Anonymous wrote:For our high school junior son, we started with a sense of what's important for him. This is a parental perspective, to be honest he's not particularly focused on it. We then researched the hell out of schools to determine those that are a good fit. Sources of research: college website, U.S. News, Reddit, College Confidential, DCUM, Princeton Review, Common Data Set, etc. You'll have to use judgment for which information is relevant and truly reflective of the college. We hope to get some visits in, but we're not sure we'll be able to do as much as we would have liked.

After all this, we have a pecking order of 10 schools we like for him. He's trusting us on this process. He likely will apply Early Action to the top two of them (hoping to visit both in the months ahead). If he's accepted to either, we're done. Admittedly, we're not concerned about financial aid, which helps expedite things.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the fun part in my experience, doing the research, visiting when you can, talking to people about the schools... exciting times!

We started early because we love to college tour, so by the time my kids were fall of junior year, we had been to 10-12 college campuses across the country. We only did official tours at W&M and UVA, the others were just walking around campus, exploring the towns, just getting a feel for the atmosphere. We've also attended some sporting events (football and basketball) which are fun to do and give you a different sense of the student life.

Naviance is actually very helpful but certainly not the be all and end all. Its a good starting point but if your kid doesn't know what they are looking for yet, they will put the wrong parameters in and come up with some schools that ultimately they probably won't be interested in. There were some really kooky schools that came up high on my daughters list, no name colleges that neither she had nor I ever heard of. That said, when you go to each schools page, they will list the cross applications, the places where other students in your school applied along with that school. That is helpful to leverage other people's experience to put some ideas on the list.

That had been our plan, until COVID.

Anonymous wrote:Get a Fiske Guide. Let her flip through it and tab anywhere of interest. I saw a “trend” when I looked where my kid had tabbed - big state unis - so I asked what he liked about them. Then I was able to help point out some colleges in that ilk that could be good fits that he hadnt noticed (the book is huge and my kid barely knew harvard from liberty so definitely tabbed some random colleges, haha). Then we could start honing in by geography, stats, etc.

Anonymous wrote:There are often virtual college rep visits to high schools, or virtual college fairs where students can get to hear the basic info about a college and decide if they're interested in learning more. Also if they have a sense geographically of where they may want to be or whether they like urban, suburban, rural settings it can help narrow down the choices a lot.

Anonymous wrote:With my dd, once she really thought about it, she realized that she didn’t want to be a plane ride away from home so that eliminated a lot of schools that had been on the list. She also wanted a small school but bigger than her high school. She didn’t want a religious school. She didn’t want a school where the social life was dominated by Greek Life. There were a few more things that she would add and subtract from the list but eventually there was a limited pool of schools for her to choose from (some were automatically eliminated based on her stats bc she didn’t have the grades or scores to get into an Ivy or a super selective school). Out of that group, she applied to some and is happy at her first choice.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks to all who gave very useful advice. I don't mind doing the research. I want my daughter to make the choices and do most of the leg work but this process seems to put a lot of pressure on parents to steer kids well.

I have heard for years how much harder it is now to get into college so when we started to consider some options I feel one minute like I've lowered expectations way too much but then I fear my guidance will lead her to unrealistic hopes and she won't get in anywhere!

The most confusing thing seems to be how much extracurriculars, awards and essays matter. I can plug in her stats but then I hear "You can't get into that school without a hook."

How do you factor in the need for a hook?

Anonymous wrote:Yes, OP. You do it or hire someone to help. It's yet another job that will fall on me bc my DS or his dad don't seem interested in doing, so personally I've had thoughts that DS shouldn't even go to college unless/until he can put some effort into figuring it out on his own. My DS is a junior and goes to a larger private HS, but I haven't found it particularly helpful yet in this regard.