How involved were you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wanted to see everything. DD refused to show me anything. I'll live.

Outcome?

[Anonymous]

If I tried to be the typical DCUM mom DD would simply never speak to me again. She’s my eldest and I suspect my younger 2 sons will be more compliant.

[Anonymous]

I facilitated visits to schools he was interested in and was a high level sounding board on essay ideas, college lists, and not much else. Didn’t read essays, didn’t get involved in the application process other than to ask how it was going.
I have to say it was easy for me to take this approach because my kid was very on top of things himself. I could adopt and stick to my hands- off approach without difficulty. Not sure where I might have ended up had it not been so easy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wanted to see everything. DD refused to show me anything. I'll live.

Outcome?

TBD

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Sigh. Another west coast interloper.

Lots of non DMV ppl posted (including me though I didn’t identify). How is it relevant?

[Anonymous]

- picking ECs, competitions, projects, summer activities: I would suggest but ultimately all that is up to them

- choosing schools: I would suggest but ultimately all that is up to them

- application story or strategy: very involved

- essays: very involved

- reviewing the final common app: very involved

I also did some data entry into the apps (grades etc) and also made and kept the spreadsheet/timeline and served as the general administrator of the process. Three kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
- picking ECs, competitions, projects, summer activities: I would suggest but ultimately all that is up to them

- choosing schools: I would suggest but ultimately all that is up to them

- application story or strategy: very involved

- essays: very involved

- reviewing the final common app: very involved

I also did some data entry into the apps (grades etc) and also made and kept the spreadsheet/timeline and served as the general administrator of the process. Three kids.

Outcome?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
- picking ECs, competitions, projects, summer activities: I would suggest but ultimately all that is up to them

- choosing schools: I would suggest but ultimately all that is up to them

- application story or strategy: very involved

- essays: very involved

- reviewing the final common app: very involved

I also did some data entry into the apps (grades etc) and also made and kept the spreadsheet/timeline and served as the general administrator of the process. Three kids.

Outcome?

1 - got into his ED
2 - Didn't get into his ED but was huge reach. Now at T30.
3 - TBD

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
- picking ECs, competitions, projects, summer activities: I would suggest but ultimately all that is up to them

- choosing schools: I would suggest but ultimately all that is up to them

- application story or strategy: very involved

- essays: very involved

- reviewing the final common app: very involved

I also did some data entry into the apps (grades etc) and also made and kept the spreadsheet/timeline and served as the general administrator of the process. Three kids.

Outcome?

1 - got into his ED
2 - Didn't get into his ED but was huge reach. Now at T30.
3 - TBD

I would also say that beyond the 'outcomes', my involvement made the process much more smooth and less stressful for all of us.

[Anonymous]

We were fully involved in all levels of the process. No outside college counseling support. Outcome was early decision ivy acceptance. Strategy and story was authentic- reflecting our kid's genuine interests and academic strengths. We chose schools that were a good fit and made sense for their interests and personality. My kid is actually pursuing the academic topics and ECs mentioned in their app. App definitely told a story, but it was true. Kid is happy and doing well in college.

[Anonymous]

I was not. My kids weren’t applying to super competitive schools. We let them lead except to do things like pay a tutor (when they requested help), drive them to activities they chose and accompany them on college visits.

[Anonymous]

- picking ECs, competitions, projects, summer activities?… I strongly encouraged DC to do a certain EC that they had some relevant prior experience with since I knew it would be a great fit and it was. Helped with finding volunteer stint options. Helped with lining up junior year internship (casual one with a family friend). Had them sign up for summer classes so leave room on their normal schedule.
- choosing schools?…I picked almost all the schools DC looked at. I would mark up 🆙 nes in the big books of college overviews and encourage DC to find more to consider but they did not. They shipped the ones I found.
- application story or strategy? … DC had no “application narrative”
- essays?…I helped review many drafts and gave edits. We hired an essay coach but that was useless in the end
- reviewing the final common app?… yes. Most of it.

What were/are the outcomes? Ended up ED’ing to a SLAC for DC’s sport (accepted with merit). DC is a bit wistful about some other pricier options but overall seems satisfied.

[Anonymous]

^ shopped not shipped. Among other typos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was not. My kids weren’t applying to super competitive schools. We let them lead except to do things like pay a tutor (when they requested help), drive them to activities they chose and accompany them on college visits.

^ I should have added outcomes. Two were accepted to UMD and thrived there. They had many offers for small LACs too with merit. My youngest has so far been accepted to all his top choices with generous merit aid but full disclosure he chose to apply to schools with fairly high acceptance rates (above 50%).

[Anonymous]

I suggested and made my opinion heard. They had the last say on what they wanted to do. They refused ED-ing anywhere.
They are now at a HYP. They keep telling me how they would be at Wesleyan instead of HYP if they had listened to me.