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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There are two ways you can go about it

1. Prioritize T20 admission from a young age. Tailor everything towards that goal. Push ahead even if student is not interested in the thing they were doing, because it would look good to colleges. You would have a tough 5-6 years.

2. Prioritize academics and doing well in high school, regardless of how it looks to colleges. Do things you like and drop things you do not like. Take classes you like, but do emphasize rigor in all subjects, not because colleges like to see that, but because they are building blocks and a strong foundation is essential.

T20 admission is a low probability anyway. Even if you choose option #1, you might not end up at T20. That seemed to be a bad tradeoff to me.

If you choose option #2, even if your overall chances of getting into T20 are lower than if you choose #1, you win either way because (a) you did what you loved and if ended up not going to T20, you have that happy HS years (b) if you did end up at T20, you just got a bonus. Heads I win, tails I don't lose.

That is how we made the decision. Turns out when you do things that you do love, it is easier for others to see it as well. It showed up in how my son got voted to the top position in the team and most likely how the teachers wrote the recommendation letters. Ended at HYP. 
[/quote]There is actually a third option, which is to not even allow your kid to apply to Ivy-plus schools (or other similarly-priced schools), even if they have the stats and the money for them. That is what we did, and we’re happy with the results so far. [/quote]

What if that's where your kid wants to attend?  If you can afford it, why not allow them to apply?  
[/quote]Because if you don’t take it off the table altogether, then as soon as their friends start hiring private counselors (8th grade, for us, though the friends in question were a grade or two ahead), everything becomes “Larla says her counselor says Harvard wants …” [/quote]

So you parent your kid and have serious discussions about finding the right fit for them.  And create a good list of reasonable targets and safety schools to apply to along with the dream schools.  
Then you set expectations.

However if you truly are not willing to pay then you let your kid know that early on.  [/quote]Nobody is creating a list of reasonable targets and safeties for an 8th grader. But 8th graders are absolutely telling each other what they “need to do” for Harvard. You need to take those schools off the table if you want your kid to have a chance to be free. [/quote]

So then perhaps, just maybe 8th grade is a time to have the first discussions about college with your kid.  Let them know there are 100s of other excellent choices outside of the Harvard's.  
It's called parenting.

Just like there are 8th graders telling your kid they should have sex, drink, try drugs, spend $$$$ on silly things, I hope you also have discussions with your kid (then and hopefully well before 8th grade) about not bowing to peer pressure and how other kids don't really know what is best.  
And yes 7/8th grade is a great time to discuss a HS academic map, and why you need to do some ECs, but that you should make them ones you enjoy.  And why you should pick a few and try to stick with them thru HS (yes it looks good for apps, but it also teaches your kid to focus on a few things and not just random.ly switch all the time.). But you teach and guide your kid thru this.

For one kid it was easy.  The other is much smarter and had the potential for top schools.  We discussed the college admissions process and what it takes.  We worked with our kid and helped them make decisions.  For that kid, we consciously choose to let them stop Foreign language after year 3.  Why?  Because the year 4 option that fit into their schedule (without dropping band which my kid loved) was taught by a crazy lady who couldn't teach---my kid had survived FL year 2 with that crazy person and no way in hell were they going to take AP FL or any course with that wacko (they were the worst teacher any of my kids ever had in MS/HS).  So my kid stopped at FL 3.  And knew it might hurt their chances of getting into T20 schools.  They also chose not to take AP courses they didn't want to take.  They focused on STEM and skipped the extra work of APUSH and AP Eng.  They knew it might hurt their admission chances, but chose to spend more time on the EC they loved and get more than 2-3 hours of sleep each night (their EC was time consuming and my kid didn't want to have 2-3 hours of HW to get done once they got home at 9/10pm each night for classes that didn't interest them).  
So yes, my kid knew these choices might affect college admissions, and chose wisely. And yes it might have affected them.  But hard to tell at places with 5-7% acceptance rates---my kid likely still would have been rejected.  Difference is my kid had the HS academic path they wanted.  And you know what, the 2 colleges they ultimately picked from (T40-50) did NOT allow you to use AP credit for core curriculum.  So that was the only reason my kid had considered taking one or both of them, was to get college credit.  So in the end, my kid made the right choice for them. And made these choices freshman year of HS.  They got into every school they applied to outside of the T30, most with excellent merit, and were WL at two T30 schools.

I know they are happy we parented them and helped them see the light of how not to have a crazy HS just in hopes of a T25 school that might not happen anyhow.

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