College admissions

[daisyd]

We attended the Yale info session this week and the admissions officer mentioned this blog post from MIT.

https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entr...ying_sideways/

A good read for all the kids (and parents) who feel stressed about choosing the right classes, activities, etc. to get into their dream college.

Many thanks for posting this. It's a helpful read.

[daisy13]

Many thanks for posting this. It's a helpful read.

Although that blog is attempting to be reassuring- I think its making it too simplistic and euphoric. yes Study well- well duh.. and be passionate about something . Well, what if you are passionate about many things? or haven't found the one thing that kindles passion in you. The ambiguity of it all causes undue stress on kids IMHO.

Anyways- thanks everyone for you valuable inputs. We have been interviewing with a few college counsellors- but will take out time to sign up with one.

[hbridge]

First of all, take a breath, she is in 8th grade. There is time to figure it all out. Also, you cannot make a "wrong" decision right now. There are many paths to the same goal.

As for 4-H, it is an amazing organization. She can get as involved as she wants in MANY different aspects. Leadership is huge with college applications and 4-H has MANY opportunities for leadership and gaining life skills. If you can, encourage her to take advantage of what 4-H offers. In our area, most clubs meet once a month during the school year so it's a smaller commitment when the kids are busy with school. Annual records and Visual presentations are often not required for clubs these days (at least in our area). However, they are amazing experiences that translate to so many different areas of life. DC first club required both, so we started doing them when DC joined and they kept them up. However, with 4-H, the main thing is to have fun and explore her interests.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Although that blog is attempting to be reassuring- I think its making it too simplistic and euphoric. yes Study well- well duh.. and be passionate about something . Well, what if you are passionate about many things? or haven't found the one thing that kindles passion in you. The ambiguity of it all causes undue stress on kids IMHO.

Anyways- thanks everyone for you valuable inputs. We have been interviewing with a few college counsellors- but will take out time to sign up with one.

Why are you interviewing college counselors? All I can envision is a high pressure scenario when you have someone breathing down your neck to plan for college over the course of 4+ years. I occasionally remind ds2 that grades matter and to put that extra little bit of work in to shore up his grades as the quarter draws to a close but that's it. I feel like having someone overseeing a college vision- hat might 1000% change in these coming years is the kind of pressure a lot of us are talking about. They might just seem like a helpful tool for you but your kiddo might think differently.

[georgiegirl]

Why are you interviewing college counselors? All I can envision is a high pressure scenario when you have someone breathing down your neck to plan for college over the course of 4+ years. I occasionally remind ds2 that grades matter and to put that extra little bit of work in to shore up his grades as the quarter draws to a close but that's it. I feel like having someone overseeing a college vision- hat might 1000% change in these coming years is the kind of pressure a lot of us are talking about. They might just seem like a helpful tool for you but your kiddo might think differently.

I think it’s the norm in certain competitive areas to hire private counselors early on. The culture is just so insanely competitive. It’s not like that where I live. Here you can get into our state flagship (or land grant university) so long as you don’t do poorly. They have 85% acceptance rates. It’s based on a formula and you don’t even need essays or recommendations. And they have rolling admissions, so you can be finished as early as the summer before senior year (for the land grant institution) or late September for the flagship. We have top students who go to our state schools without applying elsewhere. We have recruited D1 athletes who would rather play for our state flagship than go elsewhere. Kids who chose this path have zero college stress.

It’s the polar opposite if you live in certain states. If you are a top student in CA, you might not get into a top UC, or any UC other than the less desirable ones that don’t really want to go to. And if you apply to competitive private schools, you are competing with a bazillion other kids from CA whose parents are even more intense than you are in terms of setting up internships and starting non-profits. I think it gets very demoralizing for top students because they feel like they’ve worked so hard and nothing is guaranteed.

At least when you hire someone, then the parents don’t have to stress out about it. I have a friend whose kids go to a small private school in the Boston area, and the school has amazing college counselors. She felt like the whole process was low stress because someone else navigated the entire process, not her. And she didn’t have to nag her kid about things. Her kid was much more responsive to a college counselor than her.


