Lessons learned from the college process
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Anonymous
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Oldest child is a senior in public HS. Was accepted ED to a top 10 school. Almost all college acceptances are now out. Here are some takeaways I learned watching my own kid + students from her HS go through the process. Thought this may help parents of rising seniors. Others are free to chime in and to agree/disagree. Not sure if my insights apply to private school students although there is obviously some overlap.
1) This is obviously an emotional process but kids who approached it strategically rather than emotionally did better. Don’t get overly attached to one school without good reason. 2) Top grades + varsity sport + excellent test scores are not enough for ivy admission. You need something else such as legacy, famous grandparents, minority or URM, chief editor of school newspaper, girls applying for engineering, etc. 3) Don’t waste your early application on Harvard or Stanford unless you are legacy or recruited athlete or have won an exceptional prize 4) Yale seems to love legacies 5) ED gives you a better shot than EA 6) Work really hard on your essays and get multiple adults to read them over and give you feedback. Does everyone get the point you are trying to make? If not, revise or try again. For top 25 schools (except large publics) your essays need to be extremely high quality 7) Avoid writing about race and diversity if you are white 8) Look beyond the popular schools that everyone is applying to at your HS 9) Don’t apply ED to the top school that 5-10 other kids from your HS are applying to. Get excited about a different school 10) There are probably at least 1-2 other kids at your school who have an almost identical profile to you - same interests, same classes, same teachers for recommendations, similar test scores. Make sure you are not all applying to the same schools. I saw a few best friends who were very similar apply to all the same colleges for the same major and it did not work out well. 11) Kids who decided to apply ED to terrific schools that were within their reach but a step down from higher rated schools that are a gamble for anyone mostly had good success 12) Kids who were obsessed with brand names and focused on top 10 when they should have paid more attention to schools one tier down were left disappointed with end result. 13) Not worth it to keep taking SAT or ACT in search of perfection. Once you hit 75% level, you are fine. Focus on other stuff 14) No point in submitting applications 1-3 months early. Complete them early if you must but then let them sit and look at essays again in a few weeks. Do you still love them? 15) Rigorous course load is very important. Do the best you can Good luck! |
Anonymous
+1 All great advice. From my DD's perspective. Also focus on getting good recs and essays! Essays are the only way to show your kid's personality. Also, find schools that are financially viable. She saw friends get into their dream school, and then they weren't able to afford it. But, she and her friends were happily surprised when the results came out and they will be going to their dream schools in the fall. She wishes she could celebrate in person with them, but instead made a virtual map with pinpoints of every college a student got into. |
Anonymous
| I agree with OP and PP. it is a nerve wracking process so go in with your eyes open. Don’t be the parent who thinks their own kid is amazing and pushes their child to apply to top ivys. Be encouraging but realistic. I saw several disappointed kids whose parents encouraged them to apply early to Harvard or Stanford. Kids had top grades and scores but didn’t stand out in any other way. |
Anonymous
+1 And Naviance isn't really helpful with this. My DS has very high SATs and strong GPA but not one of the best in the class and hasn't done much with extracurriculars. Still, the college search tool in Naviance says Ivies are a "match" for him, which is ridiculous. But, some parents will believe that. |
Anonymous
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#7
#13 How did you get to that conclusion? |
Anonymous
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Number 7 ridiculous.
Number 13 depends on the student. SAT's/ACT's are metrics that many, many schools use way more than essays. Number 2 have you looked at Yale's football team? Many of those students do not have a hook, but sports, LOL... HAHAHA |
Anonymous
| +1 All great advice. |
Anonymous
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Here's our experience to add. DC is top stat kid in a MCPS magnet, lots of activities, varsity sport, broad academic interests, no hooks. UMD-CP was safety (lower stat sibling was accepted ...) At some point the interested list was 25+. I made it clear that DC would not be allowed to apply to schools as a gamble. We had previously been on college visits for sibling, so DC was familiar with in-state schools. A summer trip to visit 6 schools in the NE was well worth the time. A couple moved up the list, a couple dropped off the list.
