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College and University Discussion
Reply to "Do you just shoot your shot everywhere? "
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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The bottom line is that you never know about the kids who get into the top schools. I would be a millionaire if I told you the amount of times I have heard, but Johnny had horrible grades and test scores and he got into Harvard, Penn, etc. Your kid has NO idea what his peers have done. He thinks he knows, but he really truly doesn't. Cast a wide net-- in other words, don't apply only to reach schools and apply to safeties that your kid will actually want to attend. Also, I wouldn't get too caught up in the prestige of schools because if your kid doesn't get into a school that you and he has obsessed about that is prestigious, he is going to be a very unhappy camper if he needs to attend a school that is, in your opinion, a less prestigious school. That is not a good thing for your kid.[/quote] ^^^This, I posted at 13:31, the key was my kid did the research himself and in doing so got excited about schools at various levels of rankings. He had T15 schools, T30 schools, T50 schools and ultimately 50 through 150. Casting a wide net isn't just applying to a lot of T30's and hoping one sticks, it is doing the leg work and finding colleges throughout the rankings that are great schools and a great fit. With these stats there is a school available.[/quote] I agree with these posts. I spent a lot of time researching schools when ds was in 9th grade. We used that research to identify a bunch of schools in 10th grade - Ivy, top 20, slac, big research univ, lower tier but good campus culture, urban, small town. We visited a few over Spring break and a few in the summer. After that ds took over because he had a better sense of what he wanted. He did not want a pressure cooker and honestly he was a little turned off by some of the higher ranked schools. He naturally gravitated towards more laid back, small or mid sized, mid tier schools (think W and M or Brandeis). He applied to seven schools in the 20-60 range and got into all of them and got merit aid at several. He ended up at UMD honors. Not his first choice but one he made on his own because he didn’t want to spend all our college savings on undergrad. The one thing I did that I feel was important was emphasizing the variety of schools he could potentially be happy at. I think it is important to do this as early as possible. He could just as easily have emerged from all the college visits insisting on only applying to top tier colleges of course. If that had happened I would have insisted on him applying to at least 4 safeties. The problem with high stats kids is that every school seems to be a match but the odds are so small without a hook. If the acceptance rate is 6%, you have to remember that this includes the legacies, donors, athletes and other applicants with hooks. If you take those out the remaining applicants are competing for maybe half the spots and the acceptance rate is probably much lower than 6%. As a parent your main job is to help them to identify likely schools that they will be happy to attend. Don’t wait until the summer after 11th grade to have the conversation. [/quote]
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