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Post by clarencelynn on Aug 11, 2022 15:45:26 GMT
On campus school visits are definitely the way to go, especially if there's a tough decision to be made. When my son did his college tours (usually he went to the "showcase" days) he was able to tell within the first hour if this was a place he'd like to attend. There were a couple that we went to where he immediately knew the campus was not what he liked.
Like mentioned above, the showcases are a lot of fun. It's great to see the campus through the eyes of an enthusiastic college kid, and to speak to the professors in the field of study of interest. And to have lunch in the dorm dining halls (for the kids - we parents received a catered lunch in another building).
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Post by Darcy Collins on Aug 11, 2022 16:05:24 GMT
If your child is at all interested in schools with low acceptance rates, they have to apply to multiple schools. My daughter's top choice had a sub 5% acceptance rate - there's no way she could count on getting in even with a very strong application. She applied to 10 (she deviated a bit from peabay 's scenario above - which is very common - in that she liked her safety school better than some of the targets we looked at, so she applied to more reaches confident that she would be happy if she didn't get into any of them). The only people I know who applied to one or 2 schools are those who planned on going to the instate public schools - ours aren't like CA where many are extremely competitive - if you fit the stats, you're going to get in. So, if she preferred the school that she was likely to get into, why apply to schools she wasnt as interested in ? I think that is where my hangup is. Again, no criticism, I just dont understand. My DS would have been accepted to the "elite" schools in the state, but wasnt interested in them, so he didnt apply. Sorry my post wasn't more clear - her top 5 choices were all schools with less than 10% acceptance rates. She did not prefer her safety school to those schools, she preferred it to some of the target schools (schools with 30% acceptance rates for example), so instead of 3 reaches, 3 targets, 3 safeties for example, she applied to more reaches and less targets. My son on the other hand applied to no reaches - although he was recruited, so the entire system was different. And absolutely no one can assume that their child will be accepted to any sub 10% acceptance rate school, so if they have that on the list they should assume it will be a rejection and plan accordingly. If you child's top choice was a school with high admission rates and a similar profile, great. But not sure why it's hard to understand why some kids like schools that they are not at all guaranteed - or frankly even likely to get into and need to apply to more schools. The real mistake is the ones applying to 3-4 reach schools and a safety they hate and confused and upset when they feel they have no choice in April.
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belgiangal
Shy Member
Posts: 42
Jul 9, 2014 1:31:37 GMT
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Post by belgiangal on Aug 11, 2022 16:11:48 GMT
My son will be a college freshman in just a few weeks He has had a pretty solid idea of what he wants to do for quite some time so he started his search with researching the top programs in his field. He is majoring in Game Development and Design - Art. It was through his research that he found there are 2 sides to a game development major - the art side and the coding side. So that information played into his choice. Our first pass through the "Top How-ever-many" lists was to look at cost of attendance. We set what we thought to be a reasonable cost cut off and eliminated those that were out of reach. He then looked at the program websites and narrowed his list a bit more. He ended up sending e-mails to department chairs at 6 schools requesting information. He got various levels of response from nothing (crossed THAT place right off the list!) to some very nice personal e-mails and packets in the mail. Since all of the schools were out of state and not necessarily close to one another we requested that he pare the list down to 3 visits (if he liked none of those we would have visited more). We made a week long trip over the summer before his senior year to all 3 schools with some extra time in each town to check out the area. I am glad we did this as that helped him make the decision to eliminate one school. We made sure to set up times to talk to professors in his program when we were at each college in addition to the campus tours. We also met with professors in the honors programs since he was interested in that too. We drove around the towns with our extra time, ate at restaurants near campus, he went on runs on local trails (he was in training for his senior XC season), we Googled local attractions. I did somewhat wish that we had been able to visit while classes were in session but that just didn't work for our schedules. He ended up applying and being accepted into two of the three schools we toured. He was pretty equally interested in both so it basically came down to finances. We laid out all the costs side by side once he had received all scholarship offers and he made his choice. He returned to campus this summer for orientation as is really excited about his decision!
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Post by ~summer~ on Aug 11, 2022 16:15:51 GMT
If your child is at all interested in schools with low acceptance rates, they have to apply to multiple schools. My daughter's top choice had a sub 5% acceptance rate - there's no way she could count on getting in even with a very strong application. She applied to 10 (she deviated a bit from peabay 's scenario above - which is very common - in that she liked her safety school better than some of the targets we looked at, so she applied to more reaches confident that she would be happy if she didn't get into any of them). The only people I know who applied to one or 2 schools are those who planned on going to the instate public schools - ours aren't like CA where many are extremely competitive - if you fit the stats, you're going to get in. So, if she preferred the school that she was likely to get into, why apply to schools she wasnt as interested in ? I think that is where my hangup is. Again, no criticism, I just dont understand. My DS would have been accepted to the "elite" schools in the state, but wasnt interested in them, so he didnt apply. you really can not assume any kid would get into any of the elite schools. Times have completely changed.
