If I could start the process over .. this is what I'd do differently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly? Hired a consultant at the start of junior year or even sophomore year. Shaping a clear "narrative" probably would have given DC a real shot at an Ivy.

You can create that narrative on your own - I did for my kids. You need to look at their activities - find the common threads. Frankly feed the activities list into DeepSeek, Claude, Gemini or Chatgpt (only the paid versions) and ask it to analyze it for:

1. Evidence of major and which one (then choose the one that's the least popular for purposes of admissions)*
2. Give it an example of a narrative (you can get from the book soundbite, or from various national firms who do admissions webinars) and ask it to put a narrative together for you
3. ask for areas of weakness and what types of things kid can do over next summer or year to strengthen position
4. ask for suggested research topics for a capstone project that ties into narrative or standalone research
5. ask for ideal ECs at college that appear to correspond to these interests.

done and done.

DP here. No disrespect but that is a bog standard narrative. What a CC helps you create is an extraordinary narrative that stands out and is aimed directly at entry to the Ivy League. They do know what they're doing. And most parent's are functioning just outside that kind of sphere.

[Anonymous]

OP the fact you researched outside the box is in no way a waste of time. If you hadn't done it, you'd never have known. I don't get this 20-20 rear-view vision thing at all. It's a lot of work. End of story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually wouldn’t do anything differently. What worked for us was:

- Looking at the Freshman profile of desired schools early on to get a realistic sense of the SAT/ACT scores and number of AP/IB/DE classes needed to be competitive.

- Having candid conversations about budget and finances halfway through sophomore year of high school.

- Running the Net Price Calculator for any school the kids liked. (We saved a lot of time and energy by ruling out schools we couldn’t afford.)

- Applying to a balanced list of 10 schools Early Action that included at least two academic/financial “safety” schools where they felt they could be happy. (These schools also tend to give decisions earlier, which takes the pressure off.)

- Waiting to do out-of-state visits until they had been accepted.

Both kids ended up being accepted to their top choices and are currently attending T30 schools.

Can you please share these schools?

That depends on your budget and your child’s GPA and SAT/ACT scores. In general, you will get good merit aid from schools where your child is above the school’s 75th percentile for grades and scores.

This has been our experience. We’re full pay, no need-based aid, but need to keep total costs under $50,000/yr.

At each of the four schools DD applied to where her stats fell into this category, she received their top undergraduate merit scholarship. She was well above that threshold for each school on at least one measure (GPA), but not always as far above on SAT/ACT. This included both public and private schools.

At the pi

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We scared by people saying how horrible the process had been, so we kept the reaches to a minimum. Maybe that was a mistake. We could have eliminated at least 2 safeties. There were too many.

What I liked about our kids having a lot of safeties is that, if it had come down to that, they would have been making choice among them and their very generous merit aid offers. It would feel like a second round where they really look closely at these schools that really want them, and focusing on which they like best among them. You really cannot do that with safeties in the beginning when your true hopes are set elsewhere (no matter how much you try to kid yourself). They all look the same early on, less so after all the cards are on the table.

In the end, our kid who did a lot of reaches just wasted time and money. The real pay off was in the merit options among the safeties. In the end, both ended up at high match schools with some merit, but they genuinely felt a pull toward the safeties.

Interesting. I appreciate your response. I always grumbled a little at the advice to find a safety you love b/c my kid couldn't "love" one, but thought they could be happy at one. It was nice to have an auto-admit early, even if DC most likely wasn't going there. Funny enough, that is the one safety they haven't said they would definitely release. Perhaps they have a sweet spot for the school that loved them first.

[Anonymous]

Best they've done so far is second best in state (deferred from other).

Second best for what? This mindset is part of the problem. I would never tell my kid anything like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually wouldn’t do anything differently. What worked for us was:

- Looking at the Freshman profile of desired schools early on to get a realistic sense of the SAT/ACT scores and number of AP/IB/DE classes needed to be competitive.

- Having candid conversations about budget and finances halfway through sophomore year of high school.

- Running the Net Price Calculator for any school the kids liked. (We saved a lot of time and energy by ruling out schools we couldn’t afford.)

- Applying to a balanced list of 10 schools Early Action that included at least two academic/financial “safety” schools where they felt they could be happy. (These schools also tend to give decisions earlier, which takes the pressure off.)

- Waiting to do out-of-state visits until they had been accepted.

Both kids ended up being accepted to their top choices and are currently attending T30 schools.

Can you please share these schools?

That depends on your budget and your child’s GPA and SAT/ACT scores. In general, you will get good merit aid from schools where your child is above the school’s 75th percentile for grades and scores.

