My high stats kid running out of steam

[Anonymous]

Of course our kids are stressed and losing steam. The number of supplemental essays per school is insane and our kids are simultaneously balancing the most rigorous coursework with sports and other meaningful commitments. As experts lecture patents about mental health and making sure kids get enough sleep! Every friend i know hired outside support - some admit it and most do not. (The kids are more honest with each other). DH and i were a pro-bono support team. DH manged the spreadsheet and prioritized apps by deadline. I made a schedule, helped brainstorm ideas and kept kid on track (aka nagging). Beginning in late august, every weekend, kid worked on essays for 1 school. At our high school, the school counselor reviews all essays/activity lists so kid got great feedback from school counselor and i also helped with editing. I also listened to some online college info sessions to make notes of anything that might appeal to my kid. Better for my kid to study for a physics test vs listening to a webinar. Thankful for parent comments and tips on this site - helped me better understand the demands of this process so i could prepare and support my kid. I agree with a PP about this being an exercise in project management, a skill not yet developed in 17 year old kids.

[Anonymous]

^^^^ This is why all the lawyer moms are good at this.

[Anonymous]

My kid dis playing a varsity team sport, president of two clubs, including the student newspaper that comes out monthly, gets asked to speak on student panels for admissions and is taking 4 APs. Common app and personal statement done by August. So far, we only have proofread supplementals. Our school’s cc gives them internal deadlines. Kids should be able to do the substantive part of app on their own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's tough. Help with the research....

so, for Stanford (as an example), I helped with a Google Doc of classes, cool profs, ECs, interesting articles from the paper, and events I saw.

links to everything in the Google Doc to shortcut the process. DC added more as well, but good starting point.

How do you find "cool profs"? Trying to help my DD but don't know where to start!

Np. It's not really cool, it's finding profs whose academic interests align with your kid's own niche interests.

If your kid is into medieval studies but also migration trends and/or international relations/MUN, for example, with a focus on the Med and North Africa, and applying to Brown, I'd definitely mention this professor below by drawing parallels between modern refugee/migration crises and how this professor's study of how "barbarian" migrations transformed Roman identity.

Your kid has the intellectual curiosity, but might need you to give them links to the right professors. Then they'd connect the professor's specific research lens (identity, connectedness, cultural transformation) to something your DC has encountered, even if DC hasn't studied 5th-century vandals specifically (yet).....

https://vivo.brown.edu/display/jconant#Research

Make sense? All you do is give kid link to prof and maybe mention a few topic words?

Who is actually doing this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's tough. Help with the research....

so, for Stanford (as an example), I helped with a Google Doc of classes, cool profs, ECs, interesting articles from the paper, and events I saw.

links to everything in the Google Doc to shortcut the process. DC added more as well, but good starting point.

How do you find "cool profs"? Trying to help my DD but don't know where to start!

Np. It's not really cool, it's finding profs whose academic interests align with your kid's own niche interests.

If your kid is into medieval studies but also migration trends and/or international relations/MUN, for example, with a focus on the Med and North Africa, and applying to Brown, I'd definitely mention this professor below by drawing parallels between modern refugee/migration crises and how this professor's study of how "barbarian" migrations transformed Roman identity.

Your kid has the intellectual curiosity, but might need you to give them links to the right professors. Then they'd connect the professor's specific research lens (identity, connectedness, cultural transformation) to something your DC has encountered, even if DC hasn't studied 5th-century vandals specifically (yet).....

https://vivo.brown.edu/display/jconant#Research

Make sense? All you do is give kid link to prof and maybe mention a few topic words?

Lady, you need to land the helicopter. Gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is playing a fall sport, a club sport, is in 3 ap classes and volunteers on weekends, and is applying to a couple special programs with unique requirements in addition to the reach/target/ safety thing. She started the essays, but I’m finishing them for her to proofread. I’m handling the common app profile, fafsa, css, college board, and everything else that goes along with this process. The whole thing is very bureaucratic and it’s unrealistic to ask a hs senior to know how to navigate it.

Super lame.

Agreed. You’re finishing the essays? And doing the Common App? What the…

Are you new to this world?