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[gatorsmom]

Why are you interviewing college counselors? All I can envision is a high pressure scenario when you have someone breathing down your neck to plan for college over the course of 4+ years. I occasionally remind ds2 that grades matter and to put that extra little bit of work in to shore up his grades as the quarter draws to a close but that's it. I feel like having someone overseeing a college vision- hat might 1000% change in these coming years is the kind of pressure a lot of us are talking about. They might just seem like a helpful tool for you but your kiddo might think differently.

It may seem like a high pressure situation to you but some people might like to know that they have a professional guiding them through the process. Based on Daysy’s other posts, i think she and her family are smart enough to figure out the college game themselves without paying the high cost of a counselor. But when playing the college game the for the first time, it could be comforting to have someone there helping them. It’s a complicated process and if the high school doesn’t have a strong college counseling office, it can daunting.

We didn’t hire a counselor but we took the opportunity to enroll ds1 in an online high school for his junior year during COVID that was well-known in our area for guiding kids and parents through the college process. They laid out a timeline and certain criteria they thought we should meet. Like I would never have thought to ask professors for their letters of recommendation the summer before junior year. And I credit them with the helpful point that ACT provides scores and lists of questions if you take their ACT at certain times. They basically steered our process for us. I would have been lost without their help for our first kid going to college. Once we got the first kid through we were much better prepared to help the second kid. Our small high school has provided almost no help.

[gatorsmom]

There are a bunch of great threads on this site that will give you wonderful tips if you decide not to hire a counselor. Here are some but do a search of the site and you’ll find many more:

https://windsorpeak.com/vbulletin/sh...iversity+essay

https://windsorpeak.com/vbulletin/sh...iversity+essay

https://windsorpeak.com/vbulletin/sh...iversity+essay

https://windsorpeak.com/vbulletin/sh...iversity+essay

[essnce629]

I will say, with an 8th grader, I would tread lightly. I know there's a hysteria around college admissions, but the reality is that the majority of schools accept the majority of applicants and the average college acceptance rate is actually close to 70%. When families only focus on the same 50 name brand schools, then that's where the anxiety arises. There's thousands of colleges in the United States and even if you only believe 10% are "good schools," that still leaves you with several hundreds of schools to choose from, not 30!

I am actually recommending this new book to parents, especially those families that are high income and highly educated, as that's the target demographic.

Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic-and What We Can Do About It https://a.co/d/84SSUMA

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[daisy13]

It may seem like a high pressure situation to you but some people might like to know that they have a professional guiding them through the process. Based on Daysy’s other posts, i think she and her family are smart enough to figure out the college game themselves without paying the high cost of a counselor. But when playing the college game the for the first time, it could be comforting to have someone there helping them. It’s a complicated process and if the high school doesn’t have a strong college counseling office, it can daunting.

We didn’t hire a counselor but we took the opportunity to enroll ds1 in an online high school for his junior year during COVID that was well-known in our area for guiding kids and parents through the college process. They laid out a timeline and certain criteria they thought we should meet. Like I would never have thought to ask professors for their letters of recommendation the summer before junior year. And I credit them with the helpful point that ACT provides scores and lists of questions if you take their ACT at certain times. They basically steered our process for us. I would have been lost without their help for our first kid going to college. Once we got the first kid through we were much better prepared to help the second kid. Our small high school has provided almost no help.

thank you! You put it in words much better than I could. This is exactly it. We have a great, bright and motivated kid. We want to do everything we can to keep her high school years as stress free as possible. Yes- she is in a highly competitive school. She comes home with bit and pieces of information and questions. So , I think this process of just talking to counsellors is helping us feel that this task is less-daunting.Thanks again everyone!

[Tenasparkl]

thank you! You put it in words much better than I could. This is exactly it. We have a great, bright and motivated kid. We want to do everything we can to keep her high school years as stress free as possible. Yes- she is in a highly competitive school. She comes home with bit and pieces of information and questions. So , I think this process of just talking to counsellors is helping us feel that this task is less-daunting.Thanks again everyone!

That was/is our situation too. It made my DD feel better to talk to a counselor about class selection etc. We were mostly just trying to make her feel better about the process and now have someone that already knows her as we head into the busier phase of the process. It's all about what makes the kid feel supported and comfortable. I certainly wouldn't have suggested we start when we did, but she really felt like she wanted a plan and someone to ask questions.