This has been our experience. We’re full pay, no need-based aid, but need to keep total costs under $50,000/yr.

At each of the four schools DD applied to where her stats fell into this category, she received their top undergraduate merit scholarship. She was well above that threshold for each school on at least one measure (GPA), but not always as far above on SAT/ACT. This included both public and private schools.

At the pi

Hit Submit too soon—at the OOS publics, the scholarship brought it down to at or below in-state levels; in-state public was the smallest scholarship, but took off enough to get it down to about $30K COA; and it more than halved the tuition of the private.

[Anonymous]

Maybe I wish I had tried harder to steer my DC from schools in locations where I don't necessarily want to send them. DC has options all over, but there are a few that give me pause now that didn't before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly? Hired a consultant at the start of junior year or even sophomore year. Shaping a clear "narrative" probably would have given DC a real shot at an Ivy.

You can create that narrative on your own - I did for my kids. You need to look at their activities - find the common threads. Frankly feed the activities list into DeepSeek, Claude, Gemini or Chatgpt (only the paid versions) and ask it to analyze it for:

1. Evidence of major and which one (then choose the one that's the least popular for purposes of admissions)*
2. Give it an example of a narrative (you can get from the book soundbite, or from various national firms who do admissions webinars) and ask it to put a narrative together for you
3. ask for areas of weakness and what types of things kid can do over next summer or year to strengthen position
4. ask for suggested research topics for a capstone project that ties into narrative or standalone research
5. ask for ideal ECs at college that appear to correspond to these interests.

done and done.

DP here. No disrespect but that is a bog standard narrative. What a CC helps you create is an extraordinary narrative that stands out and is aimed directly at entry to the Ivy League. They do know what they're doing. And most parent's are functioning just outside that kind of sphere.

I did something similar to the above except without AI. And I just continued to help my kid refine it and refine it and refine it - starting winter of sophomore year.
Kid had very defined academic interests and unique EC accomplishments already, so it was relatively easy though there was a glaring weak spot (test scores).
Tied EC to academics in natural way - highlight of application.
Kid must have written 50 to 60 different essays as we tried to get the main thrust of intellectual vitality, personal qualities, curiosity, and community-orientation / collaboration into these supplemental essays. Personal statement has already received hand-written notes on EA admissions letters (did not discuss activities or major or any academic interest at all in the personal statement. Purely a values-based essay.)

So far the results are outstanding. We’ll see how the remainder of the private T 20s go.

Having been through this two times now, I would never pay money for any counselor who has not actually served at a selective university in an admissions role. Total waste of money: how people hang up their shingles and think they know what they’re doing here - usual results are because they have some great high achieving kids that do well - and they just help with logistics management around the edges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not retake the SAT if already at 1500+

I was going to say the opposite. My daughter took it once and got 1510 and thought that was enough. Now everyone around her is telling her she needed at least 1550 and she’s kicking herself for not trying again.

I read an interview with the MIT Dean of Admissions who said it was a waste to keep taking the SAT if you score over 1550-- that 1550 was a good minimum. My DD got 1570, so I advised her not to take it again. Now I wish I'd suggested one more shot at a perfect score. Everyone says it doesn't matter but who knows?

It doesn't matter. For MIT you have to report all scores; she had a greater likely of going lower than higher. Sometimes it's best not to second guess.

[Anonymous]

got into Princeton SCEA so it all worked out, but a couple things

- Started a draft of the activities section earlier. We knew essay took a long time, but activities took a lot longer than expected. (what to include, how to frame etc)

- Stopped worrying about test scores. I dont think they matter much once you cross a threshold.

- Been clued into school-nominated scholarship opportunities. Our school didn't advertise and it felt very IYKYK. we didn't K.

We did keep a tight list. Just 7 schools. Those supps and short responses need to keep targeted to schools IMO. Not sure how you do that with a long list.

[Anonymous]

I would have had our DS do SAT prep. He got a fine score (1380) without prepping and wasn’t aiming for top schools—that just wasn’t what he wanted. But his tight group of school friends and he applied to a bunch of the same schools. All were accepted, including DS, but their merit aid exactly tracks their submitted SAT scores. (His friend group is remarkably similar otherwise in grades and ECs.) So if his friend who prepped and ended up at 1450 got 18k at a school, DS got 14k and his other friend who scored lower got 12k. We are at an income level where we aren’t eligible for need-based aid but cost matters a lot. So the $ we could have spent on SAT peer would have been an investment that paid off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am honestly not sure. I have non-shiny good students. Best they've done so far is second best in state (deferred from other). I doubt they would have had a chance at any truly high ranked schools, and the less prestigious but still respected privates would not give enough money to compete with in state (dd got max at one and it's still a lot. So I guess we did the best we could for our very specific situation, aside from perhaps retaking SAT one more time but they both said no.

