Supposed to basically just guess where to apply? What are we missing?

[Anonymous]

My DD is a junior and at her huge public HS there is only one staff member who helps with college stuff. My daughter is a good student and is excited for college but has only ever heard of a few schools. Are we really just supposed to plug her numbers into Naviance and go with what that spits out? It seems like flying blind and puts a lot of pressure on kids and parents. Besides books and websites like College Confidential, what are we missing.

What helped you figure out how to pick reaches, safeties, etc.?

[Anonymous]

There are often virtual college rep visits to high schools, or virtual college fairs where students can get to hear the basic info about a college and decide if they're interested in learning more. Also if they have a sense geographically of where they may want to be or whether they like urban, suburban, rural settings it can help narrow down the choices a lot.

[Anonymous]

We ended up hiring a private college admissions counselor. We only used her for a few hours (hourly rate rather than package). She helped us come up with the list and then target essays for top choice schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD is a junior and at her huge public HS there is only one staff member who helps with college stuff. My daughter is a good student and is excited for college but has only ever heard of a few schools. Are we really just supposed to plug her numbers into Naviance and go with what that spits out? It seems like flying blind and puts a lot of pressure on kids and parents. Besides books and websites like College Confidential, what are we missing.

What helped you figure out how to pick reaches, safeties, etc.?

Doing our own research. Searches based on ranking, searches based on money,location, etc. why do you want someone to do this for you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We ended up hiring a private college admissions counselor. We only used her for a few hours (hourly rate rather than package). She helped us come up with the list and then target essays for top choice schools.

How did you find a good counselor? Is this person local to DC area? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD is a junior and at her huge public HS there is only one staff member who helps with college stuff. My daughter is a good student and is excited for college but has only ever heard of a few schools. Are we really just supposed to plug her numbers into Naviance and go with what that spits out? It seems like flying blind and puts a lot of pressure on kids and parents. Besides books and websites like College Confidential, what are we missing.

What helped you figure out how to pick reaches, safeties, etc.?

Doing our own research. Searches based on ranking, searches based on money,location, etc. why do you want someone to do this for you?

We did same as PP but we saved over 100k in private tuition for HS. We researched this to death.

[Anonymous]

8:50 is being an a$$ but she is not wrong. your kid needs to come up with a list of schools - reach, target, safety - based on her stats/admitted stats and other available info. the list will change as you learn more about each school. money, location, size, rankings...etc. each plays a role as your kid sort it thru. it is a lot of work but there's no other way around it.

[Anonymous]

There are a lot of online resources -- College Confidential, for one.

If your kid's guidance situation is really weak, I agree that you may want to hire a professional. But there are TONS and tons of resources. Even the public library or a trip to Barnes & Noble can get you started.

[Anonymous]

You can also ask questions here. Some people are mean, some people are really helpful.

[Anonymous]

Talk to friends who have children in college. Ask them if they recommend a private consultant.

[Anonymous]

Start with basics - know your budget, consider general location/geographic areas of the country, size (small, med, large), potential major if known, any other campus characteristics.

Consider admission possibility - GPA, how rigorous (how many APs), scores if known. In the past, scores were an easy way to rule colleges in or out, though now test optional really does have everyone - students and colleges - flying blind. I still think it can give you some ideas about academic fit if the student has them, yet many students will score a little higher by fall of senior year.

Once you know your budget, you can compare that to costs. Colleges have a Net Price Calculator that estimates need-based aid, very important to look at if you will be needing financial aid.

[Anonymous]

Talk to the counselors. Whatever you do, don't like DCUM posts override what the counselor tells you. There is a lot of bad advice here presented as "insider info" and an obsession with a very small number of schools. Lots of anecdotes shared as if they show facts.

[Anonymous]

Discuss location, size, finances, etc. to get a basic idea of what to look for. Have your DD look at the Fiske College Guide.

[Anonymous]

More affordable counselors can be found on freelancing sites like Upwork. We found a young, new college counselor this way and she was eager to prove herself. Worked hard and spent lots of time with DD for fraction of the price.

We don’t know final results yet and my DD didn’t ED but she is in at all 4 of her EA schools.

[Anonymous]

We started by looking at our in-state schools, did a few tours to see what elements appealed to DS (realize this is challenging now but there are also a lot more virtual tour options). That helped him decide he liked the energy of a big school and preferred a "college town" type of setting vs. urban. He also doesn't want it to be a big hassle to get to/from school so preferred to be drivable or a short flight from home.

Looking at Naviance you can figure out which schools are safety/match/reach for stats. He decided to apply JMU (safety), VT (should be safety by stats but their admissions can be unpredictable), UVA (reach). Then looked for schools with similar characteristics that had a chance of meeting our budget -- privates or OOS publics. Naviance shows the % getting grant aid and the average amount. These were all safeties or matches since you don't get merit aid from a reach. Ended up with U of Delaware, U of Connecticut, and Miami University. So far accepted everywhere except UVA and waiting on VT.

My DD is a junior and completely different from DS. She went along on the tours with him so has some idea of the schools and based on that and reflecting on her goals and what she wants out of a school has decided she prefers a smaller school with an emphasis on undergraduate research opportunities, close faculty relationships. Leaning toward LACs. In-state she will apply W&M (reach), UMW (safety). We looked at lists of schools good for her major (collegexpress.com is good for this), with a high proportion of students going on to complete PhDs, USNWR list of schools good for undergraduate teaching and undergraduate research. Plus the same need for good merit aid and a desire to stay in driving distance of home. She now has 6-7 LACs that she's exploring through virtual tours and reviews and will go to any visits those colleges have at her HS.

I don't think the USNWR overall lists are useful at all but the sublists for specific characteristics can be useful.

I've found it helpful to listen to the Your College Bound Kid Podcast. They did several episodes back in 2018 about selecting colleges to apply to. I think this was the first in that series: https://yourcollegeboundkid.com/2018/04/20/ycbk12-how-many-colleges-should-your-kid-apply-to/

The biggest challenge in getting started is getting clarity on what your student wants in a college. This site has a virtual card sort activity that can help you talk through the different elements to consider: https://corsava.com/