Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First generation college is considered an asset.

Rather than activities that she's not interested in, encourage her to get a part-time job. Many strong schools consider that a considerable plus.

Such as...? Wake Forest advises not to include work experience and the other good schools I’ve looked at rate it as barely considered.

Why would this be? I would think paid employment would rank in the same category as participating in a sport or any other extracurricular. I can't imagine why it would be barely considered.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First generation college is considered an asset.

Rather than activities that she's not interested in, encourage her to get a part-time job. Many strong schools consider that a considerable plus.

Such as...? Wake Forest advises not to include work experience and the other good schools I’ve looked at rate it as barely considered.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First generation college is considered an asset.

Rather than activities that she's not interested in, encourage her to get a part-time job. Many strong schools consider that a considerable plus.

Such as...? Wake Forest advises not to include work experience and the other good schools I’ve looked at rate it as barely considered.

I have heard that the counselors at my DD's HS arent very helpful with college admissions and we don't have the money to pay for a private counselor

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First generation college is considered an asset.

Rather than activities that she's not interested in, encourage her to get a part-time job. Many strong schools consider that a considerable plus.

Such as...? Wake Forest advises not to include work experience and the other good schools I’ve looked at rate it as barely considered.

Anonymous wrote:First generation college is considered an asset.

Rather than activities that she's not interested in, encourage her to get a part-time job. Many strong schools consider that a considerable plus.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any list should include at least a couple colleges that your child will happily attend AND you can afford with little to no financial aid.

+1. Pitt acceptance received on Sept 10, rolling admission. We could pay full freight if we had to, no debt for my kid. It’s not my kids first choice, but he likes the school, likes Pittsburgh, likes the urban/suburban campus and it’s very good in his area of interest. It is now the worst case scenario, and that takes a ton of pressure off of us. I hope he ends up at a smaller LAC with merit aid or WM. But if it’s Pitt, he’ll be okay with it and we’ll be okay with it.

Huge weight off our shoulders as we work through the other college apps. A good safety— financial and academic— everyone can love with is key. Finding one with rolling admission is golden.

Congrats!

I can tell you from first-hand experience OP this is one strategy that private college counselors use. Apply early to a rolling admission school where your kid is at or near the top of the pool so you get an early admission. It provides a much-needed psychological boost so your kid knows that they are going somewhere. Pitt is nothing to sneeze at though - I love that school even though my oldest didn't choose to attend.

It is hard to give just one piece of advice, but here are some things I learned that helped our process.

Other tips
Pick a school to apply to Early Admission, which is non-binding.
Work on essays the summer after junior year. This naturally means that the list of schools should basically be complete by junior year. My oldest applied to 10 schools and many of those schools had multiple supplemental essays.
Use all content from essays written for applications for outside scholarships; my oldest got about 15K in scholarships[b]
Fill out the FAFSA early

If you are working without a counselor be sure you read every detail about each the admission process and requirements for each school your kid is applying to. For example, Emory has multiple deadlines but one thing to note is that if you want merit aid you need to have your application by November. I wouldn't have known that unless the counselor told us. Another requirement for some schools is the number of years of foreign language, just be sure to read the websites carefully.

In addition to College Confidential, follow the Facebook Group Paying For College, lots of good information there without all of the angst of College Confidential. I did find College Confidential really useful though and yes I did still follow College Confidential even though we had a paid counselor. I wanted to be informed. Spreadsheets are your friend and there are generous souls out there willing to share their application tracking spreadsheets - I've seen this on College Confidential and Paying for College.

Hope this helps.

How do you find out what scholarships are available?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She sounds like a great student. NHS is indeed a significant honor (that my kid didn't have). I agree with the poster who said "fit matters more than ranking." Getting in to Harvard may be out of the question without extracurricular activities, but many great schools will be matches for her. Just figure out what she wants to study, and start looking at good schools. I wish my kids were straight A students.

A private admissions counselor said NHS is not an honor given that there is no set standard of acceptance. She said 50% of some school could be members and could entail going to a few meetings and doing 10 hours of community service.

Correct. NHS doesn't mean academic excellence because there is no set standard.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She sounds like a great student. NHS is indeed a significant honor (that my kid didn't have). I agree with the poster who said "fit matters more than ranking." Getting in to Harvard may be out of the question without extracurricular activities, but many great schools will be matches for her. Just figure out what she wants to study, and start looking at good schools. I wish my kids were straight A students.

A private admissions counselor said NHS is not an honor given that there is no set standard of acceptance. She said 50% of some school could be members and could entail going to a few meetings and doing 10 hours of community service.

Anonymous wrote:She sounds like a great student. NHS is indeed a significant honor (that my kid didn't have). I agree with the poster who said "fit matters more than ranking." Getting in to Harvard may be out of the question without extracurricular activities, but many great schools will be matches for her. Just figure out what she wants to study, and start looking at good schools. I wish my kids were straight A students.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any list should include at least a couple colleges that your child will happily attend AND you can afford with little to no financial aid.

+1. Pitt acceptance received on Sept 10, rolling admission. We could pay full freight if we had to, no debt for my kid. It’s not my kids first choice, but he likes the school, likes Pittsburgh, likes the urban/suburban campus and it’s very good in his area of interest. It is now the worst case scenario, and that takes a ton of pressure off of us. I hope he ends up at a smaller LAC with merit aid or WM. But if it’s Pitt, he’ll be okay with it and we’ll be okay with it.

Huge weight off our shoulders as we work through the other college apps. A good safety— financial and academic— everyone can love with is key. Finding one with rolling admission is golden.

Congrats!

I can tell you from first-hand experience OP this is one strategy that private college counselors use. Apply early to a rolling admission school where your kid is at or near the top of the pool so you get an early admission. It provides a much-needed psychological boost so your kid knows that they are going somewhere. Pitt is nothing to sneeze at though - I love that school even though my oldest didn't choose to attend.

It is hard to give just one piece of advice, but here are some things I learned that helped our process.

Other tips
Pick a school to apply to Early Admission, which is non-binding.
Work on essays the summer after junior year. This naturally means that the list of schools should basically be complete by junior year. My oldest applied to 10 schools and many of those schools had multiple supplemental essays.
Use all content from essays written for applications for outside scholarships; my oldest got about 15K in scholarships[b]
Fill out the FAFSA early

If you are working without a counselor be sure you read every detail about each the admission process and requirements for each school your kid is applying to. For example, Emory has multiple deadlines but one thing to note is that if you want merit aid you need to have your application by November. I wouldn't have known that unless the counselor told us. Another requirement for some schools is the number of years of foreign language, just be sure to read the websites carefully.

In addition to College Confidential, follow the Facebook Group Paying For College, lots of good information there without all of the angst of College Confidential. I did find College Confidential really useful though and yes I did still follow College Confidential even though we had a paid counselor. I wanted to be informed. Spreadsheets are your friend and there are generous souls out there willing to share their application tracking spreadsheets - I've seen this on College Confidential and Paying for College.

Hope this helps.