This was my son. He had good not great grades. Turns out his UW GPA was actually pretty good and he wound up with a lot of options. Some were cheaper than others but he has options.

He wanted a big school. We wanted reasonable tuition. He didn't want to apply to our state school (Penn State). In hindsight we should have made him. He would have got in with a Summer Start. Also, would have him apply to Marquette. Or another medium size school with decent merit and ranking? The last thing is that if I had to do it over I would not take him to Indiana University. No chance at Kelly or getting enough aid to make it viable.

[Anonymous]

Appreciate any advice for summer internships/projects/ec's to stand out? especially for competitive fields such as CS/Engineering?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly? Hired a consultant at the start of junior year or even sophomore year. Shaping a clear "narrative" probably would have given DC a real shot at an Ivy.

You can create that narrative on your own - I did for my kids. You need to look at their activities - find the common threads. Frankly feed the activities list into DeepSeek, Claude, Gemini or Chatgpt (only the paid versions) and ask it to analyze it for:

1. Evidence of major and which one (then choose the one that's the least popular for purposes of admissions)*
2. Give it an example of a narrative (you can get from the book soundbite, or from various national firms who do admissions webinars) and ask it to put a narrative together for you
3. ask for areas of weakness and what types of things kid can do over next summer or year to strengthen position
4. ask for suggested research topics for a capstone project that ties into narrative or standalone research
5. ask for ideal ECs at college that appear to correspond to these interests.

done and done.

But then you need a 16 or 17 who will follow mom's suggestions verbatim about how they spend their free time. There is no way in the world mine would or did. . I did a ton of research, suggested a lot of things (all sorts of fed internships, DC volunteer work, etc) and my kid said "no mom, this is not your life."
He was not going to go volunteer on the campaign trail or do bench research at NIH because I suggested it. At 16 he 100% had his own agency about what he was interested in and what he was not interested in. Sure, I could shame him, bribe him or punish him into it but I chose not to turn this into a war. I'm happy to share that he has very top grades, scores, recs and a random list of extracurriculars of his own choosing and he did get into a top20 school ED this past December.

I think shopping this "strategy planning" out to a consultant works a bit better because then activities (AKA the life plan) are suggested by a neutral third party.

the narrative is most important for kids who don't have either top grades or scores. So if TO, you need a narrative or something to distinguish you. If strong all around already, narrative is less important.

NP: do you mean a tight EC narrative is less important if the kid is strong academically? How strong?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly? Hired a consultant at the start of junior year or even sophomore year. Shaping a clear "narrative" probably would have given DC a real shot at an Ivy.

You can create that narrative on your own - I did for my kids. You need to look at their activities - find the common threads. Frankly feed the activities list into DeepSeek, Claude, Gemini or Chatgpt (only the paid versions) and ask it to analyze it for:

1. Evidence of major and which one (then choose the one that's the least popular for purposes of admissions)*
2. Give it an example of a narrative (you can get from the book soundbite, or from various national firms who do admissions webinars) and ask it to put a narrative together for you
3. ask for areas of weakness and what types of things kid can do over next summer or year to strengthen position
4. ask for suggested research topics for a capstone project that ties into narrative or standalone research
5. ask for ideal ECs at college that appear to correspond to these interests.

done and done.

But then you need a 16 or 17 who will follow mom's suggestions verbatim about how they spend their free time. There is no way in the world mine would or did. . I did a ton of research, suggested a lot of things (all sorts of fed internships, DC volunteer work, etc) and my kid said "no mom, this is not your life."
He was not going to go volunteer on the campaign trail or do bench research at NIH because I suggested it. At 16 he 100% had his own agency about what he was interested in and what he was not interested in. Sure, I could shame him, bribe him or punish him into it but I chose not to turn this into a war. I'm happy to share that he has very top grades, scores, recs and a random list of extracurriculars of his own choosing and he did get into a top20 school ED this past December.

I think shopping this "strategy planning" out to a consultant works a bit better because then activities (AKA the life plan) are suggested by a neutral third party.

the narrative is most important for kids who don't have either top grades or scores. So if TO, you need a narrative or something to distinguish you. If strong all around already, narrative is less important.

NP: do you mean a tight EC narrative is less important if the kid is strong academically? How strong?

DP - My kid built the narrative and was strong academically. I think what may have been important was that the ECs were spread across different categories (sports, employment, volunteer, major exploration, etc). The essays allowed DC to show more elements of their personality than could be gleaned from the short EC descriptions.