Reply to For purposes of college admissions, should I have raised my child elsewhere?

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[quote=Anonymous]My kids applied to college from one of the disparaged, so-called bumf**k" states that is mentioned in this thread. They applied from a very remote and rural and tiny town with a blue-collar community of a few hundred people. They went to public school. And yes, they got into very good colleges (Williams, Bates, etc).

They did not take SAT/ACT prep classes. They never met with a guidance counselor. Their transcripts were sent from the school office with a note from one of the teachers, acting as the "guidance counselor." Teachers did not proofread their essays or even talk to them about essays or the applications. No one reminded them about deadlines at their school.

Somehow they were able to figure out the Common App and apply without help. They were able to take the ACT test (or the SAT, if an adult was willing to drive a couple hours to a test site). They and their friends took the tests cold. There was no discussion about studying for the tests. Their interviews for colleges were done by Skype.

There was no packaging of their accomplishments for the application. They just listed what they had done. Their scores were high from years of voracious reading and pursuing their intellectual passions outside of school. You learn to develop interests when the nearest mall and movie theatre are 100+ miles away. When you don't have hours of homework, you have time to read and learn other things and become quite good at the thing that you put your heart into. Colleges were interested in those passions and interviewers were impressed that kids their age were as resourceful and motivated to follow these interests without alot of instruction or really good facilities. I think there is something to be said for not having everything handed to you. I never got the impression that the colleges or interviewers wanted anything other than the kid to be 100% themselves in the application process. The stress comes in if the parents or the school is trying to get the kid to be something they aren't during the college process.

I say this because there are some good things about going through the college process from a place like this. Things work out well.

I don't think I would uproot a family and move, ever, to try to gain an advantage in college admissions. That seems ridiculous.  But I would 
just allow and encourage kids to be 100% themselves, if you live in DC or anywhere else. in my limited experience, it seems colleges are looking for authenticity and spark, no matter where the kid is from.

I know I could be way off base, and I am open to being corrected if that is the case.

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