Supposed to basically just guess where to apply? What are we missing?

[Anonymous]

I would add that my daughter goes to a large public school as well and her college counselor at the school was excellent. Super responsive, will meet with the kids individually, etc. Get her in with an appointment now.

[Anonymous]

I sympathize and TBH even though we are at a big 3, we did all the college selection ourselves as a counselor can't really tell you what you may like. I will say that I found the safety, target, reach school difficult to figure out and ended up with just "safety" and "reach" with four of each. It is helpful to walk around campuses if you can. I literally read every college description in Fiske, came up with a list of 20 and we did as many virtual visits as possible. It is pretty brutal, especially if your child really doesn't know what he or she wants.

[Anonymous]

Start with the weather. What kind of weather does your kid want to live in for the next four years?

My kid would be miserable in the northeast in the winter when it is dark at 4 pm and happy where it is warmer but also a change of seasons. Then find the schools in that area, there is a good school that your kid will like in all climates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, OP. You do it or hire someone to help. It's yet another job that will fall on me bc my DS or his dad don't seem interested in doing, so personally I've had thoughts that DS shouldn't even go to college unless/until he can put some effort into figuring it out on his own. My DS is a junior and goes to a larger private HS, but I haven't found it particularly helpful yet in this regard.

The lack of interest is not unusual, perhaps more common among boys and also especially common during covid times. Most typically come around, either by fall of senior year, or the following spring/summer even though that is late.

[Anonymous]

If it matters, even with all the information and guidance in the world, college selection is still an educated guess for most people because no one knows the best school for their kid. I think most kids go to respective colleges that are selected for some combination of reasons (costs, location, fields of interest, ranking, etc.) and try to make the best of it they can.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks to all who gave very useful advice. I don't mind doing the research. I want my daughter to make the choices and do most of the leg work but this process seems to put a lot of pressure on parents to steer kids well.

I have heard for years how much harder it is now to get into college so when we started to consider some options I feel one minute like I've lowered expectations way too much but then I fear my guidance will lead her to unrealistic hopes and she won't get in anywhere!

The most confusing thing seems to be how much extracurriculars, awards and essays matter. I can plug in her stats but then I hear "You can't get into that school without a hook."

How do you factor in the need for a hook?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks to all who gave very useful advice. I don't mind doing the research. I want my daughter to make the choices and do most of the leg work but this process seems to put a lot of pressure on parents to steer kids well.

I have heard for years how much harder it is now to get into college so when we started to consider some options I feel one minute like I've lowered expectations way too much but then I fear my guidance will lead her to unrealistic hopes and she won't get in anywhere!

The most confusing thing seems to be how much extracurriculars, awards and essays matter. I can plug in her stats but then I hear "You can't get into that school without a hook."

How do you factor in the need for a hook?

It's an incredibly inexact science. More so this year because so many schools went test-optional and so many GPAs are skewed due to virtual learning.

Remember that there is a relatively small number of "highly selective" schools. Most schools accept half or more of applicants. Make sure your child picks a range of selectivity and she will probably have many good options.

For most kids I know, big vs. small, urban vs. rural, and region of the country were the first places to start narrowing things down.

[Anonymous]

With my dd, once she really thought about it, she realized that she didn’t want to be a plane ride away from home so that eliminated a lot of schools that had been on the list. She also wanted a small school but bigger than her high school. She didn’t want a religious school. She didn’t want a school where the social life was dominated by Greek Life. There were a few more things that she would add and subtract from the list but eventually there was a limited pool of schools for her to choose from (some were automatically eliminated based on her stats bc she didn’t have the grades or scores to get into an Ivy or a super selective school). Out of that group, she applied to some and is happy at her first choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With my dd, once she really thought about it, she realized that she didn’t want to be a plane ride away from home so that eliminated a lot of schools that had been on the list. She also wanted a small school but bigger than her high school. She didn’t want a religious school. She didn’t want a school where the social life was dominated by Greek Life. There were a few more things that she would add and subtract from the list but eventually there was a limited pool of schools for her to choose from (some were automatically eliminated based on her stats bc she didn’t have the grades or scores to get into an Ivy or a super selective school). Out of that group, she applied to some and is happy at her first choice.

She sounds similar to my DD. Would you mind sharing where your daughter ended up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are often virtual college rep visits to high schools, or virtual college fairs where students can get to hear the basic info about a college and decide if they're interested in learning more. Also if they have a sense geographically of where they may want to be or whether they like urban, suburban, rural settings it can help narrow down the choices a lot.

