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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Depending on your kid, I’m a fan of hiring someone to help with essays, application deadlines, and discussion of options. But I cannot imagine the level of pressure put on the kids the OP describes. Putting kids through years of planning, strategizing, tailoring, etc may pay off for some, but my heart breaks for kids who inevitably feel like failures because they don’t get into a T10, or whatever school they have been aiming for for years.

One of my kid’s friends spent a LOT of time doing test prep, etc. He missed a lot of social opportunities in high school because his parents were hell bent for him to get T10(and he was mostly on board). He ended up at a T30, but says in retrospect that he probably would have gotten in anyway. Just having the kids know that they are being socially engineered in this way seems like setting a majority of them up for regret. [/quote]

This.

I tried to be a balanced parent (K-12).  I got my kids some math tutoring when they had skill deficits but I live in flyover country so the tutoring only started in middle school when deficits appeared. Few people here pay for private accelerated study.

I had my kids take a look at the very highly-rated IB magnet high school that we have access to.  And they both wanted to stay at our in-bounds school.  So I gave up on that IB option.  But I'd been aware of the option since I bought my house.

I looked over the high school club list and asked my kids to try things they would probably like in 9th grade.  For each kid, one EC really took off and they both continued their middle school instruments.  Eventually they started making their own EC decisions.

I didn't insist on P/SAT prep or retakes although myself I retook the SAT several times due to my own goals. I think the kids suboptimized here.  But couldn't really force them to study.  They were short of time anyway.

As a liberal arts grad with strong writing skills, and having competed my way into a top grad school, I was pretty comfortable assisting with the crafting of a narrative.  I have read DCUM and other internet sources and made mental notes on relevant tips.

My older is now at his preferred Top 20-30 school and was waitlisted at his grandparents' Ivy.  He didn't pursue the waitlist since it wasn't his top choice and he had an EA acceptance from his top choice.  He's happy with his school and his very smart and accomplished friends. Most of whom are OOS amazing high-stats kids who didn't get into Ivies.

My younger DS is a junior and he is interested in a small local university.  He has been somewhat impatient with my light-handed strategizing about how to keep his options open re: "better" schools.  But he's taken enough of my advice that I'm sure he has some options.  We are going to this local university's open house program soon to check it out firsthand.  If it underwhelms, I will make my best case.  But it's not my life to live.

I think it's terrible to put kids on a treadmill early.  I would only do a college consultant if I was rich, my kid was a malleable agreeable type, and I wanted to avoid the relationship and time burden of being involved in the process.  I've seen many examples of people becoming highly-successful with degrees from a huge range of schools. It's just not necessary to make yourself and your kid miserable for years.  Middle school is definitely too early to be tracked.  Even freshman year only requires beginning to participate in a few ECs that only become available at the high school level.

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