High School Moms, when do kids apply for college?

Yeah, they all have different deadlines. Earlier is better. We started applying in about September/October of senior year. Started visiting summer before senior year which in hindsight was too late, wish we would have started that earlier.

Our experience with the counselor was that she was not that helpful. I'm sure she was overwhelmed with students but the college process was new to me and it was overwhelming!

Set up an email account that is totally for college use. Every college is going to want an email address for your student. You are going to be inundated with email once you start giving it out. Use it when taking the act/sat... everything college related sent to that address. It will help you find it easier and keep your personal box from being overloaded with spam mail (college related but spammish non the less)

Each university should have an admissions counselor to help you through the process with their school. Get the name and email of a specific admissions person you can communicate with.

Late September into October. November by the very latest. Our HS counselor did nothing, the college admission counselors were all wonderful.

High school counselors? Almost totally useless. Now, any of you who are a high school counselor please don't get mad at me for that comment. Our high school counselors were useless. They spent a lot of time on the kids with big problems, and on the very-high-achieving kids who were heading for an Ivy League type school. Everyone else in the middle...well too bad on them. ugh. I was SO SO glad to be rid of all that. College is so much easier! (we won't discuss the expense though...   )

Dd started thinking about where to apply by the end of the summer before her senior year. She had done visits during spring of junior year so she had a good idea. A lot of our state schools (Virginia) have that Early Action (not the same thing as Early Decision) program where they can be accepted in the fall if they do the application and attend a weekend event at the school. Dd's first choice had this option so that's what she did. She sent in the application in October and we attended a weekend in November. They called her three days later to offer her a place. So by Thanksgiving she knew where she was going to be attending college. That was a HUGE stress-reliever for her senior year! It also saved us a lot of money because she only applied to that one school, knowing that if she did not get in she still had plenty of time to apply elsewhere.

High school counselors are useless at my school too. Lovely people, but they do very little, other than write you the required letter of recommendation. They don't help you find schools or look at your essays etc.... Now, that does occur at some schools, particularly prep/private schools. But not at my large, suburban public school.

When to apply totally depends on if your child is applying early decision, early action or regular decision. As mentioned already, the college websites are your best resource.

Our high school counselors didn't do much. Our county does a college fair weekend every September at our high school-I loved going to that to scope out different schools. My 2 girls both applied in October of their senior year.

Like others have said, each college has different deadlines so check out their websites.

As mentioned on a different thread, definitely check out collegeconfidential.com-there is a wealth of helpful information.

Kind of surprised that high school counselors are not doing their jobs in getting students and their parents ready for the college application process.

We had an excellent experience. In sophomore year, guidance had a meeting for parents to talk about the preparation for the process, in junior year another meeting with more information and advice and in the beginning of senior they had admissions and financial aid people for local colleges talk about the admissions and financial aid process.

The students also had software provided by the school to evaluate the colleges they were interested in. It also helped them track what they needed to do to make a complete and timely application. The software also tracked how many grads of the high school had applied to and been accepted by a college.

In addition to SAT or ACT, some colleges depending on the area that your student may select for their major may require additional SAT subject testing.

At a very large high school, we had experiences similar to Back to Peality: several evening meetings about college search, admissions, and financial aid; a Naviance account (software); a student group and individual meeting with counselor (additional meetings scheduled by student); notifications about daily college rep visits, local college fairs, and community scholarships. Each student was encouraged to use her school-issued email account to communicate with colleges.

However, each counselor had a school-wide caseload of 300plus students, and many, MANY other duties (hardly useless), so the student and the family have to be proactive. Read college confidential.com. Do college visits junior year. Take the right tests. (I recommend checking "No" when the testing service asks if colleges can send you box loads of their glossy propaganda. Save several dozen trees; every school has a website now with the same info.)

Some schools have rolling admissions, which means that they make decisions and inform students as the applications arrive (often early October). Other schools have early decision deadlines (big string attached), early action deadlines, and regular decision deadlines.

Remember that academic teachers can get dozens of requests for letters of recommendation. You'd be surprised how long each letter takes. (Colleges notice when a teacher repeatedly write the same letter.) Please give several weeks notice. You want the teacher in a good mood when writing this letter.

Ohh this makes me mad High School counselors were worthless!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Did nothing nada never responded to questions all i know they do here is sit in the office and drink coffee.

You know, I am job hunting right now. And in the meantime, dying of boredom. Reading this thread makes me wonder if I shouldn't contact the high school and volunteer to help with this part of the "high school guidance counseling" service. It seems to me that having someone who is fairly familiar with the system would be helpful.

My son went to a small private school and my daughter attended an enormous public high school. The difference between the college counseling was night and day.

At my son's school, he met numerous times with the college counselor . My husband and I were included in several of these meetings. The college counselor helped us narrow down the schools my son applied to, helped him through the application process and personally contacted one of the admissions officers at his dream school to put in a good word for him. (She didn't write a letter of recommendation for him as she felt those letters should come from a teacher who had actually had my son in class).

I called my daughter's college counselor once to ask a simple question about how grade point averages were calculated and she gave me an answer which turned out to be incorrect.

I know college counselor are probably overworked and don't have enough resources, but it's such an important decision, I wish every student, was able to receive some individual guidance. Some kids are highly motivated and are able to navigate the college admission process by themselves, but a lot of kids could use some help and encouragement.

My son will start applying in October and from what I was told, will do it all at school with the guidance counselor.

Every *college* has admissions counselors to help students navigate the admissions process at their college. I'm still puzzled why people are looking for high school counselors to help navigate the college system. If you are interested in applying at a college ask their admissions department to put you in contact with their admissions counselor/officer. That is why colleges have them.

We pretty much did it on our own. Counselor at my girls HS was very laid back, and set up colleges to be there, and meet with, supplied the Trascripts, etc. but that's about it. It was fairly easy doing it on our own. The college admission counselor was helpful in telling us the deadlines. They both applied in Nov-dec, and heard by the 1st of the yr.