Here are some upcoming fair to look into:

https://www.nacacfairs.org/attend/attend-virtual-college-fairs/students/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get a Fiske Guide. Let her flip through it and tab anywhere of interest. I saw a “trend” when I looked where my kid had tabbed - big state unis - so I asked what he liked about them. Then I was able to help point out some colleges in that ilk that could be good fits that he hadnt noticed (the book is huge and my kid barely knew harvard from liberty so definitely tabbed some random colleges, haha). Then we could start honing in by geography, stats, etc.

This ^^^ The Fiske book is a great source, especially in finding "like" colleges you might not otherwise.

[Anonymous]

For our high school junior son, we started with a sense of what's important for him. This is a parental perspective, to be honest he's not particularly focused on it. We then researched the hell out of schools to determine those that are a good fit. Sources of research: college website, U.S. News, Reddit, College Confidential, DCUM, Princeton Review, Common Data Set, etc. You'll have to use judgment for which information is relevant and truly reflective of the college. We hope to get some visits in, but we're not sure we'll be able to do as much as we would have liked.

After all this, we have a pecking order of 10 schools we like for him. He's trusting us on this process. He likely will apply Early Action to the top two of them (hoping to visit both in the months ahead). If he's accepted to either, we're done. Admittedly, we're not concerned about financial aid, which helps expedite things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the fun part in my experience, doing the research, visiting when you can, talking to people about the schools... exciting times!

We started early because we love to college tour, so by the time my kids were fall of junior year, we had been to 10-12 college campuses across the country. We only did official tours at W&M and UVA, the others were just walking around campus, exploring the towns, just getting a feel for the atmosphere. We've also attended some sporting events (football and basketball) which are fun to do and give you a different sense of the student life.

Naviance is actually very helpful but certainly not the be all and end all. Its a good starting point but if your kid doesn't know what they are looking for yet, they will put the wrong parameters in and come up with some schools that ultimately they probably won't be interested in. There were some really kooky schools that came up high on my daughters list, no name colleges that neither she had nor I ever heard of. That said, when you go to each schools page, they will list the cross applications, the places where other students in your school applied along with that school. That is helpful to leverage other people's experience to put some ideas on the list.

That had been our plan, until COVID.

Well not knowing your personal situation with regard to risk, but you can still do driving trips, day trips etc. Anything that is close by, even if it's a college that is way beyond reach either via stats or finances, just getting them looking at what a college LOOKS and FEELs like will help get them excited about the prospects.

Public schools are always going to be "open" to the public so you can drive to the town, park, walk around campus, visit the campus store. No, you're not gonna see tons of kids out and about playing flag football in the quad but they will have a visceral reaction to the environment, either like or dislike.

[Anonymous]

OP, basically once she has a list of colleges she may be interested in from looking through say the Fiske Guide, then see where she falls with respect to accepted applicants using her gpa and test scores if she has - those are really the 2 most important factors in admission in a typical cycle. If she is in 75th percentage, it won’t matter what her ECs are. If she is in the 25th it likely won’t matter either unless she has a stellar EC or sport that could vault her into the likely admission pool. If the college itself has an admit rate of under 15% (that isn’t exact!) then it is a crapshoot no matter what. My point is don’t worry so much about her ECs and essays and “hooks” (unless you know she has a good one) when just coming up with her initial college app list. Those more
holisitic parts of the app factor in when you are going for reaches or high matches whether because of your personal stats vis a vis the colleges or because of the colleges inherent ones. Right now she just needs to start figuring out what factors are important to her in a college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For our high school junior son, we started with a sense of what's important for him. This is a parental perspective, to be honest he's not particularly focused on it. We then researched the hell out of schools to determine those that are a good fit. Sources of research: college website, U.S. News, Reddit, College Confidential, DCUM, Princeton Review, Common Data Set, etc. You'll have to use judgment for which information is relevant and truly reflective of the college. We hope to get some visits in, but we're not sure we'll be able to do as much as we would have liked.

After all this, we have a pecking order of 10 schools we like for him. He's trusting us on this process. He likely will apply Early Action to the top two of them (hoping to visit both in the months ahead). If he's accepted to either, we're done. Admittedly, we're not concerned about financial aid, which helps expedite things.

So it sounds like you are doing it for him and will end up choosing for him. Has he said "what's important for him"? Not trying to be snarky here, as it's the boat I'll likely be in (I posted above about my HS junior). I am torn between doing all the leg work and applying or letting him graduate, realize he has no plan and that his friends have moved on (hopefully...), and then think about what kind of plan and school he really wants.