Senior In High School..Process Of College Bound

[momrek06]

Wow, that's a great idea. It's almost like a wedding planner. Were you happy with your CP? How did that work?

Deb

It was fabulous. We were so busy working that I found at the end of the day DH & I just were not putting the proper time working with each DS in doing their college app's. This was back in the day when colleges made the applicant do essays. Essays were the main focal point of the app. Not sure if colleges require essays any more. Anyway, DS' when they were seniors, met once a week with the CP from Aug through the completion of the app process. This CP worked hard finding the perfect match college for DS'. CP (as I recall) did extensive interviewing with each DS (DS' are 4 years apart) to find out what direction they wanted to ultimately go in career-wise and factor that into the college that most fits them.

Google College Planners in your area. Call them and get some rates. As I recall their fees were well worth everything that they did for my DS'.

Youngest DS is now planning law school for 2010 and is working with the same CP he had for his undergrad.

 

[momrek06]

ETA....It is a 2400. I have it sitting in front of me. And anyway they only want your Critical Reading/Math score anyway.

1600 is not great. My dd got a 550 Critical Reading /510 Math/660 Writing (which they don't count).

Ohh...ok. My DS' only had 2 parts when thet were in h.s.

Math and English, each with a score of 800 = 1600. They did not have Critical Reading.

So it is 3 parts now...yikes.

 

[MUFFYCAT]

Have you heard of Collegeconfidential.com? It's a great commmunity. There is a Class of '10 thread on the Parents board - it is pretty intense but you can learn so much.

.

it's a great website. I've learned alot also. I like that the college kids are there. It's nice to get pointers from them.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Ohh...ok. My DS' only had 2 parts when thet were in h.s.

Math and English, each with a score of 800 = 1600. They did not have Critical Reading.

So it is 3 parts now...yikes.

Critical Reading is the English now.

Yep and they don't count the writing. So how stupid is that?

 

[snykymom]

Check out http://talk.collegeconfidential.com. It's like the DIS for colleges! Lots of great info about admissions, schools, financial aid, etc.

 

[PirateSnowmen]

I'm headed off to college in less than two weeks as a freshman, so I'm pretty familiar to the college application process

Just make sure he applies early because the farther you get into the school year, the busier he will get and he'll be more likely to put applications off.

Also, apply for scholarships early and check if you can get any scholarships based on SAT/ACT scores. They had one for my college, but I found out too late. Turns out I was 10 points short on my SAT score from getting the scholarship (they offered the money to anyone with that score or higher).

Basically to sum it all up: apply early!
I had a friend who applied to a school in November and didn't hear back until the end of April because of so many people who applied to the school. Turns out she wasn't fully accepted - she was accepted to a summer school program and if she passed, she would be admitted for the fall. She had to cancel all summer plans just because of this and because she didn't apply early.

It was fabulous. We were so busy working that I found at the end of the day DH & I just were not putting the proper time working with each DS in doing their college app's. This was back in the day when colleges made the applicant do essays. Essays were the main focal point of the app. Not sure if colleges require essays any more. Anyway, DS' when they were seniors, met once a week with the CP from Aug through the completion of the app process. This CP worked hard finding the perfect match college for DS'. CP (as I recall) did extensive interviewing with each DS (DS' are 4 years apart) to find out what direction they wanted to ultimately go in career-wise and factor that into the college that most fits them.

From my experience, most colleges (around here, at least) require at least one essay. I was going to apply to a school that required three, but I decided I wouldn't go to the school anyways, so I saved myself the trouble

 

[undertheradar]

California residents don't pay any tuition, but they do have to pay fees which run around $3k at CSU schools and $8K at UCLA per year. This is considerably less than in-state tuition and fees at other state schools around the country.

Where are you getting this information? According to the UC main site, eligible UC students with financial need will have systemwide fees fully covered if they prove the need and household income does not exceed 6ok. The bad part about applying to the UCs was that you paid an individual application fee for each campus you applied to. If every resident received free tuition in this state, would there be any need for other schools? People would wait for acceptance into the free schools, it would be insane to pay tuition elsewhere. The "free tuition" is the very low cost community college option, where credit hours were recently $20. each, making the average course $60. plus campus/student fees.