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[quote=Anonymous]Mine is starting college in two weeks. I feel like we did most things well.  She was a straight A student with a number of APs and good ECs and electives. Teslas scores were not that great despite a lot of test prep.

We started informal college visits when we went on trips during the summer between 8th and 9th. By that I mean that if we were passing through a town with a college We stopped and walked around the campus and the surrounding area. That really helped identify what mattered - what climates were desirable, costs, activities, etc.  We continued visits through summer after 11th and started visiting schools that she might
Have wanted to go to.

That led us to figure out our finances and savings and we started having conversations about what we will pay very early. Expectations were always right on the table and there were no hard conversations later.

When it came time to apply, we agreed on a max of 10 and I left it to my daughter to choose. She talked to us, friends, others who had been to college and who had kids in college, and her school counselors. (She actually applied to 8).

We had two areas of conflict and I can see what I could have done better. First was date on which to submit applications for EA. Deadline was Nov 1 and I am a firm believer that you give yourself a buffer in case something goes wrong. My DD was of the mindset of waiting to the very end so that in case she got an idea that would make her exceptional essay into a magnificently exceptional essay she could continue to edit. I should have had conversations about this earlier and I feel like we could have avoided some tears. In the end she submitted early and was glad because she had a couple of friends who waited and whose applications got rejected for easy to avoid and easy to correct problems.

Second was that we started to talk about decisions before we did all of the new admitted student visits.  The top choice before visits was more expensive and was not better in any way for my daughter. So there were tears. But once we did the admitted students days, she dropped the more expensive schools because she really didn’t end up liking them. I should have waited until after these visits to work with her on her choice.

Overall it was a really good and bonding experience. My daughter is going to a great school and we will pay for it all. she also made a D1 sports team at her college. We are all excited for the next steps.

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