What do you wish someone had told you when you started your college search with DC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look hard at that sport and how much time commitment it requires. May want to dial it back if there is no realistic prospect of playing in college. Definitely keep doing it if she enjoys it, it is a good EC. However, can't let it interfere with classes and grades.

You also may want to avoid it if there is a realistic prospect of plain in college. Omg it takes over so many things and then they're stuck doing the same thing in college that they've done for years and years of high school and earlier. College should be for exploring pursuits, not the same old same old. I didn't really it coming and I wish I had.

You don't need to play a sport in college of you get recruited. Recruitment is a huge advantage for those who can make it work - throwing that away would be a mistake, especially if the child enjoys the sport.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My oldest is also going into 8th, and I started looking at this sub when thinking about college savings. I also work at a state flagship, so I have some general interest in colleges. The main takeaway I have gotten (from both this board and my job) is - the cost benefit analysis has changed a lot since I went to college in 2000.

I grew up in a prestige-focused NY burb, and it was a no brainer you would attend the highest rank school you got into. I now live in the midwest, where our flagship is decidedly mediocre, but plenty of bright and talented kids attend anyway. After they graduate, their parents can pay for their grad school or a down payment or new car and basically just launch them comfortably into the world. There is little need to get caught up in "prestige." Also - tuition prices have dramatically outpaced inflation. If you are in the "donut hole," it is really tough to justify a 90K/year school over a 50K or less school. 25 years ago, the math was different.

How so?

25 years ago no one was chasing prestige. Ivy acceptance rate was in 40% range, everyone went to their state flagships.

Bingham at that time had a real pipeline to Wall Street, sent droves.

Love Bing, great school. But it never sent droves to Wall Street. It was possible then, I got n interview at Goldman out of Buffalo (didn’t get hired) but not common.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have realistic goals, it all has a way of working out!

Enjoy high school. It goes by fast.

College admission is about finding a good match, not winning a race.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Don’t push too hard. As long as getting a degree is the expectation everything will be ok. You want your kid to enjoy high school and not be anxious about college admissions the whole time. Let your kid find their own path and don’t try to tiger mom it. Don’t get caught up in the dc striver/comparison culture. It’s not about you!

[Anonymous]

That you can't afford to send your kids to the same type of school that we attended - out of state, private, plus masters degrees. They are going to in-state publics, which is fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD is a student-athlete entering 8th grade at a DMV public school. Will be public for HS as well. Currently 4.0 (but it’s middle school…). Started having general convos about college and been to a few campuses, but a lot has changed since I did it as a student. Looking for any advice you wish someone shared about the current process. TIA!

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1286155.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD is a student-athlete entering 8th grade at a DMV public school. Will be public for HS as well. Currently 4.0 (but it’s middle school…). Started having general convos about college and been to a few campuses, but a lot has changed since I did it as a student. Looking for any advice you wish someone shared about the current process. TIA!

You mention "student athlete". D3 and large university club teams can be very competitive and have great athletes without the pressure and time commitment of D1 varsity sports.

[Anonymous]

Sports recruiting adds an entire layer of stress and time commitment to the process. We're in the thick of it with DS, who wants to play baseball at an academic D3 school. It's looking like he will, and I'm happy for him . . . but it has not been a given at any point during this process, and it's not the magic ticket some people think it is.

[Anonymous]

Don’t start second-guessing your kid or yourself when you see your kid applying to 10-12 schools and some of their peers applying to 20+. There’s not need to shotgun and while it does work for some people, it creates unnecessary stress and expense for most. If one feels the need to shotgun, then they may need to re-balance their list.

[Anonymous]

I didn’t know that it would occupy so much of my thoughts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t know that it would occupy so much of my thoughts.

Apply ED and hopefully you (and more importantly, your kid) don't have anything more to think about as of December senior year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCUM is probably the least informed forum when it comes to college applications. It’s full of bigotry, disinformation and copium. It’s okay to come here for entertainment but you’ll be a fool to believe anything pushed by posters and probably deserve any outcome.

What resources did you find more useful?

[Anonymous]

Mine is starting college in two weeks. I feel like we did most things well. She was a straight A student with a number of APs and good ECs and electives. Teslas scores were not that great despite a lot of test prep.

We started informal college visits when we went on trips during the summer between 8th and 9th. By that I mean that if we were passing through a town with a college We stopped and walked around the campus and the surrounding area. That really helped identify what mattered - what climates were desirable, costs, activities, etc. We continued visits through summer after 11th and started visiting schools that she might
Have wanted to go to.

That led us to figure out our finances and savings and we started having conversations about what we will pay very early. Expectations were always right on the table and there were no hard conversations later.

When it came time to apply, we agreed on a max of 10 and I left it to my daughter to choose. She talked to us, friends, others who had been to college and who had kids in college, and her school counselors. (She actually applied to 8).

We had two areas of conflict and I can see what I could have done better. First was date on which to submit applications for EA. Deadline was Nov 1 and I am a firm believer that you give yourself a buffer in case something goes wrong. My DD was of the mindset of waiting to the very end so that in case she got an idea that would make her exceptional essay into a magnificently exceptional essay she could continue to edit. I should have had conversations about this earlier and I feel like we could have avoided some tears. In the end she submitted early and was glad because she had a couple of friends who waited and whose applications got rejected for easy to avoid and easy to correct problems.

Second was that we started to talk about decisions before we did all of the new admitted student visits. The top choice before visits was more expensive and was not better in any way for my daughter. So there were tears. But once we did the admitted students days, she dropped the more expensive schools because she really didn’t end up liking them. I should have waited until after these visits to work with her on her choice.

Overall it was a really good and bonding experience. My daughter is going to a great school and we will pay for it all. she also made a D1 sports team at her college. We are all excited for the next steps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look hard at that sport and how much time commitment it requires. May want to dial it back if there is no realistic prospect of playing in college. Definitely keep doing it if she enjoys it, it is a good EC. However, can't let it interfere with classes and grades.

Great advice^^

[Anonymous]

If you have a high-stats kid aiming for an Ivy, don't get suckered into ED-ing a runner up like Chicago or JHU.