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belgiangal
Shy Member
Posts: 42
Jul 9, 2014 1:31:37 GMT
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Post by belgiangal on Aug 11, 2022 16:24:21 GMT
College visits are fun. Maybe she only has one school in mind but you can get her to visit other colleges just for the fun trip away! Who doesn’t love a great road trip and night away from home and eating dinner out?! I really really dislike the school my daughter chose. She chose it because it offered her narrow major. And she’s since changed that major and doesn’t feel like transferring elsewhere since she’s halfway through. How solid is you daughter with her major? Oh, that’s a bummer. I’m sorry to read this. And that’s great advice - one of my daughters was an engineer but ruled out strictly engineering schools because she was afraid if she decided she didn’t like it, she’d be stuck there. I will third this! My husband is a college professor so his experiences also color our perspective. We STRONGLY discouraged our son from looking at schools that were solely art schools just in case he decides to change course. There are plenty of fantastic art programs in schools with a variety of other programs as well! Regarding portfolios - some art programs require a portfolio upon application for acceptance into their program others accept students into a "Pre BFA" program and help them to develop a portfolio to be submitted for full acceptance into the BFA program at the conclusion of their freshman year. Just something else to think about!
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Post by littlemama on Aug 11, 2022 16:51:19 GMT
So, if she preferred the school that she was likely to get into, why apply to schools she wasnt as interested in ? I think that is where my hangup is. Again, no criticism, I just dont understand. My DS would have been accepted to the "elite" schools in the state, but wasnt interested in them, so he didnt apply. Sorry my post wasn't more clear - her top 5 choices were all schools with less than 10% acceptance rates. She did not prefer her safety school to those schools, she preferred it to some of the target schools (schools with 30% acceptance rates for example), so instead of 3 reaches, 3 targets, 3 safeties for example, she applied to more reaches and less targets. My son on the other hand applied to no reaches - although he was recruited, so the entire system was different. And absolutely no one can assume that their child will be accepted to any sub 10% acceptance rate school, so if they have that on the list they should assume it will be a rejection and plan accordingly. If you child's top choice was a school with high admission rates and a similar profile, great. But not sure why it's hard to understand why some kids like schools that they are not at all guaranteed - or frankly even likely to get into and need to apply to more schools. The real mistake is the ones applying to 3-4 reach schools and a safety they hate and confused and upset when they feel they have no choice in April. My not understanding has nothing to do with applying to schools they like and would want to go to. That makes sense. I understood your post to say thst your child didnt want to go to schools they applied to
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bethany102399
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,623
Oct 11, 2014 3:17:29 GMT
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Post by bethany102399 on Aug 11, 2022 17:41:36 GMT
I really really dislike the school my daughter chose. She chose it because it offered her narrow major. And she’s since changed that major and doesn’t feel like transferring elsewhere since she’s halfway through. How solid is you daughter with her major? While she will tell you she's 100% sure, I will tell you I'm well aware things can change once you get going down a certain path. It's one of the many reasons I don't want her going to an art school vs state school with a strong art program. And she is now employed in a real job with benefits and earning decent money with an art degree! This makes my mama heart happy. My biggest concern with her getting an art degree is her ability to maintain health insurance and earn a living wage. And that’s great advice - one of my daughters was an engineer but ruled out strictly engineering schools because she was afraid if she decided she didn’t like it, she’d be stuck there. Exactly. Getting her to see life beyond an illustration degree is just not going to happen right now. I'm hopeful once we start touring and she talks to people IN the field, she can open her mind a bit. I think she will end up with an art degree in some form, but what she wants to do with it, vs what she needs to do with it to end up making a living may be 2 different things. “When you imagine yourself waking up on Saturday morning at college, what do you see yourself wanting to do? Do you want to go hiking in the mountains w/ your friends, do you want to catch a bus to the nearest city and explore the art museums or do you want to go to a football game and cheer on your school’s football team? LOVE this and just added it to my notebook of questions OP, sorry, this is probably not relevant to your specific situation but in response to why do kids apply to so many schools - it's simply becoming more the norm even for kids not necessarily aiming for schools with low acceptance rates. This is fascinating. We're just starting this process and it's so wildly different from when DH and I were doing it. The ability to gather information alone has changed so much. I remember going to the library to look up schools when I had to change from my beloved out of state school to a more affordable in state option. Now, I can pull down all kinds of information with a few clicks.