DP. Nope, neither of us are. Not ok at all to write their essays for them. If your kids can’t do that part, they’re either not cut out for the schools they’re applying to or they’re not cut out for the current schedule they have.

Or applying to colleges is a ridiculous process that is darn near a full time job.

Only if you go insane with the number of schools applied to. My kid applied to 5. I wouldn't describe the workload as more than an average EC. And he was a procrastinator. Waitlisted at an Ivy, attending his top choice (I made him apply to the Ivy...it's a family school and we were in "no ragrets" mode as a family.)

Key limitation for the Ivy was likely 25%ile SATs. Not fixable by making applications a full-time job.

[Anonymous]

The elite universe is staggering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is playing a fall sport, a club sport, is in 3 ap classes and volunteers on weekends, and is applying to a couple special programs with unique requirements in addition to the reach/target/ safety thing. She started the essays, but I’m finishing them for her to proofread. I’m handling the common app profile, fafsa, css, college board, and everything else that goes along with this process. The whole thing is very bureaucratic and it’s unrealistic to ask a hs senior to know how to navigate it.

Super lame.

Agreed. You’re finishing the essays? And doing the Common App? What the…

Are you new to this world?

DP. Nope, neither of us are. Not ok at all to write their essays for them. If your kids can’t do that part, they’re either not cut out for the schools they’re applying to or they’re not cut out for the current schedule they have.

Or applying to colleges is a ridiculous process that is darn near a full time job.

Only if you go insane with the number of schools applied to. My kid applied to 5. I wouldn't describe the workload as more than an average EC. And he was a procrastinator. Waitlisted at an Ivy, attending his top choice (I made him apply to the Ivy...it's a family school and we were in "no ragrets" mode as a family.)

Key limitation for the Ivy was likely 25%ile SATs. Not fixable by making applications a full-time job.

I don’t understand how your kid can be comfortable applying to so few schools, though. My kid certainly isn’t, not after seeing the extremely random results for her high-stats unhooked friends last year. She doesn’t want to go overseas, so it seems like it’s just a massive lottery and the more tickets you have the less likely you are to wind up at community college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's tough. Help with the research....

so, for Stanford (as an example), I helped with a Google Doc of classes, cool profs, ECs, interesting articles from the paper, and events I saw.

links to everything in the Google Doc to shortcut the process. DC added more as well, but good starting point.

How do you find "cool profs"? Trying to help my DD but don't know where to start!

Np. It's not really cool, it's finding profs whose academic interests align with your kid's own niche interests.

If your kid is into medieval studies but also migration trends and/or international relations/MUN, for example, with a focus on the Med and North Africa, and applying to Brown, I'd definitely mention this professor below by drawing parallels between modern refugee/migration crises and how this professor's study of how "barbarian" migrations transformed Roman identity.

Your kid has the intellectual curiosity, but might need you to give them links to the right professors. Then they'd connect the professor's specific research lens (identity, connectedness, cultural transformation) to something your DC has encountered, even if DC hasn't studied 5th-century vandals specifically (yet).....

https://vivo.brown.edu/display/jconant#Research

Make sense? All you do is give kid link to prof and maybe mention a few topic words?

Lady, you need to land the helicopter. Gross.

I think it’s super helpful to be honest. Never would’ve thought to make those connections.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In our community, this is how it works:

You don't hire a private counselor bc our private school CCO is great.

You do hire an essay coach. You give "coach" 20-40 pages of writing in the summer. They help you with a personal essay. That's $5k.

In August and Sept you give them drafts for your supp essays. it's another $1-2.5k per school. You have final polished essays by Oct 15 for all early schools.

Total spend for 10 early schools: $20-25k

It’s completely insane to me that people already pay so much to be part of a community where the education and writing instruction is supposedly so superior only to have to pay that much more to have someone coach them through some essays. We could afford to spend $25k on this, but my kid would be so grossed out by it. They really want this to be their own work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is playing a fall sport, a club sport, is in 3 ap classes and volunteers on weekends, and is applying to a couple special programs with unique requirements in addition to the reach/target/ safety thing. She started the essays, but I’m finishing them for her to proofread. I’m handling the common app profile, fafsa, css, college board, and everything else that goes along with this process. The whole thing is very bureaucratic and it’s unrealistic to ask a hs senior to know how to navigate it.