DC had a variety of schools with different programs that they were interested in, and didn't want to commit to anything ED, so they applied to 4 schools EA. December/January results were accepted UMD-CP and one other top 25 school, deferred to regular decision for the other two schools. The top school acceptance was very helpful, because it now became the school/program to compare remaining schools against. 4 schools dropped off the list, and DC applied to 4 remaining top 25 schools RD. March decisions were accepted to 3 of the RD schools, rejected from 1. The two deferments turned into 1 rejection and 1 wait list. Current decision status for the 5 schools DC was accepted into: - one is no because DC didn't get a specific merit scholarship that was the interest - one is likely no because although school and campus were top of list, accepted program isn't the limited one that was hoped for and other programs are better fit - one is maybe, the program is still very interesting but the campus setting was lowest on the list - the first top school acceptance is a likely yes. The specific program is a good fit and offers the opportunity for better connections in the field of interest. Interestingly to me - other schools are rated higher, but this school has had more time to target DC with more information about the program in Jan & Feb. - also interesting to me is that UMD-CP is still on the list. DC would walk in with enough credits to graduate in 2-2 1/2 years. This is tempting to DC to save 529 money and put towards grad school. Lessons: 1. Establish your best in-state safe school and use that as a baseline for applications. Equivalent or worse out-of-state public schools should be dropped from the list unless you are interested in paying $100,000k+ more just to cheer for a different football team. 2. Add out-of-state public schools if they have a specialty program that is an excellent fit or if they have a strong merit scholarship program. 3. Apply early action to the public schools that are either your in-state best choices or out-of-state good fits for program/merit. This shouldn't be more than 4-6. If you have more than that, you aren't distinguishing between programs. 4. If you don't have a strong in-state school that is also a safety, apply to a good school that offers rolling action early on. It really relieves the stress on students to have been accepted to a school that they would enjoy going to, even if it isn't their current top hope. 5. Determine if there is a private school that really is your best fit, and apply ED if they have it. Otherwise, apply RD. 6. Base your regular decision applications on the results of the early action/ED ones. If DC is accepted to school X, ask the direct question if you got into Y, would you choose it over X? Sometimes kids want to apply because their friends are, or because it is prestigious, or because they "just want to see if they get in." Make sure that all regular decision applications have a reason/ranking to them, because it makes it easier for students to manage results when they get them. 7. For all applications, start them early, "finish" them early and let them sit for a week - then go back over them. I think my DC rewrote almost all essays multiple times (as in, starting from scratch with a different theme). I don't know the details, because I wasn't allowed to see anything - I just got reported status. 8. Do the easiest application first (likely your in-state good fit) and submit it early in order to get one done and make sure you covered all the details like references, transcripts, etc. Sometimes kids get stuck about submitting anything and wait until the last minute. 9. Establish as a family any restrictions on final college choice. Is there a financial limit? Is there a geographical limit? Be realistic upfront so that there aren't upsetting conversations at the end. 10. Have confidence in your student that they will end up at a school that will be a fantastic place for them. Good luck! |
Anonymous
| Thank you for the info OP. I have a question. I am an alum of a top 20. DS’s meet their 25th percentile. We had ruled the school out, but we are starting to think he should apply ED and take a chance. We are full pay. WWYD? I’m only hesitating because if he fails to get in, he will have wasted his ED/full pay opportunity? |
Anonymous
Depends on the school. But encourage your kid to use his ED chance on his/her NO.1 School, dream school that you can afford and your kid will be happy at. Legacy and full pay will definitely help during the ED Round. |
Anonymous
Think hard about the school and their programs. Will your kid thrive there, or be better off at a school where his/her stats give him an advantage rather than a disadvantage? Does your kid stand a chance of being able to participate in the good stuff this school offers, or will your kid be second rate there? |
Anonymous
This is OP. If you were not a legacy, my answer would be no, don’t waste your ED choice. With legacy, it is slightly more complicated. Look up ED stats for your school. Legacy matters more at some schools than other. It doesn’t help you much at Columbia but it is a huge boost at Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Penn and Princeton. Legacy will not help you at MIT. In general my sense is that the bottom 25% is mostly used for recruited athletes, URM, low income and first gen kids. If you are white or asian and from standard educated middle or upper middle class family, then being in the lowest 25% for grades and test scores will most likely not work for you. I hope this helps. |
Anonymous
This is OP. Regarding #7, my own white kid is at a racially and income diverse public high school. Some wealthy white kids decided to write about their experience navigating the school’s diversity and how it opened their eyes to inequality and they documented their personal growth through the 4 years of HS. I personally think this is a very risky topic to get right coming from a place of privilege. Just take note of the backlash against the recently released book - American Dirt. Finally, don’t take my word for it. College admissions blogs and private counselors all say the same thing #13 - My own kid did not have a perfect ACT but close. She wanted to take it again but when we asked a few experts through emails and free chat sessions, they said don’t waste your time as you have crossed the threshold for top schools. Kid got into first choice Ivy. A different kid who took SAT 4 times to get perfect scores did not do as well in college admissions |
Anonymous
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Lesson for anxiety-ridden, status-obsessed parents:
Apply ED. It gives your kid an advantage because it telegraphs to the school your willingness to pay full price. Lesson for normal parents: Never let your kid apply ED to any school. Refuse to pay more than about $30-35K/year for college. That means you should never apply to an out-of-state public university, or to a top 30 private college or private university. Lower ranked private schools provide a perfectly defective education -- just as the supposedly elite schools do. So why pay twice as much for something that's equally defective? Go where the discounts are. (These discounts are euphemistically called "merit scholarships.") Anyone who is paying more than $35K/year for tuition, room, and board, is simply subsidizing someone else's kid. |
Anonymous
Disagree with this partially. Some warm weather publics (e.g. Alabama) can offer excellent merit aid, if your child is interested in a school like that. But agree that e.g. UNC or the UCs are a bad move. Also, if you're DCUM poor (like 140k) the tippy top privates can be affordable through need based aid. |