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bethany102399
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,623
Oct 11, 2014 3:17:29 GMT
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Post by bethany102399 on Aug 11, 2022 17:46:09 GMT
Regarding portfolios - some art programs require a portfolio upon application for acceptance into their program others accept students into a "Pre BFA" program and help them to develop a portfolio to be submitted for full acceptance into the BFA program at the conclusion of their freshman year. Just something else to think about! One of her top choices (at the moment) runs their program this way. Honestly, it scares me a bit as it feels like we're "rolling the dice" on her being accepted to get the degree she wants. Then again, if she is turned down she's not halfway done and suddenly stopped. There is room to pivot and look for a different program. I had 2 friends trying to get into pharmacy school when we were in college that this happened to. They only accepted like 100 candidates out of like 1,200 or some crazy number like that. Both of them were paying for school on their own and I remember the frustration when neither of them got in and feeling like they had wasted time and money toward an unachievable goal.
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belgiangal
Shy Member
Posts: 42
Jul 9, 2014 1:31:37 GMT
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Post by belgiangal on Aug 11, 2022 19:07:58 GMT
Regarding portfolios - some art programs require a portfolio upon application for acceptance into their program others accept students into a "Pre BFA" program and help them to develop a portfolio to be submitted for full acceptance into the BFA program at the conclusion of their freshman year. Just something else to think about! One of her top choices (at the moment) runs their program this way. Honestly, it scares me a bit as it feels like we're "rolling the dice" on her being accepted to get the degree she wants. Then again, if she is turned down she's not halfway done and suddenly stopped. There is room to pivot and look for a different program. I had 2 friends trying to get into pharmacy school when we were in college that this happened to. They only accepted like 100 candidates out of like 1,200 or some crazy number like that. Both of them were paying for school on their own and I remember the frustration when neither of them got in and feeling like they had wasted time and money toward an unachievable goal. Honestly it makes me a little nervous too! The way it was presented though made it seem more like the focus was on helping the students to prepare an acceptable portfolio as opposed to a "weed out" situation. That would be a good thing to try and get a feel for in your daughter's situation...are they just trying to sort of level the playing field as far as making sure the students have the skills they need before moving forward or are they try to make drastic cuts to the number of students in the program as in your pharmacy school example.
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Post by Darcy Collins on Aug 11, 2022 19:43:11 GMT
So, if she preferred the school that she was likely to get into, why apply to schools she wasnt as interested in ? I think that is where my hangup is. Again, no criticism, I just dont understand. My DS would have been accepted to the "elite" schools in the state, but wasnt interested in them, so he didnt apply. you really can not assume any kid would get into any of the elite schools. Times have completely changed. I'm going to quote this not so much for OP or littlemama, but anyone else reading with a high schooler. Please, please, please do not assume that because your kid has a 4.0 or 1600 or is an awesome kid they will get into any particular school. We were so, so lucky that a very good friend had a son go through the process a few years before us. Truly outstanding student - valedictorian with never seeing so much as an A-, 36 ACT, amazing extra curriculars - denied by top 5 schools and he and his parents were truly shocked - particularly when he was denied where he was a legacy as they knew he was a much stronger student than they were. In the dark ages I got into the 4 Ivys I applied to and Stanford and MIT - hell my safety was UC Berkeley - it's a different world and a robust list for anyone looking for selective schools is absolutely essential.
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peabay
Prolific Pea
Posts: 9,891
Jun 25, 2014 19:50:41 GMT
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Post by peabay on Aug 11, 2022 22:33:08 GMT
If your child is at all interested in schools with low acceptance rates, they have to apply to multiple schools. My daughter's top choice had a sub 5% acceptance rate - there's no way she could count on getting in even with a very strong application. She applied to 10 (she deviated a bit from peabay 's scenario above - which is very common - in that she liked her safety school better than some of the targets we looked at, so she applied to more reaches confident that she would be happy if she didn't get into any of them). The only people I know who applied to one or 2 schools are those who planned on going to the instate public schools - ours aren't like CA where many are extremely competitive - if you fit the stats, you're going to get in. I will add to this that Covid really mucked up the college admissions process. Kids took deferments and gap years, many schools estimated yields incorrectly and some ended up way overenrolled and others underenrolled. As a result, admissions decisions were strange this year, at least in the cohorts we were interacting with. My daughter's and niece's friends and peers were rejected at multiple safety and match schools. Wait lists were bonkers. But a lot of them also got into lottery schools. Like rejected from Penn State main campus but accepted at the University of Michigan. Covid, the common app and schools going test optional or test blind has changed the college application landscape at least in the short term. OP, sorry, this is probably not relevant to your specific situation but in response to why do kids apply to so many schools - it's simply becoming more the norm even for kids not necessarily aiming for schools with low acceptance rates. was talking to the current Principal of my husband's Catholic high school and he said he had a kid who was a double legacy at Villanova who was rejected, but got into University of Virginia - wth?
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