Reply to Willing to explain the basic schedule of college admissions these days?

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[quote=Anonymous]Freshman year is an excellent time for parents to talk to each other about finances and whether they're taking the "find your dream school" approach vs. saying "here's what we can afford" or "here's what your realistic public school option costs, and here are the conditions under which you can go some place more expensive." (Conditions might be your family's standards re what kind of education is worth the price, they might be getting merit or FA, etc.). I think it's important for parents to have worked this out before campus visits start.

Sophomore year should be when you tell your kid what the rules of the game are -- both in terms of family-imposed constraints, as well as more generally how admissions works, the range of college options available, and how to choose among them.  Ask your kid what his or her college and career goals are (and emphasize that they may change). Introduce some realism and some means-ends rationality into the process, especially if your kid is in an environment where the "dream school" and/or the must-get-into-an-Ivy mentality dominates.  This is the ”here are the various ways you can get from where you are to where you want to be" phase.

Once you have a sense of what your kid wants, you can start researching (and/or teach your kid how to research) schools.  Look at majors and any extra-curriculars that are important to your kid, then at cost/debt load, admissions standards/criteria, 4-and 6-year graduation rates, job and grad school results.

By junior year, it's nuts and bolts time -- course selection, standardized tests (including prep), identifying teachers who will write recs, figuring out what your kid is going to do during the summer, whether athletic recruitment is in the mix, whether there are outreach programs and/or scholarship opportunities that your kid may be eligible for.

By the end of that year, you'll have a better sense of what schools are within range.  Summer's a good time to figure out where to apply.  And the goal is to create a list where (a) you can afford to send your kid to any school on it (b) your kid would be excited to attend any school on it and (c) at least some of the schools on it will pretty certainly admit your kid.

ITA with previous advice about making college visits fun (for us that meant no more than one school a day and enough time in each place to do a night out on a college student budget) and about the desirability of getting essays written the August before Senior year.

And, as others have also mentioned, if your kid is interested in highly selective schools, the (SC)EA/ED decision(s) are also important.  That ended up be a stressful last-minute decision for our kid; if I had to do it all over again, I'd be tempted to focus on that earlier.  OTOH, maybe it's just inherently stressful and indecision got more apps written sooner.  FWIW, I think it's a very good idea to apply early to a relatively accessible but desirable public and/or foreign school if DC's first choice is highly selective.  Too many kids feel crushed/panicked if the only result they get in the winter is a rejection.  [/quote]

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