Super lame.

Agreed. You’re finishing the essays? And doing the Common App? What the…

Are you new to this world?

DP. Nope, neither of us are. Not ok at all to write their essays for them. If your kids can’t do that part, they’re either not cut out for the schools they’re applying to or they’re not cut out for the current schedule they have.

Or applying to colleges is a ridiculous process that is darn near a full time job.

Only if you go insane with the number of schools applied to. My kid applied to 5. I wouldn't describe the workload as more than an average EC. And he was a procrastinator. Waitlisted at an Ivy, attending his top choice (I made him apply to the Ivy...it's a family school and we were in "no ragrets" mode as a family.)

Key limitation for the Ivy was likely 25%ile SATs. Not fixable by making applications a full-time job.

I don’t understand how your kid can be comfortable applying to so few schools, though. My kid certainly isn’t, not after seeing the extremely random results for her high-stats unhooked friends last year. She doesn’t want to go overseas, so it seems like it’s just a massive lottery and the more tickets you have the less likely you are to wind up at community college.

Agree. Nieces and nephews in the last two cycles applied to 20 (after ED1 deferrals). Ended up working out. All at T20.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I applied to 8 elite colleges back in the early 1990’s- age of manual typewriters and snail mail. (And I had a kid go through the process of applying to 11 a couple years ago). I don’t remember anyone’s parents helping anyone with any part of the application process except filling out financial aid forms and driving around for college visits. This was in an affluent setting. The expectation back then was that this was the first step many of us were taking towards the adult world and this was a good time to learn how to do things like call colleges to schedule tours, keep track of deadlines, get to the post office, etc. Thirty years later, I felt obliged to be more involved in my kid’s application process (mainly booking campus tours online and nagging about deadlines). The stakes seem higher now. Even that level of involvement made me feel like I was helicoptering too much. There are no easy answers here and I wish everyone well during this stressful process.

Exactly. The word is so different now. Do you remember any of your friends having essay coaches or counselors? I don't. I went to an SAT class in person for 6 weeks. That's it. I took it once.

The stakes do seem higher.

There's a lot of helping we can (and imo should) be doing around the edges that don't involve actual writing. I can help with organizing, researching, and reviewing draft Common Apps. Seeing this reminder on IG (found it on TT) means a lot of kids have these formatting issues: https://www.tiktok.com/@tineocollegeprep/video/7561444468776275230?lang=en

Just because a whole industry has popped up around this process doesn’t mean you have to buy into the hype. A fool and his money, I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In our community, this is how it works:

You don't hire a private counselor bc our private school CCO is great.

You do hire an essay coach. You give "coach" 20-40 pages of writing in the summer. They help you with a personal essay. That's $5k.

In August and Sept you give them drafts for your supp essays. it's another $1-2.5k per school. You have final polished essays by Oct 15 for all early schools.

Total spend for 10 early schools: $20-25k

It’s completely insane to me that people already pay so much to be part of a community where the education and writing instruction is supposedly so superior only to have to pay that much more to have someone coach them through some essays. We could afford to spend $25k on this, but my kid would be so grossed out by it. They really want this to be their own work.

It's not like they are manufacturing the content, though. The kid is writing the drafts. They are editing it seems.
Tbh I think more people have someone reviewing and editing essays than are willing to admit it.
Whatever. Do whatever works for your family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a very important once-in-a-lifetime experience. It’s exactly NOT the time to allow the kid to fizzle out. Give him whatever incentives/encouragement/kicks in ass that will work to keep him focused & productive.

100%
You will have so many regrets if you don't help them.....ask all the moms who come here in March depressed and can't get off this site bc their kid is now heading to Canada or the UK.

I help with brainstorming and editing, but if you’re suggesting we “write” it (and it sounds like you are?), my kid would never let me write her essays.

[Anonymous]

EA or ED to a target your kid is excited to attend where they have a more than 60% chance of getting in. That should cut down on number of applications.