be attached. My student kept theirs in a binder, but files will work too. Also, there are numerous passwords that you will choose for each school that needs to be handy for confirmations of received items, updates and finally: a DECISION! Obviously, the greater number of applications, the more organized the student needs to be. |
Anonymous
You're contradicting yourself. A "safety" is a sure thing, not a potential deferral. You're obviously new to the process. |
Anonymous
| Check to see which schools factor in designated interest. You might want to visit those before applying. |
Anonymous
| 11 schools is too many . . . |
Anonymous
not today.. |
Anonymous
+1. Not at all. |